[Sandwich Run] A Personal Reflection

(Guest post by Brandon Fu)

On Valentine's day, most people are more concerned about their dates and themselves, instead of the homeless and the poor, whom most view with varying levels of disapproval, however, the group, LTS (Lead to Serve), part of WaterMark, went to feed these people on Valentine's day. This activity is called the “Sandwich Run” where we made sandwiches and then gave them out for free to those homeless and poor.

The homeless and poor are often thought by society as people who don't try in their jobs, that they “deserved” it, that if they just went and got a job, they would get what they need, what they want. The thing is this is not the case, we, the society, are just treating these people like animals, as well as the fact that it goes into an infinite cycle that they are poor and don't have a job, but because they don't have a house and other things, they cannot getting a job, thus staying poor. This image of the poor is very wrong. When we went out there to those at Berkley, some had rich personalities.

During this trip we made those sandwiches at Berkley, and then, at 1 PM, we split into three groups and then went to People's park and its surrounding area to pass out the sandwiches. I was put into group two and we went to the surrounding areas to pass them out. Near the end of our route, mine was one of the only sandwich bags left, so I went and gave it to one man. This man was very interesting. When I gave the bag to him, he said with broken speech, “Can you say a prayer (for) me”. At first, I couldn't understand, so he got the others in my group and one of them understood, Edward. After we found out what he said, we prayed for him and went on our way. When we got back to the park, I went and had interesting conversations with the ones at the park.

The interesting things about this trip, was that before we even went on the trip, is that we went to mass, and the daily gospel reading was Mark, Chapter 8, verses 14-21. In this passage, Jesus preformed the miracle of feeding five thousand people. This is interesting, as that same day, we went and gave “bread” to about 80 (?) people. In addition, during the briefing, we were told the safety tips and the fact that society looks down on the homeless, and that the homeless weren't treated well, which coincides with that day's (Saturday) Bible Study passage (and the Sunday's Gospel), of Jesus healing the Leper, whom is, in a way, treated very much like the homeless right now in this timeperiod.

[Sandwich Run] Realize the Reality

(Guest post by Daniel Fu)

This world is full of prejudice. There are judgments about any kind of people who are different, whether it is a variation of skin color, of where you are from, or of how you live your life. These are pre-judgments are caused by almost everyone around you; friends and peers, elders, and even teachers and authorities. One important group of people attacked by prejudice is the homeless.

Many times, the homeless are thought to be disrespectful, dumb, and dirty. They are often treated like animals, although they should not be. During this experience of the LTS sandwich run, all these prejudices were shattered and disappeared. I met a tall African-American man named Alexander. He was much more knowledgeable than I had expected him to be. He carried around a backpack, containing a dictionary, thesaurus, many pencils and pens, a notebook, and a binder stocked full with pages. In the notebook were his poems in work, which he created in his free time. In the binder was all of his inspiration, his important documents, and many poems and pictures. He had Rosemary read out one of the poems he read, and it was the most amazing poem I’ve ever read. It made me realize many truths of reality.

In this one day, I learned how amazing of a person that anyone can be, no matter where they are from, what they do for a living, what they look like, or anything else. Prejudice is an illusion, and you just need someone to open your eyes and you will realize the reality.

Genes Explain Everything

John Cleese is an awesome comedic actor and here he parodies those who over-emphasize the role of genes and how they explain human behavior. Funny stuff =).



Personally, I believe genes definitely play a key role, but boiling who we are down to strictly nature or nurture is overly simplistic and denies the dignity of who we are as humans and how God created us. Dr. Francis S. Collins (a key leader in the Human Genome Project), in the context of a study of the link between sexual orientation and identical twins, suggests that, "whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations." Aside from the scientific nature of the study, from a purely experiential level, I feel like that strikes a nice balance between nature vs nurture. We all have God's goodness stamped in the very fabric of our bodies, but at the same time, we all have a tendency toward intrinsic moral evils like lust, anger, malice, etc (read: original sin). Ultimately, as we live out our Catholic faith, it requires collaboration of the individual and God's grace to fully become the person God created us to be.

Since Colin's going around posting other people's work, I'm gonna return the favor and post his response to an email question on purpose of our lives (in response to whether or not evangelization is the purpose) and a response to a conversation about absolute truth in relation to different religions:

I will take this from the Baltimore Catechism (old school catechism we used before the new catechism of the 90s and today).

"God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven."

The idea of evangelization is part of this purpose in that we are called to share God whom we encounter in the person of Christ. But
this flows from this premise of knowing, loving, and serving him. So your answer was good. If the center of one persons faith is
evangelization, well it will eventually dry out because it is no source of life in itself. Rather evangelization flows from
encountering Christ and wanting others to encounter Him as well.

Oooo...I am glad I get to answer before Henry. There is something nice about being 9 hours ahead for once. Jesus Christ fulfills Judaism.
Judaism prepared the way for the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Make sense? God basically revealed himself in stages. Moses
sees something of God and receives the commandments and we also have the other prophets who give us part of who God is. Jesus Christ is God
and reveals God in his person, through his words and deeds. So we do not say Jesus came simply to reform Judaism. That is false. Judaism
prepared the way for the coming of Christ. I would not live with the reform idea. :)

I am glad you are questioning what your mom says because she is in a real way, reflecting the modern ideology that all truth is relative
and whatever truth we have is just for us. The diversity of religion does not mean they are all true. Rather we believe and it is true that
there is but ONE truth. All other religions have SOME truth in them but the fullness of truth we find only in the Catholic Church. It may
sound arrogant in todays world but that is the truth. Buddhism has a good sense of morality but they fail to understand that suffering it
not something you simply eliminate from your existence by living a certain way and eliminating desires but rather you encountering in
suffering Christ himself who suffers for us and with us and suffering becomes salvific. Ok totally different topic.

Hmm...maybe you should have listened to my second truth talk...haha. It is confusing but here is the thing, almost every religion claims to
be true and most reject other religions as false. So if you say all religions are true you are in contradiction because they mostly claim
they are true and others are false. But where the Church is different is that not only do we claim to be true but we, as you look through
the teachings of the Church and understand the beauty of it all, we are actually true.

Part of the way to see the Church as true, above and over all other faiths, is to see if it answers the deepest desires of the heart. Does
it satisfy your desire for happiness, for love, for truth, for peace, for beauty, for justice, for mercy and so on? Does it make sense? What
else can answer the questions of suffering and evil in the world without...copping out in a sense? This is also a matter of faith but I
think as you continue to look at your Catholic faith, you will see that it is not something that you were simply born into but a truth
that has been revealed and continues to be revealed to all people and will until the end of time.

If you want I can try to email this talk to you when I am back in Rome...I think it was pretty good when I gave it to a Young Adult
Group...

Ok Henry and Pat...all yours...correct me if necessary...haha
--
Colin