Marriage Referendum in Republic of Ireland; pre-referendum novena

Peasant Wedding, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c.1567
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna [Web Gallery of Art]

On Friday 22 May voters in the Republic of Ireland will go to polling stations to decided whether or not to amend the Constitution by re-defining marriage: Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.

This is a consequence of the passing of The Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015.

Anyone in the Republic of Ireland is free to marry in accordance with law – anyone. Some choose not to marry, for different reasons. Some who would like to marry don’t because perhaps no one has asked them to be a partner in life until death do us part.

This referendum is allegedly about ‘equality’ but is in reality an attempt to re-define marriage to make it something that has never existed in any society from the beginning of time.

Though I will be in Ireland on 22 May having arrived there the day before, carrying my Irish passport, the only one I have, I will not be eligible to vote on this attempt to radically change society in my country, despite being a natural-born citizen. Because I live outside Ireland I am not considered equal to citizens who live there. This is not an election for a new parliament. I can understand why I cannot vote in that. This is an attempt to re-define the society to which I belong, to change the Constitution of my country.

So much for ‘equality’.

In today’s Irish Independent Ger Brennan, who plays for the Dublin Gaelic Football team, explains Why I’m voting No. Some of his points:


  • For a start, this isn’t a referendum on whether we like gay people or whether they should be equal citizens according to the Constitution. They already are equal citizens. Article 40.1, which deals with equality, declares that all citizens shall be held equal before the law. We are not being asked to amend Article 40. We are instead being asked to amend Article 41, which deals with the family and with marriage.
  • All legislation is derived from the Constitution and its principles. So it seems pretty clear that if we redefine marriage and the family by making marriage genderless we will be denying that there is any special value in a child having both a mother and a father. We will be denying that children have any kind of a legal right to a mother and father where possible, like when it comes to laws relating to adoption and surrogacy.
  • I very nearly decided not to write this piece. I know I’ll be targeted for it and labeled for it. It would have been easier to keep my mouth shut and not rock the boat. But I’m sick of the accusations being flung around that if you vote ‘No’ you are homophobic. I know I’m not homophobic; my gay friends and family can attest to that. I am voting ‘No’ because I don’t want our Constitution to deny that it is a good thing for a child to have a mother and a father.
  • The Universal Declaration on Human Rights proclaims that everybody is equal in dignity and it holds that marriage is a male-female union. I don’t think the Declaration of Human Rights is homophobic. I’m voting ‘No’.
Many of those who are pushing for ‘Yes’, ie for change, try to make this a ‘Catholic’ issue in the sense that they make out the old-fashioned, ‘conservative’ Catholic Church to be holding back progress. Nowhere in his article does Ger Brennan indicate his faith or religion, if any. Nowhere does he refer to the Catholic Church. No society in history has ever seen marriage as other than a union between man and woman, in some societies with polygamous or polyandrous variations on this but always male and female, with the probability of their producing children. The wider society has always been seen as having some responsibility in enabling parents to raise their children, have them educated and so on. That is the only reason the State should have any interest in the union of husband and wife and their children, the family.

Bruce Arnold is an English journalist who has lived and worked in Ireland since 1957. He has argued strongly on his blog against the proposed change. In anything I have read there I don’t find any reference to faith or religion or to the sacrament of marriage. Catholics give a special meaning to the sacrament but what we believe is in full harmony with what every society in history until now has believed: that marriage involves man and woman and, as nature teaches us, it is only a man and a woman together who can bring another human being into existence.. And any of the artificial/unnatural means used today to produce a child still need a man and a woman. 

The Holy Family, Sisto Badalocchio, c.1610
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, USA [Web Gallery of Art]

Today, Wednesday 13 May, a novena has begun for the people of the Republic of Ireland as they prepare for this important vote. One does not need to be a Christian to understand that family has always meant husband and wife and, in most cases, children. But Christians have a great responsibility to work for justice. Justice includes working to ensure that children should never be commodities, as so many are in today’s world.


Novena Prayer
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Holy Family of Nazareth,
we bless and venerate you.
We commend to your care and protection
the cause of marriage and family life.
May the peace which reigned in your home
take possession of all hearts and abide in all families.
Confirm all men and women in the truth
so we may recognise what is good and right
and reject all that hinders life
and the true flourishing of humanity.
Guide the hearts of all citizens
that we may witness to the truth
in forming the laws governing our society.
Bless those who work for the protection
of marriage, family and life.
O Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Holy Family of Nazareth,
We entrust our hearts and our lives to you.
Amen

‘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

Columban Fr Denis Bartley RIP

Fr Denis Bartley

18 September 1927 – 20 April 2015

Fr Denis Bartley died in Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan, on 20 April. Born at Killinure, Brittas, Pallasgreen, County Limerick on 18 September 1927.  He was educated at Eyon National School, and Mount Melleray, where he also studied two years of Philosophy. He came to St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, in 1947 and was ordained priest on 21 December 1951.

Mambajao, viewed from Mount Hibok-Hibok [Wikipedia]

Appointed to the Philippines and the District of Mindanao, he served initially in Mambajao (Camiguin), and later in the parishes of Dumalinao, Dumingag (both in Zamboanga del Sur), Ozamis City, Malabang (Lanao del Sur) and Sapang Dalaga (Misamis Occidental). A number of these appointments were particularly difficult, and he served there in traumatic times.

Mount Hibok-Hibok [Wikipedia]

He was in Mambajao after Mount Hibok-Hibok’s volcanic eruption killed 1,000 people and destroyed the parish house on 4 December 1951. [Editor’s note: the Columbans had just taken over the four parishes in Camiguin from the Jesuits.] He was pastor of Malabang when Fr Martin Dempsey was shot dead on 19 October 1970. 

Fr Martin Dempsey

1934 – 19 October 1970

In March 1974, Fr Bartley was appointed to the USA and served as director of promotion.

Cathedral Basilica of St John the Apostle and Evangelist, Lima [Wikipedia]

In 1980, he was assigned to Peru and served in Lima during the following three years. Re-assigned to the USA in 1983, he did mission education work, and served in the Bayside and Kew Garden houses in New York City before returning as bursar to the Columban house in Omaha, Nebraska, where the American headquarters are located. He served in various other roles in Omaha until poor health forced his return to Ireland and to St Columban’s Nursing Home in January 2012.

Father Denis was a private, rather reserved person, yet he was good company and an excellent host. Totally dedicated and committed to the people, he was remembered with great affection in many parishes long after he had been transferred elsewhere.  

May he rest in peace. 

Fr Patrick Raleigh, Regional Director of the Columbans in Ireland, described Father Denis’s funeral as ‘a very joyful celebration’ – not unusual at Columban funerals – and noted that at the lunch after the burial in St Columban’s Cemetery a couple of Limerick songs were sung, led by Bob Richardson, a nephew of Father Denis, and Paddy Crowe, a brother of Columban Sister Sheila Crowe. One was There is an Isle, associated especially with rugby in Limerick.

The other song was Limerick, You’re a Lady. Your editor happened to find a recording of this sung by Milaflor Abordo from the Philippines.

 

George Clooney on how to celebrate Mass

Maybe the heading to this post is slightly misleading, since George Clooney is talking about his aunt, Rosemary Clooney, as a singer, not about the Mass. But what he says about her (0:21 – 0:33) is something that we priests can take to heart: She served the song probably better than any singer I’ve ever seen. At some point in her career she decided she didn’t have to show off as a singer and she would just serve the song. And that’s what she does.
When I was a child growing up in Aughrim Street Parish in Dublin, newly-ordained priests from Kimmage Manor would often say the later Masses on Sunday morning. People would say, One of the Holy Ghost Fathers (now known as ‘The Spiritans’) said the eleven o’clock Mass yesterday’. It didn’t matter who he was or what his name was. What was important was that he had celebrated Mass. That’s what mattered.
Each priest in those days had his own ‘style’, which he was probably not conscious of. Some tended to celebrate Mass quickly, some slowly. But every Mass was essentially the same and there were no ‘surprises’. A young altar-boy in Scotland two years ago said to me, It’s hard serving at Mass since each priest is so different. I don’t think he was referring to anything weird or off-the-wall. But there is more room for ‘surprises’ in the Mass now than in the old days. And some of these can drive and have driven people away from the Church, and maybe even away from the Faith.
Rosemary Clooney surely serves the beautiful 1938 song by Sammy Fain (music) and Irving Kahal (lyrics), I’ll Be Seeing You, in the video above, even though her voice wasn’t as fresh or as supple as when she was younger. But she brings something of the experience of the difficult life that her nephew refers to in his introduction to her interpretation of the song, with only a pianist to accompany her. He in turn serves the singer and the song. Rosemary doesn’t have to show off as a singer.
And neither do we priests have to show off when we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
A much younger Rosemary Clooney (1928 – 2002) singing the same song, without its introduction, on a TV show in the 1950s. Clearly she had already decided that she didn’t have to show off as a singer and she would just serve the song.

‘Have you anything here to eat?’ Sunday Reflections, 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B

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Supper at Emmaus, Caravaggio, 1606

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan [Web Gallery of Art]


Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:35).

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Luke 24:35-48 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)   Then they told what had happened on the road, and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

Responsorial Psalm [Philippines, USA]


St Pope John Paul II skiing in 1984

Both St John Paul II and I skied, though never together. He skied most of his life, managing to ‘escape’ even when pope to do so. My career was limited to one glorious day early in January 1969 in Toggenburg, near Syracuse in Upstate New York. If I could re-live one day in my life that is the one I would choose. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the air was crisp and clean and I remember devouring mandarin oranges and laughing for about ten minutes when I fell off the ‘T-bar’ while going back up to the top of the beginners’ slope.


T-bar lift, Sweden [Wikipedia]


I had been ordained less than 13 months before and was studying music in Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York, north of New York City, run by the Religious of the Sacred Heart. One of the students, Regina McGann, invited me to spend some days with her family in Jamesville. She came from a large family and her parents, Harold and Mary, made me feel most welcome.

If I could re-live that wonderful day of skiing it would have to include the family meal that evening in the McGann household – or any of the evenings I was there. We sat around a big round table and there was no rush. The emphasis wasn’t on eating but on enjoying a family mealtogether. The McGann Family was for me a great example of the truth of Fr Patrick Peyton‘s slogan, The family that prays together stays together. Father Peyton used a copy of Murillo’s painting below in his Family Rosary Crusade.


Virgin and Child with a Rosary, Murillo, 1650-55

Museo del Prado, Madrid [Web Gallery of Art]


The McGann Family prayed the Rosary every night except Sunday, when the prayed Compline, the Night Prayer of the Church. This practice went back long before Vatican II, which encouraged lay people to pray parts of the Breviary, The Prayer of the Church.
But what I learned from this wonderful family is that The Family that eats together stays together. As an adult I came to see that it was through our family meals while growing up that I had experienced most of all being part of a family. The only time we were all together was in the evening. And Sunday dinner, in the early afternoon, was always something special, as it was for every family that I knew.

Today’s gospel opens with the two disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus recount how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. They had invited Jesus to dine with them and that is how they discovered who their companion on the road – whom they had invited to join them – really was.

And to show the disbelieving apostles and disciples that he is not a ghost Jesus asks, Have you anything here to eat? 

During the Easter Season we also hear at Mass gospel readings fromJohn 21 the chapter that includes the scene of the extraordinary catch of fish, some of which Jesus, the Risen Lord, cooked when he said,Come and have breakfast (John 21:12). After that meal he asks Peter three times, Simon son of John, do you love me?

This is a moment of great intimacy when Peter discovers that it is as his beloved friend that Jesus give him his mission – Feed my lambs . . . tend my sheep . . . feed my sheep.
It is clear from these gospel readings, and from many others, most especially the accounts of the Last Supper, that God reveals himself to us in the intimacy of a meal. If the family meal or meals with close friends are not part of our lives, how can we understand the meal aspect of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? In the Mass, in which we unite ourselves with the Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, he gives himself, the Risen Lord, body, blood, soul and divinity, as so many of us learned when we were young, as the Bread of Life. It is not a symbol of himself that he gives in Holy Communion, but his very self, carrying the scars of Calvary and giving us the strength to do the same.

But he also reveals himself to us in our ordinary meals, sometimes even over a cup of tea or coffee. I remember one person who was close to me who for many years had carried a resentment towards someone now dead, a resentment that was the result of a painful incident. She recalled what her father, long since dead, had said to her many years before: Never carry a grudge against anyone. Over that cup of tea she finally let go of her self-inflicted pain, forgave, and moved on with a new lightness in her heart. I have no doubt whatever that it was Jesus the Risen Lord who spoke to her that day through the words of her father. It was a kind of Resurrection experience, over a cup of tea.

Even when we’re not talking about profound things at a meal, when we see them as occasions when we most experience our humanity, when we see the link between the family or community meal, or a meal to which we invite someone living alone, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we can more readily understand the implications of the closing words of today’s gospel, You are witnesses of these things.

The simple Grace Before and After Meals can remind us gently of the presence of the Risen Lord at our table, as truly present as he was at the table in Emmaus, as truly present as he was when he asked the apostles, Have you anything here to eat?
Prayer before the meal, Adriaen Jansz van Ostrade, 1653British Museum, London [Web Gallery of Art]

]

Not Manchester United Football Club but Manchester United Methodist Choirs. This ancient Easter hymn is introduced by the arranger, Philip Stopford.

Christ the Lord is risen again!

Christ the Lord is risen again;

Christ hath broken every chain;

Hark! Angelic voices cry,

Singing evermore on high,

Alleluia!

He, Who gave for us His life,

Who for us endured the strife,

Is our Paschal Lamb today;

We, too, sing for joy, and say

Alleluia!

He, Who bore all pain and loss

Comfortless upon the cross,

Lives in glory now on high,

Pleads for us, and hears our cry;

Alleluia!

He Who slumbered in the grave,

Is exalted now to save;

Now through Christendom it rings

That the Lamb is King of kings.

Alleluia!

[He Whose path no records tell,

Who descended into hell;

Who the strong man armed hath bound,

Now in highest heaven is crowned.

Alleluia!


Now He bids tell abroad

How the lost may be restored,

How the penitent forgiven,

How we, too, may enter Heav’n.

Alleluia!]


Thou, our Paschal Lamb indeed,

Christ, Thy ransomed people feed:

Take our sins and guilt away,

Let us sing by night and day

Alleluia!

Prayer Intentions of Pope Francis April 2015: Creation; Persecuted Christians

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Apostleship of Prayer

 

Pope Francis addressing the European Parliament [Wikipedia]

Universal Intention – Creation

That people may learn to respect creation and care for it as a gift of God. 

 

Evangelization Intention – Persecuted Christians

That persecuted Christians may feel the consoling presence of the Risen Lord and the solidarity of all the Church.

‘He saw and believed.’ Sunday Reflections, Easter Sunday

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

 Gospel of the Mass during the Day, John 20:1-9

 

 

The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night


Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

From the Ordo (Philippines): The entire celebration of this sacred Vigil must take place at night, so that it begins after nightfall and ends before the dawn on the Sunday. (Universal Norms, 21). This rule is to be taken according to its strictest sense. The Easter Vigil is not to be celebrated at the time of day that is customary for anticipated Sunday Masses.

The Easter Vigil is not an ‘anticipated Mass’. It stands on its own and is the most important liturgical celebration of the whole year. One may fulfil one’s Sunday obligation by attending either the Easter Vigil or the Mass during the Day. One may also receive Holy Communion at both.


The Resurrection of Christ, Rembrandt, c.1639

 Alte Pinakothek, Munich [Web Gallery of Art]

At the Mass during the Day

 

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)                

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

Gospel John 20:1-9 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.



Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem [Wikipedia]

 [Referred to in the poem below as ‘Church of the Saviour’]

 
Father Pádraig Ó Croiligh is a priest of the Diocese of Derry in Ireland. He is also a poet. The following poem is from his book Brúitíní Creidimh (Mashed Potatoes of Faith) published by Foilseacháin Ábhair Spioradálta in 2005. I have added my own interlinear translation.


Calvaire (Calvary)

 
Ag barr na gcéimeanna

At the top of the steps

In Eaglais an tSlánaitheora

In the Church of the Saviour

Tá séipéal tógtha thart ar rian na croise,

There’s a chapel built around the mark of the cross,

An dara stáisiún déag dearaithe are a chúl

The twelfth station drawn at the back

Agus poll sa talamh faoi

And a hole in the ground beneath

San áit a mbíodh an chrois

In the place where the cross was

Ag an am ar tharla an crith talún.

At the time of the earthquake.


Ach níl an tarlú fein ná an duine

But neither the event nor the person

Í láthair anseo anois,

Are present here now,

Ach in áiteanna brúite buartha

But in crushed sorrowful places

Ar fud na cruinne

Throughout the world

Agus i láthair an uaignis.

And in the midst of loneliness.


An fear a fuair bás anseo,

The man who died here

Den bhás a rinneadh anseo,

Of the death inflicted here,

Tá sé beo agus aiséirithe.

He is alive and risen.

Tá Íosa ina Chríost go foill!

Jesus is still the Christ!

 

 Jesus is still the Christ!

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

 Sung in English and in Ukrainian, arranged by John Rutter


One of the ‘crushed sorrowful places’ in today’s world is Ukraine. ButJesus is still the Christ there!
There are many ‘crushed sorrowful places’ in the news just now: Kenya, Somalia, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan. The list goes on.

Lebanon is a country that went through a brutal civil war between 1975 and 1990 in which 120,000 were killed, out of a population of not much more than four million. It is affected today by the conflicts in neighbouring countries. Four years ago it gave what is one of the most joyful proclamations of the Resurrection that I have ever come across. One does not need to understand Arabic to know what is being celebrated. Jesus is still the Christ!

 

We can proclaim the Resurrection of Jesus Christ through any medium. One medium is the cartoon, a medium that was used by early Christians in times of persecution when they used the Ichthys sign, the ‘Sign of the Fish’, to identify themselves secretly to other believers.

 


B.C. by Johnny Hart

 

Johnny Hart was an American syndicated cartoonist who created theB.C. cartoon strip and was co-creator of the Wizard of Id strip. Especially around Holy Week and Easter he sometimes used the B.C.strip to express his Christian faith, as in the example above.

 


A quotation from the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchased over the counter of Calvary by the red coins of Redemption, but in the Divine plan it was a thief who was the escort of the King of kings into Paradise. If Our Lord had come merely as a teacher, the thief would never have asked for forgiveness. But since the thief’s request touched the reason of His coming to earth, namely, to save souls, the thief heard the immediate answer:

‘I promise thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise’ (Luke 23:43).

It was the thief’s last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything, and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged Him as Savior.

Johnny Hart echoes the words of Archbishop Sheen in the cartoon below published on Easter Sunday 2007, the day after his sudden death on Holy Saturday, 7 April. He often featured anthropomorphic ants in B.C., often at ‘Skool’, such as here:


[Panel 7: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Panel 8: ‘Assuredly I say to you today you will be with me in paradise.’ Panel 9: ‘It is finished.’ ‘Truly this man was the Son of God.’]

 

Entrance Antiphon  Antiphona ad introitum (Longer form)

At the Mass during the Day

A small town in Austria. Fr Shay Cullen, 20 March 2015

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A Small Town in Austria

by Fr Shay Cullen

 

Fiss, Austria [Wikipedia]

[Fr Cullen doesn’t name the small town he visited]

 

When the mayor of this seemingly clean and well-ordered town invited me during my lecture tour to a meeting with his town council in 2014 he said the town had problems and asked if I could help.

At first he discussed fair trade and how his town could do more to support the sale of Preda Fair Trade products and help ease the global exploitation of poor farmers and indigenous people he had read about in the Preda Fair Trade website (www.predafairtrade.net).

He would like to get the town certified as a “Fair Trade” town by the International Fair Trade Committee that makes the awards. “Well, Mayor,” I said, “that will depend on the amount of fair trade products that are sold here at the World Shop based on the population of the town over a given period.”

He smiled and nodded. “I know that your organization Preda Foundation is also working against unfair trade, I read in your web site, campaigning against the trade in human beings, saving the victims in a therapeutic home. Can we be a part of that too?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, “the sales of Preda products help save and heal the trafficked and abused children sold into sex slavery.”

He then asked how we work to get mayors like him to help.

I explained that the government and a large part of the Philippine population are in denial and need to be freed from unknowing, indifference and apathy. They need to be freed from the secret silence that surrounds the hateful and sordid crime against innocent and vulnerable children.

Continue on website of Preda.

Holy Week 2015: the Love that can Change the World. Fr Shay Cullen, 31 March 2015

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Holy Week 2015: The Love That Can Change the World

by Fr Shay Cullen

 

El Espolio (The Disrobing of Christ), El Greco, 1577-79

Sacristy of the Cathedral, Toledo, Spain [Web Gallery of Art]

What brought about the shameful torture, humiliation and excruciating execution, as a criminal on a Roman cross is what we need to ask and answer everyday not just during Holy Week.

Hundreds of thousands of true Christians around the world suffer persecution, torture and death these days because they are disciples of Jesus of Nazareth and put into practice his spiritual values that give meaning to life itself.

Why is there such opposition to a message, a way of life that espouses; love of the outcast, freedom, human rights and dignity, equality and the defence of children and a better life for the poor and the oppressed people of this world?

The Man who was called by some a great prophet who had come back to life, a wonder worker, a spiritual teacher, a man of compassion, a peace-maker, a defender of children and women and a social revolutionary brought these values into the world by his simplicity of life and his living out of these values.

He was welcomed into the capital Jerusalem one sunny April morning two thousand years ago by adoring crowds waving palm branches who were inspired by his teaching, healing and prophetic voice for the poor and the downtrodden. He stood with the marginalized outcasts and victims of social injustice. He was a hero and inspirational spiritual leader that day and everyday since. 

Continue on website of Preda.