December 16, 2024, by Peter Tan, Chair, USCCA Board of Directors
I was shocked to learn that Fr. Larry Lewis, M.M., died on November 29, 2024.
I met Fr. Larry over 20 years ago when he gave the homily on Mission Sunday at Ascension Chinese Church in Houston. It was a coincidence that I decided to attend Mass there because I had a lunch appointment in nearby Chinatown on Bellaire Blvd.
He spoke about Maryknoll's Formators Project. We were able to chat after Mass. His words stayed in my heart and made me fall in love with the Church in China. Twelve years later, around 2015, with a few local Catholic friends inspired by Fr. Lewis, I started a similar, but much smaller, project in Houston. We felt that Houston could do our part to help the Church in China.
The Holy Spirit Chinese Education Foundation (formerly the Spiritan China Education
Foundation for Advanced Formation) raises money to support priests and religious sisters from China who want to study at the University of Houston or the University of St. Thomas. After graduating with a Master’s Degree, they return to China, better equipped with learned skills to perform their ministries. We will support two sisters and a priest in 2025.
This love for the Church in China also led me to participate in the activities of the US-China Catholic Association (USCCA). In 2019, I was elected to the Board of Directors. In 2023, I was elected Chair of the Board.
It is an understatement to say that my life completely changed after meeting and listening to Fr. Larry's sermon. Years later, I met him several times in New York. Once, I even tried to "very strongly encourage" him to come to Houston to be pastor at Ascension Chinese Church, which did not have a pastor at that time.
I will always cherish the memories of this remarkable servant of God. Fr. Lewis, may you rest in the Peace of our merciful Lord.
Peter Tan
Chair,
USCCA Board of Directors
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Recommended by USCCA.
Set against the tumultuous backdrop of contemporary China, Larry Lewis’s autobiographical The Misfit tells a moving story of how God breaks through the aridity of human hearts and how healing occurs in the midst of the everyday.
Father Lewis, a Maryknoll missioner, was estranged from himself, his church, and his Maryknoll colleagues when he accepted an assignment to teach English to Chinese students in the interior Chinese city of Wuhan.
It was a year before the now-infamous massacre of Tiananmen Square.
Larry Lewis, MM, with a doctorate in spirituality from Duquesne, is rector of seminarians at Maryknoll. He is in demand internationally as a speaker and spiritual director.
Source: Orbis
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Also, recommended by USCAA
By Larry Lewis, M.M.
Sunday, November 20, 2022
Samuel 5:1-3; Psalm 122:1-2, 3-4, 4-5; Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43
A Maryknoll Society member reflects on the unconventional kingship of Jesus and the readings for the Feast of Christ the King.
"Light amidst darkness . . . strength manifested through weakness . . . blessed are the sorrowful . . . life through death . . . these truths are the cornerstones of our faith, so it should not come as a surprise that on the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe the gospel presents Jesus Our Lord and King of the Universe nailed to a cross, writhing in pain, mocked, ridiculed, misunderstood, bloody and bruised, crowned with thorns and, save for his mother, his dear friend and a few women, abandoned by those he trusted with his love and hope. And still he was identified by the soldiers of that day and by a 2,000-year-old Church as king."
Read the entire sermon here.
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