The first reading of the last Sunday was about the couple who had prepared a room for the Prophet Alyssa. In the Gospel, Jesus said, "Whoever receives you receives me and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
Since last Sunday I have been meditating about opening the heart.
Opening our heart is sometimes so challenging.
We have to take the risk of getting hurt again. Once we have an experience of getting hurt from opening the heart, every time we feel we have to open our heart, we feel fear.
Today's reading and Gospel, we are reading about fear. The disciples were terrified on the boat and come to Jesus and woke him, saying God to save us we are perishing.
I want to share two stories about fear with you. The first story is a very impressive and touching story that I heard yesterday. Yesterday I have visited an elderly care facility run by our MSC sisters and celebrated a mass.
After the mass, we had lunch together and I had a talk with the elderly persons there. They were over 90. I was so surprised because they didn’t look that old. However, they were born before the Korean Civil War, even before Korea's liberation from Japan's colonial rule in 1945.
They shared their painful and terrifying stories with me which were full of fear. One of the interesting stories was about salt. Bible says the importance of the salt. It seems it actually is. Because when people in north packing their things to flee to the South, they heard, they have to carry the salt, to survive they would need salt more than anything. It reminds me of the salt story in the Bible.
The people from North left their house, lost their family during the evacuation, have to survive in the southern city, mostly in Busan. They had to face the fear of hunger, the fear of brutality of the soldiers, South Korean soldiers, North Korean soldier, and even United Nations soldier. Some of them took the foods and stuff form their home and raped women threatening them with their guns. Elderly people at the facility said to me “Father, You can not imagine what kind of life we had to live. That was nothing but Hell.”
But at the same time, they also could get help from people in Busan. It was a very touching story. They shared the food and their house with people from the North, even though they didn’t have much either. People from the North felt a great relief even with small kindness or compassion from people in Busan.
The second story is my own experience. I was working in the financial and accounting department. One of my jobs was taking care of on line transition between the company and the bank. At every 25th of the month, I had to check all the transitions and the use of employee’s company credit card, and confirm the system so that the bank sends the money to every employee’s account. It was not very difficult but very important. I did not make any mistake very month… until that day. One day I was too tired, and I forgot to confirm the system and went back home. I totally forgot about it.
Since I got to my desk the next morning, I got so many phone calls from the employees from all departments. “Richard, My wife called me and she found that our account is empty, do you know why? We have to pay our loan today!.” “Richard I have to pay our children’s school fee today, but I cannot use my card, do you know why?” My phone rings on and on and on and on. My Gosh. I eventually realized what I have done, have not done actually! I was terrified and I calculated how much money I didn’t confirm, and it was much more than one hundred million won. For one and a half-hour in front of the door of my senior manager’s office, I could experience what the Hell feels like. Then one of my senior colleague saw me standing like a zombie there, came to me and helped me to report and find a way to deal with the problem.
In my meditation, from the two stories about fear, I could found what kind of the religious I have to be.
The common thing from those two stories is that people who are in fear can get a great relief even with a little bit of kindness and compassion. People from the North had experienced it from the people in the South, and I had experienced it from my senior colleague.
I am not a great person. I don’t have any special talent. I don’t have any deep spirituality. But those two stories made me think I don’t need any special talent or deep spirituality and I don't need to be a great person. What I learned was that the only thing I need to do is just keep going my religious life, whether it is great or not.
From those stories, I could see that even with just a little bit of kindness and compassion, God can do wonderful things. God also will do with a little bit of kindness and compassion of mine, and yours.
So let us keep walking our way today with the little kindness and compassion that we have. It does not matter how much we have. Then God will do the rest.
- Homily at the mass for the sisters in Xavier international Highschool.