Raphael, my first baptism and my first homily in Chinese
As a chaplain at S.Teresa hospital, near our parish, one day a nun invited me to visit a sick person and give him a blessing. Having arrived in his room, the patient asks me not only for a blessing, but for baptism. Some days later he died. We celebrated his funeral in English and Chinese, to let all the participants - non Christians - to understand our prayers.
Hong Kong (BC.it) - As a chaplain at S.Teresa hospital, near our parish, one day a nun invited me to visit a sick person and give him a blessing. Having arrived in his room, the patient asks me not only for a blessing, but for baptism. The man was dying, with a liver tumor that had spread throughout his body. He told me that he had often thought about becoming a Christian and that many times he had visited and prayed in church, but then seeing the difficulties in becoming a Christian, he postponed the decision. In Hong Kong, to be baptized you need two years of catechism, with weekly meetings: a bit difficult for people who are always in a hurry! In any case, he assured me that Jesus had helped him many times in business (!) and in difficult times for his family. The next day we baptized him, and since it was the feast of the Archangels, we gave him the name Raphael, God's medicine.
Raphael died after a week. His wife asked me to preside at his funeral. But the dead man was the only Christian in the family. In these situations, several parishes have a group of faithful volunteers who take care of participating, praying and singing at funerals. We held the funeral in two languages: English and Chinese (Mandarin) because the rest of Raphael’s family lives in Singapore and knows English well, but the deceased's wife knows Cantonese Chinese and Mandarin, but not English. And so to honor Raphael and his wife, I dared to give my first homily in Mandarin Chinese. Since November is the month of devotion towards our deceased, I think it is worth publishing this homily, in meditation for everyone, together with the homily in Chinese.
Homily for Raphael
It is usually said that Hong Kong is like New York: a city that never rests. At all hours here in Hong Kong there is traffic on the streets, shops open, night events, people travelling.
All this gives the impression of vitality and gives us enthusiasm. But if we look not at the big picture, but at people, at individuals, we realize that not resting is not good for us, it affects physical and sometimes even mental health: we become sad, grumpy, violent, dissatisfied. in short we realize that we are not happy.
We work day and night, we work at all hours because we want to be happy. but then we realize that we need rest and this rest, this pause seems to steal something from our happiness, destroys our happiness. We want to be happy, but we can't do it on our own. And at a certain point death arrives which ends every commitment and erases every dream of happiness.
We human beings need to rest and at the same time we need someone to give us happiness, because we cannot get it with our own hands.
The Christian God, Jesus Christ, promises rest and happiness gratuitously. He becomes our friend and gives us his love, which is stronger than death. He won death because He was risen and because of this he guarantees us that we too will live and nothing can hinder our happiness. Because happiness is not being rich, powerful, strong: it is above all discovering that you are loved with a love that is forever.
Raphael discovered the love of Jesus in the last days of his life in hospital. Marked by pain and morphine, he clearly asked for baptism because - he told me - "Jesus helped me many times".
To be a friend of Jesus and be happy you must "take his yoke which is light", that is, accept to be loved by Him, treat him like a family member, talk to him, receive him in the sacraments, in baptism, which is the gift of his death and resurrection, and in the Eucharist, which is the gift of His Body and Blood, the gift of Himself. Today Raphael continues to receive Jesus’ love in Heaven. For this reason, despite having pain, we are not sad because Raphael is with Jesus and lives, and from Heaven he will help his wife and us, who are his friends.
人們常說香港就像紐約一樣：永不休息的城市。 在香港，街道上隨時都有車流、商店開門、夜間活動、人們出遊。 這一切都給人一種生氣勃勃的印象，讓我們充滿熱情。
但如果我們不著眼於大局，而是著眼於人、個人，我們就會意識到不休息對我們沒有好處，它會影響身體健康，有時甚至影響心理健康：我們變得悲傷、脾氣暴躁、暴力、不滿。 簡而言之，我們意識到我們並不快樂。
我們日夜工作，全天候工作，因為我們想要快樂。 但後來我們意識到我們需要休息，而這種休息、這種停頓似乎從我們的幸福中偷走了一些東西，破壞了我們的幸福。
我們想要快樂，但我們無法靠自己做到。 在某個時刻，死亡到來，結束了所有的承諾，抹去了所有幸福的夢想。
我們人類需要休息，同時我們需要有人給我們幸福，因為我們無法用自己的雙手獲得幸福。
教友的天主，耶穌基督無償地應許了安息和幸福。 祂成為我們的朋友，給我們祂的愛，這愛比死亡更強烈。 祂勝過了死亡，因為祂復活了，因此祂向我們保證我們也會活下去，沒有任何事物可以阻礙我們的幸福。
因為幸福不是富有、強大、強大：最重要的是發現你被一種永恆的愛所愛。 拉斐爾在醫院生命的最後幾天發現了耶穌的愛。 以疼痛和嗎啡為標誌，他明確要求接受洗禮，因為 - 他告訴我 - “耶穌幫助了我很多次”。
要成為耶穌的朋友并快樂，你必須“負他的輕軛”，也就是說，接受他的愛，對待他像家人一樣，與他交談，在聖禮、洗禮中接受他，這是他的死亡和復活的禮物，在聖體聖事中，這是他的身體和寶血的禮物，他把自己給了我們。
今天，拉斐爾在天堂繼續接受耶穌的愛。 因此，儘管痛苦，我們並不悲傷，因為拉斐爾與耶穌同在並活著，從天堂他會幫助他的妻子和我們這些他的朋友。
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