Month: November 2014

The Universal desire for Justice. Fr Shay Cullen’s Reflections, 27 November 2014

The Universal Desire for Justice.

By Fr Shay Cullen

MV Sewol, 16 April 2014 [Wikipedia]

Seoul, Korea.

It was frosty cold standing in the center Island of the broad avenue in Seoul, Korea, leading to the historical palace and presidential house. There I met one of the grieving parents of the Korean ferry,MV Sewol, disaster. There is a protest encampment set up there where supporters and sympathizers come and stay and pray and demand justice for the families and victims of this terrible tragedy. There is a high sense and awareness of human rights and frequent democratic protests are held here in Seoul. But all are allowed to demonstrate continuously, peacefully or noisily without police crackdowns.

At the solidarity camp on the traffic island the father of a student who was killed in the sinking of the ferry boat told me through an interpreter how the parents cannot accept the inaction of government. They want government to redress fully the injustice and the terrible wrong behind the sinking of the ferry and the loss of so many young people and adults. He handed me a solidarity badge, a yellow folded ribbon. The high school students who died look out from the assembled 300 photographs at the temporary shrine to their memory. Their silent stares tell us of the enormity of their loss and greatness of the crime.

The MV Sewol, on 16 April 2014, sank with a complement of 500 passengers and crew. The ferry  was bought from a Japanese ferry company with only two years of life left as a passenger ferry but the shipping company used questionable methods to force through a change in the law so the ferry could get a license to carry passengers beyond its normal life. Together with illegal structural alterations to carry more cargo, the ferry was top-heavy and capsized. The Captain and some  of the crew have been jailed and the family of the owner are being arrested and charged. Justice is the overwhelming desire of the families of the students who died. 

MV Doña Paz [Wikipedia]

In the Philippines justice is hard to come by. As many as 4,386 Filipinos perished in the greatest peacetime maritime disaster ever when the MV Doña Paz, a ferry boat, owned by Sulpicio Lines, out of Tacloban, Leyte, sank after colliding with the oil tanker MT Vector on 20 December 1987.  Only 24 people survived. The ship was way over its seaworthy life and built for 608 passengers.

The ship was rebuilt after a fire, unlicensed, grossly overloaded and had no qualified captain or officer on duty on the bridge when the collision occurred leading to the deaths of thousands. The Philippine Board of Marine Inquiry eventually cleared Sulpicio Lines of all liability, fault and negligence for the accident stopping short of sympathizing with the owners of the shipping line.

No one was arrested, tried or found guilty of negligence or held responsible for the deaths of so many. Everything is negotiable in the Philippines if you are rich and powerful. Little compensation was paid to the family members of 4,386 people who perished.

The families of the 162 victims who died and 93 severely burned people of a Manila disco fire had to wait 18 years and eight months to get justice this past week. Small as it is with the sentences of seven Quezon City engineers and two businessmen to ten years each. Philippine Justice is hard to come by. All is negotiable except for the poor.

Last week a child, Angie, from Botolan, Zambales  with the mental capacity of nine year old, as testified by the resolution of the prosecutor Emelyn T. Nacin-Catolico in April  2011,  had been cruelly raped with fear and threats  by a pedophile and the case referred to the Regional Trial Court in Iba, Zambales.

Now three years later a new prosecutor, Olivia V.Non-Finones, instead of prosecuting the rapist pressured the child to sign an affidavit withdrawing her compliant. Such an affidavit of desistance is forbidden by order the Philippine Department of Justice and the Supreme Court has ruled many times that such affidavits of desistance have no weight whatsoever.

Nevertheless the judge, Marifi P.Chua, accepted the affidavit in court and stated in dismissing the rape charge against the accused that since the affidavit was based on the fact the rapist undertook  and promised not to rape again, the female judge dismissed the case and the accused  was allowed to walk free to do it again. The child was denied justice and more children are at risk.

Here in Seoul many welcome the UN resolution, approved by 111 countries, to send the leaders of North Korea to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity. Investigations and interviews with escapees from repressive North Korea led to a special UN report in February 2014 that provides evidence for the allegations of the crimes of systematic murders, torture, beatings, starvation, rape, forced abortions and unjust imprisonment of up to 120,000 people.

These issues and revelations have given an increased sense of obligation among the many South Koreans to do more to help  the less fortunate in North Korea and in developing countries. The desire for justice is universal and a nation without it is not a fully civilized nation but close to a failed state. 

This is perhaps why South Koreans are embracing and expanding their interest in social justice and buying Fair Trade products from developing nations like the Philippines dried mangos fo small farmers and the indigenous people.  They have a growing moral conscience about the exploitation of  the poor and the duty to help.

Fair trade is a rapidly growing sector in civil society and among Christians in many countries. The UK, Ireland, Germany and Austria are among the most active. The movement in Seoul has a strong supporter in Mayor Won Soon Park who  hosted in Seoul The Global Social Economic Forum this month to boost the social commitment of Koreans and foster international cooperation and Fair Trade. All of us can do our share to help make justice the heart of  faith and life.

 

shaycullen@preda.org, www.preda.org, www.predafairtrade.net

Fair Trade and the social teachings of the Catholic Church. Fr Shay Cullen’s Reflections, 18 November 2014

Fair Trade and the social teachings of the Catholic Church

by Fr Shay Cullen

One of the most well-known success stories of Preda Fair Trade is its action to alleviate poverty and oppose the evil trade of human trafficking by implementing the social teachings of the Church. Living out in action these spiritual and social values is a great challenge to Catholics and Christians of all denominations.

Pope Francis has spoken clearly on the need for economic justice in the world. He said that he wants a Church that is poor and for the poor. In his apostolic exhortationEvangelii Gaudium, he grounded this goal in Jesus Christ, who became poor and was always close to the poor and the outcast’ (No 186).

The selling of young people into bars and brothels under the guise and cover of ‘entertainer’ is a modern form of human slavery. Thousands of Filipinos are being sold into this evil form of trade in Asia and Korea is one major destination. Ten thousand Filipinos are reported to be trafficked into Korea, according to one university study.

Preda Dried Mango

Unless we act for children and the youth, and they are allowed to be exploited and abused without our action to help them, then our faith, teaching and  evangelization will have little impact and inspiration for the youth today. Perhaps that is why so few go to church. That is why Fair Trade is the long-term sustainable vehicle for delivering social and economic justice to the poorest of the poor. It makes them independent and self-reliant.

Korea and Japan are prime destinations for these young girls, many said to be minors but disguised as adults with fake documents and make-up. The goal is to save victims and uphold the dignity of women and children and provide economic alternatives in their home villages in the Philippines.

The goal of Preda Fair Trade is to curb human exploitation of every kind and promote the human rights of rural poor and workers and help exploited and the oppressed people. This is at the heart of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. The Preda Fair Tradeproject aims to prevent human trafficking and sex slavery by teaching the people the values of the gospel and the dignity and rights of every person, especially the rights of women and children.

Preda Dried Manog (Sugar-free)

It also provides livelihood projects to poor families such as organic mango production, fair prices and bonus payments for every small-scale farmer for their mango fruit. Preda Fair Trade also provides water-pumps, bicycles and educational assistance to children. Small-scale farmers are given mango tree saplings and coconut seeds to improve their production. A portion of the earnings from sales of Preda dried mangoes of Preda Fair Trade goes to help child victims of sex trafficking and abuse in Preda therapeutic homes. Preda dried mangoes are widely available in supermarkets in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

By buying the mangoes of small farmers and indigenous people at high, fair prices and paying a bonus to each farmer, Preda Fair Trade is slowly eliminating exploitation and poverty. It is the cruel poverty and social injustice that makes so many impoverished villagers eager to allow their children go to work in cities in the Philippines and abroad. Most don’t know the dangers.

The practice and example of economic justice in fair trade is a form of evangelization in word and action. It is by example of giving justice and fairness that Preda has credibility with the people and society. As St James writes, Faith without action for justice is dead. The Church has a duty to implement the social teachings proclaimed by Jesus and the Popes for generations, Pope Francis in particular, and Fair Trade is one great way to do it.

Preda Dried Mango-Tamarind

The work to protect women and children from sex slavery is a priority. The Preda Foundation has homes that are therapeutic healing centers for child victims and a Preda legal office prosecutes abusers and traffickers through the courts. A percentage of the earnings from the sale of the dried mangoes and other fair traded products helsp fund these services for the victims rescued from Filipino sex bars and brothels.

The evil trade begins when the young women and children are recruited in Filipino villages or towns by human traffickers who promise them good jobs in factories and hotels or as singers and dancers in Korea and elsewhere. They pay part of the’salary’ in advance to the parents and relatives of the young women so they are obligated and become victims of ‘bonded’ labor.

The sex bars are situated near US bases like Camp Stanley. The girls have to sell a certain number of ‘juicy’ drinks to customers and are pressured to give sexual favors to the customers in small rooms at the back of the bars or in nearby cheap hotels. In some cases it is rape as the girls have never expected this and do not consent to it.

The development and promotion of Preda Fair Trade is a most effective way for Catholics to use their buying power to make a strong faith-based commitment and statement for social justice. Faith can be more alive every time they choose to buy a Fair Trade product knowing it is not the product of child labor, exploitation or cheating the producers. They will know it is based on fairness and concern. They will learn too from the information given with the products about the needs of the poor and the positive help that Fair Trade gives to them and what more they can do to help.

shaycullen@preda.org   www.preda.org

[Photos from Preda Fair Trade Products]

‘Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.’ Sunday Reflections, 1st Sunday of Advent, Year B

Young Jew as Christ, Rembrandt, c.1656

 Staatliche Museen, Berlin [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 13:33-37  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)

Jesus said to his disciples:

Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn,  or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Liam Whelan  (1 April 1935 – 5 February 1958)

 
If this is the end, then I’m ready for it.

These were the last words of Liam Whelan who died in a plane crash at Munich Airport on 6 February 1958 along with other members of the Manchester United football (soccer) team as they were returning from a match in Belgrade. About seven years ago I learned from a friend named Brendan whom I have known for more than 50 years that, when they were both aged 14 or so, Liam rescued him when he got into difficulties in a swimming pool in their area. And last year I discovered that another friend, who was a classmate of mine for five years in secondary school and for two years in the seminary, also named Liam, that this talented young footballer had been a neighbour of his and that even when he had achieved fame as a professional footballer he would still play knockabout football on the street with the local boys whenever he would come home.

The average age of Manchester United’s players at the time of the accident was only 22. These young men were earning only £15 a week, about 25 percent more than a tradesman could earn. Endorsements could bring in a little more income for a few talented players whose career would end for most at 35, if not earlier.

There was snow on the ground at Munich Airport and the plane made three attempts to take off. Harry Gregg, the goalkeeper for Manchester United and who also played in that position for Northern Ireland’s international team, was sitting near Liam Whelan. He survived uninjured and helped save a number of people from death. He has often told the story of Liam Whelan’s last words: If this is the end, then I’m ready for it.

Clearly young Liam had his life focused on what was most important. He was ready to meet death. I have often spoken about him at Mass and in giving retreats. 

Those who knew him describe Liam Whelan as ‘a devout Catholic’. I know that he sent his mother some money for her to go to Lourdes. 11 February 1958 was the centennial of the first apparition of our Blessed Mother to St Bernadette. Mrs Whelan, a widow since 1943 when Liam was 8, used the money instead towards a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Lourdes over the grave of her son. I pass it each time I visit my parents’ grave.

Liam Whelan’s grave (right)

I vividly remember the dark, late afternoon I heard about the crash from a street-singer whom I knew by sight and who was running around agitatedly telling people of the crash. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not but the news on the radio confirmed that it really had happened. It was the first time in my life to experience what has been called a ‘public-private moment’, a public happening, usually a tragedy, that becomes a very personal one for those who learn of it, one that is seared in the memory and often in the heart.

Liam Whelan grew up in the next parish to my own and I remember going to Christ the King Church the evening his remains were brought there. I was outside the church with countless others. An article by John Scally in the February 2008 issue of The Word, the magazine of the Divine Word Missionaries in Ireland that is no longer published, described what many experienced: Their funerals were like no other. Most funerals are a burial of someone or something already gone. These young deaths pointed in exactly the opposite direction and were therefore the more poignant. Normally we bury the past but in burying Liam Whelan and his colleagues, in some deep and gnawing way we buried the future.

I still feel some pain at the deaths of Liam Whelan and his colleagues nearly 57 years after they died but the story of Liam’s preparedness for his sudden death is one that continues to inspire me.

Liam’s last words, If this is the end, then I’m ready for it, are a perfect response to today’s gospel. Jesus is not trying to frighten us but he is telling us starkly to be prepared always for the moment of our death, to do everything with that in mind. Advent is a time when we prepare not only to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas, but to become much more aware of his daily coming into our lives, and to prepare, as individuals and as a Christian community to welcome him when he returns at the end of time in a way that we won’t be ashamed.

What would we say if he asked us here in the Philippines, for example, Have children who have been abused had their court cases finished quickly? I have heard that young Maria, who has gone to the court five or six times for a hearing, something that is quite upsetting for her, has been told on each occasion that the defence lawyer isn’t yet ready.

What would we say if Jesus said, I have been told that many forests have been cut down for profit and that this has resulted in many deaths in Leyte, for example, in 1991 and 2003. Is this true?

 


Tropical Storm Thelma (Uring) [Wikipedia]

 More than 5,000 died in a flash flood in Ormoc City, Leyte, on 5 November 1991. Deforestation was blamed as a primary cause of the devastation.

 
The gospel this Sunday is, literally, a ‘wake up call’. Beware, keep alert . . . Therefore, keep awake . . . And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.

May the response of Liam Whelan, a young professional footballer who took these words to heart, inspire us and give us a desire to be always prepared to meet the Lord, in this life and in the next: If this is the end, then I’m ready for it.


This was recorded on St Columban’s Day, 23 November 2011, in the Abbey of St Columban, Bobbio, Italy, where the saint died and is buried.

Antiphona ad introitum  Entrance Antiphon  Cf Ps 24 [25]:1-3

Ad te levavi animam meam, Deus meus,

 To you, I lift up my soul, O my God.

 in te confido, non erubescam.

 In you, I have trusted, let me not be put to shame.

 Neque irrideant me inimici mei, 

 Nor let my enemies exult over me;

 etenim universi qui te exspectant non confundentur.

 and let none who hope in you be put to shame.

Ps 24 [24]:4. Vias tuas, Domine, demonstri mihi; et semitas tuas edoce me.

 Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.

Ad te levavi animam meam, Deus meus,

 To you, I lift up my soul, O my God.

in te confido, non erubescam.In you, I have trusted, let me not be put to shame.

Neque irrideant me inimici mei, 

 Nor let my enemies exult over me;

etenim universi qui te exspectant non confundentur.

 and let none who hope in you be put to shame.

 

The longer version is sung or recited when the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is celebrated.

‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these . . . you did it to me.’ Sunday Reflections, Christ the King

The Last Judgment, Peter Cornelius, 1836-39

Fresco, Ludwigskirche, Munich [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 25:31-46  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’  

 

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’  And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ 

 

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;  for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 

 

Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’  Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

 

St Elizabeth of Hungary, 

Sándor Liezen-Mayer, 1882

Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest [Web Gallery of Art]

In November 1974 some members of the Praesidium of the Legion of Mary of which I was spiritual director came to me and told me of two starving children, a brother and sister, that they had come across on home visitation. The Legionaries were students in the college department of what was then Immaculate Conception College, Ozamiz City, where I was chaplain. At the time ICC was run by the Columban Sisters. It is now La Salle University, under the care of the De La Salle Brothers.

We arranged with the parents to take the two children to the local government hospital. When I saw Linda, as I will call her, I thought she was a malnourished eight year old. I was utterly shocked when I learned that she was twelve. Her brother, whom I’ll call Nonoy, was five. His ribs were sticking out and his stomach severely bloated. The eldest in the family, a girl aged 13 or 14, showed no signs of malnutrition. This was the first time I had ever met anyone with signs of starvation. I never discovered why the children were in such a state.

After a few days Linda began to shyly smile and slowly got a little better, due to the nourishment and attention she was getting. But Nonoy showed no signs of improvement. He died two days before Christmas, without once smiling. We buried him on Christmas Eve.

Linda was able to go home and on at least once occasion we took her on an outing. She was still very small for her age but always cheerful whenever we met her. However, the severe malnutrition had taken its toll and she died in September 1975 while I was at home in Ireland.

 

St Martin and the Beggar, El Greco, 1597-99

National Gallery of Art, Washington [Web Gallery of Art]

Today’s Gospel makes me both fearful and hopeful. 

Fearful, because Jesus speaks such harsh language: You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. This is not ‘the Church of nice’.

Hopeful, because Linda and Nonoy will be there at the Last Judgment to speak in my behalf.

 


St Martin de Porres OP [Wikipedia]

Monastery of Rosa of Santa Maria in Lima. This portrait was painted during his lifetime or very soon after his death, hence it is probably the most true to his appearance.

During November the Church honours three saints noted for their extraordinary love for the poor, St Martin de Porres (1579 – 1639) on the 3rd, St Martin of Tours (316 – 397) on the 11th and St Elizabeth of Hungary (1207 – 1231) on the 17th. These three gave of their very self. These exemplified in their lives what Jesus is teaching us in today’s gospel.

El Greco is one of many artists who have depicted the scene of St Martin of Tours, then a young soldier and preparing for baptism, giving half of his cloak in the depths of winter to a beggar clad only in rags. The following night, the story continues, Martin in his sleep saw Jesus Christ, surrounded by angels, and dressed in the half of the cloak he had given away. A voice bade him look at it well and say whether he knew it. He then heard Jesus say to the angels, ‘Martin, as yet only a catechumen, has covered me with his cloak.’ Sulpicius Severus, the saint’s friend and biographer, says that as a consequence of this vision Martin ‘flew to be baptized’.

 

Sándor Liezen-Mayer in his painting of St Elizabeth of Hungary above, shows her protecting a young mother and baby with her cloak. The saint herself was a young mother. She married at 14, bore three children and was widowed at 20. The painting reminds me of a beautiful Irish blessing, Faoi bhrat Mhuire thú/sibh (‘May thou/you be protected by the cloak of Mary’). The young saint, who was only 24 when she died, followed the example of St Francis, with the blessing of her husband, lived very simply and served the poor and the sick each day personally and ate with them at the same table.

St Martin de Porres, a shrine in Lima [Wikipedia]

 

St Martin de Porres, born outside of marriage and of mixed blood, learned some of the medical arts by working with a barber/surgeon in his young days. He devoted his life as a Dominican lay brother to caring for the sick, whether they were rich or poor. It was mostly the latter who came to him and whom he went looking for. Like St Francis he had a special closeness to animals and people brought these to him to be healed. He is often depicted carrying a broom, with a dog, a cat and a mouse at his feet eating from the same plate.

These three saints from different social backgrounds wrestled with situations we wrestle with today. They spent themselves in bringing about the Kingdom of God by serving the very poorest. St Martin of Tours, who like St Elizabeth was born in Hungary, asked himself as a soldier if it was proper to engage in battle, where he would kill others. Wikipedia tells us: Regardless of whether or not he remained in the army, academic opinion holds that just before a battle with the Gauls at Borbetomagus (now Worms, Germany), Martin determined that his faith prohibited him from fighting, saying, ‘I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight.’ He was charged with cowardice and jailed, but in response to the charge, he volunteered to go unarmed to the front of the troops. His superiors planned to take him up on the offer, but before they could, the invaders sued for peace, the battle never occurred, and Martin was released from military service.

Conscientious objection doesn’t only concern those called to join an army. A Swedish midwife,  Ellinor Grimmark, was fired this year for refusing to do abortions. This is an area where, more and more, individuals will have to make choices that may involve losing their jobs, or even worse.

The world is still overwhelmed with the needs of those trapped in poverty, victims of wars, of natural calamities. Pope Francis has spoken of the Church as being ‘a field hospital’. He has asked priests and others to know ‘the smell of the sheep’. St Elizabeth of Hungary and St Martin de Porres immersed themselves in that every day, seeing in each one they served Jesus Christ himself. And those they took care of, whether they were aware of it or not, were being served by Jesus himself through those saints and through the many others down the centuries who have been doing the same.

I am certain that Linda and Nonoy will hear Jesus say to them, Come, you that are blessed by my Father . . . I hope and pray that they and others like them who have crossed my path down the years will put in a good word for me so that I will hear Jesus say the same to me.

 

St Martin de Porres

Music by Mary Lou Williams, lyrics by Fr Anthony Woods SJ

Performed by Mary Lou Williams and the Ray Charles Singers

I don’t think there are too many songs written in a jazz idiom in honor of saints. The above is one, from an album with the title Black Christ of the Andes. The notes that accompany the album tell how Mary Lou Williams asked her confessor, Fr Anthony Woods SJ, to write lyrics to the music she had composed. And we know from today’s gospel that because St Martin de Porres saw Jesus in the sick and poor individuals whom he served that we can see Jesus in him and refer to him as Black Christ of the Andes.

St Martin de Porres

Black Christ of the Andes

St Martin de Porres

His shepherd’s staff a dusty broom

St Martin de Porres

The poor man made a shrine of his tomb.

 

St Martin de Porres

He gentled creatures tame and wild

St Martin de Porres

He sheltered each unsheltered child

 

This man of love

Born of the flesh yet of God

This humble man

Healed the sick

Raised the dead

 

His hand is quick

To feed beggars

And sinners

The starving homeless

And the stray

Oh, Black Christ of the Andes

Come feed and cure us now we pray

 

Oh God help us

Spare Oh Lord

Spare thy people

Lest you be angered with me forever

Lest you be angered with me forever

 

 

 

 

Antiphona ad introitum   Entrance Antiphon Revelations 5:12; 1:6.

 

Dignus est Agnus, qui occisus est,

How worthy is the Lambe who was slain,

accipere virtutem et divinitatem

to receive power and devotion

et sapientiam et fortitudinem et honorem.

and wisdom and honour and strength.

Ipsi gloria et imperium in saecula saeculorum.

to him belong glory and power for ever and ever.

(Ps 72 [71]:1. Deus, iudicium tuum regi da: et iustitiam tuam filio regis.

Give the king your justice, O God,and your righteousness to a king’s son.

 

Dignus est Agnus, qui occisus est,

How worthy is the Lambe who was slain,

accipere virtutem et divinitatem

to receive power and devotion

et sapientiam et fortitudinem et honorem.

and wisdom and honour and strength.

Ipsi gloria et imperium in saecula saeculorum.

to him belong glory and power for ever and ever.

‘You have been trustworthy in a few things . . . enter into the joy of your master.’ Sunday Reflections, 33rd Sunday in Ordinary

Woman Sewing, Van Gogh

Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands [Web Gallery of Art]

She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands (Proverbs 31:13, First reading).

 

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Matthew 25:14-30 [14-15, 19-21]  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)


Jesus spoke this parable to his disciples:

“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them;  to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 

[The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents.  In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.  But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.]

After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’

[And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ] 

For the shorter form of the Gospel the text in [square brackets] is omitted.

Jesse Robredo (27 May 1958 – 18 August 2012) [Wikipedia]

There was real sorrow throughout the Philippines when news broke that the small plane in which Jesse Robredo, Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in the administration of President Benigno Aquino III of the Philippines had crashed offshore while trying to make and emergency landing on Masbate Island. Secretary Robredo had been on official business in Cebu but wanted to be present at a swimming competition in which his daughter was taking part in their home town, Naga City in the heart of the Bicol Region at the southern end of Luzon. So he hired a small plane to fly from Cebu to Naga.

 

Naga City Hall [Wikipedia] 

During his six terms as elected Mayor of Naga City Jesse Robredo was noted for being close to ordinary people and for working for the improvement of the lives of all Nagueños. He saw his role as one of service.

 

Shortly after the Secretary’s death Fr Lucio Rosaroso, a chaplain to the Philippine National Police (PNP), spoke in a homily at a Mass for the soul of Jesse Robredo of the sense of service that he had:  Service is a time-honored value, however, the span of time in service does not matter — it may be long or short. What is more important is how much love one puts into his or her service.

The late Secretary Robredo, though his service to our country was cut short due to his untimely demise, but that is not what matters. What matters most is the LOVE that he put into his service. By that he gives us the best example of servant-leadership, he stressed.

Fr Rosaroso continued: Robredo’s heart was after the heart of the Good Shepherd. He was not only a good public servant but first and foremost a father to his very own family.

I remember reading at the time of his death the Jesse Robredo, who was based in Manila during his time as Secretary of the DILG, that he made a point of going home each weekend to Naga City to be with his family. By air this takes about 45 minutes but by road maybe six or seven hours, as I recall from going there from Manila a number of times in the 1990s whem I was a vocation director of the Columbans. It’s never easy for a politician or someone in public service to balance family life with public responsibilities. But Jesse Robredo made his wife and three daughters a priority.

 

Our Lady of Peñafrancia [Wikipedia]

The shrine of Our Lady of Peñafrancia is in Naga City.

 

I remember reading too that the day before his death Jesse Robredo went to confession at a church run by the Divine Word Missionaries in Quezon City, the largest component in area and size in Metro Manila. Fr Rosarosa of the PNP in his homily testified to the fact the DILG Secretary confessed regularly: The late secretary used to come here in Crame Church. In fact, every week he would go to confession. We are six priests here in Camp Crame and each one of us experienced being asked by the late secretary to administer to him the Sacrament of Reconciliation from time to time. He really believed in the sanctifying graces of the sacraments. He was a practicing and devout Catholic. He was a holy man in our midst!

Jesse Robredo’s confession the day before he died is a powerful example of what St Paul speaks about in today’s Second Reading: For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night . . . But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief (1 Thess 5:1-6).

The shorter version of the Gospel has a specific focus: You have been trustworthy in a few things. I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master. Because President Aquino saw how well Jesse Robredo had managed Naga City he made him responsible for local government throughout the Philippines.

The longer version shows how harshly the master dealt with the servant who simply buried what had been given to him. The investigation into the accident that killed Jesse Robredo suggests that three people lost their lives because others were not trustworthy in a few things.

The parable of the talents reminds us that whatever gifts God has given each of are not just for ourselves but are meant to be used in the service of others. What we do with them has consequences in the lives of others. Jesse Robredo, whose Catholic faith was at the centre of his life, used his talents in serving the people of Naga City from the time he was elected Mayor at the age of 29 and later in serving the people of the Philippines. He gave his wife and children first priority. The reason for his wanting to fly from Cebu to Naga, a journey that ended in his death, is a testimony to this.

The failure of some to use their talents, to carry out the responsibilities they were given, led to unnecessary deaths.

When the Lord will come like a thief in
the night which words do we
wish to hear from him: As for this worthless slave, throw him into the
outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth – harsh words that call us to
be responsible for what God has given us – or you
have been trustworthy in a few things . . . enter into the joy of
your master?

 

 

 

Antiphona ad introitum     Entrance Antiphon   Jeremiah 21: 11, 12, 14


Dicit Dóminus: Ego cógito cogitatiónes pacis, et non afflictiónis: invocábitis me, et ego exáudiam vos: et redúcam captivitátem vestram de cunctis locis. 

Vs. Benedixísti, Dómine, terram tuam: avertísti captivitátem Jacob.

Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula saeculorum. Amen.

Dicit Dóminus: Ego cógito cogitatiónes pacis, et non afflictiónis: invocábitis me, et ego exáudiam vos: et redúcam captivitátem vestram de cunctis locis. 

 

The Lord said: I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. You will call upon me and I will answer you., and I will lead back your captives from every place.

Vs. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have put an end to Jacob’s captivity.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

The Lord said: I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. You will call upon me and I will answer you., and I will lead back your captives from every place.


The text in bold is the Entrance Antiphon for today’s Mass in the Ordinary Form. The full text is the Entrance Antiphon for Mass in the Extraordinary Form on the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost.

 

Antiphona ad communionem   Communion Antiphon  Mk 11:23-24

 

Amen dico vobis, quidquid orantes petitis,
credite quia accepietis, et fiet vobis.

Amen, I say to you, Whatever you askf in prayer, believe that you will receive, and it shall be given to you, says the Lord.


This is also the Communion Antiphon for Mass in the Extraordinary Form on the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost.

Tacloban, one year later. Fr Shay Cullen’s Reflections, 10 November 2014

Tacloban, one year later

by Fr Shay Cullen

It was a painful and difficult story for Josephine, 15 years old, and her father Jose to tell. I sat on a small plastic chair in their small, one-roomed house that they built from the wreckage of Haiyan (Yolanda), the greatest typhoon ever to hit land. Josephine sat close to her father who was aged beyond his years. When I arrived in their little home made of plywood sheets with Francis Bermido Jr., the Preda executive director, Jose was repairing an electric motor. It was his only source of livelihood for his surviving children.
 
We were in Tacloban to meet some of the 88 orphans we are supporting with the help of generous donors from the UK, US, Ireland and elsewhere and who had lost one or both parents. Josephine (not her real name) is one of them
Jose’s two other children emerged sad-faced from a cubicle and joined their father and Josephine as he was telling us how his wife and their three daughters died
“We heard the warning on the radio,” he said. “We left our house and went to the second floor of the barangay center nearby with dozens of other neighbors. We thought we would be safe on the second floor. But the winds grew so strong the roof could not withstand it and it was ripped off and flew away into the darkness. The rain and wind rushed in and the crowd of people panicked and we rushed down the stairs to the ground floor but Josephine stayed on the upper floor.”
“Suddenly at that very moment as we got to the ground floor with many people, the great tidal wave came roaring in on top of us. We were very frightened and the children were crying and calling for their mama. The wave was as high as the barangay hall, they told me later. Everyone on the ground floor was trapped, the water formed a whirlpool and I could not hold the children and my wife. One daughter tried to go back up to where Josephine was but all three daughters and my wife drowned and these three survived.”
He lapsed into solemn silence, his face was wrinkled and a great sadness weighed on him. Later he told he felt better for telling us about his ordeal and loss.
Josephine took up the story. “I was on the  second floor. I saw my sister trying to come up to me. I grabbed her arm but I could not hold her against the strong pull of the gushing water of the tidal wave. She was swallowed up by the water. I feel sad and think if only I could have saved her,” she said .
“But I will finish my studies.” she said, and then walked over to the radio and from underneath pulled out an ATM card and proudly showed us. It was the Preda Foundation’s payment card through which she gets her cash allowance for her studies and support.
The Tacloban and Palo city businesses of the rich and wealthy are up and running. The big houses are repaired but the hovels are rebuilt also and are still hovels. The city is cleaned up, the devastation in the lives of the poor remains and is even worse. They are poorer than ever.
We went to Barangay 76, along the shore line where the big ships were thrown up and crushed the whole community where hundreds died and were swept out to sea by the tidal wave. There is no improvement and the same shanties and hovels made with scrap materials and plastic sheets still line the shoreline. The big ships are still there and one is being cut up for scrap. Its great diesel engine sits in a filthy garbage-strewn strip of sea shore. The bacteria infested pools of green water pollute the place and two huge pigs are lying in the filth. The people tell us, “Nothing has changed, we are just poorer than ever,” said one man.
We went to join the Preda community workers who were giving seminars to adults and children using pictures and a lively music puppet show to thrill, cheer and educate them on the hope of a better life and to teach them how to stay safe from human traffickers and child abusers.
These criminals roam about promising jobs and masquerading as relief workers but are trying to win over teenagers and their parents, if they have any, with promises of well-paid jobs in the big city of Manila and Cebu. They are the vultures preying on the poor and exploiting the sadness and pain of poverty of those left behind and living in tents and bunkhouses.
The World Health Organization has reported that as many as 800,000 people still suffer from post-typhoon trauma, depression and hopelessness. Considering that as many 11.5 million people were adversely affected by that greatest of storms, it’s no wonder many have not received aid or government funding of any kind.
Yet the government says it has spent 52 billion pesos, just over one billion Euro on recovery efforts. One wonders where all that donated money went and who really benefited from it. Given the level of corruption in the Philippines one cannot but think the bad politicians got most of it.
Thousands of people were killed and the counting apparently stopped at 6000 but Congress is being challenged to investigate and find the truth and some representatives have suggested that as many as 18,000 could have died. Mass graves were dug and hundreds of bodies lie in unmarked graves.
We then went to the church grounds where the Preda community workers were in a tent holding a therapeutic group dynamic session for adults and children to help them with psycho-social relief. Nearby lay the graves of as many as hundred victims. I prayed for the all the living and those who had been killed. I stood by the tiny graves of little children and nearby workmen were constructing a monument to all who had their lives taken away.
The printed posters by the graves had the pictures of the lost ones and invariably carried the message, “We will miss you, we will miss you” over and over. shaycullen@preda.org
End


 

Tacloban after Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, 8 November 2013 [Wikipedia]

 

It was a painful and difficult story for Josephine, 15 years old, and her father Jose to tell. I sat on a small plastic chair in their small, one-roomed house that they built from the wreckage of Haiyan (Yolanda), the greatest typhoon ever to hit land. Josephine sat close to her father who was aged beyond his years. When I arrived in their little home made of plywood sheets with Francis Bermido Jr, the Preda executive director, Jose was repairing an electric motor. It was his only source of livelihood for his surviving children.

 We were in Tacloban to meet some of the 88 orphans we are supporting with the help of generous donors from the UK, USA, Ireland and elsewhere and who had lost one or both parents. Josephine (not her real name) is one of them.

 Jose’s two other children emerged sad-faced from a cubicle and joined their father and Josephine as he was telling us how his wife and their three daughters died.

‘We heard the warning on the radio’, he said. ‘We left our house and went to the second floor of the barangay center nearby with dozens of other neighbors. We thought we would be safe on the second floor. But the winds grew so strong the roof could not withstand it and it was ripped off and flew away into the darkness. The rain and wind rushed in and the crowd of people panicked and we rushed down the stairs to the ground floor but Josephine stayed on the upper floor.

‘Suddenly at that very moment as we got to the ground floor with many people, the great tidal wave came roaring in on top of us. We were very frightened and the children were crying and calling for their mama. The wave was as high as the barangay hall, they told me later. Everyone on the ground floor was trapped, the water formed a whirlpool and I could not hold the children and my wife. One daughter tried to go back up to where Josephine was but all three daughters and my wife drowned and these three survived.’

He lapsed into solemn silence, his face was wrinkled and a great sadness weighed on him. Later he told he felt better for telling us about his ordeal and loss.

Josephine took up the story. ‘I was on the  second floor. I saw my sister trying to come up to me. I grabbed her arm but I could not hold her against the strong pull of the gushing water of the tidal wave. She was swallowed up by the water. I feel sad and think if only I could have saved her’, she said.

‘But I will finish my studies’. she said, and then walked over to the radio and from underneath pulled out an ATM card and proudly showed it tous. It was the Preda Foundation’s payment card through which she gets her cash allowance for her studies and support.

Survivors in Guian, Eastern Samar, gather around a US Navy helicopter [Wikipedia]

The Tacloban City and Palo businesses of the rich and wealthy are up and running. The big houses are repaired but the hovels are rebuilt also and are still hovels. The city is cleaned up, the devastation in the lives of the poor remains and is even worse. They are poorer than ever.

We went to Barangay 76, along the shore line where the big ships were thrown up and crushed the whole community where hundreds died and were swept out to sea by the tidal wave. There is no improvement and the same shanties and hovels made with scrap materials and plastic sheets still line the shoreline. The big ships are still there and one is being cut up for scrap. Its great diesel engine sits in a filthy garbage-strewn strip of seashore. The bacteria-infested pools of green water pollute the place and two huge pigs are lying in the filth. The people tell us, ‘Nothing has changed, we are just poorer than ever’, said one man.

We went to join the Preda community workers who were giving seminars to adults and children using pictures and a lively music puppet show to thrill, cheer and educate them on the hope of a better life and to teach them how to stay safe from human traffickers and child abusers.

These criminals roam about promising jobs and masquerading as relief workers but are trying to win over teenagers and their parents, if they have any, with promises of well-paid jobs in the big cities of Manila and Cebu. They are the vultures preying on the poor and exploiting the sadness and pain of poverty of those left behind and living in tents and bunkhouses.

The World Health Organization has reported that as many as 800,000 people still suffer from post-typhoon trauma, depression and hopelessness. Considering that as many 11.5 million people were adversely affected by that greatest of storms, it’s no wonder many have not received aid or government funding of any kind.

Yet the government says it has spent 52 billion pesos, just over one billion Euro, on recovery efforts. One wonders where all that donated money went and who really benefited from it. Given the level of corruption in the Philippines one cannot but think that bad politicians got most of it.

Thousands of people were killed and the counting apparently stopped at 6,000 but Congress is being challenged to investigate and find the truth and some representatives have suggested that as many as 18,000 could have died. Mass graves were dug and hundreds of bodies lie in unmarked graves.

We then went to the church grounds where the Preda community workers were in a tent holding a therapeutic group dynamic session for adults and children to help them with psycho-social relief. Nearby lay the graves of as many as hundred victims. I prayed for the all the living and those who had been killed. I stood by the tiny graves of little children and nearby workmen were constructing a monument to all who had their lives taken away.

The printed posters by the graves had the pictures of the lost ones and invariably carried the message, ‘We will miss you, we will miss you’ over and over. shaycullen@preda.org

 

 

Recent articles by Fr Shay Cullen

The Values ‘Down Under’ (5 November 2014).

Family makes us, loved as we are, Part 2 (31 October 2014)

Family makes us, loved as we are, Part 1 (11 October 2014).

Children of the Sex Trade (4 October 2014).

‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ Sunday Reflections, Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

Archbasilica of St John Lateran [Wikipedia]
 

The full name of the church is: Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist at the Lateran. It is the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome.

 
The Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basicila takes precedence over the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.


Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel John 2:13-22  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”  His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Christ driving the money-changers from the Temple, Rembrandt, c.1626

Pushkin Museum, Moscow [Web Gallery of Art] 

 

We are not isolated and we are not Christians on an individual basis, each one on his or her own, no, our Christian identity is to belong! We are Christians because we belong to the Church.

 

Pope Francis spoke these words at his General Audience on Wednesday 25 June this year. He went on to say:
The Christian belongs to a people called the Church and this Church is what makes him or her Christian, on the day of Baptism, and then in the course of catechesis, and so on. But no one, no one becomes Christian on his or her own. If we believe, if we know how to pray, if we acknowledge the Lord and can listen to his Word, if we feel him close to us and recognize him in our brothers and sisters, it is because others, before us, lived the faith and then transmitted it to us. We have received the faith from our fathers, from our ancestors, and they have instructed us in it . . . So, this is the Church: one great family, where we are welcomed and learn to live as believers and disciples of the Lord Jesus.
A few weeks earlier in his homily at Mass in St Martha’s on 15 May the Bishop of Rome spoke in similar words:
But you cannot understand a Christian alone, just like you cannot understand Jesus Christ alone. Jesus Christ did not fall from the sky like a superhero who comes to save us. No. Jesus Christ has a history. And we can say, and it is true, that God has a history because He wanted to walk with us. And you cannot understand Jesus Christ without His history. So a Christian without history, without a Christian nation, a Christian without the Church is incomprehensible. It is a thing of the laboratory, an artificial thing, a thing that cannot give life.
This Sunday we celebrate the dedication of the Cathedral of Rome. In a real sense it is the Mother Church for Catholics.
In his homily in St Martha’s Pope Francis said:
Looking back the Christian is a person who remembers: Let us seek the grace of memory, always. Looking forward, the Christian is a man, a woman of hope.
The feast of the dedication of any church is a feast of the Lord and takes precedence over a Sunday in Ordinary Time. And because St John the Baptist is one of the patrons of the Lateran Basilica the Mass has baptismal overtones, especially the First Reading.
I felt myself drawn by this feast to be a person who remembers, to accept the grace of memory from God and look back at some of the churches in my native Dublin in which I became a Christian and grew in the faith. Before the Holy Week liturgies were changed from the morning to the afternoon or evening by Pope Pius XII in 1955 my mother used to take my brother and me to visit seven churches on the afternoon of Holy Thursday to spend some time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in each. This practice seems to have died out in Dublin but it is very much alive here in the larger cities in the Philippines where it is known by the Spanish term visita iglesia. And I have just discovered that this practice originated in Rome, with the Archbasilica of St John Lateran top of the list.

Here I ‘visit’ a number of churches in Dublin that played a significant part in my becoming a member of the Church and in my growth in the faith. I invite each reader to make a similar pilgrimage of thanksgiving to God for the gift of our faith, for the gift of our Church and for those who have passed on the faith to us and nurtured us in it. The Church is a community of persons, God the Father’s sons and daughters by virtue of our baptism, just as a family is a community of persons. And just as a family normally lives in a home – we describe persons living in extreme poverty as ‘homeless’ – so does the Christian family normally gather in its parish church.

Pope Francis describes the parish in Evangelii Gaudium No 28, in these words: The parish is the presence of the Church in a given territory, an environment for hearing God’s word, for growth in the Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration.

St Joseph’s Church, Berkeley Road, Dublin [Wikipedia]
 
I was born in  small nursing home nearly opposite the church above on 20 April 193, Tuesday of Holy Week, the last time that Easter fell on the latest date possible, 25 April. A few days later, probably on Holy Saturday, I was baptised in that church, which wasn’t our parish church as we lived on the other side of the city.
About five years ago I celebrated Mass for the first time in St Joseph’s. The parish is now run by the Discalced Carmelites. The congregation on the Sunday I celebrated Mass was very different from what it would have been at the time of my birth. There were many Filipinos in the congregation, most of them nurses in the nearby Mater Hospital. And the servers were two girls aged about 12. One was white, from one of the oldest parts of the city, and the other was black, of Nigerian parentage. I was amused by the fact that the white girl would not acknowledge that she was from the inner city of Dublin while her companion was very proud to be a Dubliner! I met their mothers after Mass and they laughed when I told them this.
When I entered the Columban seminary in 1961 I could not have imagined such a congregation in any parish in Dublin, much less an altar-server whose parents were immigrants from Nigeria.
Our Lady Help of Christians Church, Drimnagh, Dublin
 
On a Christmas weekday a few months before I turned three I was thrown out of the church above, along with my pregnant mother, for shouting ‘Ba’ at the Infant in the crib.It was a traumatic experience for my mother. But whenever she would recall the event she would always add that the priest who ordered us out could not have done more for her sister, my Auntie Madge, who died four years later, in another parish.
In 1991, while at home in Dublin, I was asked by the Columbans to preach at all the Masses in that church on a Sunday in Lent when students from their final year in secondary school were observing a 24-hour fast to raise funds for Trócaire, the development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland. I’ve never had a more attention-grabbing opening to a homily than I did that day: I was thrown out of this church. But by the time I had preached for the fourth time I felt a vicarious healing on behalf of my mother, who died in 1970. That was a real grace.
 
St Saviour’s Church, Dominic St, Dublin [Wikipedia]
 

In the old days churches belonging to religious orders in Dublin usually had High Mass on such days as Easter Monday and Whit (Pentecost) Monday and my father would bring me to one or other of them on those occasions. I distinctly recall that when I was maybe seven or eight being particularly attracted by the habit of the Dominican friars. I didn’t recognise then the beginnings of being called by God to be a priest but I see it now as such, even though I subsequently never considered becoming a Dominican.
St Dominic at Prayer, El Greco, 1600-02
Private Collection [Web Gallery of Art]
I must confess that I wasn’t an entirely enthusiastic pilgrim when my father took me to High Mass or when my mother brought my brother and me to seven churches on Holy Thursday. I can see a reflection of my father in these words of Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium, No 167: Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendour and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties.Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus. My father seldom spoke about his faith but I could see even then, and more clearly later, how his faith permeated his whole life and how he felt uplifted by the beauty of the High Mass.

St Agatha’s Church, North William St, Dublin [parish website]

 
It was in St Agatha’s Church that I was confirmed by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of Dublin in March 1954, along with my classmates from O’Connell Schools, which was located in the parish. St Agatha’s didn’t play any other part in my young life but its most illustrious parishioner, the Venerable Matt Talbot, has always been part of my life. Sometimes when walking ‘into town’ with my mother – her way of describing going into the city centre – we would go through Granby Lane, behind the Dominican church, where Matt died suddenly on his way to Mass there on Trinity Sunday 1925, and say a prayer at the simple shrine that marked the spot. Matt, a simple working man, overcame, with God’s grace, his addiction to alcohol and lived a life of extraordinary asceticism that was known during his lifetime only to his spiritual director. Without being aware of it, my mother was strengthening my faith.
 
Holy Family Church, Aughrim St, Dublin [Facebook]

It was above all in Aughrim Street Church – Dubliners rarely refer to a church by its patronal name but by the street its on – that my faith grew. That faith was strengthened by the ‘communal cough’ after the second elevation, that of the chalice with the Precious Blood, that to me was a far deeper expression of faith than the perfunctory ‘Christ has died . . .’ introduced in 1969. It was the release of the sense of awe that people had, knowing that the bread and wine had become the Body and Blood of Christ. The church thronged with people young and old, most getting ready to go to work or to school, at the early morning Mass on the weekdays of Lent was also part of my growth in our faith.
I never became and altar-boy in our parish church, though I had enlisted as a trainee shortly after my First Holy Communion in 1950 at St Mary of the Angels, Church Street, the church of the Capuchin Friars (in video above), where my father used to take me some times for High Mass and where my mother took me the Sunday when St Maria Goretti was canonised in 1950. Alessandro Serenelli, who murdered the saint, spent the latter years of his life after being released from prison in a Capuchin friary in Italy, hence the connection with the Capuchin church in Dublin. What I remember is how long it took to say the fifteen decades of the Rosary that day in the church when I was a very unwilling participant!
It was in Aughrim Street church that I celebrated my First Mass on 21 December 1967, the old feast of St Thomas the Apostle, the day after my ordination in St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin.
St Mary’s Pro-cathedral, Dublin [Wikipedia]

Our class was to have been ordained in the seminary chapel in St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, about 35 kms north-west of Dublin, but had to be transferred at the last minute – we were informed about three days before 20 December – due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain. Four opted to be ordained in Derry Cathedral, one in his native Glasgow on the 21st, with the remaining 14 to be ordained in the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin.

During our ordination ceremony

 

With Bishop Patrick Cleary who ordained us.

 
Bishop Cleary was one of the first Columbans and the first – and only, I think – Bishop of Nancheng, China, from which he was expelled in 1962.
When I was around 8 and 9 I was a member of the Palestrina Choir in the Pro-Cathedral and occasionally dropped in to pray there on my way home from school. But I have celebrated Mass there only twice – at my ordination and in November 2011 when I concelebrated in the annual Mass on the occasion of the death anniversary of Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary, who died on 7 November 1980.
I realise that in these Sunday Reflections I have ‘visited’ seven churches in my native city and diocese. There are more, all of them places of God’s very special presence, above all in the celebration of Mass and in the Blessed Sacrament, the latter inviting us into a deep intimacy with Jesus our Risen Lord.
Today’s feast calls us to have a profound sense of thanksgiving to God for the gift of faith,  for his abiding presence among us, in our daily lives and in the special buildings in which we gather each Sunday and often on other days to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And as we celebrate the Dedication of the Cathedral of Rome It is truly right and just that we pray for Pope Francis, who emphasises that he is Bishop of Rome, and for the People of God in that diocese

 

 

The papal cathedra in St John Lateran [Wikipedia]

The Latin word cathedra means a chair with armrests, used as a throne. As the throne of the bishop, form which he teaches, it is the root of the word ‘cathedral’.

‘.

Art historian Elizabeth Lev speaks about the Cathedral of Rome

Columban Fr Brian Gallagher RIP

Fr Brian Gallagher
8 December 1926 – 5 November 2014

Fr Brian A. Gallagher died on November 5 in Crestwood Nursing Home, Bristol, Rhode Island, USA, having suffered declining health for several months.

Downings [Wikipedia]

Father Brian was born 8 December 1926, at Derryhassen,
Downings, County Donegal, Ireland, in the Diocese of Raphoe, to Patrick and Fanny Gallagher. Educated at St Enda’s College, Galway, 1941-43, and St. Eunan’s College, Letterkenny, 1943-46, he then entered St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, the Colubman seminary in Ireland, in 1946.  He was ordained on December 21, 1952.

St Eunan’s College [Wikipedia]

He arrived in Japan, December 25, 1953 and attended the Franciscan Language School. He served in Ryujin, in the Osaka Diocese; St Columban’s, Chiba City, in the Tokyo Archdiocese; in four parishes of Kumamoto. He and Fr James Norris started youth clubs with great success.  In Shimasaki, in the Fukuoka Diocese, he was responsible for the building of a unique church shaped like a chalice and dedicated to St Thérèse.

 St Thérèse Church, Shimasaki [Daughters of St Paul]

In March 1973 he was assigned to the US Region for promotion work in Milton, MA. Soon after he was appointed superior of the Milton house. He continued with promotion/mission education work in Chicago in 1978 and also in Los Angeles in 1983.


Starting 1 September 1989 he served as Superior at the Edgemont House, near Philadelphia. There he also became chaplain of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association (emblem above) in Philadelphia. In 1993, when the Edgemont House was closed, Father Brian moved to St Philomena’s parish where he helped out and continued with his Columban commitments to mission education and promotion.

He retired in July 1994 and initially went back to Ireland, but in March of 1995 he moved to the Bristol Retirement Home in RI. A priest of dedicated commitment to Columban Mission, he was also known and appreciated for his cooking of sukiyaki and loved to entertain people by playing the accordion.

 

Not Father Brian, but another Donegal man, John McArrigle

Father Brian’s funeral will take place at the Columban retirement home in Bristol on Monday, 10 November 10. Burial will take place immediately afterwards in the cemetery attached to St Mary’s Church, Bristol. May he rest in peace.


. St Columban’s, Bristol, RI, USA

 

Prayer Intentions of Pope Francis November 2014: Lonely people; Mentors of seminarians and religious

Apostleship of Prayer

Pope Francis preaching [Wikipedia]

 
Universal Intention – Lonely people

That all who suffer loneliness may experience the closeness of God and the support of others. 

Evangelization Intention – Mentors of seminarians and religious

That young seminarians and religious may have wise and well-formed mentors. 

 Videos from website of Apostleship of Prayer, Milwaukee, USA.