Morning Star

After her husband was executed, Bùi Thị Xuân and her daughter was sentenced to death by elephant trampling. Both she and her husband were skilled generals, faithful to the Tây Sơn dynasty, and the rebels waited for this moment to exact their revenge. Before the herd of elephants stampeded her only daughter's 16-year-old body, she turned and cried out to her mother. "I cannot help you in this moment. Die worthy of a general's daughter," Bùi Thị Xuân fearlessly counseled her daughter as she watched her daughter die before her eyes. After Bùi Thị Xuân suffered the same death, the soldiers fought among themselves to eat a piece of her liver. They believed she was "gan lì" which meant unwavering intrepidity and eating her liver, or "gan" would make them just as dauntless. Fr. Châu opened his homily for the Mass of the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs with this heroine story from our history books. He said anyone can die for a dream, an ideal, a vision. Yet,...

It took a long time before my parents were willing to bake a turkey for Thanksgiving. They didn't understand the hullabaloo with meat that tended to be undercooked in some parts and dry at other spots. " The fault lies not with you, but with Mother Nature: Turkeys were clearly never designed to be roasted," Chris Kimball of America's Test Kitchen comments on PBS. Asians have always known this intuitively and seafood is our family's usual winner. Our first turkey was a fantastic affair. My mom had stuck the bird into the oven and left to do some errands. Thắng, who was 10 then, saw the meat thermometer glowing. He thought it was a sign that the turkey was done and helpfully turned off the oven two hours into the roasting. My mom didn't get home until evening. We had a good laugh at our little chef and proceeded to pan-fry the turkey. Thắng began our family's honorable tradition of breaking the fowl into parts, then cooking it. He would be proud to kno...

"What time is it?" Five minutes left to brush the honey on the rolls, place the last pecan on the pie, and turn off the lights. The kitchen clock said 6 1/2 minutes left but everyone knew we operated by chapel time. The little digital clock in the chapel announced the beginning of our Evening Prayer and Eucharistic Adoration. And time to pause. Early civilizations kept track of months, seasons, and years for the sake of harvesting, hunting, and celebrations. Thousands of years later, humans began to invent ways of dividing the day up into increments for societal and bureaucratic needs. In 1878, Canadian Sanford Fleming divided the world into 24 time zones as we know it today. Some of our sisters will be traveling up to Springfield early for meetings. And so, it was time to celebrate Thanksgiving this past Sunday. It was also November 21st, the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. Time to renew our vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. In the quiet stillness...

If Mom and Dad knew Mozart, Abraham Lincoln, and Charles Dickens played billiards, they would perhaps be more willing to let me try it. They painted the sport in cigarette smoke and questionable personalities. It was enough for me to wonder at its attraction. Pool, as pocket billiards is commonly known today, took its name from the poolrooms gamblers used to "pool" and bet on horse races. This same place also had billiard tables. Slowly, the two terms became synonymous. I had my chance the other day after two rounds of bowling at Irving's AMF lanes. The green cloth gleamed vibrant in the empty lounge. The aspirants and I had visited Calvary Hill Cemetery to pray for all souls in purgatory. It might be an odd way to begin a recreational excursion. "Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!" (Ecclesiates 1:2) Does not the words of Scripture help us to order all pleasure in its rightful place? Pleasure is a means, not an end. Pool can be an addiction or a pla...

Ding, ding. The fuel gauge on the dashboard dropped to E. I had just left the gas station. Our car was going crazy again. A year ago, the steering wheel was loose and wobbly. $800 of car repairs later, it was still loose and wobbly. I always made sure I said my prayers and left nothing unsaid before I drove that car. Then I remembered one of our friend's offer. "Sister, if you ever need anything. Talk to my husband. He's a car mechanic." I met Chị Kiều through many youth activities in the DFW area. She was an energetic and creative youth leader. I had only glimpsed Anh Long whenever I attended Mass at the Holy Martyrs Church. I've held Kevin, their rambunctious 2-year-old in my lap, in my lap many times. I didn't want to burden them with the car's weird quirk. However, it was getting frightening to drive it. Three days after we dropped the car off at his shop, he got into an accident. His shoulder blade was broken. He knew we needed the car within a week...

Millions of dollars. 20 feet below and curing under a dark grey tarp. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing was fascinating. The Fort Worth facility, besides the one in Washington DC, prints all the paper currency for our country. Could anyone counterfeit this, the sisters and I thought, as we toured and observed the multiplex machinery. You would if you were a Nazi in the early 1940s. Or if you were one of their prisoners. Would you trade your skills as an engraver or printer for survival? This is the background to the movie, Counterfeiters, a true-life account of how Hitler wanted to destroy the British and American economy by flooding it with counterfeit money. Not a kind of film to end a magnificent autumn weekend. However, reality is the surest way of preserving this peace. These prisoners had limited choice. Follow orders, which means the war can continue indefinitely. Defy orders and they will die. Their limit of choices reminds us that we always have a choice. "Because I ...

Turtle meat. Goat steak. Eel fillets. The sisters are familiar with my father's adventurous eating habits. I've brought some back to the convent and enjoyed watching the sisters squirmed reactions. When the door salesman displayed trays of filet mignon, sirloin, and T-bone steaks, I was more intrigued with his utter disregard for my opinion. He was a superb smooth talker. Forty minutes later, he had clinched a deal. He was young and I wonder if selling meat door-to-door was his aspiration. No shame there, my dad would have commented. Any time one of us hesitated from wearing a hand-me-down or taking advantage of a free offer at a store, he averred quietly, "You're not stealing from a bank." He was not a smooth talker. He raised seven kids in the old tradition. If we spoke up, it was to agree. Yet, he taught us to look beyond a person's appearance and livelihood. The Trans are known for their sincerity. He was a man of honor. ps. Although rough in many ways, n...

"No!" "Uhm.. I think Dr. Lowery told us to read from #65-70." "Ooops! I guess I did my homework wrong. I thought we could pick anywhere in the encyclical!" "It's okay, Sister. You know, you're a nun!" Jennifer said, smilingly. "I don't know... Anytime I make a comment in the class, he just looks at me blankly. I may be scandalizing him." "Oh Sister! You are one of the most adorable nuns I know..." My laughter inadvertently cut off her statement. Adorable. "My sisters, if people don't find you adorable. There is something wrong with you." We giggled at Father Matthew Hy's observation. "It is because your life, my life, as religious, we have made Jesus our focus. Or in actuality, we have been chosen to be near this Goodness, to contemplate this Beauty. If we do not become beautiful and adorable ourselves after years of gazing upon the Artist, there is something surely wrong with us!...

"I want to cry!" Our iSPY group erupted into laughter. We had just finished singing along with Michael W. Smith's "Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord." The words Holy Holy Holy still reverberated in the air. Phúc knew we weren't laughing at him. Who could describe the Presence in that room, in that moment, our bodies slightly chilled from the lack of a heating system? Tears from heaven. Not the kind that mourned a loss. Or bubbling over from anger. Tears that came because we were sitting together, sharing stories, and trying to sing in key to an unfamiliar song. Not the usual combination for a heavenly experience. We were caught off-guard. By the Lord who "is your guard and your shade; at your right side he stands. By day the sun shall not smite you nor the moon in the night." (Ps 121) Just like Cha Tân, our pastor, who discovered part of the chapel in flames at midnight. He is still alive as the "Lord will guard your going and comi...

I was lost. The concrete walls loomed in the early gray dawn. The court lay tucked amongst the Dominican priory's back garden. Finally, a racquetball court. I had almost forgotten that I was in Texas. The roads were closed and I thought I could myself through the construction zone. I did find the court. A rare one that is not enclosed in a gym. "Sister, you play racquetball?" Sheila looked at me, half-puzzled. "Well, only if we can find a place. Do you?" She murmured, "I play it ... I just didn't know nuns played !" "Oh yes, you probably thought we did card games or badminton or frisbee..." She flushed red. "Something I picked up in my high school years... I always liked the violence!" I quickly continued as she began to notice I was teasing her. "Violence?" "It's the hippocampus, Sheila! You ever wonder why girls remember much more than guys? It's because we have a bigger hippocampus... it is a part...

"Those look like breast cancer ribbons!" Frank stared at us, completely unmiffed by our guessing. Our iSPY adult staff team was gathered for a meeting. And we were each given a set of pipe cleaners. Or chenille stems, the official name of these pliable fuzzy craft sticks. Rainbow, for patience and attainable goals. A balance beam, for confidence and daring. Lips. for words of encouragement. Hands, for guidance and peace. "Each of these persons ," Frank pointed stressed this last word as he picked up his ribbons. "Each of these persons are the youth and if they are like sheep needing a shepherd, then if we do our work right, leading them to Jesus, the Shepherd, each of us will effect a connection with each other." We had taken turns, each of us sharing what it is that we hoped to share with our youth in the youth group. He slowly wound the persons in an interlocking design. "In the end, we are a circle, a community, connected..." "That's...

When I think about "her", it is her. I've never met her and yet I know she is the closest one to me. I imagine she has long black curls and a firm grip for both Rose and I have a good handshake for being girls. Rose is my only and youngest sister She would've been my older sister I like to think for I already have two older brothers I will have to wait when I get to the other side to meet her Always I know she is the closest one to me miscarriaged at three months It's November, you see when nature gets ready to go to sleep and the Catholic Church honors all the dead For we believe they are closer to us watching over us in timeless contact with Truth I've given her a name that she knows and I know for she is the closest one to me three months after the miscarriage was me. In honor of my sibling I never got a chance to meet and whom I shall meet. I enjoy everything doubly more because I was given the gift of life! ps. Photo of me at Thiếu Nhi Thánh Thể Camp fo...