![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/85\/2010\/05\/China_Monumentis_qua_sacris_qua_profanis_by_Athanasius_Kircher.jpeg\" "\\"China_Monumentis,_qua_sacris_qua_profanis_by_Athanasius_Kircher\\"")
<\/a><\/div>\nYou may remember my friend named Wu Li, SJ.\u00a0 I introduced him to you in a post <\/a>a few years back.Wu died as a Jesuit priest in Macau in 1718.<\/p>\n There is something about departed Catholics and me. I\u2019m like Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense<\/a>, or something. Except I don\u2019t really see<\/em> dead people. But I make friends with them so maybe they might be saints.<\/p>\n You see, this isn\u2019t the first time I\u2019ve been befriended by a Catholic who is no longer with us.\u00a0 The first time it happened, it was my buddy Blaise Pascal <\/a>shaking me awake. Once he got my attention, he was like Mariano Rivera and his splitter. Like Mariano, he has only one pitch, but it is unhittable. So I stopped trying to beat him, and figured I would just run away.<\/a> But Blaise wouldn\u2019t allow it.<\/p>\n I thought<\/em> I was running away, but it turned out that Blaise had just shoved me toward the next long-departed Catholic that I would call friend: Thomas \u00e0 Kempis<\/a>. After I got to know Thomas, I realized quickly \u00a0resistance was futile<\/a>. If you can\u2019t beat \u2019em, join \u2019em. And I was all for joining them because we all had the same thing in common: a deep and abiding love for Jesus Christ. He is who He claims to be: the Way, the Truth, and the Light.\u00a0 Then I met Thomas Merton<\/a>, and I couldn\u2019t get to the Army of the Lord\u2019s<\/em> recruiting office fast enough.<\/p>\n Since I became a Catholic, I have been meeting great people left and right. Some are here on the planet with us, some are not. But many of them are alive with the love of Our Lord and Our God.\u00a0 And all of them are alive to me.<\/p>\n Which brings me back to my friend, Wu Li. I wasn\u2019t looking for any more friends, thank you very much. But, like when I was in the Marines, sometimes you make a friend from \u201cout of nowhere.\u201d A person who, back in the civilian world you might not have even given the time of day to.<\/p>\n That must have been how Wu felt about me. For some strange reason that I cannot comprehend, this genius of a painter and poet befriended little ol\u2019 me. And I count myself blessed as a result of his kindness. And he wants you to know him too because, ultimately, his conversion to Catholic Christianity proves the veracity of the Way.<\/em> Wu is saying, \u201cIf you think it feels good to be my friend, surely being called \u2018friend\u2019 by Christ is even more amazing!\u201d And, I think I can speak for Wu, this is the realization of the depth of love that God has for us; that He became one of us and as such provided the path to allow every one of us to become like Him.<\/p>\n That fact of our faith is enough to leave me speechless and awestruck. I suspect it had the same effect on Wu. After hearing of the Heavenly Learning<\/em> from the Jesuits who shared it with him, I imagine he sat down on a rock to ponder it all. And as he thought about it, he remembered his near-misses with Neo-Confucianism, Buddhism<\/a>, and Taoism. He pondered how all of those where good in some ways, but still lacking in others.\u00a0 So at 49 years of age, he came to believe that the Way<\/em> was what these others weren\u2019t\u2013he came to believe that the Way, the Truth and the Life<\/em> were the real McCoy.<\/p>\n Much later, long after the honeymoon period of his conversion was over, he sat down somewhere and wrote these lines. With these few words, Wu speaks volumes.<\/p>\n Lamentable<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Human life, disorderly! So hurried, the parting of death;
\nMen grieve at poverty, low station,
\nnot that they lack the Way!<\/p>\n
\nit waits not for teeth loosening,
\nhead turning completely bald.<\/p>\n