Sunday Reflections

Sunday Reflections

‘A spring flower in the desert.’ Sunday Reflections, 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Keiko Shemura on her First Communion Day, December 1971
Keiko died 27 April 1972, aged 14
Readings
(New American Bible:
Philippines, USA)
Readings
(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
Gospel Mark 6:1-6 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

 

Jesus left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

 

Cherry blossoms in Fukushima [Wikipedia]
Both the New American Bible and the Jerusalem Bible lectionaries read, He was amazed at their lack of faith. Jesus was among his own people, in the town where his brothers and sisters, ie, his cousins, lived. Perhaps his amazement was a form of frustration. Missionaries are men and women who are often ‘amazed’ at what seems to be their lack of ‘success’ in changing the situation, whether it is leading people to faith in Jesus Christ or working among baptised people for the justice that the Gospel demands but evidently isn’t there.
 
Yet Jesus laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. In other words, he found some who responded in faith.
 
One Columban priest who found faith in Keiko, a very sick 14-year-old girl in Japan, was Fr James Norris, a New Zealander who died on 6 October 2007. Japan is still a country where fewer than one in two hundred are Catholics. He wrote about his experience in Far East, the magazine of the Columbans in Ireland and Britain, in 1973. Father Jim’s article made a profound impact on me and I reprinted it in Misyon in March-April 2008. our last printed edition. It is a story that moves me each time I think about it. Maybe the few who believed and were healed consoled Jesus in his humanity. Maybe he felt something of what Father Norris describes in the closing paragraph of his article.

The story of Keiko and her parents shows us that our Catholic Christian faith is a gift from God, a gift for which we should thank him every day.
 
A Spring Flower
by Fr James Norris 
 
Cherry blossoms at the Tokyo Imperial Palace [Wikipedia]
 
There is a high school in our parish for nearly 2,000 girls conducted by the Sisters of the Infant of Jesus. Very few of these girls are baptized Christians. As a means of contact, I teach English to the junior high school pupils three times a week. My classes are very informal and I am afraid the young ladies don’t take me very seriously, possibly because I give them no homework or exams. My specialty is supposed to be pronunciation and intonation.
 
One day, early in November 1971, I received a summons from one of my little pupils, Keiko Uemura, aged 14. She was very sick in the hospital and wished to be baptized. I hadn’t noticed her absence at school. The nuns were full of apologies for not letting me know, but they hadn’t thought her illness was serious; moreover, she had never shown any real interest in religion but on the contrary, during religious classes seemed to take a delight in trying to tie the Sister up in knots with embarrassing questions.
 
When I visited her she seemed in good spirits. After ascertaining that she really did believe and had sufficient knowledge to realize what she was doing, I baptized her. A few days later I returned to the hospital with several books that explained the faith simply and would help her to pray. She began to prepare for her first Holy Communion. I discovered that despite her seemingly frivolous behavior during religion classes, she had retained quite a lot and what was more, in her present crisis could believe, simply and totally, with no reservations. 
 
In December she was moved to the University hospital, the largest in town and the best equipped. Keiko herself was not aware of it, but she was suffering from a rare type of bone cancer that sometimes afflicted children. The doctor gave her three months to live. Her parents were wonderful. One of them was always near her, day and night. In her case this devoted warm parental love was an actual grace that served to open out and expand her soul to receive the grace of God’s love. As Keiko responded to God’s love, the change in her thinking and outlook, her values, could not fail to impress her parents who in turn were drawn along by the girl towards God.
 
About Christmas time she made her first Holy Communion. She was radiantly happy that day, as is evident from the photo. Present for the occasion were her parents and some of the Sisters from the school. I made a tape recording for future use. Each week I took her Holy Communion. Her mother prepared the altar and with Keiko read the book on doctrine explaining the faith.
 
Home for the New Year
The girl was permitted to return home for three days over the New Year. As a result of an operation she had recovered so well that she could walk about slowly with the aid of crutches. She believed she was on the way to complete recovery; she was full of roseate plans for her future, a trip to Lourdes followed by a life of service as a nurse to crippled children. Her father hoped against hope for a miracle, but on the quiet he assured me that it was only a question of time.
 
Spiritual progress
During the next three months she made tremendous spiritual progress. Her mother told me that she herself was sometimes concerned by the flood of visitors, who often outstayed their welcome, even when Keiko was in pain. But the girl never showed it; she always put on a cheerful front and showed her gratitude to all-comers. Later when her mother grumbled about the inconsiderateness of some people, the girl stopped her with: ‘Mother, it may be alright for you to complain because you are not a Christian, but I am one now and must love everybody. Besides, the visitors come because they are interested in me and I am grateful for this.’ Apart from the occasional sigh or moan that escaped her lips, she never complained of the pain.
 
Shirakawa River [Wikipedia]
 
As the long winter faded, the cherry blossom trees along the Shirakawa River responded to the warm April sun and flooded the banks with a soft pink mist. I could see the blossoms from the window of her room, but the girl was too young to appreciate the pathos of their beauty – those petals whose destiny was to diffuse their delicate beauty for a brief span, only to be caught by the slightest breeze and flutter to the earth from which they sprang. Keiko never saw her own life and destiny in those blossoms.
 
About the middle of April she began to weaken. Within a week, she had lost consciousness and was given oxygen. She died peacefully on 27 April. The church was filled at her funeral. Her classmates were heartbroken and inconsolable, far more emotionally upset than her family. Indeed, I was surprised at how calmly her parents bore their great loss. I discovered it was because they had received the grace of the faith through the girl’s influence, even before they had begun any formal instructions. They were convinced that she still lived on in God and that they would meet her again.
 
Whole family converted
A week after the funeral her parents and her brother began their study of the doctrine. They were model catechumens. Every night before the family altar, united to Keiko in spirit, they said the rosary and read a chapter from the Scriptures. I baptized them on 6 November, the anniversary of Keiko’s baptism. There were tears of joy in their eyes that day as they realized they were united to their daughter by grace within the bosom of God the Father.
 
One of Keiko’s closest friends who was shattered by her death but very impressed by the spiritual change in the girl before her death, has resolved to follow in her footsteps and pursue the ideal of service Keiko set for herself had she lived. She is now under instructions and intends to become a nurse.
 
Fr James Norris after officiating at the joint wedding ceremony of three brothers in Japan
Testimony of her faith
There was nothing sensational about this girl’s short life. She did nothing that would merit notice in the mass media; her life created no more of a stir in society than a petal falling to the ground. But I am convinced her story is real news and a genuine success story. In these days of superficial sensationalism, even we Christians tend to forget that the real battles of life are won or lost within the depths of the heart where a man meets his God and says yes or no.
 
Moreover, in a country like Japan, a missioner seldom sees the grace of God’s action working so powerfully and swiftly in a soul. Such tangible evidence of God’s presence is almost a physical sign of His love which bolsters one’s hope no end, enabling the missioner to keep going. This slip of a girl was a candle in the darkness, a spring flower in the desert.
 Mater Dei, Mother of God, Japan
Unknown artist, c.1900-05, painting on silk
 
Ave Maria in Japanese
Composer: Saburo Takada; singer: Atsuko Azuma

‘Give her something to eat.’ Sunday Reflections, 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

‘Give her something to eat.’ Sunday Reflections, 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B


Raising of the Daughter of Jairus, Paolo Veronese,  c.1546
Musée du Louvre, Paris  [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Mark 5:21-43 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.  Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing[ what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.”  And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.


Forest Landscape with Two of Christ’s Miracles
David Vinckboons, 1600-10
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York [Web Museum of Art]

Because I will be on a pilgrimage to Malta from 24 to 30 June I am posting this early. This reflection, slightly edited, is what I posted three years ago for the same Sunday.

Lyn was someone I met when she was about 15. Three years later, when she was only halfway through her four-year college course, she quit to marry Roberto. (I’m not using their real names). Lyn was madly in love with Roberto, who had a good job and came from a relatively wealthy family.  Lyn’s family could not be described as poor either. I celebrated the wedding Mass and attended the reception in a classy hotel. In the Philippines it’s the groom’s father who pays for the reception. the young couple went to live in Manila, where Roberto was from. About a year later a daughter, whom I’ll call Gloria, was born. She had a mental disability. Another daughter, ‘Gabriela’, arrived a year or two later.

Then tragedy struck. Roberto discovered that his kidneys weren’t working properly and that he needed dialysis. Over the next couple of years Roberto and Lyn spent practically all they had on this and it ended in Roberto’s death. Meanwhile, Lyn’s parents both had serious illnesses and had to spend most of their resources on treatment.

Lyn returned to her own city with her two young daughters. She couldn’t find a job and had no qualifications since she hadn’t finished in college. With much embarrassment she came to see me and asked if I could give her an ‘allowance’. She was able to survive the next few years with help from her siblings and friends and eventually remarried.

I’ve met so many ‘Lyns’ in the Philippines who are like the woman in today’s gospel, who have spent all their resources on doctors and medicine and are still sick. I’ve met families who have pawned their little bit of land in order to enable an aged parent to have surgery that ultimately leaves the whole family impoverished and the person on whom  they had spent the money, out of a perhaps misplaced love, ending up in the cemetery.

Most Filipinos have little access to good health care. Even those who have government health insurance have to come up with ready cash if they go to hospital, unlike in Ireland or the United Kingdom. They are eventually reimbursed but have to pay interest on money they have borrowed in the meantime. I’ve heard people in Ireland and in the UK complain about the poor health services they have and their complaints are often justified. I have also heard many unsolicited words of praise for nurses from the Philippines working in hospitals in those countries.

Bu the sad reality is that most of these nurses, if they were still in the Philippines, would not have access to the kind of care they provide in Ireland and the UK. They would be like the woman in the gospel.

I met a Filipina in Reykjavík in 2000 who told me that she had had a kidney transplant in Denmark, paid for by the taxpayers of Iceland, a country of only 300,000 people or so. Had she been at home she would probably have ended up like Roberto.

Twenty-two years ago in a parish in Mindanao I buried Eileen, like the daughter of Jairus,  a 12-year-old. Again, poverty was a significant factor in her illness and death, despite the efforts of the doctors and nurses in the small government hospital where she died.

So the two stories interwoven by St Mark are stories that many Filipinos have lived or are living.

But sometimes persons experience healing. I once gave a recollection day to a group of 11- and 12-year old children in a Catholic school in Cebu City. We reflected on the story of Jesus staying behind in the Temple when he was 12 and that of the daughter of Jairus, also 12. Before the afternoon session a group of the boys and girls came to tell me that Maria, one of their classmates, had a bad toothache and asked if we could pray with her. Maybe Jesus would heal her as he had healed ‘Talitha’. They thought that that was the name of the girl in the gospel! We prayed with Maria – and her toothache disappeared. The children were delighted.

St Mark gives us illustrations of the humanity of Jesus more than do St Matthew and St Luke when they recount the same stories. Scholars tell us that St Mark’s was the first gospel to be written and that the other two drew on his in writing theirs. St Matthew omits the detail of Jesus perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him. This shows us that Jesus wasn’t a ‘magician’. When he healed a sick person he gave of himself.

St Matthew leaves out another beautiful detail about the humanity of our Saviour. Jesus says to the people in the house, Give her something to eat. I can imagine the joy of everyone, including Jesus. I picture him with a smile on his face, a smile that reflects his joy – and his awareness that the girl’s family had forgotten the very practical detail that she was starving, as is anyone who has come through a serious illness. This detail of St Mark brings home to me the great reality that St John expressed in his gospel and that we pray in the Angelus, The Word became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14).

‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ Sunday Reflections, 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA [Web Gallery of Art]


Readings
(New American Bible:
Philippines, USA)
 
Readings
(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
 
Gospel Mark 4:35-41 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 


On that day, when evening had come, Jesus
said to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving
the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other
boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the
boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern,
asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you
not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said
to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He
said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were
filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the
wind and the sea obey him?”



The very first pastoral visit outside of Rome of Pope Francis was to the small island of Lampedusa, the most southerly part of Italy. He went there on 8 July 2013 because of his concern about the plight many migrants and refugees trying to get from North Africa to Europe through Lampedusa and the many who died in trying to do so. The vast majority of these were exploited ‘boat people’ who had spent all they had, handing over their money to unscrupulous persons who were becoming rich by living off the poor and not caring whether they lived or died.


In his homily that day Pope Francis asked, ‘Has any one of us grieved for the death of these brothers and sisters? Has any one of us wept for these persons who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men who were looking for a means of supporting their families?’ 


The question the Pope asked in a way echoes that of the Apostles in the boat to Jesus: ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ 

LÉ Eithne



Since 16 May LÉ Eithne, the flagship of the Irish Naval Service has been engaged, along with ships of navies of other European countries, in the Mediterranean in an effort to rescue ‘boat people’. This one small ship has already rescued 1,620 men women and children. The Irish Naval Service has a total personnel of 1,144.


It is estimated that between 2000 and 2014 around 22,000 undocumented immigrants died trying to reach Italy from North Africa. In April alone this year it is reckoned that more than 1,000 died in a number of incidents.


Something similar is happening in South-East Asia with refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar/Burma, Rohingya people who are Muslims, and from Bangladesh being shunned.


So this Sunday’s gospel speaks to us of a situation that is all too common in the contemporary world.


The Apostles discovered that Jesus did care: ‘He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!”’ And he shows that same care to the refugees in the Mediterranean and in South-East Asia through the authorities, agencies and individuals who are trying to alleviate their immediate dangerous situation while others try to deal with the roots and causes of that situation.


There is an expression in the English language, ‘We’re all in the same boat’, that indicates especially in a difficult or dangerous situation that all are equal and that all are responsible in some way for changing that situation. In his new encyclical, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis echoes this (No 13): ‘The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home.’ 


We can do two things. We can and should pray for all those caught up in the human tragedy of refugees and asylum seekers desperately seeking a better life as they flee from areas of conflict and hopelessness, being exploited ruthlessly by others in their plight – surely an expression of the reality of evil, of sin and of the Devil that Pope Francis frequently speaks about – and often losing their lives in the process.


And we can start reading the Pope’s encyclical, whether online or in printed form, while reflecting on it, praying while doing so, and asking the Lord how he wants each of us to change the way we live so that the world, all its creatures and especially we humans made in God’s image and likeness will become what God wills for us all.


‘God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good’ (Genesis 1:31). 


Responsorial Psalm [NAB – Philippines, USA]

The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground . . .’ Sunday Reflections, 11th Sunday in Ordinary time, Year B

 

A Grove of Cedars of Lebanon [Wikipedia]
 
On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar (Ezekiel 17:23 – First Reading).



Readings
(New American Bible:
Philippines, USA)

 
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
 
Gospel Mark 4:26-34 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 
  
Jesus said to the crowds: “The
kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and
day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first
the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once
he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God,
or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which,
when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and
becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the
birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they
were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in
parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
The Sower (after Millet), October 1889, Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh
Private Collection [Web Gallery of Art]

Below is part of what I posted three years ago for this Sunday.  It is now 73 years since my parents married and ‘the youngest born last month’ is now aged five. His father came through the medical procedure successfully, thank God.
 
The parables in this Sunday’s gospel remind us that the faith has had many small beginnings. Perhaps the greatest is the Twelve Apostles. 
 
As a Columban priest I’m very conscious of our history. Fr Edward Galvin from Ireland went off to China with Canadian Fr John Fraser in 1912. Fr Fraser went on to found the Scarboro Missionary Society in Canada and Fr Galvin, with Fr John Blowick, was to set up the Missionary Society of St Columban within a few years, both societies working to bring the Gospel to the people of China.
 
The Columbans, along with all other Christian missionaries, were eventually driven out of China after 1949 but have a presence there again, in a different way. And a year ago, as I wrote for last Sunday, the first two Chinese students came to Manila to prepare to be Columban missionary priests. Another small beginning in the service of the mission that Jesus gave to the Church.
 
70 years ago my parents were married. Another small beginning in faith, a faith nourished, at least in part, by the Eucharistic Congress ten years earlier in their native Dublin. Without that beginning I would not be here. 
 
Today, Friday, I visited a friend in Cebu City whom I hadn’t seen in more than twelve years. When we last met she was single. Today I met her husband and seven children, the youngest born last month. She and her husband have both lost their mothers in the last couple of months. Her husband will be going into hospital on Saturday for a procedure on one of his kidneys.The house they were living in before was burned down and they are now in a very small temporary house from which they will have to move soon. Yet I saw a house filled with love, the older children when they came home from school giving the mano po, the hand to the forehead, a sign of respect in the Philippines and in East Timor, to their parents and to me – and then going to kiss their two youngest brothers. And we shared bread together, pandesal, small pieces of bread that are very popular for breakfast and for snacks.
 
The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.
 
We just don’t know where the seed will be scattered and where it will bear fruit. I once met a young woman from Japan in Manila. She was moving towards the Catholic faith and the seed was being nourished in the predominantly Catholic Philippines. But the seed of her faith came to fruition in Thailand where she was baptised during an Easter Vigil. Thailand, like Japan, is a country where only about one person in two hundred is a Catholic. 

+++
 
Please continue to pray for the suffering Christians of Iraq and Syria: 

One Year After the Fall of Mosul, Iraqi Christians Remain in Painful Limbo

‘This is my body . . .’ Sunday Reflections, Corpus Christi, Year B

 

La Disputà (Disputation of the Holy Sacrament), Raffaello Sanzio, painted 1510-11
Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican 
[Web Gallery of Art]
 
You will find a description of this magnificent fresco here and a video on its restorationhere.
 
The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ



Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) 

 
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England &Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) 
 
Gospel Mark 14:12-16, 22-26 (New Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition, Canada)
 
On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to Jesus, “Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.” So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.
Pope Francis leads his first Corpus Christi procession in Rome
 
‘As a primary school student, each Saturday I would play with my friends in our village but also made time for one hour’s adoration before the Blessed Sacrament in the local church. It was the custom in our village to have exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on Saturday afternoon and the Catholics would spend some time in prayer in the church.  I feel that my personal relationship with God has its origin in those hours before the Blessed Sacrament.’  [Emphasis added].
 
John Wang Zongshe is one of two young Chinese men who came to Manila four uears ago to prepare to be Columban priests, the first candidates from that country. The original missionof the Columbans was China. John tells his vocation story, Life-giving Connections, in Misyononline.com, the online magazine I edit for the Columbans here in the Philippines.John is from a village that is one-third Catholic. but his companion Joseph Li Jiangang is from a village where all 800 inhabitants are Catholic.  Joseph, like John became involved actively in the life of the Church when he was young, as he writes in his vocation story, A Church with Room for All: The Franciscan Missionaries of Mary worked in our village and ran a medical clinic. In junior high school, one Sister got us together for religious education during our summer holidays, and at the age of eleven I began to know more about God.  I was born after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) when so much religious practice had ceased. I used to sit at the back of the church when I went alone, but when I joined the youth group we would sit at the front. As a youth I went of my own free will to church.

 
At that time, I was timid and afraid to read in public. I became an altar server and at twelve I was leading the congregation in half an hour of prayers before Mass. I liked that and on returning from school I’d drop my bag and head for the church.[Emphasis added].


Joseph, John and Emmannuel Trocino, a Columban seminarian from Negros Occidental, on a visit three years ago to Australian Columban Fr Brian Gore at San Columbano Mission Center, Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental, under the watchful eye of St Columban. Joseph and John have since discovered that God isn’t calling them to be Columban priests. Emmannuel is currently in Peru on his two-year First Mission Assignment as part of his preparation for the priesthood.

The first Columbans went to China in 1920 to bring the Gospel to the millions there who had never heard of Jesus Christ. Fr Paddy O’Connor, one of the first students to join the Columbans and who was ordained in 1923, wrote a poem called The Splendid Cause, which became the Columban anthem for many years, in which he used the line To bring to the nations the sweet, white Host. For Father O’Connor the Eucharist was at the heart of mission. 
The Splendid Cause is also the title of a history of the Columbans from 1916 to 1954 by Columban Fr Neil Collins, who was one of the speakers at the 50th International Eucharistic Congress held in Dublin from 10 to 17 June 2012. St Columbanus (Columban), the patron saint of the Society of St Columban,  was one of the patron saints of the Congress.
 
Recent polls and studies in Ireland indicate a great loss of faith, even though 84 percent in the 2011 census in the Republic of Ireland identified themselves as Catholics. (About 75 percent in the whole of Ireland would call themselves Catholics). Only about one third attend Mass every Sunday and a large percentage, especially of those who don’t go to Mass regularly, don’t believe that the bread and wine brought up at the offertory of the Mass become the Body and Blood of Christ at the Consecration. If they receive Holy Communion they believe they are receiving only a symbol.
 
It was a great love for the Mass and a desire to bring the Catholic Christian faith to the people of China that led two young Irish diocesan priests nearly 100 years ago, Fr Edward J. Galvin, later first Bishop of Hanyang, China, and Fr John Blowick to start what initially was ‘The Maynooth Mission to China’ and later became the Society of St Columban.
 
No Irish Columban has been ordained in the Third Millenium of Christianity nor are there any candidates at present. But the first two  seminarians from China, a country where the Church is still being harassed, a country from which Bishop Galvin and all other Columbans were expelled 60 years ago, some after having spent time in prison, have now joined us.
 
We just don’t know God’s plans. But absolutely central to the spirituality of Bishop Galvin was doing God’s will. He cared little for the trappings of the office of bishop but insisted on his episcopal motto being Fiat voluntas tua, ‘Your will be done’. He would surely be delighted that the call of John and John was awakened in communities focuses on the Eucharist.
 
The Columbans came to Manila in 1929 at the request of Archbishop Michael O’Doherty, an Irishman. One of the speakers at the Eucharistic Congress is his current successor, Manila-born Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle. He also spoke at the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City, Canada, in 2008.
 
Please pray that as the Church celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christ, the Body of Christ, which it has done already on Thursday in countries where it is still a holyday of obligation, and that there will be a renewal and deepening of faith in Ireland, a faith centred on the Eucharist, and that the Catholics of China, the Philippines and other countries where Irish missionaries have preached and lived the Gospel, may help re-evangelise the country that produced such missionary giants as St Columban 1,500 years ago and Edward Galvin and John Blowick a 100 years ago.
Lauda Sion Salvatorem
Sequence for Mass on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi
 
English Version
 
Sion, lift up thy voice and sing:
Praise thy Savior and thy King,
Praise with hymns thy shepherd true.
All thou canst, do thou endeavour:
Yet thy praise can equal never
Such as merits thy great King.
See today before us laid
The living and life-giving Bread,
Theme for praise and joy profound.
The same which at the sacred board
Was, by our incarnate Lord,
Giv’n to His Apostles round.
Let the praise be loud and high:
Sweet and tranquil be the joy
Felt today in every breast.
On this festival divine
Which records the origin
Of the glorious Eucharist.
On this table of the King,
Our new Paschal offering
Brings to end the olden rite.
Here, for empty shadows fled,
Is reality instead,
Here, instead of darkness, light.
His own act, at supper seated
Christ ordain’d to be repeated
In His memory divine;
Wherefore now, with adoration,
We, the host of our salvation,
Consecrate from bread and wine.
Hear, what holy Church maintaineth,
That the bread its substance changeth
Into Flesh, the wine to Blood.
Doth it pass thy comprehending?
Faith, the law of sight transcending
Leaps to things not understood.
Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things, to sense forbidden,
Signs, not things, are all we see.
Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine,
Yet is Christ in either sign,
All entire, confessed to be.
They, who of Him here partake,
Sever not, nor rend, nor break:
But, entire, their Lord receive.
Whether one or thousands eat:
All receive the self-same meat:
Nor the less for others leave.
Both the wicked and the good
Eat of this celestial Food:
But with ends how opposite!
Here ‘t is life: and there ‘t is death:
The same, yet issuing to each
In a difference infinite.
Nor a single doubt retain,
When they break the Host in twain,
But that in each part remains
What was in the whole before.
Since the simple sign alone
Suffers change in state or form:
The signified remaining one
And the same for evermore.
Lo! bread of the Angels broken,
For us pilgrims food, and token
Of the promise by Christ spoken,
Children’s meat, to dogs denied.
Shewn in Isaac’s dedication,
In the manna’s preparation:
In the Paschal immolation,
In old types pre-signified.
Jesu, shepherd of the sheep:
Thou thy flock in safety keep,
Living bread, thy life supply:
Strengthen us, or else we die,
Fill us with celestial grace.
Thou, who feedest us below:
Source of all we have or know:
Grant that with Thy Saints above,
Sitting at the feast of love,
We may see Thee face to face.
Amen. Alleluia.
 
Young Jew as Christ, Rembrandt, c.1656
Staatliche Museen, Berlin [Web Gallery of Art]
 
In regions where Corpus Christi is celebrated on the previous Thursday the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is observed. Here are links to the readings in the New Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition, the translation used in the English Lectionary in Canada.
 
Genesis 3:9-15.
 
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1.
 
Mark 3:19-35.
 
Then Jesus went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
 
“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

 
 
 
 

‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations . . .’ Sunday Reflections, Trinity Sunday, Year B

 

HolyTrinity, Jusepe de Ribera, painted 1635-36 
Museo del Prado, Madrin [Web Gallery of Art]
 
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) 
 
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) 
 
Gospel Matthew 28:16-20 (New Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition, Canada)
 

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty!
 
From the evening of 23 May until the morning of 1 June in 2012 I was giving a retreat to a group of Canossian Sisters, also known as Daughters of Charity, Servants of the Poor. They included four novices and seven professed Sisters, including one from Malaysia.Their foundress, St Magdalene of Canossa bequeathed to the Sisters the mission of ‘making Jesus known and loved above all’. This comes from a stance of standing at the foot of the Cross with Mary.
 
During my talks each morning I shared many stories of individuals who had made Jesus known to me, usually with no awareness that they were doing so. Some were persons I knew. Some are now dead. Some I met only once in passing, never learning their names. Most were poor. I know that my stories triggered off similar memories among the Sisters of people who had made Jesus known to them as the Sisters in turn had made him known to those they were serving.
 
I saw all of this in the context of the Communion of Saints, the angels and saints in heaven, the members of the Church on earth, the souls in purgatory. The story of creation tells us that we are made in the image of God. But what the author of that first account of creation didn’t know is that God is a Community of Three Persons. Made in God’s image, we are made to be in community with others.
 
Jusepe de Ribera’s painting of the Holy Trinity above, like a number of other paintings, shows the dead Christ. The expression on the face of the Father shows suffering. It is very similar to the face of the father in Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son, painted about thirty years later. I don’t know if Rembrandt was familiar with de Ribera’s painting.


The Blessed Trinity call us into the circle of their life through suffering. We know the suffering of Jesus. Some of the great artists show to us something of the suffering of the Father.

One of the stories I told involved two persons I met only once, a mother and her daughter aged about 13. When they first approached me outside a retreat house in Cebu City on the morning of Holy Thursday 1990. I made an excuse that I was only visiting. When I went inside I later saw the two of them sitting on the steps. The daughter had her head on her mother’s shoulder. Clearly, they were tired and hungry. When I was leaving I gave them enough to buy breakfast. The young girl looked at me with the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen and said to me, Salamat sa Ginoo! ‘Thanks to the Lord!’ She wasn’t thanking me but inviting me to thank the Lord with her and her mother for his goodness. Through her hunger and tiredness she had come to know something of God’s bountiful love.

That young girl has been calling me into the life of the Holy Trinity for more than 25 years now. I’ve no idea what became of her. I came to the Philippines in 1971 to do my part in making disciples of all nations and have baptised many in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But that young girl, and many others like her, have been constantly teaching me to observe all that I have commanded you and assuring me in the name of Jesus, I am with you always, to the close of the age.

Introit (Entrance Antiphon of Mass)
 
Benedíctus sit Deus Pater,
unigenitúsque Dei Fílius,
Sanctus quoque Spíritus,
quia fecit nobíscum misericórdiam suam.

 

Blest be God the Father, 
and the Only Begotten Son of God, 
and also the Holy Spirit,
for he has shown us his merciful love.
 
Mozart’s setting of the Latin text at the age of 12 sung by the  Meninos Cantores de Campinas, many of them around the same age as Mozart when he wrote the music. Campinas is in São Paolo State, Brazil.
 
Benedictus sit Deus
 
High Altar of the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Campinas, Brazil [Wikipedia]

‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ Sunday Reflections, Pentecost, Year B

Pentecost El Greco, painted 1596-1600
Museo del Prado, Madrid [Web Gallery of Art]


Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Vigil Mass 

Mass during the Day

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) [This page gives the readings for both the Vigil Mass and the Mass during the Day]

Liturgical Note. Pentecost, like Easter and some other solemnities, has a Vigil, properly so-called. This is not an ‘anticipated Mass’ but a Vigil Mass in its own right, with its own set of prayers and readings. It fulfils our Sunday obligation. There may be an extended Liturgy of the Word,er similar to the Easter Vigil, with all the Old Testament readings used. 


The prayers and readings of the Mass During the Day should not be used for the Vigil Mass, nor those of the Vigil Mass for the Mass During the Day. 

Gospel John 20:19-23 (New Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition, Canada)

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.&#8221#8221; After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”


Alternative Gospel


Gospel John 15:26-27; 16:12-15 (New Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition, Canada)


Jesus said to his disciples:

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”




Fr Ralph W. Beiting (1 January 1924 – 24 August 2012) street preaching in July 2011

I’m quite happy to live in the present and to look forward to the future without worrying too much. That is all grace from God. There is, however, one event in my life that I would, perhaps, like to relive, if that were possible, which it’s not. It was the summer of 1969, less than two years after my ordination in Ireland, when I was studying in a college north of New York City where I was also one of the chaplains.

One day during Lent of that year while walking across the campus to class I met Betty, a student who was in some classes with me, and asked her what she was doing for Easter. I was just making small talk. But when she told me that she and some other students were going to work in a parish in rural Kentucky as volunteers for that week I got interested – and ended up going with them. I spent most of Easter week in Lancaster, Kentucky, cleaning up buildings, getting them ready for summer programmes such as Bible classes and summer camps for local children. The parish priest, Fr Ralph Beiting, had many projects and invited students, most at college level bu some still in high school, to come during the summer for a week, two weeks, a month or longer, to help run the Bible schools in the four towns in his parish, to staff the two camps for children to spend a five-day vacation in, to do house-to-house visitation in pairs, and some other things. He had also founded the Christian Appalachian Project to help the development of this predominantly poor corner of the USA, and an area where there was only a handful of Catholics. There were still remnants of anti-Catholicism.

Fr Beiting used to go around preaching in towns during the summer, accompanied by seminarians and other male college students. They’d park their truck at a place where people could gather and he’d preach basic Christian truths from the back of the lorry. He was following an old Protestant tradition in the area but one that was dying out. On one occasion he was driven out at gunpoint but next day turned up again, not to preach but simply to show himself.

This great diocesan priest had the great gift of organising and inspiring young people in the service of the Gospel. These gifts of his helped me to discover a gift I was unaware of – the ability to listen to people. When I went back to Kentucky for six weeks in the summer of 1969 he asked me to divide my time between the activities in Lancaster and those in Cliffview Camp, where each week a group of local youngsters went on Monday morning and went home on Friday afternoon, with lots of activities to keep them, and the student volunteers, occupied. Cliffview is now a retreat and conference centre for the Diocese of Lexington.


Part of Cliffview as it looked in 1969.

Father Beiting wasn’t a person you would go to if you had a problem or wanted to talk about something. He was an ‘action man’, though a prayerful one. However, I discovered that many of the young volunteers I was working with, and some persons older than me, found in me somebody who could listen to them. I had never been aware of that ability but it was to become very important in my life as a priest. Indeed, in the case of one young volunteer who became a close friend and to whom I was to be a mentor, that ability that God gave me became helped, 12 years later, to draw her back from the brink of suicide. And in that episode I discovered that sometimes a person of deep and generous faith can also be very fragile. My friend died the following year, aged only 29, peacefully and from natural causes. Some months before her death she told me that she thought she didn’t have long to live. I had the good sense to listen to her and we spoke to each other as persons of faith as to what her death would mean. There was nothing morbid about our conversation and we went for an Italian lunch afterwards – my friend was pure Italian – and had a joyful time together.It was to be our last time to meet.

But what I still marvel at, and thank God for, is that ‘casual’ meeting with another student and a conversation that I didn’t see as having any importance at all. A question that expressed friendliness rather than curiosity was to receive a profound and life-long answer, not from Betty, but from the Holy Spirit.

Receive the Holy Spirit . . . as the Father has sent me, even so I send you.


Veni Sancte Spiritus (Sequence for Mass on Pentecost Sunday)

Veni, Sancte Spiritus,
et emitte
caelitus
lucis tuae
radium.
Come, Holy Spirit,
send forth the heavenly
radiance of your light.
Veni,
pater pauperum,
veni,
dator munerum
veni,
lumen cordium.
Come, father of the poor,
come giver of gifts,
come, light of the heart
Consolator
optime,
dulcis
hospes animae,
dulce
refrigerium.
Greatest comforter,
sweet guest of the soul,
sweet consolation.
In labore
requies,
in aestu
temperies
in fletu
solatium.
In labor, rest,
in heat, temperance,
in tears, solace.
O lux
beatissima,
reple
cordis intima
tuorum
fidelium.
O most blessed light,
fill the inmost heart
of your faithful.
Sine tuo
numine,
nihil est
in homine,
nihil est
innoxium.
Without your grace,
there is nothing in us,
nothing that is not harmful.
Lava quod
est sordidum,
riga quod
est aridum,
sana quod
est saucium.
Cleanse that which is unclean,
water that which is dry,
heal that which is wounded.
Flecte
quod est rigidum,
fove quod
est frigidum,
rege quod
est devium.
Bend that which is inflexible,
fire that which is chilled,
correct what goes astray.
a tuis
fidelibus,
in te
confidentibus,
sacrum
septenarium.
Give to your faithful,
those who trust in you,
the sevenfold gifts.
Da
virtutis meritum,
da salutis
exitum,
da perenne
gaudium,
Grant the reward of virtue,
grant the deliverence of
salvation,
grant eternal joy.

‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.’ Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, Year B

Pentecost El Greco, painted 1596-1600

Museo del Prado, Madrid [Web Gallery of Art]

 
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
 
Vigil Mass 
 
Mass during the Day
 
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) [This page gives the readings for both the Vigil Mass and the Mass during the Day]

 

Liturgical Note. Pentecost, like Easter and some other solemnities, has a Vigil, properly so-called. This is not an ‘anticipated Mass’ but a Vigil Mass in its own right, with its own set of prayers and readings. It fulfils our Sunday obligation. There may be an extended Liturgy of the Word,er similar to the Easter Vigil, with all the Old Testament readings used. 

 
The prayers and readings of the Mass During the Day should not be used for the Vigil Mass, nor those of the Vigil Mass for the Mass During the Day. 


Gospel John 20:19-23 (New Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition, Canada)
 
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”#8221; After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”



Alternative Gospel



Gospel John 15:26-27; 16:12-15 (New Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition, Canada)

 
Jesus said to his disciples:
 
“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.
 
 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

 

 

Fr Ralph W. Beiting (1 January 1924 – 24 August 2012) street preaching in July 2011

 
I’m quite happy to live in the present and to look forward to the future without worrying too much. That is all grace from God. There is, however, one event in my life that I would, perhaps, like to relive, if that were possible, which it’s not. It was the summer of 1969, less than two years after my ordination in Ireland, when I was studying in a college north of New York City where I was also one of the chaplains.
 
One day during Lent of that year while walking across the campus to class I met Betty, a student who was in some classes with me, and asked her what she was doing for Easter. I was just making small talk. But when she told me that she and some other students were going to work in a parish in rural Kentucky as volunteers for that week I got interested – and ended up going with them. I spent most of Easter week in Lancaster, Kentucky, cleaning up buildings, getting them ready for summer programmes such as Bible classes and summer camps for local children. The parish priest, Fr Ralph Beiting, had many projects and invited students, most at college level bu some still in high school, to come during the summer for a week, two weeks, a month or longer, to help run the Bible schools in the four towns in his parish, to staff the two camps for children to spend a five-day vacation in, to do house-to-house visitation in pairs, and some other things. He had also founded the Christian Appalachian Project to help the development of this predominantly poor corner of the USA, and an area where there was only a handful of Catholics. There were still remnants of anti-Catholicism.
 
Fr Beiting used to go around preaching in towns during the summer, accompanied by seminarians and other male college students. They’d park their truck at a place where people could gather and he’d preach basic Christian truths from the back of the lorry. He was following an old Protestant tradition in the area but one that was dying out. On one occasion he was driven out at gunpoint but next day turned up again, not to preach but simply to show himself.
 
This great diocesan priest had the great gift of organising and inspiring young people in the service of the Gospel. These gifts of his helped me to discover a gift I was unaware of – the ability to listen to people. When I went back to Kentucky for six weeks in the summer of 1969 he asked me to divide my time between the activities in Lancaster and those in Cliffview Camp, where each week a group of local youngsters went on Monday morning and went home on Friday afternoon, with lots of activities to keep them, and the student volunteers, occupied. Cliffview is now a retreat and conference centre for the Diocese of Lexington.
 
 
Part of Cliffview as it looked in 1969.
 
Father Beiting wasn’t a person you would go to if you had a problem or wanted to talk about something. He was an ‘action man’, though a prayerful one. However, I discovered that many of the young volunteers I was working with, and some persons older than me, found in me somebody who could listen to them. I had never been aware of that ability but it was to become very important in my life as a priest. Indeed, in the case of one young volunteer who became a close friend and to whom I was to be a mentor, that ability that God gave me became helped, 12 years later, to draw her back from the brink of suicide. And in that episode I discovered that sometimes a person of deep and generous faith can also be very fragile. My friend died the following year, aged only 29, peacefully and from natural causes. Some months before her death she told me that she thought she didn’t have long to live. I had the good sense to listen to her and we spoke to each other as persons of faith as to what her death would mean. There was nothing morbid about our conversation and we went for an Italian lunch afterwards – my friend was pure Italian – and had a joyful time together.It was to be our last time to meet.
 
But what I still marvel at, and thank God for, is that ‘casual’ meeting with another student and a conversation that I didn’t see as having any importance at all. A question that expressed friendliness rather than curiosity was to receive a profound and life-long answer, not from Betty, but from the Holy Spirit.
 
Receive the Holy Spirit . . . as the Father has sent me, even so I send you.
 
 
Veni Sancte Spiritus (Sequence for Mass on Pentecost Sunday)
 
Veni, Sancte Spiritus,
et emitte caelitus
lucis tuae radium.
Come, Holy Spirit,
send forth the heavenly
radiance of your light.
Veni, pater pauperum,
veni, dator munerum
veni, lumen cordium.
Come, father of the poor,
come giver of gifts,
come, light of the heart
Consolator optime,
dulcis hospes animae,
dulce refrigerium.
Greatest comforter,
sweet guest of the soul,
sweet consolation.
In labore requies,
in aestu temperies
in fletu solatium.
In labor, rest,
in heat, temperance,
in tears, solace.
O lux beatissima,
reple cordis intima
tuorum fidelium.
O most blessed light,
fill the inmost heart
of your faithful.
Sine tuo numine,
nihil est in homine,
nihil est innoxium.
Without your grace,
there is nothing in us,
nothing that is not harmful.
Lava quod est sordidum,
riga quod est aridum,
sana quod est saucium.
Cleanse that which is unclean,
water that which is dry,
heal that which is wounded.
Flecte quod est rigidum,
fove quod est frigidum,
rege quod est devium.
Bend that which is inflexible,
fire that which is chilled,
correct what goes astray.
a tuis fidelibus,
in te confidentibus,
sacrum septenarium.
Give to your faithful,
those who trust in you,
the sevenfold gifts.
Da virtutis meritum,
da salutis exitum,
da perenne gaudium,
Grant the reward of virtue,
grant the deliverence of salvation,
grant eternal joy.

‘In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us.’ Sunday Reflections, 6th Sunday of Easter, Year B




‘In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us.’ Sunday Reflections, 6th Sunday of Easter, Year B

From The Gospel of John (2003) directed by Philip Saville

Today’s Gospel, John 15:9-17 [1:22 – 2:34]



Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
              
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
Jesus said to his disciples:

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

Christ Blessing the Children, Nicolaes Maes, 1652-53
National Gallery, London [Web Gallery of Art]

Since last Monday morning until noon today, Saturday, I was giving a retreat to the Missionary Sisters of the Catechism in Lipa City, south of Manila. The Sisters have a house dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe where they take care of elderly and sick women whom they refer to as the lolas, the grandmas. In another part of the compound they have a group of orphans, five young boys and six young girls. Four of the boys served Mass every morning, including ‘Zacchaeus’, as the Sisters call him, the youngest of the boys and small, proudly wearing his white cassock like the others. ‘Zacchaeus’ is not yet old enough to make his First Holy Communion or First Confession. His role as a server is to hold up the small white towel – and he really has to stretch to do so – when the priest washes his hands during the Offertory.

The youngest of the girls is Chiara, aged four or five. The children were present at lunch today, which had a celebratory air to it. I noticed after I had said Grace Before Meals that Chiara was somewhat tearful. Then I discovered that on such occasions she led the community in a Hail Mary as part of Grace. so the Sisters encouraged her to do so today even though the visiting priest had pre-empted her. After a little hesitation and the drying of her tears she prayerfully led us all in the Hail Mary and then invoked the protectors of the Congregation – Mother of Good Counsel, St Joseph, St Veronica Giuliani, St Gemma Galgani and St Bernadette Soubirous.

During the retreat I told a number of stories of seemingly insignificant events where God had revealed himself to me through the actions of children and of older persons without their being aware of it. Then on the way back to Manila this afternoon Sister Evelyn, whose family I have I have known since she was in high school in Tangub City, Misamis Occidental, and Sister Eppie told me a story about Chiara where she showed an understanding of what today’s Second Reading is all about, without being aware of it.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:7-10).

Some time ago a missionary priest visited the Sisters and celebrated Mass for them. Little Chiara saw him as being very severe in his demeanour. After Mass she tugged on his cassock and asked him, Father, are you angry with God? It seems that the following morning he wasn’t quite as severe looking!

Some may be angry with God. I don’t think that God is too perturbed about that when he knows that the source of our anger may be bewilderment over tragedies in our lives, for example, just as we allow those whom we love to vent their anger on us because basically they trust us and we have some idea of the source of their anger.

Perhaps a more common experience, especially among persons who are serious about following Jesus faithfully but who try to live as if God’s love had to be earned, as if it could be earned, is the idea that God is angry with us.

St John tells us so beautifully what the situation really is: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Most of the Gospel readings on the Sundays and weekdays of Easter are taken from John 13-17, the Last Supper Discourse in which Jesus speaks to each of us with intense love about the intimacy into which he calls each of us through our baptism. In today’s Gospel Jesus says to each of us, speaking from his heart to ours – Cor ad cor loquiter, ‘Heart speaks to heart’, as Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman emphasised on his coat-of-arms – As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love . . . this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you . . . you are my friends . . . you did not choose me but I chose you . . .

The initiative comes from God. Love comes from God and our loving response to that love is itself a gift from God. We do not and cannot earn God’s love. God who is love gives us himself as pure gift.


How can such a God be angry with us and how can we be angry with such a God?


In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10).


For the LORD takes delight in his people; 
he crowns the poor with salvation (Psalm 149:4, Grail translation).

Antiphona ad communionem  Communion Antiphon
John 14:15-16

Si diligitis me, mandate mea servate, dicit Dominus.
If you love me, keep my commandments, says the Lord,
Et ego rigabo Patrem, et alium Paraclitum dabit vobis,
and I will ask the Father and he will send you another Paraclete,
ut maneat vobiscum in aeternum, alleluia.
to abide with you for ever, alleluia.

The setting above by Thomas Tallis (c.15015 – 1585) uses the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible, John 14:15-17a:

If ye love me, keep my commandments. 
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, 
that he may abide with you for ever;
e’en the Spirit of truth.

The singers are The Cantate Boys’ Choir.


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‘I am the vine, you are the branches.’ Sunday Reflections, 5th Sunday of Easter, Year B

‘I am the vine, you are the branches.’ Sunday Reflections, 5th Sunday of Easter, Year B

From The Gospel of John (2003) directed by Philip Saville

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)Gospel John 15:1-8 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) Jesus said to his disciples:“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.


The Virgin of the Grapes, Pierre Mignard, 1640s

Musée du Louvre, Paris [Web Gallery of Art]

Around this time twenty years ago I paid my only visit to the Holy Land, at the insistence of a friend of mine, Ninfa, whom I had met at a charismatic gathering in Tagum, Davao del Norte, Mindanao, in 1977. When Ninfa worked for a family in Israel she began to organise pilgrimages to the holy sites for her fellow Filipino workers, Overseas Filipino Workers, or ‘OFWs’, as they are known here in the Philippines.

Ninfa had arranged for us to stay for some nights in Jerusalem in a school run by Salesian Sisters. It was during the long vacation so there were no students there. During dinner the first evening I discovered that among the 14 or 15 visitors in the dining room, pilgrims from many parts of the world, all strangers, apart from Ninfa, there were three who knew persons I knew. Not for the first time I felt in a very personal way the reality that we as Christians truly are one. I am the vine, you are the branches.

Pope Benedict, in a homily during Mass at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on 22 September 2011 reflects on this:

 

If we consider these beati and the great throng of those who have been canonized and beatified, we can understand what it means to live as branches of Christ, the true vine, and to bear fruit. Today’s Gospel puts before us once more the image of this climbing plant, that spreads so luxuriantly in the east, a symbol of vitality and a metaphor for the beauty and dynamism of Jesus’ fellowship with his disciples and friends – with us.

In the parable of the vine, Jesus does not say: ‘You are the vine’, but: ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’ (John 15:5). In other words: ‘As the branches are joined to the vine, so you belong to me! But inasmuch as you belong to me, you also belong to one another.’ This belonging to each other and to him is not some ideal, imaginary, symbolic relationship, but – I would almost want to say – a biological, life-transmitting state of belonging to Jesus Christ. Such is the Church, this communion of life with Jesus Christ and for one another, a communion that is rooted in baptism and is deepened and given more and more vitality in the Eucharist. ‘I am the true vine’ actually means: ‘I am you and you are I’ – an unprecedented identification of the Lord with us, with his Church.

This last week here in the Philippines brought people together in prayer for an OFW, Mary Jane Veloso, the mother of two young boys, who was due to be executed by firing squad in Indonesia, along with eight others, all having been found guilty, in separate cases, of bringing illegal drugs into that country or trying to smuggle them out. Most people, including myself, believe that she was duped and was unaware of what she was carrying in a new suitcase given her. She had been led to believe, like many others, that a good job awaited her. At the last minute, some hours after she had said goodbye to her family and was preparing for the worst, she was told that the execution had been postponed because of new information from the Philippines. An hour after she learned this the other eight, involved in different cases of smuggling of illegal drugs, were taken out and shot.

One of those was a Brazilian, Rodrigo Gularte, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, apparently did not understandthat he was to be executed. This was told by Fr Charlie Burrows OMI, who has been working in the area where the executions took place since the 1970s. He has been present at executions in the past. He also told how guards present when Mary Jane Veloso was bidding goodbye to her children broke down crying.

I discovered that Fr Burrows is from Dublin, is the same age as myself and went to the same school, though he was a year behind me and I can’t claim to have known him. But again I was struck by how we are related through our baptism. An Irish priest in Indonesia spending so much time with a Brazilian facing execution there and apparently spending time with Mary Jane Veloso, though there were Filipino priests who were helping her and her family. I am the vine, you are the branches.

All of these were united through their faith in Jesus Christ, a faith received as a precious gift at baptism.

During the last visit of her family to Mary Jane they prayed together and sang, at her request, a hymn written for the Great Jubilee of 2000 by a namesake, Mary Jane C. Mendoza, better known as Jamie Rivera.

Open your hearts to the Lord and begin to see the mystery
That we are all together as one family.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Antiphona ad Communionem Communion Antiphon Cf. John 15:1,5

Ego sum vitis vera et vos palmites, dicit Dominus;

I am the true vine and you are the branches, says the Lord.

qui manet in me et ego in eo,

Whoever remains in me, and I in him,

hic fert fructum multum, alleluia.

 

Rosary and Scapular [Wikipedia]

 


Bring Flowers of the Rarest (Queen of the May)

Bring flowers of the rarest
bring blossoms the fairest,
from garden and woodland and hillside and dale;
our full hearts are swelling,
our glad voices telling
the praise of the loveliest flower of the vale!

Refrain:
O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today!
Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.
O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.

Their lady they name thee,
Their mistress proclaim thee,
Oh, grant that thy children on earth be as true
as long as the bowers
are radiant with flowers,
as long as the azure shall keep its bright hue

Refrain

Sing gaily in chorus;
the bright angels o’er us
re-echo the strains we begin upon earth;
their harps are repeating
the notes of our greeting,
for Mary herself is the cause of our mirth.

Refrain