Hers is ministry to community in pain. (Mary Blatz, pastoral
director at Mount Caramel Cambodian Catholic Church in Long
Beach, CA)(Ministries)
National Catholic Reporter
Vol.33 No.12
Jan 24, 1997
p.15
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COPYRIGHT @ 1997 National Catholic Reporter
LONG BEACH, Calif. -- For Mary Blatz a day of ministry could mean
anything from advocating against welfare cuts at a community
meeting, to analyzing the nightmares of people who saw their
families slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge, to a shopping trip with a
struggling seamstress to Chinatown's fabric shops, to playing games
with local youngsters who call her "the lady who loves kids."
For all practical purposes, except for administering sacraments,
Blatz is the priest at the Mount Carmel Cambodian Catholic Church, a
tiny, lay-run parish located south of Los Angeles in Long Beach. Her
assignment as pastoral director here is one few clergy would -- or,
because of language limitations, could -- rush to take.
With the urgings of two bishops, the parish wooed Blatz from New
York and a teaching position at Columbia University's American
Language Program almost five years ago.
She arrived in Los Angeles in 1992 two weeks after the riots that
followed the Rodney King verdict. Living and ministering with two
others in an intentional community, Blatz tries to live the example
of Christ among Long Beach's 50,000 Cambodian refugees the largest
concentration of Khmer people outside Phnom Penn, most of whom are
Buddhists.
Hers is a ministry to a community in pain, to a people who watched
thousands die, including half of the Catholics and nearly all of the
priests of their country, during the bloody reign of the Khmer
Rouge. Hers is a presence in a community for which, as she says,
"life hasn't been normal since 1970."
"What these people went through was a holocaust.... All of them were
persecuted.... Then they had years in the (refugee) camps. Maybe 25
percent came with some education that could have a bearing on their
situation here. There are no reserves in this community. It's a
completely new immigrant population," Blatz said.
Here the reality of the cross provides a daily backdrop for a
journey of faith lived in community. aWe are walking through the
pain. That's Christian life. It's exciting. There is a resurrection.
There is some way. But you have to walk through the pain," Blatz
explained.
At Mount Carmel, this way of evangelization is traveled in very
small steps. The first step was "presence and friendship" -- the
three women living together in the house that once served as a
rectory. From there they facilitated the formation of a core base
community of 10 families, drawing 100 or so people for worship and
lectionary-based sharing. That life of faith has since dovetailed
with a life of action. aWe are trying to move from being an
emergency to being a mission. A lot of basic groundwork has to
happen," Blatz said.
But before that foundation can emerge, the Cambodian refugees must
heal from their trauma so they can reconstruct bonds of trust. This
collective pain has forced the women to design new models of
ministry.
"They don't like meetings, for example, because (in Cambodia) they
worked 16 hours a day (in labor camps) and had four-hour meetings,
only four hours of sleep. They are not interested in church
organization through meetings," Blatz said.
It has also taught these ministers profoundly Christian lessons.
"You have to understand how to forge an accepting community. Here we
are challenged to the ultimate to understand about forgiveness."
Blatz said that a community model of worship is essential to the
psychological and spiritual health of the refugees. "The whole
objective of the Khmer Rouge was to strip them of their culture and
identity. So this community needs to exist as a community. When
people are told just to go to the pews, it is not effective," she
said.
Blatz, raised in a large Irish-German Catholic family, who holds a
graduate degree in pastoral ministry and catechetics from the
international institute Lumen Vitae in Belgium, has also learned
about Buddhism. "Religious dialogue with the Buddhists is important.
People don't want to be separated from the Buddhist community," she
said.
Blatz learned about being church and creating community during the
30 years, off and on, that she attended St. Mary's Parish in
Coltsneck, N.J., a congregation widely known for progressive
community (NCR, Oct. 18, 1996). "That parish was different. When you
went on Sunday, you were really fed. There was always something you
could be involved in," she said. Service to refugees in New Jersey
and later in refugee camps in Hong Kong and Indonesia led her to the
Cambodian people.
She said she remembers the day they phoned her at her parents' home
about the L.A. job. "My mother shouted, `Mary, there are two bishops
on the phone for you,'" Blatz said.
That's when a unique form of ministry began. "When I came here ... I
tried to be quiet. I knew I couldn't be a splash in the Cambodian
community, that it had to be a quiet and warm entrance. I knew I
wouldn't know what to do, but here were three empty and warm
buildings where I had to be a spirit."