“There are few authentic prophetic voices among us, guiding truth-seekers along the right path. Among them is Fr. Gordon MacRae, a mighty voice in the prison tradition of John the Baptist, Maximilian Kolbe, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”
— Deacon David Jones
Thanksgiving in the Reign of Christ the King
While American tradition offers thanks in the land of the free and the home of the brave, some still await the promise of freedom with a bravery found in defiant hope.
While American tradition offers thanks in the land of the free and the home of the brave, some still await the promise of freedom with a bravery found in defiant hope.
November 20, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae
Before celebrating Thanksgiving in America — even if you’re not in America — I will be asking the readers of Beyond These Stone Walls to ponder my post for next week. It has become a Thanksgiving tradition at this blog so I will post it anew on the day before Thanksgiving in America. Some readers have said that it has become a part of their own Thanksgiving observance. Its point is clear. Not everyone lives a privileged life. Not everyone even lives a life in freedom. But in the land of the free and the home of the brave, everyone can find reason to give thanks in the Reign of Christ the King.
The story next week’s post will tell is a true account of history that most other sources left in the footnotes. It is also a story that has deep meaning for us who have endured painful losses in this odyssey called life, the loss of loved ones, the loss of health, of happiness, of hope, the unjust loss of freedom. For some, the litany of loss can be long and painful, and it could drive us all into an annual major holiday depression.
It has helped me and those around me to consider the story of Squanto. History is too often passed down by victors alone. The story of the Mayflower Pilgrims who fled religious persecution (though they didn’t really) to endure the wilds of a brave new world (though they didn’t endure it without help) is well known. But it has been stripped of a far more accurate and inspiring story under its surface.
It is the story of Tisquantum, known to history as Squanto, the sole survivor of a place the indigenous called “The Dawn Land,” now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts. Having been chained up and taken on an odyssey of my own, I found very special meaning in the story of Squanto’s quiet but powerful impact on American history. So will you.
If you have followed our posts, then you know that a spirit of Thanksgiving has been elusive for us behind these stone walls. But with a little time and perspective, my friends here and I find that our list of all for which we give thanks has actually grown in size, scope, and clarity.
From the earliest days of BTSW since its inception in 2009, we have tried to live within a single core principle. I first discovered it in the classic book by Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Beacon Press 1992). It promotes a fundamental truth about coping with life’s litany of loss with a central liberating theme: “The one freedom that can never be taken from us is the freedom to choose the person we will be in any circumstance.”
In Frankl’s own words, his story of survival in Auschwitz, the darkest of prisons, was in part inspired by the same person who inspires us. Saint Maximilian Kolbe was a prisoner, but he was first and foremost a Catholic priest who survived heroically by giving his life to save another. “Survived” might seem a strange word to use. Father Maximilian Kolbe was murdered, his earthly remains reduced to smoke and ash to drift in the skies above Auschwitz.
But he survives still. I am certain of this. The Nazi commandant whose power over others extinguished countless lives is now just a footnote on history. I don’t even know his name. But Saint Maximilian lives forever among the communion of saints. He lives in mysterious communion with us behind these stone walls with the same truth that inspired Victor Frankl to survive Auschwitz and write his own story of survival:
“We must never forget that we also find meaning in life even when confronted by a hopeless situation. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential to turn a personal tragedy into a triumph. When we are no longer able to change a situation … we are challenged to change ourselves.”
— Man’s Search for Meaning, p. 116
A friend recently sent me a revision of the famous “Serenity Prayer.” It struck me as an awesome truth and I reposted it a while back in another post, God, Grant Me Serenity. I’ll be Waiting. I find myself sharing this revised version often now with prisoners who come to me with a litany of grief and sorrow:
“God grant me Serenity to accept
the people I cannot change,
The Courage to change
the only one I can,
And the Wisdom to know
that it’s me.”
The Folly of Living with Resentment
One of the two patron saints who empower this blog is Saint Maximilian Kolbe. I have been very much informed by the course of his life in light of his sacrifices. Today my priesthood feels meaningless unless I don the glasses that Father Maximilian wore in prison. If I cannot see what he saw, then what I suffer is meaningless and empty.
But I have seen it. You may recall our post just a week ago, “Thailand’s Once-Lost Son Was Flag Bearer for the Asian Apostolic Congress.” You may have noticed the top graphic on that post. My friend, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, was wearing a very special shirt sent to him in Thailand by one of our readers. It says “Without sacrifice there is no love.” The quote is attributed to Saint Maximilian Kolbe, and the shirt is emblazoned with his Auschwitz prison number, 16670. I told Max that if he puts this T-shirt on, he will never see his life and suffering the same way again. So I marvel at the fact that he not only put it on, but he wore it for all the world to see.
Sometimes readers write to ask me how it is that I am still (relatively?) sane after 30 years of unjust imprisonment with continually rising and then falling hope. They ask how it is that I still have faith, and why I do not seem to be bitter or resentful when I write. But I HAVE been bitter and resentful about the losses and sorrows life has tossed at me. It is just that I came to recognize that living in anger and resentment is like mixing a toxic brew for our enemies and then drinking it ourselves. It is to live in a self-imposed prison, a relentless assault upon your very soul.
Once you become ready to let go of bitterness and cease to be governed by resentment, faith and hope are what grow in its place. It is like a plant that springs up from a tiny crack in the urban concrete. You simply cannot hold onto your bitterness and your faith at the same time. One of them always gives way to the other.
I find lots of inspiration for this from the readers of this blog. Consider Fr William Graham of the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota who spent eight years in exile, publicly shamed and his priestly ministry suspended. I wrote of his plight and its most recent development in “After Eight Years in Exile Fr William Graham Is Credibly Innocent.”
He had been falsely accused and cast out in 2016 after his bishop deemed a nearly 40-year-old claim against him to be “credible.” “Credible” is a vague and much abused term used in no other setting but American Catholic priesthood in the age of suspicion. As a legal standard, it means no more than the fact that a priest and an accuser lived in the same geographic area 30, 40, or 50 years ago. If an accusation “could have happened,” then it is seen by our bishops and their lawyers and insurers as “credible.”
After eight years in exile with a dark cloud of accusation hanging over his head, Father Graham was fully exonerated. He returned to ministry in the parish from which he was banished. He returned just in time to file his request for retirement and he moved on to a safer, quieter life with his priesthood intact. In spite of all that befell him, Father Graham believes that he has much to be thankful for. Throughout, Father Graham reported that he found both solace and hope in Beyond These Stone Walls, and it was a lantern during his darker times. Now he is free.
My Thanksgiving for Irony
And I am also thankful for the inspiration of irony. If you have been reading our posts all along, our stories are filled with it. Here’s a very moving example sent to me from a dear reader, the late Kathleen Riney. Kathleen was a retired nurse living in Texas. Her beloved husband, Tom, died from cancer, and Kathleen wrote that she found spiritual refuge in Beyond These Stone Walls.
Before her own death Kathleen wrote to me near the September 23 feast day of Saint Padre Pio, which is also the anniversary of my false imprisonment. I had written a post then that included the “Prayer after Communion” composed by Saint Padre Pio. I sent the post and prayer to Kathleen Riney who was caring for her dying husband at home.
Kathleen wrote that while her husband, Tom, was in the last weeks of his life, she gave him a copy of that prayer printed from that older post. The downloaded page had her name and email address at the top. She had rented a reclining hospital chair to help keep her husband comfortable. Many months after Tom died, Kathleen received this message in her email:
“Kathleen, my name is Kristine. I rented a hospital recliner. I found a paper with the “Stay With Me, Lord” prayer in the chair. I wanted to let you know that the prayer has helped me. I’m scheduled for surgery on November 1st and the surgery is the reason I rented the chair. Somehow that prayer found me and has strengthened me. I wanted to let you know that you touched a stranger in a great way!!! I will read it often. I hope all is well in your life. Thank you, Kristine.”
Accounts such as this are easy to dismiss as mere coincidence, but only if you really struggle to live life only on the surface without ever delving into what I recently called “the deep unseen” in the great Tapestry of God where our lives, through grace, become entangled with the Will of God. Padre Pio had many spiritual gifts in this life that I do not fully comprehend. I wonder if he ever thought that his “Prayer after Communion” would become like a message in a bottle cast into the sea where it would drift into the hands of someone known only to God. Here is that prayer in its entirety:
Padre Pio’s Prayer after Communion
Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You. You know how easily I abandon You.
Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength, that I may not fall so often.
Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life, and without You, I am without fervor.
Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light, and without You, I am in darkness.
Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will.
Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You.
Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love You very much, and always be in Your company.
Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.
Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I want it to be a place of consolation for You, a nest of love.
Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late and the day is coming to a close, and life passes; death, judgment, eternity approaches. It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need You. It is getting late and death approaches. I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows. O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile!
Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all its dangers. I need You.
Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of the bread, so that the Eucharistic Communion be the Light which disperses the darkness, the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart.
Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to You, if not by communion, at least by grace and love.
Stay with me, Jesus, I do not ask for divine consolation, because I do not merit it, but the gift of Your Presence, oh yes, I ask this of You!
Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for, Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit, because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more.
With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity.
Amen
This coming Sunday, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the Church celebrates a most important Solemnity. Our politics consume all the press right now, and it is unavoidable. Only one truth is necessary this Thanksgiving. No matter who we elected president, Christ is our King!
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Whether we face the aftermath of our political struggles with sorrow or joy, our coming Thanksgiving requires a heart open to grace. Here are a few posts that I hope might light that lantern:
Four Hundred Years Since That First Thanksgiving
To Christ the King Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
For Those Who Look at the Stars and See Only Stars
An MIT astrophysicist trying to reconcile science with a quest for spiritual truth wrote upon the death of his parents, “I wish I believed.” I believe he just might.
First deep field image from the James Webb Space Telescope. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA and STScl
An MIT astrophysicist trying to reconcile science with a quest for spiritual truth wrote upon the death of his parents, “I wish I believed.” I believe he just might.
July 5, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae
Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: The image atop this post is the first of many images transmitted by the James Webb Space Telescope parked one million miles from Earth in 2022 to survey the Cosmos. I first wrote this post in 2018 for an older version of this blog. It needed to be restored for our readers, but I ended up completely rewriting it. My goal was to highlight a bridge between science and faith, but some say it also highlights a bridge between life and death.
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When Beyond These Stone Walls was just a few months old back in 2009, I wrote a post about the death of my mother. It told a story about an event that occurred on her birthday a year after she died. At first glance it seemed an ordinary event, the sort of thing usually chalked up to coincidence. But its meaning and timing and how it unfolded made it an extraordinary grace beyond comprehension. It required that I set aside the mathematical odds against such a thing and see it foremost in the light of faith.
It remains to this day a pivotal moment, a wondrous event that shook my faith out of the closet of doubt where I tend to store it when times get rough — which is often. The story told in that post may shake you, too, if it hasn’t already. By that, I do not mean that it will challenge your faith. It’s just the opposite. My story lifted for me a corner of the veil between doubt and belief. So the title I gave it was “A Corner of the Veil.”
My friend, Pornchai Moontri was with me that night when the event occurred while I offered Mass in our prison cell. I asked Pornchai if he remembers it. “How could I forget it?” he said. He described it as an “ordinary miracle,” the kind he says he has seen a lot of since his eyes were opened.
I could repeat the whole story here, but it will take too long and I have written it once already. It is but a mere click away. I will link to it again after this post. You can decide for yourself whether the story it tells is mere coincidence or something more. My analytic brain tends toward coincidence, but sometimes that just doesn’t add up. This was one of those times.
I then came upon a strange little book of fiction by Laurence Cossé first published in French as Le Coin du Voile, and in English, A Corner of the Veil (Scribner 1999). It strangely fell at my feet from a library shelf after my post with the same title.
Laurence Cossé was a journalist for Radio France when she wrote this book described by Notre Dame theologian Ralph McInerney as “a theological thriller that makes a mystery out of the absence of mystery.” It is a spellbinding account of what happens to the people and institutions of Church and State when a manuscript surfaces that irrefutably proves the existence of God.
Science, religion, and politics all transform as their experts ponder its meaning and their own continued relevancy. The reader is left to wonder whether the discovery will spark a new era of harmony or launch the final battle of the apocalypse.
“Six pages further, Father Bertrand was trembling. The proof was neither arithmetical nor physical nor esthetical nor astronomical, it was irrefutable. Proof of God’s existence had been achieved. Bertrand was tempted, for a second, to toss the bundle into the wastebasket.” (p 15)
As it does for people who awaken to faith on a personal level, the discovery immediately altered the way its readers face both life and death. The transformation was astonishing. Death came to be seen, not as an entity unto itself, but as it really is a chapter in the continuity of life, of me, of the person I call "myself," integrated into the Great Tapestry of God.
I happen to know a lot of people whose experience of living is suddenly overshadowed by the prospect of dying. They have come to know that death is drawing nearer day by day. Some of them struggle. What does death mean, and why do we wage such war against it? The age of individualism and relativism distorts death into a fearsome enemy. As Dylan Thomas wrote,
“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.”
Carina Nebula image from the James Webb Space Telescope. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA and STScl
If That’s All There Is, Then Let’s Keep Dancing!
While writing this post, I received a letter from a reader in Ohio who asked me to write a note of encouragement to a friend whose death is drawing near. After a lifetime of faith, he wrote, the friend is having grave doubts and fears about the end of life and the finality of death. He is asking the age-old question put to song: “Is that all there is?”
But that is our problem. We speak in terms of “finality” as though when faced with death, all that we once believed with hope takes on the trappings of a mere children’s fantasy. I know too many people who are dying, and many of us treat it as the silent elephant in the room because we know that sooner or later we will join them just as our parents did before us. It is part of the flow of life, but we ward it off as a terror in the night. In the face of death, science alone comes up empty.
When you think of it, death is best seen as an act of love. Imagine the inherent selfishness of a humanity without death. Those we love the most in this world — those who fulfill our very purpose for being in this world — would be left out of existence if this life were ours alone to keep. But facing death with no life of faith casts both life and death into a formless, meaningless void.
I recently came across a review of a book by noted MIT physicist and astronomer Alan Lightman entitled Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine (Pantheon 2018). It was reviewed by UMass physics professor Alan Hirshfeld in “A Longing for Truth and Meaning” in The Wall Street Journal April 7-8, 2018).
In some previous science posts here at Beyond These Stone Walls, I have cited both writers for other books and articles they have written. Mr. Lightman’s book, and Mr. Hirshfeld’s review of it, both raise provocative questions about “the core mysteries of human life” and the way science explores the Universe:
“Why are we here? What, if anything, is the meaning of existence? Is there a God? Is there life after death? Whence consciousness?”
I am very happy to see science ponder these questions, but they can never be answered by science alone. It comes up short when the task moves beyond the mere physics and chemistry of life to its meaning and purpose. Consider this explanation of the self, of who and what you are as a conscious being, offered by Mr. Lightman:
“Self is the name we give to the mental sensation of certain electrical and chemical flows in our neurons.”
It is too tempting for science to reduce us to fundamental biology and chemistry, but the mere mechanics of what I am do not at all define who I am. If science is the only contribution to the meaning of life and death, then it becomes obvious why so many spend significant time in denial or in dread of death.
In his new book reflecting on the Cosmos, MIT astrophysicist Alan Lightman takes up these questions and more. Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine is a view of the world through a scientist’s lens which requires the scientist to see in it, as Alan Hirshfeld describes,
“Tangible bits of matter and energy, all governed by a set of fundamental physical laws … In keeping with his ‘Central Doctrine of Science,’ he eschews unprovable hypotheses, most significantly the existence of God and the afterlife.”
But these hypotheses are only unprovable from the point of view of science which concerns itself, as it concerns astrophysicist Alan Lightman, with matter and energy and fundamental laws. But Professor Lightman has acquired the wisdom not to stop there. His reflection on the death of his parents brings him to the “impossible truth” that they no longer exist, and he will one day follow them into this nonexistence.
Is that all there is? “I wish I believed,” he wrote. But “a precipice looms for each of us, an eventual plunge into nonexistence.” As Alan Hirshfeld described it:
“A depressing prospect, for sure, yet the inevitable judgment of those for whom religious or spiritual alternatives carry no resonance.”
Pictured: Fr. Georges Lemaître, Albert Einstein and Fr. Andrew Pinsent
Threads of the Tapestry of God
I have written numerous articles about the sciences of astronomy and cosmology, the origins and mechanics of the Universe. But these are not the only tools with which to explore the universe and measure life and death. The conclusions of science and faith are not as inseparable as science might have you believe.
I have raised this analogy before, but consider these two passages from two sources that have become meaningful to me. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 296) expresses a fundamental truth of faith God created the Universe and life “out of nothing.”
Among the many contributions of science that I hold in high regard, this is one by the mathematician Robyn Arianrhod whose book, Einstein’s Heroes: Imagining the World Through the Language of Mathematics (Oxford University 2005) draws the same conclusion. Don’t let the scientific language dissuade you from understanding this phenomenal bridge between science and faith:
“The Belgian priest and astrophysicist, Georges Lemaitre began to develop expanding cosmological models out of Einstein’s equations … In 1931, Lemaitre formally sowed the seeds of the Big Bang theory [which] showed that Einstein’s equations predicted the universe had expanded not from a tiny piece of matter located in an otherwise empty cosmos, but from a single point in four-dimensional spacetime … Before this point, about 13 billion years ago, there was no time and no space. No geometry, no matter. Nothing. The universe simply appeared out of nowhere. Out of nothing.”
— Arianrhod, pp 185-187
Reflecting on the death of his parents, Alan Lightman wrote that he wished he believed in the continuity of life after death. It could be at least a starting point that sometimes science and faith share some of the same language and conclusions about the origin of life. Faith, to have any real depth, is not simply an emotional experience to assuage our fears, but rather one arrived at also through reason. Catholicism presents 2,000+ years of faith seeking understanding, of belief built upon reason.
And sometimes reason just cannot explain away our intuition that life has an Author, and when we die, the book is still not finished. I am intrigued by Professor Hirshfeld’s use of the term, “resonance” for I have also used it in some recent posts. I have described it as a sort of echo that finds its way among the “threads of the Tapestry of God” in ways that give life meaning and purpose, in ways that connect us. One way spiritual resonance manifests itself is by giving meaning to suffering.
Consider this stunning action of spiritual resonance that was described in a post, “Fr Georges Lemaître, the Priest Who Discovered the Big Bang.” That post was co-authored by me and Father Andrew Pinsent, PhD, a priest, physicist and Director of the Institute for Science and Religion at Oxford University.
When my friend Pornchai Moontri came into the Catholic Church on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010, one of our readers, the late Pierre Matthews in Belgium, inquired rather urgently asking to stand as Pornchai’s Godfather. They visited several times. However, it was only after I wrote about Father George Lemaitre that Pierre contacted me with the staggering revelation that the Godfather of Pornchai Moontri is the Godson of Father George Lemaitre. The mathematical odds against such a “mere coincidence” are ... well … astronomical!
It is a long time since I have viewed with awe the expanse of our galaxy spanning the night sky in all its brilliance, but like Alan Lightman, I have done so, and find it unforgettable. He is on the right track, and may one day come to see that the awe it instills in him is not the awe of science alone. “I wish I believed,” he wrote. I believe he just may.
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ANNOUNCEMENT: Fr. Gordon MacRae and Beyond These Stone Walls are now featured on Gloria.tv, an international Catholic social network and a video and news sharing platform. We are honored by this invitation, and by the Catholic fidelity demonstrated by Gloria.tv. We invite our readers to support this venue by visiting and sharing our page and other content there.
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Fr. Georges Lemaître
Editor’s Note: Continue this great adventure of science and faith with these related posts:
The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
The Holy Spirit and the Book of Ruth at Pentecost
Events at the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts of the Apostles have roots deep in Salvation History. In the traditional Hebrew Pentecost, the Book of Ruth is read.
Events at the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts of the Apostles have roots deep in Salvation History. In the traditional Hebrew Pentecost, the Book of Ruth is read.
May 24 , 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae
(Note: The graphic above depicts Ruth and Naomi preparing to depart Moab to venture down to Bethlehem.)
Shannon Bream, host of Fox News Sunday, is a lawyer by training having earned her Doctor of Law degree at a prestigious Florida law school. Prior to that, she graduated magna cum laude from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, a school founded in 1971 by evangelist Jerry Falwell. Not surprisingly, Ms. Bream has been well informed by her alma mater, and has written several books with an evangelical biblical perspective. Her titles to date include, The Women of the Bible Speak, The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak, and The Love Stories of the Bible Speak.
One of the heroic women of the Biblical literature Ms. Bream wrote about in the first of those titles is Ruth, heroine of the Book of Ruth. It is a brief but remarkable story. In Jewish tradition, its author was the Hebrew judge Samuel. Although the book is descriptive of the period “when the judges ruled” (1:1), scholars have variously argued for its oral tradition in the time of the monarchy of King David (10th to 8th century BC), in the postexilic era (5th to 4th century BC), or somewhere in between the two.
The Book of Ruth tells of a family from the ancient town of Bethlehem in Judah that takes refuge in the country of Moab during a famine. While there, the sons of the Judean family marry Moabite women. When the father and the two sons die from unknown causes, the bereaved mother, Naomi, determines to return to her ancestral home in Bethlehem. She urges her daughters-in- law, Ruth and Orpah, to remain in Moab with their own people.
Orpah remains, but Ruth discerns that her duty of devotion to her deceased young husband also extends to his bereaved mother, Naomi, who is now widowed and alone. So Ruth insists on accompanying Naomi to Bethlehem. The story provides a moving quote of Ruth that over the centuries has found its way into the popular music of Christian liturgy:
“Wherever you go, I shall go. Wherever you dwell, I shall dwell there also. Your people will be my people, and your God shall be my God too. Wherever you die, I shall die, and there shall I be buried beside you.”
— Ruth 1:16-17
In Bethlehem, Ruth’s beauty, devotion and kindness soon attract the attention of Naomi’s near kinsman Boaz, (2:l-4:12). Despite the fact that Ruth is a foreigner, Boaz, a Jew, marries her, and by an act of Divine Providence she becomes the great grandmother of King David, of whose lineage Jesus was born. This is noted in the genealogy at the beginning of Saint Matthew’s Gospel. It’s an odd inclusion in the genealogy:
“... and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Raihab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the King.”
— Matthew 1:4-6
It was highly unusual for any genealogy to add the name of the maternal line in Sacred Scripture, but both Ruth and the small and inconspicuous Book of Ruth have an outsized influence and footprint on the faith of Israel and Pentecost. It is evidence of the Spirit of God guiding Salvation History across millennia. I must remember that when I am bowed low by whatever cross I happen to carry in this time. The Great Tapestry of God has threads I can only see from the back in another life.
Pentecost and a Bigger Picture
As a story, the Book of Ruth provides an account of the series of events that led up to the inclusion of a Moabite in the ancestry of King David, and one thousand years later, of Joseph, spouse of Mary, and, by extension and adoption, Jesus. The story’s emphasis on the fact that Ruth is a foreigner, her acceptance by the people of Bethlehem despite this fact, her place in the genealogy of King David, and the acceptance of the book as part of the Hebrew canon all suggest a deeper and more complex purpose.
So it comes as no surprise that the Book of Ruth is read in the Hebrew observance of “Shavuot,” known in English as the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost. It is one of three pilgrimage festivals requiring a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for its observance. In the Hebrew calendar, Shavuot falls on the Sixth day of Sivan, the day after the conclusion of seven weeks — the fiftieth day after Passover. Hence the name, “Pentecost,” from Greek, “pentekoste” meaning fiftieth day.
In later Old Testament times, the Festival of the Harvest also became associated with the giving of the law to Moses upon Mount Sinai which, by tradition, also took place on the Sixth Day of Sivan. Because of the association with the giving of the Torah, a tradition evolved among Jews to honor Shavuot with an all-night vigil called the “Tikkun for Shavuot Eve.” It included readings from the first and last verses of each weekly Torah reading, a selection of Psalms, paragraphs from the six Orders of the Krishnah, a list of the 613 precepts of Moses, and the Book of Ruth.
It was for the observance of the Hebrew Pentecost that Mary, Mother of the Lord, and the Apostles were present in Jerusalem for the events that would become the Christian Pentecost (Acts 2: 1-47) the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of Jesus. It was the descent of the Holy Spirit among them. It was the birth of the Church.
When Beyond These Stone Walls began in the summer of 2009, I had no idea that I would still be writing posts from prison for it in 2023. I wrote about many things, but a priority for me was to write posts about Sacred Scripture with a focus on some of the Sunday Gospel readings which many readers seemed to like.
But I have run into an unforeseen problem. I have tried to research and write special posts at major feasts such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost but in 2023 I am faced with writing about the same Scriptures again and again. I do not have the luxury of looking out at a congregation gathered for Mass to adjust the length of my homily by the number of people I see yawning or dropping off.
Writing at Pentecost has been one of my biggest challenges. For one thing, Pentecost always comes at or near the anniversary of my priesthood ordination which I also feel obliged to mention in a post. It would be an insult to Catholics if I ignore my own ordination. In 2022, Pentecost fell on June 5th which was also my 40th anniversary of priesthood. So for the first time I combined the two subjects into one post. The next few paragraphs are an excerpt from “Forty Years of Priesthood in the Mighty Wind of Pentecost”:
It is interesting that the word for both wind and breath in Hebrew is ‘ruah,’ and the term in Hebrew for the Holy Spirit is ‘ruah ha-Qodesh.’ It simultaneously means the Spirit of God, the Wind of God, and the Breath of God. The same term is used in the story of Creation (Genesis 1:1-2) :
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God, ‘ruah ha-Qodesh,’ was moving over the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2)
And the term was used again in Genesis 2:7 as God breathed the Spirit into the nostrils of Adam, and again in the Resurrection appearance of Jesus to the Apostles, “He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (John 20:22)
When I look back on forty years of priesthood, most of them in exile, imprisoned souls were reached through no merit of my own. In spite of myself, the Wind of God took me up in its vortex, and I am simply blown away by it.
The Great Gifts of the Spirit
“Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”
— Peter at the Institution of the Eucharist, Luke 22:33
In Genesis 11:1-9 is related the story of a great tower erected in the land of Shinar in Babylon. The great Tower of Babel was left unfinished because Yahweh confounded the speech of the builders so they could not comprehend each other. The city was thenceforth called “Babel” which is the etymology of our word, “babble,” a term for incomprehensible speech. The story was an imaginative attempt to account for the origin of the diversity of languages.
The tower is today recognized as a “ziggurat,” a towering pyramid of successively recessed levels of stone. For the Babylonians, its purpose was ceremonial as a “cosmic mountain,” symbolic of the Earth itself. Its height was seen as a way to God as described in Genesis 11:4, a tower that “could reach to the heavens.”
As in many such stories, there is both a literal history behind it and an interpretation of it in the mind of the Ancient Near East. The tower became in time the story of God’s scattering of the human race into diverse languages. The story of Pentecost in Acts 2:5-12 has “men from every nation under heaven” in a multitude that came together and were bewildered as each heard the witness of the Apostles in their own languages.
They were “Parthians and Medes, Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and Libya, and Cyrene, and parts of Rome, Jews and Greeks alike, Cretans and Arabs.” They were the known world of that time, all the nations of Northern Africa and the Middle East surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, literally the Sea of Middle Earth. Each heard of the mighty works of God in their own languages (Acts 2:5-12). For some, it was an answer to the divisions of our Babel-ing.
But others only mocked, accusing the Apostles of drunkenness: “they are filled with new wine.” Then came the great discourse of Peter (Acts 2:14-36) which began with a spirited defense of the Apostles:
“Men of Judea, and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words. These men are not drunk as you suppose for it is only the third hour of the day.” And then Peter spoke from the Prophet Joel, and in the end, a great multitude came to believe and were received into the Church.
This was Peter filled with the Spirit and fortitude, the same Peter who, just 54 days earlier at the Last Supper vowed to the Lord that he would go with him to prison and to death. It was the same Peter who just a day later fell to the lower depths of Golgotha to deny three times that he even knew Him.
In my life as a priest, the wind of Pentecost has been more like a Category Five storm than the gentle breeze of the Spirit I once envisioned priesthood to be. After graduation with a double major in psychology and philosophy from St Anselm College in New Hampshire in 1978, I enrolled in a four year post-graduate degree program in theological studies at St. Mary Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland from 1978 to 1982. Summers and between semesters were spent in a three-year counseling internship for the Baltimore County Police Crisis Intervention Unit. It was an education in human suffering.
One of my seminary professors was a young priest named Fr Ronald Rolheiser, OMI, a popular Catholic author who taught courses in Scripture and spirituality. Forty-one years later, just as I started this post, I discovered Father Rolheiser again in the pages of Give Us This Day, a monthly prayer and liturgical guide published by Liturgical Press in Collegeville, Minnesota. He had a brief reflection on Pentecost that I have been trying to decipher. Here is a segment:
“The Christian paschal cycle has five distinct moments: Good Friday, Easter Sunday, the Forty Days, the Ascension, and Pentecost. These were five moments in Jesus’ life as he moved through his death, his resurrection, his forty days of post-resurrection appearances, his ascension, and his sending of the Holy Spirit. ... The five interpenetrating moments in Jesus’ life that stretch from Good Friday to Pentecost invite us to always: Name your deaths; Claim your births; Mourn what you lost; Don’t cling to what you had but let it ascend. If we do this, Pentecost will happen in our lives. We will receive a new spirit for the life that we are, in fact, living.”
— Fr Ron Rolheiser, OMI, “Pentecost Will Happen”
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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this Pentecost post with its challenges to let the Spirit of Truth and Grace dwell within us. You may also like these related posts:
Forty Years of Priesthood in the Mighty Wind of Pentecost
Priesthood, The Signs of the Times and The Sins of the Times
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Please note that Pentecost ends the Easter Season. We will be removing our Holy Week Retreat as a menu option, but we will include it from henceforth as a Library Category of posts. It was well received among readers, and I thank you.
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Personal Intention from Fr Gordon MacRae: May 24, 2023 marks one year since the tragic losses of life in Uvalde, Texas. Please pray for the people of this deeply wounded community and for the healing of this community's broken hearts.
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Our Adoration Chapel founded by Saint Maximilian Kolbe will remain at Beyond These Stone Walls. Jesus came to us through Mary, and now we may reciprocate. Thank you for spending time in Eucharistic Adoration. Please also offer a prayer for me because I am the only one among us unable to see the Chapel.
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
For Pornchai Moontri, A Miracle Unfolds in Thailand
For a Thai citizen ID, Pornchai Moontri was brought to the place of his birth in Kong Kaen, then to Nong Bua Lamphu and the home and family he last saw 36 years ago.
Divine Providence: Pornchai Moontri was brought to northern Thailand for his Thai ID, and then to Nong Bua Lamphu and the family he was taken from 36 years ago.
I hope you have read Pornchai’s first guest post from Thailand, “Free at Last Thanks to God and You!” This unbelievable story of grace and Divine Mercy now seems to be just beginning long after I thought it was coming to an end. But before I delve into that, I need to comment on the photo atop this post.
To formally welcome Pornchai to Bangkok, Father John Le, SVD and friends treated him to a cruise on the Chao Phraya River, a shipping lane that runs through the center of Bangkok and is the port city’s lifeline. There is a wonderful, painful, seemingly miraculous story that was set in motion just after this photo was taken at the end of February, 2021.
Pornchai’s return to Thailand after a 36-year absence was coordinated by Yela Smit, a Co-Founder of the Catholic apostolate, Divine Mercy Thailand. Yela had worked out a plan with me for Pornchai’s housing after his release from the required hotel quarantine. However, just before being released from his gruesome 5-month ICE detention to travel to Thailand, our longer term housing plan fell apart due to illness.
As soon as that happened, Father John Le offered sanctuary to Pornchai for a time of adjustment and discernment. Father John is a Vietnamese priest and a member of the Missionary Society of the Divine Word. His principal ministry in Thailand is the resettlement of refugees. Though this change in plans seemed to be by “accident,” Pornchai could not be in better hands.
On March 29, 1973, after the U.S. signed the Paris Peace Treaty with North and South Vietnam, the last U.S. troops left Vietnam. The Paris Accord did little to end the bloodshed after the departure of American forces, however. The continued presence of North Vietnamese soldiers in South Vietnam dissolved the cease-fire agreement. Without the presence of U.S. troops, thousands of refugees fled South Vietnam and a looming communist slaughter. Many fled aimlessly in small, crowded boats. John Le, at age 15, was among the famous “Boat People” who shook the conscience of the Western World.
Father Le knows painfully well what it means to be a displaced person. I was deeply grateful when Yela told me that he and his religious community stepped up to offer sanctuary to Pornchai. I had the task of telling Pornchai about this by telephone while he was still trapped in ICE detention. I remember telling him that often such a sudden change in plans is divinely inspired and becomes a source of grace.
I had no idea then just how prophetic those words would become. The story that follows is just the latest thread in the tapestry of extraordinary graces in the epic Divine Mercy story of Pornchai Moontri.
A Return to the Painful Past
In a telephone conversation with me just before Pornchai’s flight to Thailand, Father Le said that Pornchai must obtain his official Thai citizen ID which he would have received at age 16 had he been in Thailand at that time. He said he would drive Pornchai eight hours north of Bangkok to the City of Khon Kaen where his birth records are located. From there, Father Le said, they would go further north to the Province of Nong Bua Lamphu.
Father John said that his Order sponsors a home and clinic there for Thai children suffering from HIV. I was shocked by this, not by the nature of this much needed apostolate, but by the location. It was from that very place that Pornchai was taken at the age of 11 and brought to the United States against his will 36 years ago. This is an incredibly painful memory for Pornchai, and among the most traumatic times of his life. Most readers know by now the full story of all that happened after, but if you have missed it, please don’t. The story is told at “Human Trafficking: Thailand to America and a Cold Case in Guam.”
Having been abandoned by his parents at age two, Pornchai was hospitalized with malnutrition. His mother had left Pornchai and his brother to go to Bangkok to find work. She was a mere teenager herself at the time. Bangkok is nine hours away by car, and she did not drive. No one knows how she got there. But once there, Pornchai’s mother, Wannee, fell under the control of a most evil man, Richard Bailey, an American and former helicopter pilot in Vietnam. Bailey took Wannee to the United States in 1978.
They settled in Bailey’s home town of Bangor, Maine. Bailey knew that Wannee had two small sons living with her family in Thailand, but he had no interest in them until they were ages 11 and 13. He then sent Wannee to Thailand to retrieve them. If you have read the above article, then you already know all that happened next. Pornchai was victimized in unspeakable ways, and forced into homelessness at age 13. Living on the streets with no parental guidance or assistance, he became embroiled in a drunken struggle at age 18, and went to prison.
While awaiting trial, Pornchai’s mother came to visit him. Sent by Richard Bailey she was instructed to warn Pornchai of what would happen to her if Pornchai told the court the truth. This compelled Pornchai into silence and he refused to offer a defense. After the trial, Bailey relocated with Wannee to the U.S. territorial Island of Guam. Six years later, in 1998 Wannee gained the courage to leave Bailey and confront him with what he had inflicted on her and on Pornchai and his brother. She filed for divorce. The Guam court ordered Bailey to pay her a settlement sum of $1,000 per month and half the sale of their jointly-owned home in Guam. Wannee then returned to her family in Thailand to attempt to rebuild her life.
Pornchai was in his sixth year in prison in Maine at that time. Back in Thailand, Wannee had begun to have a home built on a small parcel of land she owned in Nong Bua Lamphu. She was counting on funds ordered by the Guam court to complete the home that she intended to live in with Pornchai upon his release from prison. In 2000, when it became clear that Bailey simply ignored the court restitution orders, Wannee returned to Guam to seek their enforcement.
But before her return, she visited Pornchai in prison. She told him that she was living back in Thailand building a home for them both, and she apologized for the years of disbelieving him when he told her the truth. She said she was on her way back to Guam to seek the funds needed to complete the home. Pornchai never saw his mother again. The 2000 Guam autopsy report concluded that she had been beaten to death. Her death remains a “cold case” homicide despite new evidence that has not been investigated by Guam authorities who to date remain silent.
The Odyssey Runs Full Circle
After applying for Pornchai’s official Thai ID in the City of Khon Kaen, Father John Le drove him another 90 minutes to Nong Bua Lamphu. The home Pornchai lived in as a small child had been destroyed and another rebuilt on the same site. Over his absence of 36 years, the village of small farms and rice paddies had grown into a more modern town. Nothing was recognizable to Pornchai, but just being there held him spellbound.
Having lost his mother to Bangkok and Richard Bailey at age two, Pornchai had also lost all memory of her. Growing up in Nong Bua Lamphu, he came to believe that his Aunt MaeSin was his mother. MaeSin was 36 years old when Pornchai was removed from her home. She is 72 today. Pornchai also has a cousin there who was 15 when he last saw her. She is 52 today. Before leaving Nontha Buri with Father John, Pornchai and he located his cousin and called to tell her he is back in Thailand and will be coming to visit. He had no idea what to expect and neither did his cousin or aunt. His family there did not know about all that had happened to Pornchai beyond the mere fact that he had been in prison in America.
Father John took a photograph of their reunion, captured below. A lifetime of loss and sorrow for both was suddenly transformed into a moment of great joy. I cannot begin to describe the cascade of emotions Pornchai experienced in this photo. I have been talking with him by phone at the end of each day, and walked with him through these overwhelming events.
But our story gets even more overwhelming. Pornchai learned that his Mother’s remains had been returned to Thailand and were interred in a nearby Buddhist Temple cemetery. Pornchai and Father John went there and Pornchai offered prayers at his Mother’s tomb and that of his grandmother, whom he remembers with great fondness and deep respect. Pornchai has allowed us to share this sacred moment.
I called Pornchai at 10:00 PM Bangkok time at the end of his first day in MaeSin’s company. She had suggested to Pornchai that he sleep in the house next door which was empty. MaeSin does not speak English and Pornchai last spoke Thai at age eleven 36 years ago. Love, even after decades, speaks its own language, but some details became lost in translation. When I called Pornchai, he was sitting in the empty house that his mother was having built. It had sat empty for 21 years since her death in Guam.
When Wannee left Thailand to visit Pornchai in prison in 2000 and return to Guam to confront Richard Bailey about the court’s terms, she had no idea that she was going to her death. The house she was building in Nong Bua Lamphu still contained all her personal belongings. When I called Pornchai late that night, he was sitting on the edge of his bed, overcome with emotion while surrounded by his Mother’s meager Earthly possessions. Her clothes were still in the closet and dresser. A photo of her with Priwan, Pornchai’s older brother, was on the nightstand. Pornchai had not yet been born.
Pornchai sobbed as he sat amid the wreckage of a life — his own as well as his Mother’s. It took me a moment to connect the dots and realize where Pornchai was. The emotional impact of it struck me like a thunderbolt. Pornchai is still processing all this. So am I. I told him that Divine Providence brought him to that house to honor his mother. And so he must.
I think a lot about Wannee. She had no one to protect her in life but there is much we can do for her in death. I believe that she is precious in the hands of God whose Providence has led us all to this moment. I remain deeply troubled by the unfinished business on the Island of Guam where authorities have been unresponsive to new evidence and our inquiries. These latest events are for me a wake-up call reminding me that the odyssey of Pornchai Moontri, though having run full circle, remains incomplete.
Father John Le left Pornchai in Nong Bua Lamphu for a week while he attended a meeting with his Order. On Sunday, March 7, Father Ben, a member of the order, was sent to pick up Pornchai at MaeSin’s home and take him to a nearby Catholic Mass, his first entirely in Thai. On March 12, Father John returned to accompany Pornchai on the nine-hour drive back to the Divine Word Mission in Nontha Buri.
As we wander among these dangling threads behind the Great Tapestry of God, please pray for Pornchai that he will be strengthened in his faith as he confronts the brokenness of his past.
As for me, I have been privileged to walk with Pornchai through the wreckage left behind by someone else. At this juncture, I can only borrow from the great Robert Frost in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. I cannot yet retreat from this.
“I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: We would be in dire straits right now without Father John Le and the Society of the Divine Word who now comprise our boots on the ground in Thailand. I am deeply moved by their amazing support of my friend at this critical time. If you wish to help, please see our “Special Events” page.
And please share this post, and these related posts referenced herein:
Free at Last Thanks to God and You!
Human Trafficking: Thailand to America and a Cold Case in Guam
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When Justice Came To Pornchai Moontri Mercy Followed
Clare Farr, a Western Australia trademarks attorney, read about Pornchai Moontri at These Stone Walls and set in motion a Divine Mercy saga spanning five continents
Clare Farr, a Western Australia trademarks attorney, read about Pornchai Moontri at These Stone Walls and set in motion a Divine Mercy saga spanning five continents.
Introduction by Father Gordon MacRae
The following is a guest post by Clare Farr, a registered trademarks attorney in Western Australia. Clare is partner with her husband, Malcolm Farr, principal of the Farr Intellectual Property law firm near Perth. She is the mother of five young adults. In 2003, while reading These Stone Walls, Clare and Malcolm immersed themselves, entirely pro bono, in the cause of Pornchai Moontri.
Clare, especially, served as a bridge to find and cultivate essential contacts for Pornchai to secure a future in Thailand, and to seek justice for him in the United States. Without Clare Farr’s assistance, this story I told in “Pornchai Moontri: Bangkok to Bangor, Survivor of the Night” could not have come entirely to light.
Please share Clare’s amazing account of Divine Mercy that connects people on five continents for a story that Pornchai Moontri once summarized in a single sentence: “I awoke one day with a future when up to then all I ever had was a past.” It is an honor to present this guest post by Clare Farr.
When Justice Came to Pornchai Moontri, Mercy Followed
It was in about the year 2010 when I first read about the plight of Fr Gordon and his cellmate, Pornchai Moontri. The more I read about Fr Gordon, I became convinced of his innocence and outraged that this holy and devout Catholic priest could be sent to prison given the paucity and quality of the evidence against him.
Many people including highly regarded journalists and lawyers find this case very troubling yet the higher ups in the Diocese of Manchester, government lawyers, politicians and those in the judiciary must have very thick skins and are prepared to let this case rest and turn their gaze the other way. They must rest their laurels on the fact that the “legal system did its job.” Well, it didn’t — it was an abysmal failure. Quite frankly, the outcome is deeply unsettling and a blight on the justice system of the United States.
The Fr Gordon MacRae that I have come to know is a man of tremendous intellect and wisdom who counsels and shares his insight and understanding of the Catholic faith to the many among his global readership as well as his fellow prisoners in the New Hampshire Prison for Men. He is just about as fine a priest as I have ever known, and the way that he has been treated by the Diocese of Manchester and many other Catholic priests is quite disgraceful.
Before the commencement of MacRae’s trial, he was not given any chance to respond to the allegations against him, yet the Diocese issued a press release in which it stated:
“The Church has been a victim of the actions of Gordon MacRae just like these individuals…”
If the Church believed Fr Gordon was guilty — what was a jury to think? The trial was compromised before it even began — sabotaged by the Diocese of Manchester.
Three years ago Bishop Libasci wrote to me “…please be assured that both my predecessor and I have understood and fulfilled our obligations as bishops with respect to Father MacRae’s rights under civil and canon law”. At the time of the press release, Bishop Leo O’Neil was the head of the diocese and he was not Bishop Libasci’s predecessor but rather, one of his predecessors. However, the upshot of acts undertaken during Bishop O’Neil’s term as Bishop have had a never-ending adverse impact on Fr Gordon and this should be acknowledged and addressed by his successors.
I’m certainly no expert on canon law though I as far as I know canonical equity dictates that there must be a balance between the spirit of the Gospel and the salvation of souls. I fail to see how doing nothing to address past wrongs done to Fr Gordon, including but not limited to dealing with Fr Gordon’s incarceration as a live issue (which is partly the Diocese’s own fault) and the payment of a regular stipend, has met these requirements.
Whatever Fr Gordon’s fate is, there is one thing for sure: when he passes on to the next life he will be greatly rewarded for all the good he has done in his life. Similarly, those who have lied about him, who have persecuted him or who have added to his misery and his circumstances will also have to stand before the Creator and account for their actions — or inaction. Heaven help them.
Bangor, Maine
A Stranger in a Strange Land
In late 2013 I chanced upon an article about Pornchai Moontri by Charlene Duline, “Pornchai Moontri is Worth Saving.” Charlene was pleading for anyone who could advocate on behalf of Pornchai, so I contacted her. I thought that even though I live in Western Australia, I might be able to help somehow. At that stage Pornchai had been in prison for more than 20 years. There was no question that he was involved in the death of Michael Scott McDowell and that a jury had found him guilty of murder. I knew that he was far from a model prisoner at the start of his sentence, but that he had a remarkable conversion to the Catholic faith and that he had achieved an abundance of qualifications in prison. Indeed, he seemed to be a model prisoner.
From everything I had read about Pornchai and the trial, and from all that I have come to know about this story, it seems that a 45-year sentence is grossly excessive. Pornchai had unsuccessfully appealed the sentence decision many years ago — so it seemed that the only recourse for him was to petition the Governor of Maine to exercise clemency for his release from prison. After a great deal of research into Pornchai’s life, in March 2015 we submitted a petition to the Governor of Maine seeking an order of executive clemency. In October 2015 it was rejected.
Pornchai has never had an opportunity to tell a court about his life and what led to his conviction. He has never really told the full story, some of which he did not even know about — but I know it. Father Gordon knows about it too and wrote much of it in these pages last week. What follows is the story that I want to emphasize, so here goes…
Pornchai was born to a family in Thailand and at age two he and his brother were abandoned by both parents and raised by their maternal grandparents for the next 9 years. With them, he had a wonderful family life and he and his brother were happy and well looked after. With their mother absent for so long, they came to believe that their aunt was their real mother. Pornchai was much loved by his mother’s family.
When he was 11, his mother, Wannee came to retrieve the boys. She told them that she was their mother and that she was going to take them with her to live in America, and that they would have a good life with her and her new American husband, Richard Alan Bailey. Within two weeks of arriving in Maine, Pornchai was violently sexually abused by Bailey. Wannee had unknowingly married a sexual predator and the two brothers became his victims. Pornchai ran away from home but was returned home by the police. He tried to tell them what had been happening but he couldn’t speak English and they couldn’t understand him, so he was returned to live in the home of his abuser. He had only just turned 12 years of age. It was December of 1985.
Pornchai was unable to tell his mother at that time because Bailey had threatened what would happen if he told anyone. About a week later he did tell her about the abuse and her reaction was to refuse to believe him and to punish him for telling lies. The abuse was ongoing, and Pornchai ran away again and again until eventually he had no home to return to. He became a homeless teenager on the streets of a foreign country. For several years he was in and out of juvenile detention centers, stayed when he could in the homes of friends, lived in a treehouse, under a bridge and found shelter wherever he could. He was often forced to steal food to survive. Eventually the court would punish him with detention and other penalties. He spent time in juvenile detention facilities and he had some counselling. At these facilities he formed good relationships with a lot of people but there was always some bullying and racial vilification by other students and with the emotional baggage that he was carrying, sometimes it was all too much to bear and he would become enraged. Eventually he was expelled from the school when he acted up against this abuse.
At two separate juvenile detention facilities he disclosed the abuse by his stepfather. His teachers and therapists believed him and reported the allegations to their superiors. Referring to the abuse allegation, one 1988 report to Child Protection stated:
“….Totally destroyed boy’s faith in family — mother made aware — did nothing. Boy began to habitually run away — Boy terrified father will take out some type of revenge on mother.”
When Pornchai was still living in Bailey’s home, his mother felt too threatened by Bailey to believe her son’s story of abuse. She then became especially hostile to him, called him names and lashed out at him in a number of ways. His home life had become highly dysfunctional and his mother was also physically and emotionally abusing him and telling him that she wished he hadn’t been born, most likely as a symptom of her own frustration and anger in living in a highly toxic environment with a violent and abusive man.
Eventually Wannee did accept that he told the truth but notwithstanding, she put much pressure on Pornchai not to discuss the abuse with anyone. She was living in fear herself.
After his expulsion from the Goodwill Hinckley School shortly before his 18th birthday, Pornchai tried to lead a normal life and get a job, finally finding work as a bus boy with a chain restaurant, but he was fired because he couldn’t provide a residential address which had been a condition of his employment.
As he lived on the streets and had received threats, he began to carry a knife for protection. At 18 years of age and after becoming very drunk one night, he went with his friend Danny Williams to a supermarket. There he got into an altercation in the parking lot. When tackled by a much larger and heavier man, in a reflex reaction he pulled the knife and Michael Scott McDowell died. It was unintentional, but nevertheless it was a terrible action for which an innocent man died. For the last 26 years Pornchai has carried with him the life of the man who died and after his conversion prayed diligently for his soul.
Whilst there is no excuse for the death of Michael Scott McDowell — I ask the reader to consider that moment when Pornchai, a small and light framed 18-year-old was tackled by a much heavier built man. Given his history of sexual assault by an older man — isn’t it just possible that mixed up with the distress of the moment there was the revulsion and terror of having a large man pin him down and take control of him? I can definitely see the connection and understand why using a knife in these drunken circumstances would have occurred.
While he was in prison and awaiting trial, Wannee visited Pornchai and pleaded with him not to mention the sexual assaults in court, as she would suffer at the hands of Richard Bailey if he did so. Against legal advice, Pornchai, fearing for his mother’s safety, refused to present any defence at trial.
In the sentencing phase of the trial, Bailey had written to the trial judge on behalf of himself and Wannee and essentially blamed Pornchai’s situation on him getting in with a bad crowd and his difficulty in adjusting to life in America. He wrote:
“As a father, who is prejudiced by love for his son, and also a former law enforcement officer that a lengthy sentence for such a young man would not serve the State of Maine, the McDowell family, or Pornchai Moontri.”
That’s about as kind as he had ever been to Pornchai. He has never once visited him in prison, has written only one letter to him and even then, he merely apologised to Pornchai for being so hard on him. He has never provided any material support for him since Pornchai was arrested.
Wannee divorced Bailey in 2000. By that time, she and Bailey had relocated to Guam where they owned property. They agreed on a division of assets and court orders were made including an order that their home be sold. In February 2000 Wannee returned to Guam in order to confront Bailey about delays in the sale of the home and the payment of monies which he was supposed to pay her. Not long afterwards, Bailey reported her missing from their isolated home in Guam and the following day he reported that he found her body. Her autopsy report and death certificate note that her death was the result of a homicide. No one has ever been charged for her death.
On the night she went missing she telephoned her niece and told her that Bailey was in a rage and that if she didn’t return from Guam, it meant she had been murdered. Prophetic words…
Under the court orders Bailey was to pay certain money to Wannee beyond April 2000. It appears that the administrator of Wannee’s estate was not aware that Bailey still owed money to the Estate so the debt was not pursued. At the time of her death Pornchai was in prison so there was no one around who would have known about the court orders other than Bailey.
Following a police investigation and grand jury indictments, in early 2017 Bailey was charged with 40 counts of Gross Sexual Misconduct. The victims were Pornchai and his brother Priwan.
Knowing that there has been a criminal case against Bailey has been difficult for Pornchai over the past few years because he has had to relive the past, give statements and go over things again and again. Thank God that his cellmate is Fr Gordon MacRae who provides spiritual advice and good counsel. Fr Gordon has had a huge positive impact on Pornchai’s life. Without his continuous efforts to pursue justice and for Pornchai’s story to be made known, the truth would never have come out.
In March 2017 the Bailey case went before the Superior Court of Maine, and following a number of arraignments, the matter was before the Court September 11, 2018. On that date, Bailey formally entered a plea of nolo contendere — his attorney indicated that Bailey denied any wrongdoing but that he would not contest the charges and agreed to be sentenced by the court. The Victims Impact Statements of both brothers were read to the court and the judge was quite shaken and deeply moved by the statements. The case was adjourned to the following day, September 12.
As is common in the US legal system, the Office of the District Attorney had agreed on a plea deal with Bailey’s attorney which provided for a suspended sentence of 17 years with a probation period imposing strict conditions — but the length of such probation had not been agreed upon. However, the judge found Bailey guilty on all 40 charges and imposed a longer suspended sentence of 18 years, the whole of which would be subject to very strict probation conditions. It appears that the judge had to take Bailey’s claims of poor health into consideration (he is four years older than Fr Gordon), but also the impact of a trial on both brothers. At the hearing, Pornchai’s brother was quite visibly distraught. Despite there being no prison term for Bailey, I think that justice has been served in this case. The judge was obviously more than satisfied that Bailey is guilty and ordered a longer sentence on probation than in the plea agreement that was submitted to the court.
The Divine Mercy Redemption
Over the past few years, myself and others have been planning what happens with Pornchai when he is eventually deported at the end of his sentence. Then out of the blue, a wonderful lady from Bangkok named Yela Smit contacted Fr Gordon to find out how she could help. Yela was the co-director of the Divine Mercy Apostolate in Thailand. She has since gathered a lot of support for Pornchai and offered practical assistance. We have spoken a number of times on the phone and I distinctly remember her saying to me “He’s going to have a wonderful life in Thailand, he’ll wonder why he ever stayed so long in America”. Yela’s input was invaluable. Knowing about Pornchai’s conversion and his Marian consecration — to find Yela was a Godsend as are her friends, Khun Peter in Thailand and Viktor Weyand, an American travel agent. Viktor was a co-founder of a Divine Mercy orphanage and school in Thailand, and two years ago travelled to Thailand for the priesthood ordination of the first resident of the orphanage. Viktor has since become a very dear friend to Pornchai, and he and his wife have visited Pornchai at Christmas time.
In “A Stitch in Time: Threads of the Tapestry of God”, Fr Gordon wrote about this amazing tapestry where the lives of people from all over the world touch each other, and I am proud to have been part of it. Fr Gordon wrote:
“This story now connects people on five continents who have no obvious connection beyond their interest in Pornchai’s life and their immersion in the work of Divine Mercy.”
People from around the world have all used their skills and life experience to help Pornchai, all being driven and guided by Heaven. We all had an important part to play and we did what was expected of us.
Pornchai’s story is a great story on so many different levels. It is a story of faith and Divine Mercy. It’s a story of great tragedy followed by a dramatic conversion, a Marian consecration and a faith filled life. It’s the story of a young agnostic child in Bangkok who became a truly holy and devout man with hope for tomorrow and who survived the most brutal prison life. He is not just prisoner number 77948 — he is a truly remarkable and unique man who will give witness and glory to God.
It’s also a story of the power of prayer and of Divine Providence. None of us could have achieved anything without help from above. All of you who have prayed and fasted and given practical assistance to Pornchai and Fr Gordon are also a very important part of the tapestry. Without faith and prayer, nothing would have been achieved. So, consider it a collective effort guided by the Lord with a lot of help from Our Lady. All of the key players who have and are helping Pornchai have a connection with Divine Mercy and are Marian devotees and we all came together to help Pornchai.
Fr Gordon has spoken about Fr Seraphim Michalenko’s involvement in Pornchai’s life. Several years ago, a friend asked me if I wanted to go to a talk by a visiting priest to be held at the home of a friend in the Perth hill in Western Australia. I had never heard of the priest before but knew that he was going to give a talk on Divine Mercy. His name was Fr Seraphim Michalenko. At the talk I found out more about St Faustina’s revelations and of the two miracles that led to the canonisation of Faustina. I even had a private chat with Fr Seraphim.
In the 2014 post, Fr Seraphim Michalenko on a Mission of Divine Mercy, Fr Gordon told us that the Felix Carroll book, Love Lost Found – 17 Divine Mercy Conversions with its chapter about Pornchai was sent by Fr Seraphim to Yela Smit in Thailand. That’s how Yela became involved. Another Divine Mercy connection is that Fr Seraphim was the director of the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and he has been a visiting priest to the chapel of the New Hampshire Prison for Men and has also participated in a Divine Mercy Retreat at the prison. What are the odds that I would ever meet Fr Seraphim? — and the fact that he has a connection to Pornchai and Fr Gordon is amazing. The tapestry Fr Gordon wrote about gets more amazing by the day and I know that I will never know the full extent of it.
Pornchai will probably be in prison until at least the first half of 2021 when he will be eligible for release and once released he will be held in detention by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. He will then be deported to his native Thailand because he is not an American citizen.
Pornchai has made the most of prison life and has received a good education and has many vocational skills. He is not bitter at all. As for his thoughts on Bailey — when asked by the Assistant District Attorney if he wanted Bailey to go to prison — Pornchai said to her, “No, I don’t want him to go to prison — I just want him to know that what he did was wrong.” Awesome! I don’t know if I could utter those words if I was in Pornchai’s position but whilst old memories will always be there, he has forgiven Bailey. He looks back on the past with great sadness, but doesn’t dwell on it and he has great hope for the future. It will be a culture shock to return to a country where he no longer speaks the language but he has new friends to meet and a career to begin.
Many people have prayed for Pornchai and continue to keep him in their prayers. Without a doubt this has helped him enormously and God’s providence has also rained down upon him.
Please keep him in your prayers and pray that he will transition smoothly into Thai life, that he will forge a good career that will make him financially independent and that he will truly find peace.
And continue to pray for Fr Gordon MacRae who in my eyes is a living saint. Without him, his tenacity and unwavering efforts to help Pornchai, this story would have never come to light.