July Drinking Companion
Oh my! So many I have connections with this month, it’s midmonth and I’m just now writing about someone. I was really close to doing St. Ignatius of Loyola, who was an amazing saint. He founded the Jesuits, and it’s a Jesuit priest who brought coffee to Colombia, this months coffee. In addition they are the ones who evangelized the church, during challenging times of the counter Reformation along with many great schools that have been built under their patronage. Ignatius despite being a giant is small in comparison to St. Justin de Jacobis for me personally.
Who? St. Justin de Jacobis, remember him, we can all learn from him, and The Traveling Shepherd truly lives by this mans patronage, in adapting, and assimilating to a culture. You see, the Latin side of the Catholic Church has a tendency to impose the Latin tradition on the Christian people very often. It’s like Arabic in Islam, and Hebrew in Judaism, it’s the language of the Church and has a 1500 year tradition. What the church often fails to remember however is Jesus, a Jew, who spoke Hebrew, taught in Aramaic, the language of the people during his time. From there the gospels and evangelist always taught in the tradition of the people, assimilating and respecting the culture they evangelized. It’s often why the Church is accused of paganism, because the Catholic Church is quite tolerant in many respects to others and their traditions throughout history.
This brings me to Justin. He was sent to evangelize Ethiopia, but the Orthodox Church and Ethiopian people were quite hostile to the Church. This is a common experience since the schism, the first split in the Christian Church, that led to the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church to be defined for the first time respectfully in 1054 AD. Justin realized, imposing Latin on the Ethiopian culture wasn’t going to work. Previously Roman priest were ran out of the country for trying to do so. Instead he learned about the culture and lived among the people to the point where this Italian was often mistaken for a local Ethiopian. He even designed a liturgy, which is now the liturgy of the Eastern Catholic Eritrean people. They came back into union with the Church after Eritrea gained it’s independence from Ethiopia.
I’ve learned a lot from Justin in my personal work, which is what led me to truly embrace doing coffee. If I was going to make a connection with people, to encourage them, how could I do this? Coffee! Everyone drinks coffee (and tea if you’re American ;-] lol jk), and everyone has their own tradition and preference on making it from country to country. I saw this roaming the universal church (visiting 500-1000 churches so far), that coffee too was universal. What better person to use, but an Ethiopian saint, home of where coffee and my concept began. This is what Catholic means as well, universal/whole. I decided to start learning the whole tradition of coffee, and now I experience the joy of connecting with someone.
Today was a perfect example. We had some of our house painted. The man is from Bolivia. I promised him I would get some Bolivian coffee for him this week since I was out at the moment. He then asked if I had Costa Rican, because his wife was Costa Rican. I ground a bag on the spot for him, and sent him home with something to enjoy with his wife on his Sunday off tomorrow. This is joy, the little things. This is what the Church/Jesus truly wants of us, appreciate the little things, we are truly blessed.
In close I had another amazing moment. In thanksgiving to my friend and his Eritrean priest, who always welcomed me into their community, I wanted to do something special for them, but didn’t know how. Then one day I reached out to my friend who is a Vincentian. This is the religious group St. Justin was apart of, and my friend was in Philadelphia, who I often visited when I was dating my wife. He was very encouraging for me as well when a friend of mine and I were in dark times. I asked my friend if he knew how to get his hands on a relic of St. Justin for me. I shared I wanted to give it to the Eritrean community since they didn’t have one. My friend said I know just the person, and with in weeks I had a 1st class relic of St. Justin, it’s literally a piece of his bone. As Catholics we reflect on Elisha’s bones/relics that brought a man back to life (1 Kings 3:21). We believe and literally see the saints do the same in sharing God’s grace with us through their relics, just as Elisha’s did. St Justin de Jacobis, pray for us, that we may all learn each others tradition, and grow in respect of each others traditions and culture.
This was the night of my first Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony. We had 12 people gathered round a table, from all different backgrounds and faiths. It was truly a Last Supper vibe, sharing a meal. The cover photo was the night we gave the Eritrean priest the relic for the people of his communities in Atlanta and Charlotte.