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Most Holy Trinity

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May 27, 2018 Fr. Paul Farin, Cross Catholic Outreach

Show Transcript

Hi, my name is Paul Farinn. If I look familiar the reason why is that I was here 2 years ago, preaching on behalf of the poor who are served by Cross Catholic Outreach or Cross Catholic as we refer to ourselves.  And many of you are regular contributors to Cross Catholic. You’ve given people homes, food, water, that's gospel work. Thank you for that. 
What I want to do first of all today is update you on some more recent developments with Cross Catholic. Tell you some of my experiences as well. Before I do that though and one advantage to coming back to a parish is that most of you know what we're about and what Cross Catholic Outreach does, so I don't have to spend a lot of time on that, but I do get to spend a bit more time on the scripture readings on the feast that we're celebrating today.
This great feast of the Holy Trinity, because it bears very much on our identity. On yours and my identity as Catholics, as Christians, as people baptized into the Life of Christ. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Doing the best we can with what we got to live the Gospel that Jesus gave us.
A little Italian lesson for you. In Italian in tune means tornado. Stonato means out of tune.  So if you've heard anybody say and its dialect stunad it means a person is a little bit out of tune. Another word menomas. Everybody know what that means? More or less, okay more or less in Italian. 
Well when I was a priest in Brooklyn I was in an Italian parish. and there was a pastor not a pastor another associate there, an elderly man who was ready for retirement and getting on in years. And they said that even when Al was a young priest he was a little bit stunad.  
And one thing that Al would say, he would always say no matter what you were talking about, he'd end a sentence with more or less. Yadda, yadda, yadda, more or less. You know what I'm going to Minneapolis more or less. He would just say that, it was kind of a tick. And one Sunday, Trinity Sunday, I was in the Sacristy waiting to give out communion and Al gave a very good homily on the Trinity. At the end he said and that is why in one God we believe that there are three persons, more or less. Dear Al, he was wonderful. 
Anyway today we celebrate the Feast of the Trinity. And when we think of persons we think of individual people with you know, an intellect, with a will, with taking certain stances. We think of persons as people. Words change over time. If in the 1950s you said to somebody “hey, what are these cats doing here?” you know they were talking about people. Whereas today we'd say “What are these cats doing here?” we would look around for little animals on the ground, as we would have before the 50s. So words take on different meanings. Words change, they have subtleties, they have different meanings along the way.
When the Trinity was being defined, when they were trying to understand what exactly the Trinity is.  Now of course we know that God is beyond all understanding. Anything we say about God we're wrong, because it goes much deeper than that, it's much more profound than that. But in the Middle Ages they were trying to say what is this. And they use the word in one God there are three persons, personas, which has a very different meaning than what we think of as three different people. 
What we understand, as we can understand it, of the Trinity, is not that there are three individual people but there is, we know, one God. We know there is one God. There is a God that's created us. There is a God that created the world, that uncaused first cause, the essence of what grounds us and what surrounds us. That God, the one whom Jesus called father. There is the manifestation of God, when God chose to become something other than God, and took on flesh as you and I are flesh. Learned what it is to be terrified, certainly as He was at His crucifixion, learned what it is to mourn as He did at the death of his friend Lazarus. Learn what it is to love as you and I love, to laugh as you and I laugh. 
 Our God manifested in Jesus Christ a God of compassion who feels with us. Who felt with us, who knows what it is to be human. That persona, that manifestation of God.  Why do we even care about this? Why do we worry? Why do we even try to figure it out? The spirit of God working within us, working within our hearts, within our minds, within our very own Spirits so that the love of God can be manifested to the world and this is what it is to be a Christian.
If we are going to be guided by our faith, if we were to be guided by the Gospel it's important that we understand that it ain't us doing it. We're called to tap into that reality of God in Our Lives. Jesus gave us a view of the world, a God's eye view of the world. And as Paul said, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, man or woman. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what you do. In God's eye there's no difference between any of us. And if in God's eye there's no difference between any of us we certainly better take stock of the fact that we have to adjust the way that we think. Adjust the way that we live, adjust the way that we talk about people.
To say, hold it, there is no difference between us. if I'm going to be a true Christian, if I could be a true Catholic. I have to sit back and open my heart to the reality of Christ in my life so that I can open my heart to the reality of Christ in others, to the reality of God in others so that I can truly love God and truly actively love my sister and brother.
At Cross Catholic Outreach our mission is to connect the poorest of the poor as Jesus would call them the onaweem, the most needy, in developing countries with you and me. We who happened to be, because of where we were born or the family we were born into, a certain amount of economic wealth we've been able to achieve through hard labor, the country we or our ancestors were able to migrate to. You and I we simply happened to be so much better off than they. A while ago I was in Mexico, in Mexico City where we do work with Silesia sisters there, and these sister do wonderful job. Most of the parents in their parish, many single parents, many homes, mother and father work and it's a very poor, poor area of Mexico City. Well before the school was there what the women used to do was when they went off to work and their husbands would go off to work they tie up their daughters for fear that the daughters would venture outside the house. If they ventured outside the house they certainly would have been abducted would have been taking away. They’d never see their children again. So what they did they tied up their daughters. 
Well with the school that these Saesian sisters run, a wonderful school that you helped to support, what they do is they go to drop the children off, the girls off at the school in the morning, and the girls spend the whole day there. They have recreation, they have prayer, they have classes certainly. They eat square meals and at the end when the parents get off from work at the end of the day they bring them back that they bring them back home. And on weekends the mothers have nutrition classes with the girls. This is possible due to your generosity.
Water. If you or I want a glass of water, we want to take a shower or take a drink of water, we go out we buy a bottle of water. We turn on a tap. We expect clean, fresh water. In Africa I've seen children carrying water on their heads eight miles back to their families, just so that they would have water. In the Dominican Republic and in Central America, I've seen children being bathed in streams and rivers that are clearly polluted. In the Diocese of San Juan De Lamaguana in the Dominican Republic we've been involved in a water project there which is now completed. An aqueduct project, building an aqueduct that now serves nine different towns. 1/3 if it was paid for through donations to Cross Catholic Outreach, 1/3 if it was paid for by the diocese of San Juan Dela maguana and the other 1/3 was paid for by people living in the area who are served by the aqueduct, in Sweat Equity. They put up the workers in their homes, they fed the workers. They help clear trees, move rocks Etc.
So these are the kinds of project that we’re involved in. In the United States we are so blessed. If we get in trouble financially we can go on welfare if necessary. We can food stamps if necessary. A child gets sick, we take the child to the hospital and the hospital has to take care of them.  
In the countries that we serve 40% of the children, that's for out of every 10 children under the age of 5 years old dies of curable diseases. Diseases for which here we would give basic Medical Care. Penicillin, have a bone set, pills for dysentery or diarrhea, a tetanus shot and immunization shot. In the countries that we serve we have hospitals, clinics, immunization programs, as well as individual medical missionaries whom we support.
Before the Liturgy today I passed out brochures. I put them on the aisles. Would you pass them in please so that each family has one. There's some items I'd like to go through with you. First of all we are a Catholic organization. We're connected with core Unum, the holy father's personal outreach to the poor. We’re part of the new evangelization in the church. There are six Catholic American bishops on our board of directors. The chairman of the board is Archbishop Rodi of Mobile. The president of Cross Catholic is Jim Kepner and that's Jim in the picture there with the Holy Father. Jim insists on 100% accountability for all funds coming in and going out of Cross Catholic. If you note the pie chart you'll see that are overhead expenses month-to-month are only between 4 and 5%. In other words more than $0.95 out of every dollar that's donated goes to the poor. It’s a very low overhead expense. 
Our mailing list is kept confidential. We don't share our mailing list or give it or sell it to any other group or any other organization, it's kept confidential within Cross Catholic. When you make a donation, you'll get a letter back thanking you for that donation. Turn that letter over and on the back it will say, please contact me once a month, every 6 months, once a year, never again. Whatever you choose to put down, we honor that. We don't want you getting all this mail that you would really rather not be getting. 
There’s a place to fill in your name and address. The page above, next to the pie chart, it says prayer requests. The reason that's there is because workers at Cross Catholic meet every morning for prayer between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. They asked if we would add this part of the brochures, so they can pray for your intentions. Any intentions you have please write them in there, they'll be prayed for.
Looking for the brochure, you'll see what we do, putting together business expertise and Faith. If you or I want a glass of water and take a shower we have fresh water available. $500 can help sponsor a water project, maybe not unlike the one in San Juan De Lamuana.
$2,500 helps to build a home for a family living in a cardboard box in a garbage dump. I've been through garbage dumps in some of the countries that we serve. Fields of garbage, children pulling a pig carcasses for food. The stench is horrible, families literally living in cardboard boxes. How much do we spend on our own home? Our dream home or a second one? $2500 helps to build a home.
Above where it says prayer request is a perforation. That part of the brochure tears off. Above where you write your name and address, please note there's a pocket and I ask you to be as generous as possible. Above where it says prayer request it seals like an envelope, on the back is the address. Simply take it home, fill it out, drop it in the mailbox. If you like I'll be in the gathering space, collecting any brochures you care to give me today. I do ask that you not put it in the collection plate that'll cause a bit of logistical problems, so either give it to me after mass or take it home, look over the brochure and mail it in.
But whatever you do please take out a few minutes, look at the faces in the pictures. It's in these I believe you and I truly see the face of Christ, who's right here in our midst. And on their behalf I want to thank you for your generosity along the way, parishioners of All Saints you've been so generous, thank you for that and thank Father Wilson for having me here this weekend and may God bless you always. Amen

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