Pastor's Weekly Message

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Special Edition
 Greeting you with love and blessings from God. It is me, Fr. BacHai!
You may remember, I am the one who retired 10 months ago.
Fr. Dennis suggested that I write a special Pastor Comment
regarding my experience since I was in Rome recently when Pope Francis died. So, here I am.

On April 22nd, I took 41 people on a pilgrimage to Europe with the intention
that we should spend Holy Week in the Vatican with the Pope.
I was excited, but due to his illness, I was worried because if the Pope died during that time,
our pilgrimage schedule would be severely disrupted and whatever we had planned would have to be changed.
Thank God, we were so lucky he did not pass away until the last day of our pilgrimage.

We began our journey to go to Lisbon and headed to Our Lady of Fatima,
and on the way there we stopped at the Miracle of the Holy Eucharist Church in Santarem,
Portugal where we had Mass at the church. We did not check into the hotel until 4:30pm that afternoon,
this was after almost 23 hours of flying and waiting at the airport.
Everyone was exhausted, but some way, somehow, we did it.
We attended the candlelight ceremony that evening and once again were so honored to have Mass
at the very location where Mary appeared to the three children.
Of course there were many people attending Mass from other nations,
but we celebrated the Mass in Vietnamese. In faith we all worship the same way.

The next day we went to Holland and then to Brussels in Belgium, and from there we went to Paris.
Well, when you travel with 41 people it is not easy, and the majority were elderly.
I worried about their health problems, and above all their mental state to be on time.
God help me, I tried the best I could to be patient.
But no matter what, there was always someone who was late with an excuse.
Traveling by bus from Holland to Paris, I had to tell the bus driver to stop every three hours
 so that people could take a break (you know what I mean).
Well, in Paris, even though we did not have time to see Emmanual Macron with his wife,
we had a good time to visit Notre Dame’s reopening.
It was amazing! Absolutely more beautiful than before!
In Paris we had a chance to have Mass at the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal.
Of course, our people requested time to shop. Well, you know how that goes.
When ladies go shopping they do not pay attention to time.
We set a time to be back at the bus and guess what,
four of them missed the bus and had to take a taxi back to the hotel.
Whatever was made in Paris they got it. They had bags and bags and bags.

Finally, we left Paris and flew to Rome on that Wednesday afternoon to stay on our schedule.
Thank God we were so blessed with good weather.
We checked in and the next day we headed to St. Paul Outside-the-Walls
which was one of the first of the Holy Doors that the Pope opened during this Jubilee Year of the Holy Doors.
After that, since we knew that there would be a long line to go into the Sistine Chapel,
I changed the plans and decided to go with our group to the Catacombs Tomb in San Callisto
to help my group to see how people at that time kept their faith in the first three centuries in order to avoid execution,
they had to live with the dead people in the cemetery.
What an amazing feeling when you got into the tombs that were three levels down.
The next day we went to the Basilica of St. John Lateran,
the first Basilica of the Catholic Church in four centuries.
In the evening we followed up with the Basilica of St. Mary Major where our beloved Pope is now buried.
Talk about security, with our good connections, we had a chance to say Mass there.
On Holy Saturday morning, since we did not have anything else to do, we did a little sightseeing in various places in Rome.
That evening it was very dark and cloudy, and threatening rain,
so we decided to stay in the hotel and do nothing but try to recuperate a little.
We decided to go to Mass on Easter Sunday.

In order to get a good spot on Easter Sunday we had to get up at 4:30 in the morning
and get on the bus at 6:00am to get a good spot in St. Peter’s Square for the Mass.
We were the second group in line. So we had plenty choices of seating.
We chose the left side because we knew if the Pope came out he would go in that direction.
Somehow, I knew the Pope was going to come out that morning because I saw the flag of the Pope draped above the altar window.
We were so close to the altar and had the best seat in the house.
The Mass was long but no one cared. When the Mass was over. Guess what, there was no announcement,
but security began to let the crowd know that the Pope was coming out.
He did! He passed right by me so close, but I could not do anything because there was too much security in between us.
After the Popemobile finished passing throughout the crowd,
he came back to where I was standing to console the group of handicapped people that were near me.
There was a little boy who was sitting next to me with his mom and dad and I told him “when the Pope comes closer to us,
I would put you down behind the barricade so that you can run to the Popemobile give the Pope the Easter Bunny,
and you would have a chance to hug him. Whatever you want, I will give you later.”
Well, that little boy was so scared, he shook his head and held on to his momma
so I missed my chance to shake hands with the Pope.
After we saw the Pope, that day we went out and this time we had a chance to shop again that evening in Rome.
Looking for a good oriental restaurant in Rome is tough, all you’re eating is pasta, spaghetti, and cheese.
We could not find much rice anywhere.
I said to them, “when you are in Rome you have to eat like the Romans and behave like the Romans.”

On Monday morning we went back to visit the Sistine Chapel,
but before we did that we had a chance to say the Stations of the Cross in the Basilica at St. Peter’s Square.
Everything was so nice because we were one of the first few groups there that morning.
We finished our stations and went out for more sightseeing and to get something to eat.
When I was in the restaurant, the waiter came to me and whispered to me that the Pope passed away at 7:29 that morning.
I was in disbelief. I called everyone that morning to go back to St. Peter’s Square to wait for the announcement.
As we gathered and waited, no one came out. And at Noon time the bells began to ring.
This time it was not the two small bells, but a huge bell that was being tolled by a monk. 88 times.
Each bell represented the Pope’s age. You had to be there to feel it. Before the bells tolled it was no noisy and loud,
but when the bells rang, everything was completely shut down and so quiet.
Many people bowed their heads and prayed in silence for him.
After that we left to complete our pilgrimage but my spirit was mixed with happiness, joy, and sadness at the same time.
Life is so fragile. One minute you are still alive and the next minute you die. But that is life.
I was so happy that he appeared on Easter Sunday, the Resurrection of the Lord and died the next day.
I’m telling you, as you watch TV and his funeral, you can tell that he is the Man of humility, of compassion, of the people,
For twelve years he led more than 1 billion Catholics and he reshaped the faith to make it more inclusive.
He clashed with traditions as he reached out to the outcasts . . .the poor,
victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, gay and lesbian Catholics,
and the role of women and immigrants in the Catholic church.
He sought to improve relationships with other religions.
He criticized the powerful for their roles in climate change and called for an end to Wars.
He filled the church leadership with bishops who reflected the worldwide congregation
and no matter the state of global politics, he never changed his approach.

As I conclude, in a simple statement, he is the people’s Pope and the Church should be the home for everybody!
He thinks that the Church should be like Christ
who comes down to rescue humans, not the stern hierarchy system.
He helped me to realize that God is living and moving everyday along with the Church.
He is not God for yesterday or a certain time, but he is a God for yesterday, today and tomorrow.
He is Risen! Alleluia! GodBless,
Fr. BacHai

(Thank you Fr. Dennis for giving me the opportunity to write again.)

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