For Fr. John Tabor, the Path to Priesthood Was War

Jaffrey, New Hampshire native Father John Tabor was called by God from the U.S. Navy at the Fall of Saigon to a half century of priesthood in Vietnam and Thailand.

November 30, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Some time ago, I introduced a post by citing a famous 1990s play and movie by John Guare entitled, Six Degrees of Separation. In the film version, actor Will Smith played the central character, a young man who insinuated himself into the lives of a wealthy Manhattan couple by pretending to be the son of American actor, Sidney Poitier. The hoodwinked couple were so enthralled by what they thought was a fortuitous connection to a Hollywood star that they invited their wealthy friends to witness the new relationship. It was a con man’s dream.

The play and film introduced a theory that many came to believe was a valid sociological principle. It was the notion that the paths of all human beings are somehow connected by no more than six degrees of separation from each other. As the world grew smaller in the Internet age, the idea took on an aura of universal truth. It might even be true, for all I know, but it started off not as science, but as faith.

I have written of two examples. The path of my friend, Pornchai Moontri, my roommate of 16 years here, is separated from that of Saint Padre Pio by just two degrees. Pornchai’s Godfather, the late Pierre Matthews from Belgium, met and was blessed by Padre Pio at age 16. I wrote of their strange encounter in “With Padre Pio When the Worst that Could Happen Happens.”

Perhaps more profound and surprising, just after I wrote a popular science post about the origins of the Cosmos some years ago I learned that Pornchai is also separated by only two degrees from the famous mathematician-physicist, Fr. Georges Lemaitre, who discovered the Big Bang origin of the Universe. Father Lemaitre was a close friend of Pornchai’s Godfather’s parents who sent us several photos of them together. I wrote of the astronomical odds against such a development in “Fr. Georges Lemaitre: The Priest who Discovered the Big Bang.”

According to the theory, these two accounts left me also with only two degrees of separation from both Padre Pio and Father Lemaitre, two famous figures about whom I had been writing. It was mind-boggling, but it was never a legitimate scientific theory at all. For most people, threads of connection between people are mere coincidence. For others, they are the subtle threads of what I have called the Great Tapestry of God.

I subscribe to the latter view, but we should not try to reduce these threads to the limits of science. They are instead, for many, evidence of actual grace — perhaps more connected to a Scriptural mystery: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen” (Hebrews 11:1). People of true faith find meaning in these connections that science overlooks.

Priesthood in a Time of War

One of these unusual threads of connection just manifested itself in my life. The November/December 2022 issue of Parable magazine, a news publication from my diocese, had as its cover story a tribute to Father John Tabor entitled, “Soldier to Servant.” My path has crossed with that of Father Tabor several times in life, but we have never actually met.

Several years older than me, John Tabor graduated from Conant High School in Jaffrey, New Hampshire in 1964. I graduated at age 16 from a Boston area high school in 1970. His path took him to the U.S. Navy and to war in Vietnam. Mine did not. I was too young at graduation to go to war, and by the time I could, the war was over.

Father Tabor’s priestly vocation was shaped by a war in which he survived several near death encounters. One of them involved a military jeep he was driving in a war zone in Da Nang. It broke down right in front of a small Catholic church where he sought the help of a local priest to repair it. A short distance down the same road on the same day, a land mine exploded that would have killed him, but John missed it because he and the priest were slow making the needed repair. It was then that John gave serious thought to something that passed only fleetingly through his mind back in high school.

In the late 18th Century, France colonized Vietnam and remained in power as an occupying force until 1954. The long French occupation of Vietnam had the unintended effect of introducing Catholicism to the Vietnamese. As a result, many Vietnamese today practice Catholic faith with great reverence. A quarter century after the French departed from Vietnam, Father John Tabor was deeply moved by the depth of Catholic faith among the people of this war-torn country.

When the war was over, and his tour of duty in the Navy ended, John Tabor wrote to his family in New Hampshire to tell them of his decision to remain in Vietnam to study for the priesthood. He immersed himself in the Vietnamese language and became fluent. Father Tabor was ordained for the Diocese of Da Nang in 1974.

In that same year half a world away, my own path to priesthood had just begun. Five years later in 1979, during theological studies at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, my closest friend was Tran, a Vietnamese seminarian who had been a student during the war in the seminary in Da Nang. I tutored Tran in English so he could complete his studies. Like Father Tabor, Tran, had been forced to flee Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon under the post-war oppression of the communist North Vietnamese in 1975. He brought years of war trauma with him.

Tran had been one of hundreds of thousands forced to flee Vietnam among the famous “Boat People” whose struggle for freedom and survival captured the world’s attention. During seminary studies in Baltimore, Tran often spoke to me about Father John Tabor the American priest who taught English to Vietnamese seminarians at the seminary in Da Nang where Father Tabor first ministered.

Also among the Boat People fleeing communist Vietnam was a young high school student named John Hung Le. He is known to our readers today as a heroic priest in the Missionary Society of the Divine Word and the founder of the Vietnamese Refugee Project of Thailand. He is also the priest who helped to sponsor Pornchai Moontri upon his arrival in Thailand in 2021 and continues to support his repatriation today.

The Fall of Saigon, the surrender of the South Vietnamese to Northern Communist Vietnam took place on April 30, 1975. The Viet Cong tanks and troops soon began pouring into downtown Saigon — now called Ho Chi Minh City — and spread toward Da Nang. I vividly recall news footage of waves of U.S. Marine and Air Force helicopters. They flew 6,400 military and civilian evacuees from Saigon to a 40-vessel armada waiting 15 miles off the coast of South Vietnam.

American helicopters swept into Saigon just after dawn to retrieve 30 marines from the U.S. Embassy rooftop completing the final evacuation of about 900 Americans and more than 5,000 Vietnamese. Four American marines died during the final hours of the U.S. presence in Vietnam. Two were killed in a heavy morning bombardment of Tan Son Nhut Air Base when a rocket hit the compound of the U.S. defense attache’s office where they were on guard. The other two died during the evacuation when their helicopter plunged into the South China Sea.

Several Americans, including some brave newsmen, decided to stay. Hundreds of desperate Vietnamese civilians swarmed into the U.S. embassy compound in Saigon and onto the roof after the marines had left. The roof of a nearby building also served as an emergency helipad where several hundred South Vietnamese civilians waited in hopes that there would be more helicopters to rescue them away from the coming communist oppression. They waited in vain.

Udon Thani, Thailand

Also left behind, by his own choice, was Father John Tabor who had been ordained for the Diocese of Da Nang just ten months earlier in 1974. Though now fluent in spoken and written Vietnamese, he nonetheless knew that as an American he must leave Vietnam quickly. It would not be by sea. He made his way across a border into Laos, then north to the Capital, Vientiane. From there he crossed the border into Thailand where he was canonically received into the northern Thai Diocese of Udon Thani in 1975.

For historical context for our readers, at the time Father Tabor arrived in Udon Thani, just a short distance to the south in Non Bhua Lamphu, Thailand, two-year-old Pornchai Moontri had become an orphan. That complex story was told to wide acclaim in “Bangkok to Bangor, Survivor of the Night.”

Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Communist government of Vietnam were not restored until 1995. Father Tabor ministered in Udon Thani, Thailand for the next 47 years. After seeing him last month on the cover of Parable in my diocese, I had a friend help me send an email message to Father John Hung Le in Thailand. I told him what I had read of the story of Father Tabor and of how he had come to New Hampshire to visit his twin brother after an absence of fifty years. I asked Father John if his path had ever crossed with that of Father Tabor who was originally from New Hampshire.

The message that came back the next day contained attachments which our editor then sent to the GTL tablet in my cell. The first was a photo of Pornchai who had been helping Father John to distribute food to Vietnamese refugee families that day. The second was the photo above of Fathers John Le and John Tabor. “We had lunch together today,” said Father John. By coincidence they met in Bangkok that very morning when Father Tabor had a required checkup upon his return to Thailand from New Hampshire.

It turned out that they are old friends whose respective paths had taken them from the terrors of war into the priesthood of Jesus Christ on the frontier of Catholic missionary service in Southeast Asia. Father John Le’s community, the Society of the Divine Word, has long had a base in Udon Thani, the most northern region of Thailand along the border with Laos very near Pornchai’s childhood home. These are heroic priests whose selfless lives have been on the front lines of service to the Lord among the poorest of the poor for decades. I am humbled to know them.

In his recent message, Father John Le told me that he and my friend, Pornchai had met that evening with Father John’s Provincial Superior on his annual visitation from the Society of the Divine Word. The connectedness of our interwoven paths is staggering. I can only make sense of it through a single line in a prayer. It is the prayer of St. John Henry Newman that I wrote about some months ago in “Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare.” The prayer is entitled, “Some Definite Service”:

“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.”

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Father John Tabor’s route from Da Nang, Vietnam through Laos to Udon Thani, Thailand

Note from Father Gordon MacRae:

Please keep Father John Tabor, Father John Hung Le, SVD, and Pornchai Moontri in your prayers. Over several months, readers have generously sent me gifts to be applied to Father John’s Refugee Project and the support of Pornchai’s repatriation to Thailand after 36 years. I have saved your recent gifts in support of Father John’s ministry until they amounted to $1,000 U.S.D. We just sent this amount to Father John who expressed his deeply felt gratitude (as do I!). That amount is equal to 30,000 Thai Baht which greatly assists him in bulk food and medical supply purchases for the Vietnamese refugee children and families of Thailand. During this time of global inflation, your sacrifices have made a difference. Thank you.

To assist in this project, please scroll through our SPECIAL EVENTS page for information.

Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You may also like the related links cited in this post:

Washington and the Vatican Strengthen Ties with Vietnam — National Catholic Register, October 8, 2023

A Struggling Parish Builds an Advent Bridge to Thailand

Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare

For this Prodigal Son, Homecoming Is a Work in Progress

Pornchai Moontri’s return to Thailand after 36 years has been that of a Prodigal Son traversing some dark rivers of the heart, but with help from an unexpected navigator.

September 7, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

“Sawasdee Kup, my friends. This is Pornchai writing from Bangkok, Thailand. I am very happy to see this post by Father G about my other spiritual father and patron saint, Maximilian Kolbe. He has been so much a part of my life in too many ways for me to describe. I think Father G summed it up well when he introduced this post today on Linkedin and Facebook. Here is how he described it:

"#Resistance This post reveals a little known mystical connection between St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. Pope John Paul II. Resistance to evil is never futile."

My birthday is coming up. (That is not a hint!) Some of my friends got me my first computer as an early birthday present. Remember that I was "down" for the entire computer age. So this is like an alien device to me. Yesterday I saw Beyond These Stone Walls here in Thailand on a full size computer screen for the very first time. It is awesome! And so are all of you.

With love and my prayers,

Pornchai Maximilian Moontri”

After I posted “A Tale of Two Priests: Maximilian Kolbe and John Paul II” a few weeks ago, the comment above was posted by our friend Pornchai Moontri writing from Bangkok, Thailand. A few readers subsequently sent messages asking for an update about Pornchai and his life there. I had already intended to write about this because his birthday is September 10, just a few days after this is posted. Pornchail will be 49 years old and is still struggling to regain the sense of home that was lost when he left Thailand 37 years ago in 1985.

This post will be followed in a week by one that has been a long time coming. I have been working on it for months, and I believe it is the most important post I have ever written. There are some who do not want me to write it, but, for reasons that may seem apparent here next week, I must. It is an Earth-shattering account for which Satan himself has lodged many obstacles in the path of its telling. They have mostly been overcome. I ask for your prayers as I complete that most important post this week.

By coincidence, I learned only after beginning today’s post that the Gospel for the Sunday Mass following its publication is the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). The word, “Prodigal” does not mean what some readers think it means. Its origin is in the Middle English “prodigalite” which comes from the Latin, “prodigere,” the original meaning of which is to drive away or squander. From the famous parable that Jesus told, it has also come to mean “reckless” or “wasteful,” neither of which I could ascribe to my own Prodigal Son, Pornchai Moontri.

But there was time in Pornchai’s life — a long time — when he felt compelled to drive away anyone and everyone who cared enough to enter it. This is the plight of so many who have been spiritually and emotionally wounded from a traumatic past. Pornchai tried to drive me away, too, but God had other plans and we both ended up following them. That story was told in this very same week one year ago, so I invite you to revisit it. If next week’s post is my most important, this one remains my own favorite. It is “The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner.”

Mary Calls in Reinforcements

I do not know whether I have the writing skills to adequately convey what Pornchai has been up against over the last 18 months. I have known and helped other prisoners who have faced deportation as adults to a home and country they had not seen since early childhood. Many simply do not survive. I had long been determined that Pornchai would not be one of those. Over time, by some mysterious grace, my writing made its way around the Globe to Thailand where people noticed and some support developed to assist Pornchai’s plight. He had no contact for 36 years with any of the extended family left behind when he was taken away at age eleven. He had only vague memories.

While he was still trapped in that grueling five months of post-prison ICE detention, my heart sank when I learned that the housing and support plan we had for him just fell apart in the eleventh hour due to illness. It was just weeks before Pornchai was to board a flight and I had no backup plan. Trying to put such things together from inside a prison cell half a world away is a daunting challenge.

I kept no secrets from Pornchai in this regard so I painfully remember hearing his own heart sink at the other end of the phone when I told him that the plan we had in place for him fell apart.

I remember trying to put the best spin I could on it. I asked him to trust. I said that often in my experience, such disappointments can become opportunities. Did I really believe that? I’m not sure, but I was sure of one thing: Pornchai would not believe it unless I did. So I did! In prayer, I turned this over to Mary, Undoer of Knots, my favorite from of Marian devotion and the most powerful. I asked her in an act of surrender to undo the knots of faithless distrust that held us bound.

Just two days later, in our daily ten-minute phone call while Pornchai was stranded in ICE waiting out a pandemic, I told him we had better news. I told him that Fr. John Hung Le, a Society of the Divine Word missionary priest from Vietnam, had been reading about us on Beyond These Stone Walls and sent me a message that he wants to help and would provide housing for Pornchai until we could find a better plan. Pornchai was dubious. “I don’t want to be a burden for anyone,” he said.

After Pornchai’s initial stay in required pandemic quarantine at a Bangkok hotel in February, 2021, Father John showed up with our Divine Mercy Thailand friend, Yela, and with Chalathip, Father John’s neighbor and a benefactor of his refugee project. Chalathip learned about Pornchai’s life from Yela and Fr. John, and she received an interior summons from Mary herself.

A retired teacher, Chalathip took on the task of helping Pornchai to assimilate in Thailand, a most difficult task after an absence consisting of his entire adult life since age eleven. Pornchai had to be tutored in conversational Thai, and quickly, but Chalathip knew this could not happen while Pornchai was living with four Vietnamese priests, none of whom spoke Thai.

So Chalathip spoke with Father John and decided to offer Pornchai a small apartment on the upper floor of her home just a few doors down the street from Father John’s. They spoke to me about this, but I was not going to second guess those with boots on the ground.

Chalathip owns several properties in Thailand, so in return Pornchai offered to help her manage them. Having become proficient in woodworking, Pornchai found that these skills translated easily into home repair. He dug up stumps, did landscaping, fixed leaky roofs, painted walls, sanded and restored furniture. Chalathip had two daughters. One had tragically died from an illness several years earlier and the other lived in the U.K. It did not take long for a strong maternal bond to form between her and Pornchai. This was literally divinely inspired. Chalathip never had a son, and Pornchai lost his Mother at a very early age.

Honor Thy Mother

Over recent months, Pornchai had enormous decisions to make. Chalathip had accompanied him and Father John on Pornchai’s first visit to the home and family from where he was taken at age eleven. It was in the village of Phuviang in Khon Kaen Province in the far northeast of Thailand — a nine-hour drive from Bangkok. I wrote about this hauntingly mysterious visit in “For Pornchai Moontri, a Miracle Unfolds in Thailand.”

In recent weeks, Pornchai had to return there to face a difficult decision. The half-completed home that his mother was building at the time of death in 2000, and the small amount of farmland around it, would have been taken from him unless he could come up with 80,000 Thai Baht in fees that had accumulated so he could effect a transfer of the house and land to his own name. Pornchai was frozen in place unable to decide what to do.

The amount seemed impossible for Pornchai, but in U.S. dollars, 80,000 is the equivalent of about $2,400. It just so happened that I had saved that amount in a just-in-case savings account. I did not want Pornchai to lose his mother’s home and land because it would have been gone forever. So I sent him what I had and he was able to complete the transfer. But the real Guardian Angel in this story was Chalathip. She went there with him, acting as a translator and trusted advisor pointing out options as Pornchai discerned under pressure what to do.

A kind reader has since returned my small investment to me. I am profoundly thankful, but most of all I am thankful for Chalathip. At every step of Pornchai’s long journey home, she has been a much needed teacher, guide, chauffeur and parent. She is near the age Pornchai’s Mother would be today had she lived, and I believe strongly that Chalathip, like me, was destined for this connection with Pornchai.

She returned with him to Phuviang four times in an effort to help him obtain his Thai ID for full citizenship. At some point I learned that after all my prayers to Mary Undoer of Knots, Chalathip was right there untangling all the complications that Pornchai faced in order to make Thailand his home again.

Father John and Chalathip have joined Pornchai in prayers at his Mother’s tomb at the Buddhist Temple cemetery nearby. Thailand is 99-percent Buddhist but there are many Catholic converts there and Catholicism has left a large footprint in Thailand. Chalathip, so very rare in Thailand, is Catholic since birth. Her deeply felt faith and fidelity to our Lord has bridged the chasm between hope and despair for Pornchai. He and I still speak every day, and I have recently detected that hope and some evidence of actual happiness in his voice knowing that he is not alone in his plight.

I detect it in my own voice as well of late. Night is often long and dark, but with the dawn comes — if not rejoicing, then at least a modicum of peace. It is what Jesus said would happen if we remain faithful. “Peace be with you.”

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Please join me here next week for the most important post I have ever written. It’s a matter of life and death!

And thank you for reading and sharing this post. Please “SUBSCRIBE” if you haven’t already. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

A Tale of Two Priests: Maximilian Kolbe and John Paul II

The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner

For Pornchai Moontri, A Miracle Unfolds in Thailand

Archangel Raphael on the Road with Pornchai Moontri

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Another note from Father Gordon: Our friends from Divine Mercy Thailand who sponsored Pornchai’s homecoming will be gathering with Father John’s community this week for a birthday celebration for Pornchai.

Also, Pornchai was recruited to teach an ocassional physical fitness class by the owner of MI Fitness in Pak Chong, Thailand. Mr. Mi (pronounced Mee) saw him working out at his gym and corralled him to teach a class. Mr. Mi and his wife created the poster below for their Facebook page and a short video of Pornchai’s first class. Just click on the poster to see the video.

In the Heart of Canada: Rescuing a Family Besieged by War

For the second time in a year, tiny St. Anne Parish in Mattawa, Ontario, has sacrificed for a Corporal Work of Mercy: now saving a refugee family from Ukraine.

August 3, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae and Fr. Tim Moyle

Introduction by Fr. Gordon MacRae: Somehow, word got out that I found myself chained up in the back of a Concord, NH ambulance for a trip to the Emergency Room on Tuesday, July 19. The sudden onset of an apparent cardiac problem during the night before was first thought to be impending heart failure. Twelve hours and several tests later came a diagnosis of acute pericarditis, less alarming and more easily treatable. Recovery time, I am told, is two to three months but I am out of the hospital and already feeling much better.

After that I was out of commission for just a few days, but they were the same few days during which I would have written a post for this week. With no time left to write and mail something, I came up empty.

Then, from out of the heart of Canada, came a message from Father Tim Moyle, an amazing priest, pastor and friend at St. Anne Parish in Mattawa, Ontario. One of the smallest and least financially endowed Catholic parishes in Canada, the people of St. Anne’s and the wider community of Mattawa are leaving an outsized footprint on some works of Divine Mercy in the world.

You might remember Father Tim and his parish. During Advent just seven months ago, Father Tim and his parishioners were inspired by posts at Beyond These Stone Walls about Pornchai Moontri and Fr. John Hung Le, a Society of the Divine Word missionary. For an Advent project, the people of St. Anne parish mobilized to raise awareness and funds for Fr. John’s Vietnamese Refugee Assistance effort among migrant workers in Thailand and their families left without income during the global pandemic. My post about their amazing effort was, “A Struggling Parish Builds an Advent Bridge to Thailand.”

Now, just seven months later, comes Father Tim again with news of yet another heroic Corporal Work of Mercy undertaken by the good people of his parish. I was deeply moved to learn from Father Tim’s letter that other posts from Beyond These Stone Walls helped inspire and inform this decision of this parish. One such post may have been, “Beyond Ukraine: The Battleground Against Tyranny Is Us.” Now, comes Father Tim.

From Fr. Tim Moyle on Behalf of the People of Mattawa

Hello Father Gordon.

After reading some of your recent posts, it struck me that I have not yet told you about our latest parish initiative here at St. Anne’s in Mattawa.

With the advent of the war in Ukraine, we decided to organize to bring a refugee family to our town and shelter them until they could return home or transition into becoming Canadian citizens. Using the same model we implemented when we raised funds for Thailand, we put out the call to our parishioners for donations of money and materials. Suffice it to say, I was blown away once again with their generosity and commitment. In a matter of a few weeks, we raised over $24,000 and enough furniture to fully equip a house.

We connected with a family in dire need through a diocesan parishioner who took a leave of absence from his employment to go to Ukraine to aid refugees. We brought them from Ukraine to our little town, and we were able to rent for them a three-bedroom house which we fully furnished and paid their rent for an entire year. A local internet company stepped up to connect the house with complimentary high-speed internet service so that they would be able to stay connected with family members who had to remain in Ukraine to fight for their freedom as a nation.

Local craft groups got together and quilted a set of handmade quilts done in the colours of the Ukrainian flag. Others donated gift cards to women’s clothing stores so that they could purchase items they would need in their daily lives here. Two local employers stepped up and offered full-time positions to them, and now the family is saving toward purchasing a car, a necessity in this part of the world as one needs to travel a fair distance to get various services.

A local medical clinic accepted them as patients, ensuring their health needs would be addressed while they are here. All of these incredible acts of charity have allowed the family not only to find shelter here in safety, but to integrate into our community as cherished members. Even more impressive, in my opinion, are the steady stream of people who regularly go to the house with offerings of food and aid, spending time with the family to help them learn English and bringing them into their own homes for evening social activities, using their own families to address the loneliness they would naturally feel being so far away from their homeland and extended family back in Eastern Europe.

This mission has gone so well that we are now expecting three more members of their extended family to arrive in a couple of weeks from their war-torn country. We will be providing refuge to three generations of this family in a time of great personal trial as the war in their homeland impacts the place where they were living.

All of this has had an amazing effect in our town of Mattawa and the people of our parish. This has become evident in the increased numbers of people at Mass each weekend and a general lifting of spirits in our entire town! We have people who are not Catholic reaching out to us to thank us for taking the lead in these troubled times in a way that makes everyone feel better and proud as citizens of the community of Mattawa.

Anyway, I just thought you might appreciate hearing some good news among the doom and gloom of life that seems to have befallen our countries these days. I hope this short message serves to make your day a bit lighter, as it has done for us up here in Canada.

Finally, please be assured of our parish community’s continued prayers for you and for Pornchai Moontri. We still pray at each Mass that you will soon see justice reign in your life and your ‘long Lent’ (to use a phrase from our mutual friend of happy memory) will soon be over.

Fraternally in God’s service.

Father Tim

From Father G Again

Father Tim was not the only one “blown away” by this latest effort of his small but powerful parish and town, powerful in grace if not resources. In his last message about my “long Lent” and our mutual friend, Father Tim is referring to the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, founder and former editor of First Things magazine. Father Neuhaus would smile upon these heroic efforts, and perhaps even upon my offering of some of my “long Lent” in spiritual support of the people of Mattawa, Ontario and Ukraine. I thank Father Tim and the people of St. Anne for reminding us that the way out of our own spiritual doldrums is sacrifice and our participation in the works of Divine Mercy.

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Editor’s note: For those who wish, and are able, to assist Father Gordon MacRae with support and expenses for this site, please note the new PayPal address at Contact and Support. Please share this post on social media and please visit these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

Beyond Ukraine: The Battleground Against Tyranny Is Us

The Annunciation and the Consecration of Russia and Ukraine

A Struggling Parish Builds an Advent Bridge to Thailand

February Tales and a Corporal Work of Mercy in Thailand

February Tales and a Corporal Work of Mercy in Thailand

This tapestry by Fr Gordon MacRae links the Roman origin of February, a Gospel account of the Presentation of Jesus, and the grace of a mission of mercy in Thailand.

I was sixteen years old for almost all of my senior year in high school growing up on the North Shore (aka, “Nawth Shoah”) of Boston in 1969. I was a full year younger than most of my class. There are many events that stand out about that year, but one that I remember most was an adventure in British literature that I found in The Once and Future King, the classic novel of the Arthurian legend by T.H. White first published in 1939.

In my inner city public high school, The Once and Future King was required senior year reading. Most of my older peers groaned at its 640 pages, but I devoured it. The famed novel is the story of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, the Knights of the Round Table, and the quest for the Holy Grail — all based on the 16th medieval Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory in the 16th Century. By the time I was half way through it at 16, I had completely forgotten that I was forced to read it and obliged to resent it.

I found a worn and tattered copy over 40 years later in the prison law library where I am the legal clerk. I took it back to my cell for a weekend to see if it held up against the test of time. It did so admirably, and I devoured it for the second time in my life. I was astonished by how well I remembered the plot and every character. I was reunited with my favorites, the Scottish knights and brothers from the Orkney Islands, Gawaine, Agravaine, Gareth and Gaheris. A few days after I began to read it anew, I came upon one of the popular Marvel X-Men movies and noted that the evil Magneto was also reading that same book in his prison cell.

The backdrop of my first reading of the book at age 16 in 1969 was the chaos of my teenage life in a troubled inner city high school. Protests and riots against the Vietnam War were daily fare. I was just then beginning to take seriously the Catholic heritage to which I previously gave only Christmas and Easter acknowledgment. The Once and Future King was set in a time when the Church and the agrarian society of our roots lived in rhythmic harmony.

The Church’s liturgical year is itself a character always lurking in the background of the story. Too many of its signs and wonders have since been sadly set aside. I don’t think we are better off for that experiment and I remember wondering at sixteen whether we might one day regret it. That day is today.

In the story, Arthur was crowned king on the Solemnity of Pentecost. But it was on February 2nd, the Feast of Candlemas that Arthur drew the sword from the stone to become King Arthur. We don’t call it Candlemas any longer, but the day has a fascinating history. The Mass of Blessing of Candles takes place on the 2nd of February. Today we call it the Presentation of the Lord recalling the Purification of Mary forty days after Christmas as she brought the newborn Christ to Simeon in the Gospel (Luke 2:22-35). It was the fulfillment of a ritual law set down in the Book of Leviticus (12:1-8). The purification was strictly a faithful fulfillment of the law and had no connection to moral failures or guilt:

“And his father and mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, 'Behold, this child is set for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed!”

— Luke 2:33-35

Midwinter Light

In ancient Rome in the time before Christ, February marked the old Roman feast of Lupercalia in honor of the mythological god of flocks and shepherds. The legend began with the mythical founders of Rome, the twin brothers Romulus and Remus. Abandoned at birth and left — with shades of the story of Moses — to float in a basket down the Tiber River, Romulus and Remus were discovered and raised by a wolf, according to legend.

The Latin word for wolf is “lupus” and the Feast of Lupercalia is derived from it. The Lupercalia celebration began with a parade of torches. Two boys, representing Romulus and Remus, would be smeared with the blood of a goat and then chase people through the streets with a sheath of the sacrificial goat’s skin. It was a symbol of purification of the flocks and fields and the village itself. The goat skin was called, in Latin, a “februa.” The month of February takes its name from that word.

The torch festival marking Lupercalia was absorbed into the Christian liturgical celebration of Candlemas honoring the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. It was first celebrated by the Byzantines over 1,500 years ago. February 2nd also marked the center of the seasons in an ancient agrarian culture. Sitting halfway between the December solstice and the spring equinox, it is the exact astronomical midpoint of winter. That is also, by the way, why it became Groundhog Day. In older times it was believed to be the day the forest awakened and hibernating animals rose to rejoin the land of the living. An old Scottish verse links Groundhog Day to Candlemas:

“If Candlemas Day be dry and fair,

The half o'winter's come and mair.

If Candlemas Day be wet and foul,

The half o'winter was gone at Youl.”

At Candlemas, the liturgical celebration included the blessing of candles for use in the liturgy for the rest of the year. The symbolism of the emergence of light in the mid-point of winter is clear. On February 3rd, the day after Candlemas, the Church honors Saint Blaise with a tradition of blessing throats using the newly blessed candles. According to tradition, Saint Blaise saved a child from choking on that day in the 3rd Century AD.

The Candles We Lit in Thailand

I struggled a lot in 2021. I struggled with sickness. I struggled with faith. A review of my post titles for 2021 is evidence for how much I struggled with priesthood, prison, people, the pandemic, and even the Pope. From what I have been hearing and reading all this past year, many of you struggled with these very same things. I hope and pray that you are all spared from prison among your struggles, but I also know that prison can take many forms.

We began 2021 with a post about struggling entitled “A Year in the Grip of Earthly Powers.” Toward the very end of the year, I wrote what I believe was the most important post of 2021 at the start of Advent. Posted on December 1, 2021, it was “A Struggling Parish Builds an Advent Bridge to Thailand.”

Father Tim Moyle and the people of St. Anne Parish in Mattawa, Ontario surprised me with a haunting proposition. From one of the smallest, most financially struggling parishes in an outpost of the timberlands of Catholic Canada, Father Tim and some of his parishioners had been reading Beyond These Stone Walls over the course of 2021. They were deeply moved by the plight of our friend, Pornchai Moontri and especially by Father John Hung Le, SVD from the Missionary Society of the Divine Word who, despite his own pressing needs, gave a home and welcome to Pornchai.

Father John and Father Tim are selfless and courageous men of deep faith. Their example made me proud to have become, through Pornchai, a part of their respective worlds. The grace of the threads of connection that grew out of our struggles behind these prison walls is truly amazing when I step back to see the whole of the tapestry that has been forming. This started with a November 2021 email message from Father Tim to Father John. I get chills just reminiscing that I was a part of this:

“To Fr. John: I am following up the email that Fr. Gordon MacRae sent you regarding my desire to connect my parish with your ongoing ministry in Thailand. It has been my conviction that parishes like the one I pastor here in Mattawa, Canada should connect with a ministry like yours by offering financial and spiritual support for your good efforts. Fr. Gordon writes glowingly of your work with the Vietnamese refugees of Thailand and of course your support of Pornchai Moontri speaks volumes of the evident goodness of your character.

“St. Anne’s Parish in Mattawa, Ontario where I currently minister isn’t wealthy by any standard and our own needs are great. So I cannot promise a great deal of money for your efforts, but I will be asking my parishioners this Advent to step forward and work with me to collect funds for your ministry among some of the poorest of the poor. I will point out to the parish that if we expect God to bless our fundraising effort to save our church, we need to be acting in helping others who are far worse off than we are.”

This just blew me away! It also silenced my Litany of Rumination over my own struggles for they pale by comparison. At Christmas, I received this message from Fr. Tim Moyle:

“Dear Fr. Gordon: The people of St. Anne’s Parish have been deeply involved with various fundraising efforts throughout Advent to support the Refugee Assistance Foundation managed by Father John Hung Le, SVD in Thailand. We have raised $5,100 which represents four times the usual support we receive for the upkeep of our parish. We will forward this amount to Father John’s ministry after the first of the New Year. I thank you for your assistance with this opportunity for my parish to connect with the real needs of the wider Church.”

Many of the Vietnamese people of Thailand are migrant workers living there legally but stranded and barred from employment throughout this long pandemic. They have nothing, and there is no social net to catch them. Father John’s tireless effort IS the social net.

Through the Special Events page that we set up at Beyond These Stone Walls, our readers contributed an additional $4,200 which we have added to the amount raised by Father Tim Moyle’s parish. Father John is surprised and deeply moved by this outreach. This combined amount in U.S. dollars equals nearly 300,000 Thai baht, the unit of currency in Thailand. With this amount, Father John has been able to purchase and distribute much needed food and medical supplies to a large number of families struggling far more than most of us can or should ever imagine. I just received this message from Father John: “We plan to provide each refugee community a medicine cabinet. There are 15 communities that we are serving. Each community has around 20 to 30 families. This would help them in time of common illness.”

Thanks to these funds, Father John has also been able to provide a memorable Christmas to the Thai children in his Order’s HIV clinic in Nong Bua Lamphu Province evident in the photo atop this section.

We will end this post with several photos of Father John Le and Pornchai working with other volunteers to gather and distribute food to these refugee families. Thanks to you and the people of St. Anne Parish in Mattawa, these images speak volumes about the mercy you have shown and the grace that is given back in return.

Thank you for stepping up to the plate. You and Father Tim and his parish have together hit a home run. I wonder now if there is a somewhat less struggling parish out there in need of a Lenten project. Hope springs eternal!

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: On February 2, 2021, I had to tell Pornchai Moontri that his long awaited flight to freedom was cancelled for the third time by ICE officials. This news was devastating, and I had no news to give him hope except the Light of Christ and Truth of Divine Mercy. One week later, on February 8, 2021, after five grueling months in ICE detention, Pornchai boarded a flight to South Korea and then from there to Bangkok. I wrote about his traumatic departure and merciful arrival in a post that is very much worth visiting anew. It is “Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom.”

I also want to thank readers who have read and shared our hopeful “Bombshell” posts of the last two weeks. I do not yet know how or when this hopeful news will develop further, but it won’t be quick and it won’t be without a struggle. I have a little experience with struggles.

Here are our last two posts in case you missed them:

Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest by Ryan A. MacDonald

May the Lord Bless you and keep you. Fr. G

A Struggling Parish Built an Advent Bridge to Thailand

Fr. Tim Moyle and the people of St. Anne Parish in Mattawa, Ontario took up an Advent sacrifice to support the refugee mission of Fr. John Hung Le, SVD in Thailand.

(Clockwise from upper left in the photos above: Saint Anne Church in Mattawa Ontario, Father Tim Moyle in Mattawa, Father Gordon MacRae in Concord NH, and Father John Hung Le SVD in Bangkok. All collaborating this season for an Advent of the Heart.)

December 1, 2021

Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: In twelve years of writing behind these prison walls, this is our first co-authored post. Fr. Tim Moyle joins me here this week from the Diocese of Pembroke in Ontario, Canada with an Advent mission of sacrifice and hope.

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First Up, Fr. G: As 2021 began, I wrote “A Year in the Grip of Earthly Powers,” a sort of review of 2020 from which we were all recovering and still are. In 2021, I thought our culture wars and politics could not get worse, but the long, slow descent of our culture seemed to have a will of its own. As Advent approached this year, I hoped for a more positive message to help us focus on the Birth of the Messiah instead of the demise of an opposing party.

Then, from out of the blue, came a message from Fr. Tim Moyle. Father Tim and I have never actually met, but we have a long acquaintance through our mutual, much-missed friend, the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, founder and former editor of First Things magazine. Fr. Richard was a prominent Lutheran pastor and writer when he crossed the Tiber to the Catholic faith. After the death of Fr. Neuhaus, Fr. Tim Moyle wrote in First Things of their first meeting at table with Father Tim’s bishop in “Canadian Summers” (April 2009). Here’s an excerpt:

“It soon became evident that Fr. Richard had not left his self-confidence back in New York. Bishop Windell offered, in compliment, his opinion that Richard’s entry into full communion and ministry within the Roman Church could well be the most significant conversion since John Henry Newman. Richard drew heavily on his ever-present cigar, then agreed that some people might be justified in holding such an opinion.

“I almost gagged. ‘How American,’ I thought to myself. His smug self-assurance rankled my Canadian sense of propriety. Then with a glint in his eye, a tilt of his head, he let out his breath with a hearty self-mocking laugh and a warm slap on my shoulder. I decided then that I wanted to get to know this American brother priest, as he was clearly a more complicated character than I had thought.

“As fate would have it, I did not have to wait long, for we discovered the next summer that we each inhabited the same island as cottage owners in the Ottawa Valley, a discovery that led to many evenings spent on each other’s front deck and Richard’s 19th Street home in New York. There I met luminaries such as Avery Cardinal Dulles, leaders in the fight for the cause of life.”

That was written in early 2009 just after the deaths of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and Cardinal Avery Dulles. I both laughed and cried when I read Father Tim’s tribute back then. Not long after in 2009, Father Tim wrote to me. In one or two of those deck conversations, my name had come up. Father Tim wanted me to know that my loss of the support of both Father Richard and Cardinal Dulles was only an illusion. Three months later, in July 2009, These Stone Walls began.

An Advent of the Heart in Mattawa

From Father Tim: One of the greatest gifts I received at the start of my priesthood was the opportunity to meet a brother priest from the Archdiocese of New York who vacationed each summer in a parish where I was stationed. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus became my mentor, confidante and close friend. He was also joined by Avery Cardinal Dulles in encouraging Fr. Gordon MacRae to take up the challenge of using unjust imprisonment as an opportunity to do God’s work.

Suffice it to say that if I have been even partly as successful as Father Richard and Father Gordon in ministering God’s mercy and love, I will stand proudly before Christ as my Lord and Savior come that day when I will have to give Him an accounting for the successes and failures of my own priestly ministry.

I now serve St. Anne Catholic Church in Mattawa, Ontario, a rural parish in the Diocese of Pembroke in one of the most idyllic and yet impoverished corners of Canada. Both the Diocese and the town of Mattawa stand astride the Ottawa River serving the Catholic communities on both the Quebec and Ontario sides of the valley.

In generations past, the Ottawa valley was one of the more prosperous areas of Central Canada due to the harvesting of timber from massive first-growth forests that covered the entire region. Alas, generations of unsustainable forestry practices ultimately resulted in that economic engine dying along with the disappearance of most of the wealth, jobs and prospects for those who remained.

Nonetheless, I have come to learn that one of the most important things that I can do as a pastor is to engender an understanding of our parish’s role as a small part of a global enterprise of faith, an understanding which illuminates the necessary vision that, while we may be poor by the standards of other Canadian communities, we are quite rich when compared to faith communities in some other parts of the world.

I strive to connect any parish I serve to a Third-World ministry. Before we call on the generosity of God and neighbors to support our repair projects, we demonstrate our willingness to be generous with others whose needs are far greater than our own. My previous parishes were thus connected with parishes and Catholic missions in Peru, India, and Costa Rica. We made a difference there before launching our building and repair projects.

People often ask me how it is that I find and choose these foreign priests and projects to help support. The only answer I can give is that it is entirely through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Through chance encounters, I become aware, online or through a third party, of a Catholic/Christian initiative in dire need. It takes only a bit of time and research to ascertain the authenticity of the ministry and need before presenting it to the people I serve.

More from Father Tim: The Catholic Community at St. Anne’s Parish met this newest Advent project with heartfelt enthusiasm. We have decided to adopt the apostolate of Fr. John Hung Le, SVD, a priest of the Missionary Society of the Divine Word. Fr. John is assigned by his Order to assist Vietnamese refugees in Thailand.

Fr. John’s name should ring a bell for any regular reader of the writings of Fr. Gordon MacRae at Beyond These Stone Walls. It was Fr. John who first took in and sponsored Pornchai Moontri when he was deported to Thailand after a long ordeal in prison and ICE detention. It was from Fr. Gordon’s posts about the generosity and kindness to Pornchai during a most difficult adjustment that I was inspired to explore further this good priest’s ministry among Third World refugees, some of the poorest souls on the planet.

The people of St. Anne’s parish immediately recognized the goodness and necessity of this outreach that they have adopted. Various groups within the parish began to organize their own projects. The local French Catholic Secondary School also decided to adopt Father John and his ministry and have begun a bottle drive to raise funds. Other parishioners organized a series of small raffles and auctions of items purchased or donated by local merchants.

The parish council decided to also take up a special collection during each weekend of Advent for this important project. The very fact that all these initiatives sprang up spontaneously among not only our parish but also the good people of Mattawa is evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit to move hearts.

This project is galvanizing not only our parish community, but some of the wider community as well. These local acts of generosity are arising despite our own need would not have sprung into existence if not for the incredible ministry of Divine Mercy written about and exercised by Fr. Gordon MacRae behind those prison walls. His inspiring posts about Pornchai Moontri’s life and conversion have inspired us all. This has been a work of the Holy Spirit if ever I encountered one.

The Vietnamese Refugees of Thailand

From Father G again: In recent messages, Fr. John Hung Le, SVD has told us of how he has been very touched by the kind hearts, prayers and generous spirits of Fr. Tim Moyle and the people of St. Anne Parish in Mattawa in support of his ministry with the Vietnamese refugees. Father John knows well the plight of a refugee in a foreign land.

After the 1975 fall of Saigon, conditions for many South Vietnamese became dire. A young Vietnamese teen — the young man who would later become Fr. John Hung Le — was among those forced to flee. Tens of thousands a month took to the open sea in decrepit, overcrowded boats, seeking refuge in other Asian countries while hoping for resettlement in the West. On the world stage, the Communist regime was accused of trafficking in the lives of these desperate people, at times extorting hundreds or even thousands of dollars for allowing them to escape oppression and death.

With refugee camps throughout Southeast Asia filled to overflowing, several countries announced they would close their shores to the “boat people.” Some nations forced thousands back out to sea. This tragic situation brought forth calls for an international effort to alleviate the humanitarian crisis. A United Nations conference on the plight of refugees was held in Geneva in July, 1979.

Most of those entering Thailand from Vietnam today are migrant workers, however their lives and livelihood are once again threatened over the last two years by the global pandemic from which we have all felt pain. After his arrival in Thailand early in 2021, Pornchai told me that Fr. John needed to address a dental problem but he did not have the funds. I begged and borrowed a few hundred dollars to send him, but Pornchai later told me that Fr. John used it instead to buy rice for some families in far more desperate need. His Refugee Assistance Foundation struggles to support the basic needs of hundreds if not thousands of refugee migrant worker families put out of work in this pandemic.

I don’t think I have ever felt more pride and concern for a brother priest who sacrifices so much for others. From that point on, I have tried to set aside a third of any gift I receive to help support Fr. John who buys and delivers food and medical supplies. I send another third to Pornchai who lives under the daunting task of rebuilding his life after 36 years as a refugee of another sort. Here is a recent message to Father Tim and me received from Father John:

“I escaped Vietnam in 1979 and made it to a refugee camp in the Philippines where I spent three years. Thank God that I got through this journey. Today, I understand the life of the refugees here in Thailand, now made so much more complicated by the global pandemic. After my priestly ordination in 2004, I was sent to Papua New Guinea where I ministered to St. Anne parish in Dirma, Kundiawa Diocese for ten years. In 2014, I was sent to Thailand and was assigned to help Vietnamese refugees in Bangkok.

“I do not have a parish. I and another Society of the Divine Word priest rent a house [where Pornchai stayed for several months upon his arrival in Thailand]. I travel weekly to several villages and provinces where I borrow a church for Mass for the Vietnamese. Most are migrant workers who, for the last almost two years, have had little or no income due to pandemic lockdowns. I have recruited a few volunteers who help me beg, buy, collect, and deliver dried foods for migrant families to survive this long storm. When funds are available, we also provide needed medical supplies and small amounts of money for medical care. Thanks to Fr. Gordon and some of his friends who have sent funds, many struggling migrant families have been helped.”

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: I am humbled and inspired in the presence of Fr. Tim Moyle and Fr. John Hung Le. Father Tim was born in a small Northern Ontario mining community where he obtained his first university degree as a licensed clinical social worker. After working for several years in the fields of child welfare and children’s mental health, he took a leave to explore the insane idea that God may be calling him to priesthood. Though raised in a Catholic family, he had long since left his Catholic faith behind.

To his great surprise during and after seminary training, he discovered for the first time in his life a sense of being whole and complete. He put aside plans for a career in politics to live the priesthood of Jesus Christ and bring the Gospel to others.

Father Tim Moyle blogs at Where the Rubber Hits the Road.

The website for Father John’s Refugee Assistance Foundation has a Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/tuongtrotinan

Please consult our “Special Events” page for information on how to help me support the work of Father John Hung Le, SVD and our other work of mercy: helping Pornchai Moontri reclaim his life.

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“O Come, O Come Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice, Rejoice, O Israel,

To thee shall come Emmanuel.”

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Please share this post. You may also like these related posts:

BTSW  Special Events Page

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Christ the King Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary