Showing 1 - 10 of 10
Opening doors for the ordinary
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 15/04/2021
» To kick open the door only once -- and it stays open. That's what our Mercy Centre and Human Development Foundation does.
Jesus in Klong Toey
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 25/12/2020
» Baby Jesus was too young to travel but there was no choice. It was either life or death. His parents -- blessed Virgin Mary and carpenter Joseph -- had to run from the bad guys. It was either flee or die. The angel had jarred Joseph awake in a vivid no-nonsense dream saying that they are going to kill baby Jesus and that means you and his mum too because we angels know you will give your lives defending infant Jesus.
From the muck andback into the muck, with a different purpose
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 01/06/2020
» It began with a slaughterhouse alumna of our oldest slum kindergarten. She's a young mum now and a heroine in our war on Covid-19. But just a short time ago, she was in a spot of bother. In fact, several spots of bother.
Christmas Letter 2019
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 25/12/2019
» Along with revered legends like the Archangel Gabriel, who appeared to the Virgin Mary to ask if she would be the Mother of Jesus, we hold dearly to the Star in the East.
Moonshine Mum
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 04/11/2019
» It wasn't a big jump off Three Soldiers Bridge, maybe 3m, but no matter. She couldn't swim. When you can't swim, any jump into a canal is dangerous.
Magic in the name game
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 21/10/2019
» Most folk around here believe in the power and sacredness of a given name. And maybe that's how Master Ohm survived on pilfered leftover noodles -- by the sacred power of the sacred name pounded into him by the nasty but pious noodle lady who works from a stall parked next to the sacred shrine.
Keeping the dream alive
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 22/04/2019
» When Granny ordered her daughter and her daughter's "live-in" to move out of their Klong Toey shack, there was no wiggle room for argument and debate. To emphasise this point, Granny had a long pistol, the trigger of which she had never in her life pulled, but a gun, nevertheless.
Hope and sorrow
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 04/03/2019
» For several years a five-year-old girl we call Miss Ice lived in a shack with her 25-year-old HIV-infected, tuberculosis-sick mum and three stray dogs no one ever bothered to name.
From low to high
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 12/11/2018
» Seventeen years ago, Mum gave birth to a healthy son in a provincial prison hospital two hours outside of Bangkok. She named her son Ake. To avoid the nightmare of trying to remember who might have been the actual father of her child, she had blessed him with her own last name.
School of redemption
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 22/10/2018
» Long ago, on their way home from the slum slaughterhouse, a half-dozen Klong Toey lads stopped in at a new neighbourhood "beer hall" to enjoy a pint. It was three in the morning and they had just finished butchering their night's quota of pork.