7th Ordinary Sunday Homily - the challenge to forgive

Father AJ's sermons follow closely a set pattern and the mass readings of the day. He will begin the mass with a statement about the overall theme of the readings and develop it during homily, starting with the first reading until the gospel, with the occasional quote from the responsorial psalm. Father will finish off with several action points, and sometimes a closing prayer.

He definitely prepares well for his homily, and never gives the impression he is "winging it". However, it is not always easy to give him the deserved attention, given that many are post-prandial at 1pm, and his accent and delivery style is not the easiest to follow..

Today's readings begins with the dramatic scene from 1 Samuel. David manages to infiltrate Saul's camp and has the opportunity to kill the sleeping King Saul, who is hunting him down. David resists the assassination, and only takes Saul's spear and pitcher, which he uses to demonstrate his sincerity in seeking reconciliation between the two of them.

The subsequent readings and psalm builds on this theme of compassion, with the gospel exhorting us to "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly." (Luke 6:27-28).

Jesus throws down the gauntlet to his disciples and us. This challenge to believe and act in diametric opposite to our instincts and societal expectations is a difficult one to truly accept and carry out. Each time I hear this gospel reading, I feel a resistance to this call.

The consequences of such actions done in the right spirit are hard to predict, as God truly works in mysterious ways. This "life is stranger than fiction" story goes to show that what some people really need is just a little love and care. 

Congenital Hand Surgery talk at 28th SSHS HRC and ASM

I had the privilege and pleasure of being invited to give the Congenital Hand Surgery talk at the 2019 SSHS Hand Review Course and Annual Scientific Meeting. My involvement with the society goes back to when I was a young registrar in the early 2000s, and I feel a strong attachment to the society. It is gratifying to see the society and annual meeting growing in size and strength over the years.

This is the first in a few years we had a "stand alone" meeting without an international society. In 2017, we had a joint meeting in Singapore with the ASSH. Being just our society meeting, the format reverted back to the one and a half-day schedule we usually had in the past.

The scientific committee included many younger hand surgeons in the teaching faculty for the review course. I fully support this effort by the SSHS to engage the younger surgeons in the activities of our society.

My talk was the last of the meeting on the second day as part of the hand surgery symposia. I remember my time as a trainee listening to and trying to absorb as much as I could from the lectures at Hand Review Courses in the past. Because the program is very packed, there is too much information to absorb. Tina Lee, who is my team senior resident now, commented at the end of the first day that it was difficult to stay focused after the second slide. I have been there and completely understand what she feels.

For my talk, I provided a link to the slides in the beginning of my talk to allow the trainees to have a chance to view the slides in tandem with my talk, and to use them as a resource for their own review later on. The original link I provided was to the PDF in my Dropbox, but I just uploaded the slide version onto slideshare, which I also embedded below, so that a larger audience can find and access it.

Teemu's paper: Flap Related Complications Requiring Secondary Surgery in a Series of 851 Local Flaps Used for Fingertip Reconstruction

This paper is published in Journal of Hand Surgery Asian Pacific.

It was a long time in the making, starting when both Teemu and Kin Ghee were in our department.
Teemu takes big credit for having the tenacity to keep at it, with several rewrites and resubmissions.

https://doi.org/10.1142/S242483551950005X
https://doi.org/10.1142/S242483551950005X

Catholic Saints and Popes

How many saints are there in the Catholic Church?

This question came to me as I was reading an article about the making of the Catholic Encyclopedia.

I soon realized I was asking the wrong, or at least inadequately framed question. What I wanted to know was how many Saints have been officially canonized by the Catholic Church.

I was a little disappointed to find out that there is no certain number to this. While the more recent canonizations are well documented, the Saints in the early church did not have to go through such a rigorous process, not were these canonizations recorded.  Saint Ulrich from Augsburg is the first saint canonized by a pope in 993.

Saint Ulrich from Augsburg (picture in public domain)

A search shows an estimate of about 10,000 saints, although references are not provided. Some early saints may have been historical legends rather than real people, and even a dog has been venerated as a saint.

The number of popes is more certain. Pope Francis is the 267th Roman Catholic pope in a lineage that can be traced back to St Peter.

While the canonization process has been streamlined in recent years, leading to larger numbers of new saints in the church, the number of papal saints is a rarity nowadays compared to the early church. 

The Articella

The Articella (Little Art of Medicine) referred to a collection of medical texts that became the medical canon in the medieval period.

Compiled by the Salernian school,  it included both classical texts translated into the Latin and Constantine's adaptation of  Liber ysagogarum of Joahannicius, from Salerno itself. This collection resulted in a set of texts that though diverse in origin, provided a coherent codex of medical thought of the day.

First eggplant fruit

After many months and plenty of flowers ....

Round eggplant

Sometimes, a little benign neglect and time works. I haven't much time to work on the garden, and its been hot and dry. When I checked on the plants this morning, I was happy to see the two eggplant plants growing well. They are bushier and flowering well, and seeing this fruit was a big bonus. I am looking forward to more.

With the hot weather, the tomatoes are languishing though ....

A little learning is a dangerous thing

The title is a well known quotation from Alexander Pope.

I have known and used a modified version of the quotation, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" for many years, but only recently looked up the origins of the quote. Set in its context, the quotation is more instructive:

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again. 

The single line has always sounded akin to an admonishment to me, but in its fuller form comes across as sagely advice.

A short article explains the etymology of the quote.