The Story of St. Casimir's Church, Cleveland

To jest moja parafia - Sw. Kazimierz

This is the Polish parish in Clevie's St. Clair-Superior neighbourhood. In earlier times, Polish people from Poznań moved in in large numbers. They got to have their own parish because św. Stanisław, which serves the Warsaw Poles at South Broadway, was too far away. The church was closed in 2009 and re-opened in 2012 after parishioners (and, they say, the patron St. Casimir himself) kicked a fuss. When the bishop came to close the church, Władysław Szylwian pulled the plug on his microphone and became the instant village hero. The uncles and aunties here lured me in with Polish cuisine and have managed to conscript me as parishioner. They also signed me up for their parish school alumni club, but I have no idea how that works.

The neighbourhood of St. Clair-Superior was a literal riot in the '80s and '90s. The pastor was regularly mugged on parish grounds, and the sound of gunfire lulled residents to sleep. Sw. Kazimierz was turned into a fortress with a perimeter of barbed wire, and the stained glass windows, which the hoodlums liked to shoot at for sport, had a bulletproof layer installed. The gangsters have supposedly shot one another all to death since that time, and thus the neighbourhood today is somewhat less exciting than it used to be.

Kraków Pilgrimage Story, told in Flags

I was away on pilgrimage in Kraków and the surrounding areas for the previous two weeks. Today I am still reeling from the spiritual hangover and jetlag. Never mind. I shall write about the pilgrimage and see if it is any help.

This is my second pilgrimage (after Lithuania in 2012) and also my first serious one. I went with 170 pilgrims in my group and 3 million from outside of the group. Putting this kind of number into a city designed for 700,000 is insanity and we are all very grateful to be alive at the end of all this. That aside, seeing the whole world packed into an open field, waving their flags, and celebrating mass together is quite a sight to behold. I meant especially the flags, because I am a huge flag nerd.

Yes, World Youth Day Kraków 2016 gave me a sensory overload.
It only makes sense, then, that my short pilgrimage reflections should be told with the help of flags.

1. Singapore

This is our flag. It is very pretty.
We had ~three of these things, plus the flag of the Archdiocese. I thought it was overkill at first, but later it proved useful to keep the 170 of us together in times of extreme moshing. It is also useful as a tool to explain to people that we are a sovereign country.

Someone asked me what the crescent meant, and I gave the politically correct answer.

2. Kazakhstan

This is the first flag I saw after stepping onto terra firma at Warsaw. A small group of people were wearing t-shirts printed with this flag. I was excited to see Kazakhstani folk in real life but also surprised that there were Catholics from there at all. It turns out that this country houses 1 archdiocese, 2 regular dioceses and an apostolic administration.

I almost shouted Ай болсын! at them. It was not an appropriate phrase for that occasion, and I'm glad that I shut up.

3. United Arab Emirates

I was surprised to see the Pan-Arabic colours alongside ours when we arrived at Żory. It turned out that this group comprise largely of people who were Catholics from elsewhere and were at UAE to find work, not necessarily Arabs.

The Malayalee diaspora was represented prominently in this group and wherever Jesus Youth is involved. Masses at Żory were also graced by bishops from two of the Eastern Rite churches dating back to when St. Thomas was preaching in Kerala, the Syro-Malabar and the Syro-Malankara communities. The vestments they bore were ornate and blingy, and they stood out from the others. I received communion from one of them.

4. Bonaire and Curaçao

These flags were spotted at Muchowiec Airfield and stumped everyone, myself included.
The countries are island nations off the coast of Venezuela, and are part of the Dutch crown.

5. French Polynesia

A certain Tahitian religious sister ran into me and talked with me during one of those cultural workshops during the Żory festival. I met her and her group again later at Muchowiec Airfield.

French Polynesia is an overseas country (pays d'outre-mer) of the French Republic and is in the remote South Pacific, roughly halfway between New Zealand and Chile. The main island is Tahiti, made famous to the rest of the world by Paul Gauguin paintings. Getting to Poland from here is a real pain, requiring a series of flights transiting at Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, and Paris. Some of the people there are descendants of Chinese immigrants.

6. Cabo Verde

Spotted at Auschwitz II and also later in Kraków.
These people live on a group of islands off the coast of West Africa, and speak Portuguese.

7. University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Photo Credit: Kevin Clark

I ran into Fr. Benjamin Holdren (left in picture) of the Diocese of Lincoln while exiting the mosh at Błonia Park. Fr. Ben has helped me through tough times during my work stint at UNL last year, and also treated the parishoners to free donuts and coffee every Saturday after morning mass. One simply does not forget these things.

I said hi to him and went away too soon.

8. France and its traditional provinces

The French took a large proportion of pilgrims in this event and regional flags were one way of distinguishing between particular groups.

This is the "Gwenn-ha-du" (white-and-black) flags that identifies the Bretons, seemingly the largest group of French pilgrims.

This is Lorraine with a pretty flag featuring three weird-hawks.

The Corsicans used a variant of this flag with four of these Moor's heads around a red cross.
CORRECTION. Those aren't the Corsicans but the Sardinians, who come from a region of Italy

9. Canada and its provinces

Jeff Lockert, president of Catholic Christian Outreach, came from this province.
Spotted behind a wheelchair in Wadowice.

Québec people are French-speaking and that always gets me excited. They also have a nice flag.
Spotted at Wadowice.

10. Pairs of countries involved in ongoing vendettas but whose flags flew together nonetheless

The Mainland and Taiwanese groups came together to Poland and attended spiritual prep together before we found them, a fact which I found pretty cool. The Mainland is represented by groups from the Beijing, Handan and Macanese dioceses, among others (I hope). They had a bit of trouble coming because of paranoid bureaucrats and funny people showing up at their doorsteps begging them not to go.

I brought Pilgrim Kristin and her friend (both based in Bejing) to see my Archbishop. There we found out that she was a Teochew speaker. This reunion of sorts (Archbishop was also a Teochew speaker) took us all by surprise and cast a warm glow over the dusk at the airfield. One simply does not forget these things.

The Taiwan group was led by a Brazilian brother who spoke fluent Mandarin. He gave to me a foldable fan.

The Russian and Ukrainian flags were spotted flying side by side at Wawel Castle. Like, how cool is that?

A certain Father Laurentius from Flores serves in Volgograd and has been skulking about in Russia from the days of Perestroika. I tried to speak Indonesian with him, but failed. He recounted to Celine and myself about how the church has grown since the Soviet Union days, and invited us to visit him.

Father Laurentius was very boisterous, despite the crowd, and liked to shout Polish words at people. He had the dark skin and stout built of Flores men. I remembered the apparition of Our Lady at Larantuka, not too far away from his hometown, Maumere.

11. Easily confused flags leading to hilarious misunderstandings

The top flag is Hungary, where Pilgrim Julian studied for his Master's Degree and also home to my favourite classical composer (Béla Bartók) and many of the most badass mathematicians in history.

The bottom flag is Italy, where 95% of the pilgrims seem to have come from, so mistaking Hungarians for Italians was quite understandable (though not any less embarrassing).

12. Finland and Iceland

These two groups were small and stuck with each other at Błonia Park during Opening Mass and Papal Welcome. The Finnish group was made up entirely of Filipina ladies from St. Mary's Parish, where I called home for three months, four years ago. I asked them about the parish priest, Fr. Rafał Czernia, but they replied that he was somewhere else in the park.

I asked Oletekko Suomalainen? to one of the Icelandic priests by mistake. He laughed, and then redirected me to the ladies at the Finnish banner. But I still failed, because by then my Finnish language is close to nonexistence.

My favourite author of all time (Halldór Laxness) was an Icelander and also a Catholic for a period of time. One of the rooms at his house at Mosfellsbær, which is now a museum, has a blessing from St. JP2 hanging on the wall. One simply does not forget such things.

13. Sweden

I met the Swedish pilgrims during the mosh after Opening Mass. They were a group of girls from Uppsala. I tried my Swedish on them for two lines, but in the end English was still more practical for communication. Such is life.

14. Pakistan and Bangladesh

I remembered hearing before the trip that the pilgrims who wished to come to Poland from Pakistan and Bangladesh had had their visa applications rejected. However, during one of the moshes in Kraków, I saw these two banners being unfurled again. Good for them. They probably found a way to apply from a third country, like what the Syrian pilgrims did.

15. Lebanon (also Syria)

The dude who bore the Lebanese flag turned out to be from Syria; from Aleppo, a beautiful town. He had managed to come to World Youth Day after applying for his visa in Dubai, because nothing works any longer in Syria. After a while he looked very sad and did not want to talk about anything anymore.

16. Barbados

Note: Barbados is secretly Atlantis.
Spotted at Muchowiec Airfield.

17. Slovenia

Spotted at Campus Misericordiae.

The Slovenians performed an act of charity during the Vigil and Closing Mass. They set up shop at the boggiest corner of our sector and made a cordon of bottles and sticks and raffia strings to prevent the others from stepping into the mud by accident. One simply does not forget such things.

18. Costa Rica

The favourite stereotype bore by the Costa Ricans was the exclamation ¡pura vida! and you could yell that at them just to make them happy.

Sr. Cecilia, who journeyed with a group of us on a mission trip to Tagaytay 2 years ago, is based here now, and probably speaks flawless Spanish.

19. Honduras

Pilgrim Laura from Honduras sat next to me on the flight from Warsaw to London, and we commiserated on the sad state of Polish public transport. Pilgrim Laura studies in medical school in San Pedro Sula. She loves her country, and thinks it beautiful. We talked about many other things.

20. Belarus

This is the flag of Belarus, a country bordering Poland to the east and the last European country (for now) to host a mad dictator.

The Belarusian contingent at Campus Misericordiae also uses the white-red-white variant of the flag, which is interesting, considering the fact that it is used as a protest flag.
During Vigil Night, I shared a most blessed moment with the Belarusian youth, religious sisters, and priests in a tent where the Blessed Sacrament had been exposed.

At first, I had scant intention of going for adoration. I went into the tent really just to keep myself warm in the night, where the alternative was to sleep out in the field without a sleeping bag. I had thought (prayed) a little about it and reasoned that by not bringing a sleeping bag to the Campus, I had in fact betrayed a deeper desire to keep the vigil rather than to get any sleep. I prepared myself with coffee and a warm tub of pierogis from the stall.

I began kneeling outside of the tent entrance, careful to step around the sleeping men next to the tent (who must be so lucky to sleep there, close enough to be dreaming of Jesus even!). I followed the Divine Mercy chaplet sung in a strange language which I assumed to be Polish until I managed to obtain a lyrics sheet.

All the lyrics were in the Cyrillic alphabet. I could not contain my glee.
On closer examination, I spotted the letters
Іі and Ўў
which indicate Belarusian.

The nicest thing about Belarusian spelling is that words are pronounced exactly like they are spelt, in contrast to Russian.

The songs themselves were beautiful and I sang along whenever I could. I made notes on my sheet on which of the songs were sung, for future reference. I even made a few discreet voice recordings. I have never been able to find many of these songs again in recorded form. The songs were probably really just meant to stay with me for the moment only. Such is life.

I expressed profuse gratitude to one of the guys (Pilgrim Viktor, if I remember correctly) who played guitar. I asked to keep one sheet of lyrics and in return I gave him a medallion with an image of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd embossed behind. And the sunrise happened and shone upon the altar and shone upon the Blessed Sacrament.

I used to like to think that I am leading Him by the hand and going to people in need of him. Now I knew that it was He who has been leading me by the hand after all. He led me into this wonderful place and among these wonderful people and I had no idea what was in store for me. What have I done after all? I had only prayed a little, and then watched from the back seat as the scenery unfolded before my eyes.

After this relevation happened, I took some time to collect myself and prepared for Closing Mass. And the Holy Father breezed by in his buggy and life returned to normal soon enough. Just Kidding.

The Story of Lincoln

I am back from the work trip. It was not too bad as work trips go, and I got quite a lot of stuff done and learned, so there's that. On the other hand I had been quite hesitant and wary of documenting my emotional state for this stretch of time. As a result, people back home probably thought of what I went through in the States as a vague and murky cloud of ideas such as "experiences" or "time of your life".

Maybe it's time that I told a better story.

Long story short: I was scared of death all of the time.
Long story slightly less short: I experienced the worst feeling of abandonment by friends and family back home during this period, even though the whole time I was aware in my mind that it was an illusion. I had to do all I can to resist slipping into disrepair and dissolution. I changed my habits and my disposition to keep this spiritual death at bay. Everything I did, I did out of fear of death.

Death loomed above in the spring thunderstorm that brought tornadoes to the county. Death hissed menacingly in the roaring north winds that came and froze the town in May. Death taunted me in my hours before and after work, whenever I was alone, and tried to convinced me that no one would be bothered if I plain disappeared one day.

Culture shock? Not much at all. Singaporeans are no stranger to all-engulfing American cultural exports, but Lincoln has been more pleasant than I had expected, anyway. Travel opportunities? When you are under the thrall of the Gloom, travel for leisure goes to the bottom of your list of priorities.

Instead, I tried to make every moment at work count. I started an exercise regime, and set for myself repetition quotas that increased every now and then. I started going for daily mass. I met the priests. I started going to the weekly market. I started conversations with anyone I met or anyone who did so much as look at me funny. I gave to the homeless and heard their stories. I got wind and kept track of local events. My list of things to do in Lincoln grew and kept growing as my feelings of despair diminished. I still had things left undone when I flew off.

What does this small city on the prairies mean to the world?

It doesn't have many attractions for the casual traveller. It doesn't have upscale shopping areas or breathtaking scenery. It's just a place where people lived. In such a trip, I am thankful enough to wake up every day and find myself still breathing. What do I care for the myriad distractions of tourism? The town and her people have given me all I need to stay alive.

The Story of Jane

Jane comes in front of Newman Center every Tuesday, after afternoon mass, to hand out some flyers. This time she was decked out in an immaculate white dress, a white headscarf and white socks and shoes. She wore three strings of rosary beads around her neck, had cross earrings and wore a cross on the forehead where Hindu folk would wear a bindi. She had a sweet smile and had a distant look in her eyes, because her eyesight was failing. People who come out of church after mass generally gave her a wide berth, but I decided to get a flyer from her to find out what it was about.

Curiously enough, the first thing Jane noticed about me was that I was wearing the Iceland shirt. "You've been to Iceland!" she exclaimed, "how was it there?" Jane was curious about what it was like in that country and whether it was cold, like how you would think about a country that was named Iceland. I explained that I went in the summer, and it wasn't that cold at all. Next she asked if I was from Wenzhou. I wasn't, but I've met people who come from there and were Catholic, and so has Jane. Jane recounted some of the Asians whom she had met. She taught art in the capital to Asian kids, mostly South Korean children who she found so intelligent and charming.

Jane stopped teaching art because of eye problems, and an accident far back left her with foot problems, so she couldn't stand for too long, so I suggested that she should rest. But she looked determined to persevere.

The Story of Iceland

I was in Iceland from 6 to 10 June 2013 with some of the other Singaporean exchange students at EPFL. It was a large island for three hundred thousand people and looked empty much everywhere except in Reykjavik.

This is basically how it looks like in the summer. Also depicted above is a silly habit which we developed along the way, namely trying to stack cairns as high as we possibly could.
Iceland was awesome. I should go to more detail about it in a future entry.

The Story of Wenzhou Catholics

Photo: Ke Yichen

The Chinese RCIA in my parish, Holy Cross, had a visitor in February. His name is Chen Xu, and his trade was physics. He was on a visit to my school to do as much research as he could for (two months?). One of the parishoners gave him lodging and he came for class on Wednesday nights, which was where the rest of us met him. He had been baptised with the name Peter. He might have been baptised also on a few other occasions, but the circumstances of those baptisms were extremely murky. He came from the country around Wenzhou, where the Catholic tradition had its stronghold. In the city where he went to school, however, there's hardly a church to be seen. Such is life in China, I guess.

He joined us for a retreat and then had to leave us for home too soon. He is a nice guy. Such is life.

The Story of Jane's Pamphlet

The stuff that Jane is dishing out to unsuspecting passers-by is quite interesting, even a little unhinged. Here's what it says near the end:

"Wear a rosary for best influences so you won't be effected by subliminals or nano/stemcells. Put honey on face with oil so others think you are sweet. So you don't masturbate and self inflict or form a child wear garlic in pockets or rosary in undies with cross outside waist band. Because of cussing on TV throw out TV, flag poles & put white crosses on entry ways, on top of page, on windows so you don't get gasses, on ground and head of bed for better care. Lick clay for any disease, drug or tainting. Get a log lock on door & rosary for door knob. Don't eat beef or lamb: prion detector machine was taken down."

About the Berries

On Sunday I plucked and ate a berry from the tree at the wetlands. I was reminded of all sorts of stories about berries. In Finland you could taste any sort of berry that you liked; most can be eaten, and the ones that can't won't kill you. People in that country were crazy about berries and I could not forget the sight of the lady at Lautasaari squatting in the trailside, making short work of the berry bush and eating the berries as soon as she had plucked them. She looked as happy as a lark because at that moment her life is all about the berries. I remembered hearing about Thai people ferried to Finland just to go to the forests to pick berries, which was why we went hiking in the forest and scarcely saw any berries. I saw cloudberries by a railroad near Vaasa, but did not dare to touch them; I only realised they were edible afterwards. People like us grew up eating supermarket stuff and have always been cautious about wild berries. On Sunday I was not so sure about that berry, but decided to eat it anyway. Today I am still alive, so that probably means it worked out well.