VIRIDITAS: SOUL GREENING
Interviewed by Sister Malia Dominica Wong, OP
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Everyone should visit their dentist regularly. If you don’t, and wait until five or 10 years have passed, and all the tartar sticks harder to your teeth, and blackened spaces in your mouth grow dimmer, you will be in for a bloody mess. And you will be in pain. The dentist will need to take more time and work harder to chip away at the accumulation of neglect to care for yourself. So it is with the spiritual life. All of us need regular spiritual check-ups to keep us healthy in growing in the Lord.
Change does not happen overnight, especially when we are trying to change ourselves. Like with the accumulation of tartar, it takes time until it builds up so much that it becomes seemingly one with the tooth, demanding more work to remove and maybe even a second visit to the dentist’s office. Sometimes, we are into things that we really like, but can be blind as to whether they are good for us or not. Take for example the story of the money changers in the temple in Jerusalem. When Jesus drove them from the house of prayer that was supposed to be used for holy purposes rather than personal gain, they were really mad.
Why? Because the money changers had been doing their business in the temple all their lives. They were working for themselves, not for God. They neglected to go to the spiritual dentist so were hardened in their ways. This can be likened to someone who has been smoking all his or her life. When the person stops, he or she will be trembling and shaking and everything. It’s a hard process to change. Even in dentistry, it is not really about all the teeth, but the individual tooth itself. Dentists say that if you visit them more often, then the buildup would not be so bad. This is tangible evidence that what we eat becomes a part of us.
The La Salette charism is about reconciliation. As a young child, I had learned to chant in Gregorian style the “Salve Regina” (“Hail, Holy Queen”) in Latin. It was the PIME (Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions) from Italy that helped change grow in my village. They introduced the faith to my grandparents. Although almost the whole country of Burma is Buddhist, many in the countryside became Catholics. Of my village alone of 300 families, 20 became priests and over 100 became religious sisters. In my family, I am one of 11 children, and my uncle is a priest. We were fed by the Gospel and the example of good works of these missionaries.
I am deeply devoted to Mother Mary. When some priests from the Philippines came to recruit us from the seminary, I remember being touched by the story about how Mother Mary cried. In God’s plan for salvation, Christ was sent by the Father to reconcile all things to himself. It is important for everyone to read the Scriptures, pray daily, receive the sacrament of reconciliation and celebrate the Eucharist regularly. God’s mercy and love provides these good foods for us to consume as ways of a spiritual checkup and staying healthy in our relationship with him.
Father Anton Nyo Ano is a priest of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, 15 years professed and 11 years ordained. He serves as a parochial vicar at St. Joseph Church in Waipahu.