I was born in 1953 to Jackie Lee (Chinese) and Shelia Fraser Thompson, in Rangoon, Burma. My father died when I was 5 and my mother subsequently remarried to Chen You Main. We were four siblings to my father and additional five to my stepfather. At 13, I joined the Diocesan Minor Seminary where I studied for four years. After high school I studied Law and pre-medicine. I made my choice to study Burmese Traditional Herbal Medicine, followed-up by Chinese Acupuncture. I completed all my studies in 1978. I then started to practice medicine and my first patient was a young boy named Timothy, age 14, who had leukemia. I asked for the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary for a cure as I treated him with some herbs for six months. Timothy is still alive and is now 44 years old, working as a farmer in a village not far from the capital of Rangoon. My family has had a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother Mary, through the Rosary and the novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. She has never refused any of my petitions for my family, friends, and especially for my patients with cancer, AIDS and diabetes.
In 1983, I joined the Focolare Movement as a volunteer. The same year, I moved to Taiwan and continued with my medical practice in a Chinese Hospital in the evenings, and served as a health officer in the Dominican International School at Taipei during the day. There, I first met a Carmelite priest, the school chaplain, Fr. Henry Muscat from the Province of Malta. He was such a jolly and good-natured person, making everyone in the school happy. His character and personality attracted me to inquire what made him so happy every day. That was the beginning of my Carmelite vocation. But I was then very active at the Focolare Movement, faithfully participated in all their activities, the Mariapoli annual gatherings, and the monthly sharing of experiences of unity with my volunteer cluster group in Taipei.
In 1989, I went to the Focolare Training Centre in Loppiano, Firenze, Italy where I met the foundress, Chiara Ljubich, who, in one of her meditations, mentioned St. Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle. When I traced the origin of it, I discovered that it was from the Carmelites. When I got back to Taiwan in 1992, I approached Fr. Henry Muscat and gathered more information about the OCDS and OCD way of life. At his suggestion, I joined the OCDS and I was with them for five years. In the meantime, I frequented his office every Saturday after the Mass at the school chapel to learn more about the lives of the Carmelite saints and the spirituality. The saint that most attracted me was St. Therese of the Child Jesus with her doctrine of the little way and her total confidence in God. I was also attracted to St. John of the Cross’ path of nada and todo, and his divine union spirituality. I was also attracted to St. Teresa’s bookmark, “Let nothing disturb you… God alone suffices”.
In 2002, having been overworked in the school and in the hospital, I decided to take a break and open up my private clinic. To my surprise, instead of getting rest, more patients crowded at the clinic that I even had to extend clinic hours to Sundays and to midnight to serve the third-shift factory workers.
In 2004, when I was in the peak of my fame and wealth, an “atom bomb” dropped from heaven when a banner appeared to me on which was imprinted the phrase “The Last Call”. What a shock it was! I tried to ignore it but it reappeared over and over until I became restless. I began to pray more intensively for the grace of enlightenment. In some Masses, the Word of God would become so alive that on hearing certain passages or words, tears would begin to roll down my cheeks. As time passed, it became more serious that I had to close my clinic and enter into the solitude in prayer and fasting. The gift of tears was incredible; never had I experienced such in the past, not even when my parents died.
On March 19, 2004, while I was praying the rosary after the Mass, I heard a voice from the depths asked me, “Don’t you want to become my spiritual physician?” I wondered if God was asking me to upgrade my status from a physical physician to become a spiritual physician. But I answered, “Lord, I am not worthy. It is you who is healing all the patients. I am only your poor little instrument, without you I can do nothing, and I am nothing without you.”
On the last day of my solitude, I dreamed of St. John of the Cross, so pale and weak, carrying a white cross, St. Teresa of Jesus, with a manuscript and a pen in her hand, looking at me very seriously, and St. Therese in her childhood dress of age 8, running across, smiling and waving at me as if she was telling me, “Don’t be afraid, follow my little way, have confidence in God and love will spring from your heart… to love, to love all. Know that your vocation is to love, nothing else.” And the three of them vanished from my dream.
On March 5, 2005, one week after I arrived at the OCD Formation House in Singapore, I had another dream wherein Jesus’ whole body was burning in flames of fire, carrying a burning cross, climbing towards a red hot lava flowing down a mountain. I wondered if that mountain was the Mt. Carmel in St. John of the Cross’ Ascent of Mt. Carmel. I meditated on the meaning this dream for about a week, and I understood that my call to the Carmelite vocation is not going to be an easy one. But I am not afraid because I have the three of them, my heavenly folks, who went ahead of me and who have shown me the way.
Like St. Teresa of Jesus, who has taught me to have a determined determination in following Jesus, St. John of the Cross has taught me to “strip myself to complete nakedness” in order to have that freedom of spirit to enter into divine union. And St. Therese has taught me to follow her little way of complete abandonment to God and to live the vocation of love even after death, “spending heaven in doing good on earth”. What more do I need to follow my vocation in Carmel? What else do I need to do but to love all unto Eternity!
In 1983, I joined the Focolare Movement as a volunteer. The same year, I moved to Taiwan and continued with my medical practice in a Chinese Hospital in the evenings, and served as a health officer in the Dominican International School at Taipei during the day. There, I first met a Carmelite priest, the school chaplain, Fr. Henry Muscat from the Province of Malta. He was such a jolly and good-natured person, making everyone in the school happy. His character and personality attracted me to inquire what made him so happy every day. That was the beginning of my Carmelite vocation. But I was then very active at the Focolare Movement, faithfully participated in all their activities, the Mariapoli annual gatherings, and the monthly sharing of experiences of unity with my volunteer cluster group in Taipei.
In 1989, I went to the Focolare Training Centre in Loppiano, Firenze, Italy where I met the foundress, Chiara Ljubich, who, in one of her meditations, mentioned St. Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle. When I traced the origin of it, I discovered that it was from the Carmelites. When I got back to Taiwan in 1992, I approached Fr. Henry Muscat and gathered more information about the OCDS and OCD way of life. At his suggestion, I joined the OCDS and I was with them for five years. In the meantime, I frequented his office every Saturday after the Mass at the school chapel to learn more about the lives of the Carmelite saints and the spirituality. The saint that most attracted me was St. Therese of the Child Jesus with her doctrine of the little way and her total confidence in God. I was also attracted to St. John of the Cross’ path of nada and todo, and his divine union spirituality. I was also attracted to St. Teresa’s bookmark, “Let nothing disturb you… God alone suffices”.
In 2002, having been overworked in the school and in the hospital, I decided to take a break and open up my private clinic. To my surprise, instead of getting rest, more patients crowded at the clinic that I even had to extend clinic hours to Sundays and to midnight to serve the third-shift factory workers.
In 2004, when I was in the peak of my fame and wealth, an “atom bomb” dropped from heaven when a banner appeared to me on which was imprinted the phrase “The Last Call”. What a shock it was! I tried to ignore it but it reappeared over and over until I became restless. I began to pray more intensively for the grace of enlightenment. In some Masses, the Word of God would become so alive that on hearing certain passages or words, tears would begin to roll down my cheeks. As time passed, it became more serious that I had to close my clinic and enter into the solitude in prayer and fasting. The gift of tears was incredible; never had I experienced such in the past, not even when my parents died.
On March 19, 2004, while I was praying the rosary after the Mass, I heard a voice from the depths asked me, “Don’t you want to become my spiritual physician?” I wondered if God was asking me to upgrade my status from a physical physician to become a spiritual physician. But I answered, “Lord, I am not worthy. It is you who is healing all the patients. I am only your poor little instrument, without you I can do nothing, and I am nothing without you.”
On the last day of my solitude, I dreamed of St. John of the Cross, so pale and weak, carrying a white cross, St. Teresa of Jesus, with a manuscript and a pen in her hand, looking at me very seriously, and St. Therese in her childhood dress of age 8, running across, smiling and waving at me as if she was telling me, “Don’t be afraid, follow my little way, have confidence in God and love will spring from your heart… to love, to love all. Know that your vocation is to love, nothing else.” And the three of them vanished from my dream.
On March 5, 2005, one week after I arrived at the OCD Formation House in Singapore, I had another dream wherein Jesus’ whole body was burning in flames of fire, carrying a burning cross, climbing towards a red hot lava flowing down a mountain. I wondered if that mountain was the Mt. Carmel in St. John of the Cross’ Ascent of Mt. Carmel. I meditated on the meaning this dream for about a week, and I understood that my call to the Carmelite vocation is not going to be an easy one. But I am not afraid because I have the three of them, my heavenly folks, who went ahead of me and who have shown me the way.
Like St. Teresa of Jesus, who has taught me to have a determined determination in following Jesus, St. John of the Cross has taught me to “strip myself to complete nakedness” in order to have that freedom of spirit to enter into divine union. And St. Therese has taught me to follow her little way of complete abandonment to God and to live the vocation of love even after death, “spending heaven in doing good on earth”. What more do I need to follow my vocation in Carmel? What else do I need to do but to love all unto Eternity!
