A Proud Catholic

CONTEXT: we started Confirmation 2007 with a group of willing and eager Vietnamese catholics. The planning was months in advance of the first day of class (02/10/07) and we had our leaders' retreat on the weekend of 2/03/07. I sent a letter to the leaders the night before the first day of class:

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There is a video of me as a little boy. I could not have been more than 4 years old and it's a home video of my family, together - all of us, paying a visit to the Grotto in Portland. The movie is a shaky film as the camcorders back then (they still used VHS in case you are young enough to still remember this format) but it catches glimpses of me zipping past the frame, side to side, screaming and being screamed at. Like most little boys, I didn't need to be screamed at cause it didn't help. Perhaps a tazer or vikaden would have been more suitable.

Even then I was independent...never needing instruction or the shackles of authority and parenting to guide me. You could see in my genetics early on all the warning signs - curious, hyper and hard-headed. As the years passed this hereditary protest against authority was compounded by circumstances outside my preferences and influence. I soon learned to take this independence to new heights having to work fulltime before I entered highschool; my mother insisted that we get a good Catholic education but that came with a price tag - the price paid for by my siblings and me as we could not afford the education without. At a ripe 12 years of age, I soon assumed the pressures of being the only man in the house and with that many of the requisite responsibilities. Building a fence? Where's that hacksaw? The car won't accelerate? It must be the line from the pedal to the carberator. We need another room? Let's grab some wood and I'll put up the walls. All of this not being enough, my mother firmly believed that we needed education in sewing, kitting (sweater anyone?), cooking (muc sau right after I haul in a bucket on Friday nights) and cleaning -- how else would a man make it in the world if he was reliant on anything? This philosophy trickled down to the kids in word and deed - trust no one except yourself.

To this day, I still catch myself feeling pride for this independence. The lessons imprinted on you during the formative years don't leave so easily. I still cook though my dishes are no where near as elaborate. I still build though my tools are much better. I still work on my cars though I limit myself to simple things like brake jobs and oil changes. There is much to be gained from self-reliance. But as with anything else taken past moderation, there is also a cost. Pride means strength, right? It also means that no matter how much you get hurt, you pick yourself up and move on without wasting a second cause it really cannot hurt anyway. It means that you should not wait for others what you can do for yourself. The lessons they can teach you, you cannot accept unless you prove it to yourself.

But most of all, pride means that you cannot let go of yourself. And in our Faith, that's an issue. In the retreat this last weekend, all my pride and all my invincibility lied to me. It deceived me in to thinking that self-strength is enduring, indomitable and self-sustaining. But it was none of these. In the end, I stood alone with the wind in my ears and for the first time that I can remember, I surrenderred completely. 34 long years to take such a small step in learning this one lesson.

I come in to Confirmation every year preaching humility and that I can always learn from every one that I meet. In word and thought, I believe this. Slowly, I am starting to believe this in practice, too.

I look forward to another great year with you and I pray that pride does not block your path.

May God bless you with humility and may the students enlighten your flaws,

Michael