JMJ
October 30,2011
From our Cromwell, Connecticut Correspondent : Saturday 29,9pm. 3 million people on the East Coast of the United States are without power. The seminarians are chatting in the hall. Six inches to a foot of snow dropped today. The temperatures are very warm. Leaves haven’t fallen from the trees. More damage has been done to the trees. Many branches have been broken. Things are a soggy mess. The Vietnamese sisters are horrified at the Hallowe’en decorations. There are houses and streets with a whole panaramma of ghouls,ghosts, goblins and other gory things. “ Oh, those who have experienced real evil do not understand why people celebrate it?” Exactly. Anyway as the Bible verse goes “ Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow.” All the ghastly decorations are covered with a foot of snow. Everything is completely white.
Remember the Vietnamese seminarian whose parents were killed in 1975? Who has fourteen siblings including a brother who is a priest? Well he was ordained as a priest last night. It was a wonderful ceremony. Everything was Vietnamese. The Vietnamese Bishop from Toronto came as did other bishops. We hardly ever have Ordinations here so this was a big event. The reason he was ordained here instead of Vietnam is in Vietnam he’d have to get permission from the government. Sign off to join the lads in the hall who prefer dark en semble.
In the Viet Nam War Prime Minister Pearson kept Canada officially out of it. His Communist connections were verified from East German documents after the Berlin Wall fell. The Left of the Left chanted “ End Canada’s Complicity “ because there were many Canadian businesses who benefited from the war. When the American troops withdrew from Viet Nam the Communists from the North invaded South Vietname in 1975, slaughtering millions especially Catholics. Canada Was complicit in that slaughter.
To Canada’s credit we have welcomed many Vietnamese refugees.to our shores.They have been a great blessing to this country. The person who replaced Eric White as Engineer in the Canadian Space Agency is a Vietnamese. He came to Canada at 14 not knowing English or French. He was the one who told us the truth about Eric not having a funeral and about the Agency immediately taking down the plaque honouring him.
The Vietnamese have been a great blessing to the Canadian and American Catholic Church. They understand evil. They understand God’s Grace. They understand the need for Truth and Courage. One of Michael D.0'Brien’s best books THE PLAGUE JOURNAL portrays well a Vietnamese Catholic family.
Which leads us to Hallowe’en. Do people really imagine that they can keep on playing footsy with the devil and not get hurt? Hallowe’ en means Holy Evening. Not only has Hallowe’en become a peon to evil it is a sacrilege to a great and Holy feast, All Saint’s Day on November First, followed by All Souls’ Day on November Second. Atheist schools spend weeks preparing for Hallowe’en parties and leave up the decorations long after. For those who are nostalgic for the world of Sally, Dick and Jane the only holiday ever sited was children dressing for Hallowe’en. A Kenyan adult student said to me “ Those are devils?”
Get a Catholic reading series circa 1950's to see how subversive the family on Pleasant Street really was. Hallowe’en has become a religious festival for the devil and a serious profanity of the Sacred. It has no place in any publicly funded school .It is a threat to the welfare of the community. The Devil really exists. Hell really exists. Celebrating the fact isn’t cute. Gay,
