BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS from "Uncle" Fr. Joe Maier, C.Ss.R. at 82
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November 16, 2021Dear Everyone,
It’s been 82 years now since my Baptism. Over 50 years as a Redemptorist Catholic priest – known as ‘the slum priest,’ or ‘the Catholic Slaughter House priest,’ an honorable life-time in the Buddhist Klong Toey River Slum of Bangkok. Walking carefully on rickety wooden walk-ways hopefully showing honor and dignity to all I meet, as I think Jesus and His Mother Mary would.
Me, a stranger, not born here, accepted, tolerated by the Buddhist and Catholic poor, where I have stumbled along those slum walk-ways and through the Slaughter House. A salvage place drenched in mercy where only the lowest level of Thai society lives and works. Where our Catholics butcher pigs and water buffalo.
The only way I saw possible to show that honor and dignity, as our Blessed Mother, Mother of Jesus also told the children of Fatima, was: ‘go learn to read and write.’ Go to school. So, how to do that with Slaughter House children, whom everyone looked down on – avoided. There were no schools available for ‘unwashed’ children and their ‘unclean mums and dads.’ Can’t send the children away. We didn’t have any money anyway. So…start school right then and there. Yes, why not. Clean the place up.
Move the pigs out. Move the kids in. Began a school in an open pen beside the pigs and water buffalo. Everyone agreed. Who needs to ‘go uptown’ to a nice government or rich Catholic School, be scorned and bullied because they ‘dress poor, talk poor slum talk.’ We don’t need money. We don’t need ‘permission.’ We just need kids who want to learn and moms and dads who want a future so their own children don’t have to grow up butchering pigs and water buffalo.
The solution was easy. Almost. Use a pig pen. A couple mums could read and write. They would be our teachers. So we began. And in a week our Slaughter House kids have their own place to read, write and pray. Everyone in the slums agreed. No loss of face. No loss of dignity. It’s been that way, now, it seems, forever. Fifty thousand kids have ‘graduated.’
Now, it’s the poor who have taught me to be a proper priest-- someone whom they, our slum Catholic and Buddhist and Muslim neighbors can ‘show off.’ Be proud of – tell their friends about. To be both dad and mum; “Uncle Joe” to all the children, especially those who have made the street under bridges or abandoned buildings, their homes.
And we always say: That’s okay, but only for a while. Let’s go to school first. And now on my 82nd year, all of you have given me the greatest of all birthday presents: You have said – once again – ‘Uncle Father Joe, You are welcome.’ And to quote from that movie: Tea is at 4:00 p.m. and the door is always open and you need not knock.
And so this short note to all of you. I thank you for being part of our family. The greatest gift I could receive, I have been given. ‘We love you Uncle Father Joe. We will always take care of you, as you have taken care of us.’ And the sound of that six-year-old boy still is music in my ears. An orphan of so many years ago: ‘Uncle Father Joe. I can write my own name.’ Amen.
That was yesterday. Today is exciting. We all look forward to tomorrow. My birthday present has been the best anyone could hope for. You, the kids, so many of you now grown up, all come back home to the slum where you began and say: "Uncle Father Joe. We love you. We have come home to you. We are always here for you when you need us."
Happy Birthday Blessings to you all.
