Author Description

A seven-year-old girl tried to carry her younger brother. She carried him on her hip. She did the cradle hold, the face-to-face hold and then the belly hold. But all of those were too difficult for her. Finally, she decided to carry him over her shoulder. People looked at her with pity and said, “what a burden you carry on your shoulder!” She replied, “it is not a burden, it is my brother!” Being powerful in God’s way In our Lenten journey, we are not carrying a burden, but we are carrying our mortal condition. By following Jesus, we want to assume to the end our human condition in order to be strengthened by the One who died and rose from death for our salvation. With the suffering Jesus, we come to understand that being powerful does not mean being without weaknesses. Through his way of being, of living and of dying, Jesus shows us that being powerful means being courageous enough to overcome every difficulty in our daily lives. The more difficult our situations, the more courageous we become. It is on the cross that Jesus demonstrates the power of God’s love for humanity. The divine love is shown most powerfully when God, in his Only Begotten Son, does not turn away from human suffering but endures it to the end. Deepening our spiritual life in time of distress: I completed this book when everything was shut down because of COVID-19 pandemic. I gathered the homilies that I gave at Assumption University, translated some meditations that I wrote in French for Living with Christ and reworked a few writings published by the same magazine in Vietnamese. While being busy with teaching (online classes), preaching (we had two Masses every day because we could not gather more than ten people in our chapel) and cooking (in rotation for eight members of our religious community), I enjoyed doing this writing. Even though it was not a good time for writing, this exercise helped me to nourish my spiritual life during the time of pandemic. For me, writing b