Cardinal O'Malley's Chinese New Year Sermon

Today was St. James' Chinese New Year celebration. It was not as crowded at last year. Not even by half. When Grace heard that it was Cardinal O'Malley who had spoken she said, "Not the famous guy. Him? He's a big deal. There should have been more people this year." But snow vs. famous speaker only if you know Catholic Politics or I guess you could say God vs. Church. Well nature and God win.

He mentioned in his sermon that one of the ways to get people to be Catholic would be to behave in a way that would make people say, "If that's what being Catholic is about then I want to be Catholic too."

Well, I was there at St. James for that reason. Because the people I knew from that church behaved in a way that I wanted to emulate and I wanted my children to emulate. But that also meant that when I heard he was coming to speak, the name rang a bell but I didn't much care. But I am glad I decided to listen to his sermon because I did enjoy it.

Mostly he started listing comparisons between Chinese New Year and Catholic traditions and focusing on the Zodiac and animal symbolism in Catholicism. I'm not sure if most people cared for or understood this subject, but as it happens, I as a Half Chinese kid that went to Nativity Prep, did this sort of thing in my head during class, all the time. So thanks.

I even learned something. The Cain and Abel story was brought up because a ram was sacrificed by Abel and Cain gave fruit as a sacrifice. (Interestingly spilling blood on Chinese New Year is a no no, but all the Ram/Lamb reference were pretty gruesome and indeed since a lot of Christianity is about Jesus' sacrifice, like blood spilling as an offering, well Christianity is pretty bloody and gruesome too.

 He could have went with just talking about the color red over your door, and how that was done in Exodus with blood but Chinese just use red paper, but blood is too important in Catholicism.

Anyway, I learned that one interpretation of the Cain and Abel story was that some people wanted to "have faith in God to provide for them" and be nomads. as opposed to farmers. That was Abel. And then others like Cain, wanted to be like the Pagans and build cities and farm. By this interpretation, the most Godly were the nomadic Native Americans of the plains like the Lakota Sioux who worshiped the Great Spirit and followed the Buffalo. And the missionaries who Christianized them were making them more like Cain and less like Abel. In the story God accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's. Cain then goes ahead and murders Abel, who is is brother. Hmmm that happen with us and the Native Americans too. Anwyay, I had never heard that interpretation of the story, and I also thought it was an interesting interpretation coming from a Catholic priest or any group that built things (like churches) and lived in cities.

Mot of the rest of the sermon focused on Lent and he told the joke about the priest and the mugger who gave up chocolate for lent but was in the process of mugging the priest.
Not sure if his sermon was really appropriate for the mostly Chinese audience.
But I liked the little tidbits of scriptural knowledge, even if it turns out to be Catholic exegesis. But that's because I'm a story interpretation geek.

Happy Chinese New Year Cardinal O'Malley!