Hello friends,
And, welcome to the latest installment of this blog.
For this particular segment, I would like to discuss the purpose and theme of this year’s Khoa Tinh Huan.
Khoa Tinh Huan (KTH) is a spiritual retreat held every year by Lien Doan TNF, typically on the weekend after Thanksgiving. Many have come to associate KTH with the initiation of new HTs, but the main focus of this retreat is to develop the spirituality of our organization’s current and future leaders. It’s a time to rediscover and strengthen our commitments to God. It’s a time to understand why we are Thieu Nhi Fatima.
So, let’s dive straight into it.
This year’s theme was — “Go in Peace”.
Although I do not remember it being explicitly mentioned throughout the retreat, this theme was actually chosen in commemoration of the Angel of Peace’s appearance at Fatima 100 years ago.
The phrase seems pretty straightforward in itself, but at the same time, it might be difficult to explain in words what it means to do so.
The word “peace” is often used in many secular (nonreligious) contexts, yet we do encounter it regularly throughout our faith. Here are a couple places you might have heard it mentioned:
1) In the Beatitudes, Jesus underlines peace as an important virtue that all Christians should strive towards.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God” (Mark 5:9)
2) In the tale of the sinful woman, a weeping villager falls before Jesus as he eats at the table of a Pharisee. She allows her weeping tears to fall upon his feet, wiping them with her hair, and anointing them with precious perfume.
“And Jesus told the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace’ “ (Luke 7:50)
3) Peace is one of the major themes of Advent, the period in which we anticipate the coming of Christ, our Savior. We progressively light the candles on the Advent Wreath to signify our efforts. We bring positivity in the form of hope, love, peace, and joy iso that we might be worthy of God’s love.
4) We greet each other in Mass with “Peace be with you”, a reference to Jesus’s greeting to his disciples following his resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.
5) The concluding rites of Mass each week call us to “Go in Peace, glorifying the Lord by your life!”
Peace is all around us and is an important part of our relationship with God. It reminds us of good, tranquility, comfort, contention, silence, positivity, happiness, and love. The feelings ascribed to peace are the very same ones we use to describe our God. They are everything that we strive to complete ourselves with. They are all the things we try to pursue in our lives.
Yet, peace is not always easy to acquire, much less retain for long periods of time. As we move through our daily lives, chaos and evil are all around us. They are the ugly, the problematic, the drama, the sadness, the anger, the inconvenience— the conflicts. They are what stand between us and our peace.
Peace and conflict are both internal and external. Both describe how we feel about ourselves and our standing with others.
They both play a large part in our lives, but our need for both are not the same. There is no one that truly desires the negativity of conflict in their life. Although it might serve as temporary motivation at times, nobody ever wishes to swim in it.
When we cannot find peace, we cannot find God.
Over the course of this weekend, I asked everyone to think of ways in which they might bring peace to their life and the lives of others.
While there are many things out of our control that we leave to God, we do have a significant influence over the way we live our lives. We are by no means powerless beings! We must learn to pursue peace with all that we have.
One hundred years ago, the Three Children of Fatima were met by the Angel of Peace and Our Lady, because even those that are so young and small can effect change in the hearts of humanity. She asked them to pray, and sacrifice their livelihoods so that peace throughout the world might become a reality.
We are Thieu Nhi Fatima, because that too is our calling.
We do big things in small ways.
We are ready to give everything for our kids, so that they might live their lives close to God.
I became a Huynh Truong because I wanted to give our kids the love that I constantly yearned for as a child. Peace is not something that we can always find on our own. We need the affection and guidance of our mentors to help us!!
Someday, you will all be that person to our kids. Until then, I will never abandon you.
Go in Peace, and glorify the Lord by your life.
Anh Peter
