An ordained moment for the unordained

Under a makeshift white and blue tent in the shadow of his devastated church, Father Luke Nguyen, pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Lafitte, delivered his Sunday Mass homily regarding the mystery of human suffering by asking several of his 30 parishioners – the diaspora of Hurricane Ida – to stand up and tell their stories.

For the unordained, it was an ordained moment.

One by one, as Father Luke called on them by name, they rose individually and talked about where God was right at that instant, in their pain and anxiety, with the smell of swamp muck wafting inside the tent and mounds of neighbors’ possessions piled up on the shoulder of Jean Lafitte Boulevard.

Jerry Victoriano, St. Anthony’s former pastoral council president, pointed over to the parish’s CCD building 30 feet from the tent, where the lower 48 inches of water-soaked Sheetrock was being stripped out and the room cleaned to provide an emergency food and supplies shelter for those in Lafitte who had lost everything.

The goods had come from as far-flung places as Tennessee and Kentucky. Forty members of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints from Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Texas were busy shoveling out debris and mopping the floors.

“You don’t know how close people are to cashing it in,” Victoriano said, looking over at the emergency center. “Do we ask the Lord to lighten our load and never let this happen again? It’s going to happen again. So, what I learned is, ask God not to lighten your load but to give you a stronger back so that you can carry that load.”

Lydia LeBlanc, wearing a T-shirt and sandals, told a story of getting her feet caked in mud as she swept out the inside of church property in the early days of recovery.

“A man came to me,” LeBlanc said. “My feet were dirty and blistered. And he lowered himself and cleaned my feet. And my thought was, ‘Jesus did that, and we were the disciples.’ And that’s what we are here for now, to bring everybody back. And this community will make it. We will because we’ve done it before. That church is us, and we don’t have to have a building.”

Deacon Ted Cain drew on the Mass’ second reading, in which St. James writes that “faith without works is dead.”

“I have seen so many people just show up and give to us,” Deacon Cain said. “It just blows my mind and sends chills down my arms because we didn’t ask for it, we didn’t tell them we needed it. I saw several loaves of bread and packs of tuna, and it reminded me of Father’s homily about the loaves and fishes. The Lord provides.”

Victoriano said those hurricane victims who have been knocked off their feet know the truth about the essential goodness of humanity.

“One thing I’ve learned is when you watch this ‘cancel culture’ on TV, and they’re trying to tell us that people are inherently bad,” Victoriano said. “No! They can’t see the good that is in everybody.”

Ricky DiMarco, a member of the Knights of Columbus of Immaculate Council 4222 in Marrero, interacts regularly with fellow KC members at St. Anthony’s for gumbo fundraisers. He came to Lafitte thinking he might stay one day to distribute food but felt compelled to return, day after day, for two weeks.

“We saw what it was – it’s not giving out food, it’s giving out hope, it’s giving out the assurance that there is another day,” DiMarco said. “There’s going to be a bond here that’s forever lasting.”

Father Luke was just 11 when he and his family escaped Vietnam and came to the U.S. in 1975, first living for eight years at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas and then eventually studying for the priesthood and being ordained in 2002. He was a parochial vicar at Mary Queen of Vietnam in New Orleans East when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 and the Vietnamese community bonded together to recover and rebuild.

Offering hope to the hopeless is a sacred mission, he said.

“The church should be the center of the people,” Father Luke said. “The church should be a place for shelter and comfort for the people. The church should be a place where people find peace and rest and prayer. Where else can they turn but the church?”

Another kind of homily was being proclaimed inside the emergency supply center.

In the place where Roman Catholic CCD classes are held, David Hall, the leader of the nine congregations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in southeast Louisiana, was talking about why he and his flock would be volunteering to help people they don’t even know.

“Is this not what we are supposed to do when people are struggling, when people are going through tough times?” Hall asked. “This is where we’re supposed to be. This is what God has asked us to do.”

Proclaim the Gospel. Use words only when necessary.

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