Month: September 2015

St John the Evangelist, El Greco, painted 1610-14 

Museo de El Greco, Toledo, Spain [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 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 (New Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition, Canada)

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward.

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched”.

Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity, Utah

In August 1982, after a year’s study in Toronto and before three months of Clinical Pastoral Education in Minneapolis, I supplied in a number of parishes for short periods in the Diocese of Boise, which covers the whole of the state of Idaho in the western USA. One of my purposes for this was to visit the Abbey of Our Lady of the HolyTrinity, Huntsville, Idaho, where I had spent ten days or so in August 1970. There I had met some of the monks who were to be part of the team that would open the first Trappist foundation in the Philippines, in Guimaras island, now the Abbey of Our Lady of the Philippines.

I spent a week in one parish where the parish priest was from India, there were  reservations of two different Native American tribes, many Spanish-speaking immigrants working on farms in the area and a majority of the people in the town proper of the Mormon faith. The local newspaper carried photos of young Mormons going on mission to other countries.

Just after lunch one day the doorbell rang. A young woman asked me to go to the hospital where an old woman, a Catholic and a relative of hers, had been in a coma for a long time, and was dying. I immediately went to the hospital and, to my surprise, the patient was fully awake and participated joyfully in the Last Sacraments, including viaticum, as I had brought the Blessed Sacrament with me. I learned later that she died about twenty minutes after I left.

The young woman who had asked me to go to the hospital was a Mormon.

When I was a child we lived in a street of terraced houses in Dublin where no one had a telephone. One time one of our neighbours, Jem Norris, got gravely ill in the middle of the night. Charlie Brooks who lived across the road went for the priest, whose house was about a kilometre away.

Charlie was a Protestant.

I have posted in Sunday Reflections before about a Mass in Belsen concentration camp, Germany, shortly after it was liberated in 1945. The account, published in 2004 in The Daily Telegraph (London) is by James Molyneaux, then a young officer in the British Army and later leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland and now a member of the House of Lords. He wrote:

The most moving experience came on the second morning as I was walking from what had been the luxury SS barracks which our troops had transformed into a hospital. My attention was drawn to two packing cases covered by a worn red curtain. A young Polish priest was clinging to this makeshift altar with one hand, while celebrating Mass. Between his feet lay the body of another priest who probably died during the night. No one had had the energy to move the body.

I had no difficulty in following the old Latin Mass, having been educated at St James’s Roman Catholic School in County Antrim, and, although an Anglican, I had gained a working knowledge of all the rituals. Still supporting himself against the altar, the young priest did his best to distribute the consecrated elements (editor’s note: the Body of Christ). Some recipients were able to stumble over the rough, scrubby heathland. Others crawled forward to receive the tokens (editor’s note: to receive the Body of Christ) and then crawled back to share them with others unable to move. Some almost certainly passed on to another – probably better – world before sunset. Whatever one’s race or religion one can only be uplifted and impressed by that truly remarkable proof of the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

When I first read this article I was deeply moved in a number of ways. I was surprised to discover that the author had gone to a Catholic school in a community where, at least since the latter 1800s, there has been a deep divide between Catholics and Protestants, for historical reasons that are not entirely theological. But here was an Anglican from that background giving a powerful testimony to the Mass as the Holy Sacrifice. And he noticed how those who were barely able to crawl shared the Body of Christ with those who couldn’t move at all.

I find in the three stories above an illustration of the response of Jesus to the complaint of St John, Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us. Jesus says, For he that is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward.
St John’s complaint reflects that of Joshua to Moses in the First Reading. the response of Jesus reflects that of Moses: Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his spirit upon them! (Numbers 11:29).

A memorial stone erected near the ramps where prisoners for Belsen were unloaded from goods trains

James Molyneaux’s article also illustrates the reality of hell that Jesus speaks about today. He writes:

On arrival at Tactical Headquarters, we had been briefed on the discovery of the Belsen prison camp nearby. In company with our RAF medical unit and the two 2nd Army Field hospitals, we wasted no time. Briefed though we were, the shock excelled all the horrors of the battles of the 12 months since Normandy.

As we passed through the camp gates, the Royal Military Police requested us to drive very slowly to avoid the numerous disoriented prisoners. We were handed adhesive tape to put over the vehicle horns in order to prevent them going off accidentally, lest the shock would cause still more deaths. [This little detail is surely telling.]

The British liberators were staggered and shocked by the inhuman behaviour of some of the former guards, who continued to abuse and torment prisoners nearing death when they assumed we were looking the other way. I confess that on such occasions I may have breached the Geneva Convention to prevent further ill treatment of helpless victims. Their behaviour after we had arrived contradicted the excuse that the SS had forced them to carry out orders. Our new orders to them were “Stop acting like savages”.

The ‘Thousand Year Reich’ of Hitler was in ruins after twelve years, and millions dead all over the world. These deaths, like countless deaths since, were caused by persons who chose evil over good. Each choice we make for sin is not at the level of choosing the evil of Belsen but it moves us towards that. Other dictators have tried their hand at their own version of Hitler’s distorted vision and people have gone along with them.

Each of us likes to have power. We may not be conscious of this and in many instances there’s no sin at all. I remember once  seeing in a Catholic magazine a cartoon  of people assembled for Mass where you were asked to ‘spot the errors’. One was the proverbial ‘little old lady’ kneeling in the middle of a pew instead of blocking it at one end. There are times, especially as I grow older, when I can see the ‘little old lady’ in myself, trying to subtly ensure that things are done my way. Indeed, in the parish in Idaho where that kind young Mormon woman asked me to go to the dying elderly woman, the housekeeper asked me what time I’d like to have dinner at each day. I told her – but she always served it thirty minutes earlier.

But if I am a spouse, a parent, a teacher, a boss, a priest who doesn’t listen to the other, who rules my little domain with a heavy hand, the words of Jesus are directed at me.

What is the ‘hand’, the ‘foot’, the ‘eye’ that causes me to sin, especially in the use of power?

World Maritime Day

Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast, Ludolf Backhuysen, 1617 

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

World Maritime Day was observed this week on Thursday, 24 September, but this Sunday is National Seafarers’ Day in the Church in the Philippines.

Evangelizing Filipino Seafarers

A huge percentage of the world’s international seafarers are Filipinos. MISYONonline.com, the Columban magazine in the Philippines that I edit, carried a story about some of them in the November-December 2007 issue, Christmas in Teesport. In September-October 2006 Misyon published Evangelizing Seafarers, a title that can be understood in two different ways. The opening paragraph expresses one of those:

Father Arsenio ‘Dodo’ Redulla from Bohol, Philippines, now a priest of the Diocese of Lubbock, Texas, USA, worked for some years with the Columbans in Ireland. Early one Sunday morning he was driving out of the small southeastern port city of Waterford to celebrate Mass in a nearby town and to speak about the work of the Columbans. As we say in Ireland, ‘There wasn’t a sinner to be seen’ – the Irish aren’t early risers on Sunday morning – except for a young Filipino thumbing a lift. At the time there were very few Filipinos in the country and Father ‘Dodo’ was the only Filipino priest there. Of course, he stopped. To his amazement the young man said, ‘I was hoping someone would take me to a church for Mass.’ His ship had just docked and he had never been in Ireland before.

Please remember all seafarers in your prayers.

One of my favourite poems in school was John Masefield’s Sea-Fever. Here it is read by Fred Proud. There is some controversy as to whether the first line in each stanza should read ‘I must down . . .’ or ‘I must go down . . .’ Fred Proud opts for the former. John Masefield himself uses the latter here.

I must down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by,
and the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song
and the white sail’s shaking,
and a grey mist on the sea’s face
and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again,
for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
that may not be denied;
and all I ask is a windy day
with the white clouds flying,
and the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again
to the vagrant gypsy life.
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way
where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
and all I ask is a merry yarn
from a laughing fellow-rover,
and a quiet sleep and a sweet dream
when the long trick’s over.

John Ireland’s setting of the poem, sung here by Michael Lampard, opts for ‘I must go down . . .’

Fr Desmond Quinn
(1931 – 2015)

Fr Desmond Quinn was born at Quignashee, Ballina, County Mayo on 14 December 1931. He was educated at Behymór National School, and St Muredach’s College, Ballina. He came to St Columban’s, Dalgan Park, Navan in September 1948 and was ordained priest on 21 December 1954.

Cauayan Municipal Hall [Wikipedia]

Part of Isabela [Wikipedia]

Coat of arms of County Mayo. [Wikipedia]

Apostle Peter in Prison, Rembrandt, 1631

Israel Museum, Jerusalem [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 8:27-35 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

This Sunday Benedict Daswa will be beatified in South Africa, the first South African to be formally recognized by the Church as a martyr. He was martyred on 2 February 1990, the day that Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

Blessed Benedict – he took that name when he became a Catholic in 1963 – was 43 when he died, a husband and father of eight children and a school principal. He was killed because of his opposition to witchcraft, which was widespread in his community, practised, out of fear, even by some Catholics.

The beatification ceremony takes place on a day when the First Reading and the Gospel focus on the cost of being a follower of Jesus Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI visited Lebanon three years ago, 14-16 September. The 16th was the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, the same as this Sunday.

During his times as pontiff Benedict XVI constantly emphasised that our faith as Catholic Christians is in the person of Jesus Christ, something that Pope Francis often does too.

Pope Benedict’s homily at the Sunday Mass at the Beirut City Center Waterfront was based on the readings of the day, as a homily should be, and he focused mainly on the gospel. Here are some extracts from that homily, with some parts highlighted.

St George Maronite Cathedral and Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque, side by side in Beirut

[Photo: Wikipedia]

On this Sunday when the Gospel asks us about the true identity of Jesus, we find ourselves transported with the disciples to the road leading to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. Jesus asks them: “Who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8:29). The moment he chose to ask this question is not insignificant. Jesus was facing a decisive turning-point in his life. He was going up to Jerusalem, to the place where the central events of our salvation would take place: his crucifixion and resurrection. In Jerusalem too, following these events, the Church would be born. 

And at this decisive moment, Jesus first asks his disciples: “Who do men say that I am?” (Mk 8:27). They give very different answers: John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets! Today, as down the centuries, those who encounter Jesus along their own way give their own answers. These are approaches which can be helpful in finding the way to truth. But while not necessarily false, they remain insufficient, for they do not go to the heart of who Jesus is. Only those willing to follow him on his path, to live in fellowship with him in the community of his disciples, can truly know who he is. 

Finally, Peter, who had dwelt with Jesus for some time, gives his answer: “You are the Christ” (Mk 8:29). It is the right answer, of course, but it is still not enough, since Jesus feels the need to clarify it. He realizes that people could use this answer to advance agendas which are not his, to raise false temporal hopes in his regard.  He does not let himself be confined to the attributes of the human saviour which many were expecting.

By telling his disciples that he must suffer and be put to death, and then rise again, Jesus wants to make them understand his true identity. He is a Messiah who suffers, a Messiah who serves, and not some triumphant political saviour. He is the Servant who obeys his Father’s will, even to giving up his life. This had already been foretold by the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading. Jesus thus contradicts the expectations of many. What he says is shocking and disturbing. We can understand the reaction of Peter who rebukes him, refusing to accept that his Master should suffer and die! Jesus is stern with Peter; he makes him realize that anyone who would be his disciple must become a servant, just as he became Servant. 

Christ Handing the Keys to St Peter, Perugino,1481-82

Sistine Chapel, Vatican [Web Gallery of Art]

Following Jesus means taking up one’s cross and walking in his footsteps, along a difficult path which leads not to earthly power or glory but, if necessary, to self-abandonment, to losing one’s life for Christ and the Gospel in order to save it. We are assured that this is the way to the resurrection, to true and definitive life with God.

Choosing to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, who made himself the Servant of all, requires drawing ever closer to him, attentively listening to his word and drawing from it the inspiration for all that we do. 

Blessed Benedict Daswa

(16 June 1946 – 2 February 1990)

The final verse of today’s Responsorial Psalm, which includes the response, has been surely fulfilled in the life of Blessed Benedict Daswa:

For he has freed my soul from death,
my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
I shall walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.

Responsorial Psalm (Philippines, USA)

Antiphona at introitum       

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Sirach 36:18

Da pacem, Domine sustinentibus te,

Give peace, O Lord, to those who wait for you,

ut prophetae tui fideles inveniantur,

that your prophets be found true.

exaudi preces servi tui, et plebis tuae Israel.

Hear the prayers of your servants, and of your people Israel.

(Ps 122 [121]: 1) Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi:

I was glad when they said to me,

in domum Domini ibimus.

‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever will be,

et in saecula saecolorum. Amen.

world without end. Amen.

Da pacem, Domine sustinentibus te,

Give peace, O Lord, to those who wait for you,

ut prophetae tui fideles inveniantur,

that your prophets be found true.

exaudi preces servi tui, et plebis tuae Israel.

Hear the prayers of your servants, and of your people Israel.

The text above in bold is the Entrance Antiphon for this Sunday in the Ordinary Form of the Mass. The complete text is the Entrance Antiphon or Introit used on the 18th Sunday after Pentecost in the Extraordinary Form.

Bishop Raymond Sumlut Gam
Diocese of Banmaw, Myanmar

The link to ‘Diocese of Banmaw’ above gives an excellent summary of the Church in northern Burma, now known as Myanmar, and of the involvement of the Columbans there since 1936. [Thanks to UCANews.com]

The letter below was sent by Bishop Raymond Sumlut Gam of Banmaw (formerly Bhamo), a diocese created in 2006 when separated from the Diocese of Myitkyina. The two dioceses cover the Kachin State, the very mountainous and northernmost part of the country, an area a little larger than Ireland and a little smaller than Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines.

To put some perspective on the situation the bishop is writing about, the population of the Kachin State, which the Dioceses of Myitkyina and Banmaw cover, in 2012/2013 was around 1,450,000 and the Catholic population around 117,000, or 8.1 percent of the total. As recently as 2006 the population was around 2,400,000. (Statistics from Catholic-hierarchy.org).

The term ‘IDPs’ means ‘Internally Displaced Persons’, that is refugees in their own country.

St Patrick’s Cathedral, Banmaw [Source]

August 26, 2015

Dear All,

It has been over 4 years since the renewed armed conflict between the government troops and the Kachin Independence Army broke out in Kachin State. To date there are more than 12000 IDPs in Kachin State and northern Shan State. No peace agreement has been reached between government and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in spite of several rounds of peace negotiation between the two parties. The number of the IDPs continues increasing due to sporadic fighting between the Government Army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

Recently the events of fierce battles between the two parties took place near Sumpyi Yang and and Htingbai Yang, Mali Yang in Putao and Sumpra Bum townships. It is reported that the Government Army is launching offensive attack against KIA deploying thousands of soldiers. These are provoking the displacement of several thousands of people in the areas affected by the battles. No funding agencies or even local organizations are allowed to go into the areas to help the IDPs.

The Church in Myanmar through Karuna (Caritas) Myanmar has been taking care of 75% of the IDPs in Kachin State and northern Shan State with the help of partners and funding agencies. Now, UN Organizations and other major funding agencies are cutting off 20 % of the support they were giving to the IDPs previously. Therefore, the church is very much concerned for the future of the IDPs and the Bishops, Priests, Religious and the laity met together on June 20, 2015 in Lashio and issued a Statement (Issues and Directions) on the conflict and the IDPs.

Therefore, I would like to invite all those people and organizations of good will to join with us in praying for the victims of the armed conflict and in the efforts of building durable peace in our country.

Bishop Raymond Sumlut Gam

Bishop of Banmaw

Fr Jehoon Augustine Lee, Bishop Francis Daw Tang of Myitkyina, Fr Euikyun Carlo Jung at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Church, Tanghpre

Fathers Jehoon and Euikyun are from Korea and were ordained last year. They are now based in Myanmar, Father Euikyun being the Spokesperson of a the Columban mission team there which consists of four priests, two from Ireland and two from Korea, and three lay missionaries, two form Korea and one from the Philippines.

One of a number of videos commemorating the Golden Jubilee of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Banmaw, in 2012. It includes photos of the Columbans who worked in the Kachin State between 1936 and 1977.

Mark 7:31-37 in Filipino Sign Language

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Mark 7:31-37 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Then Jesus returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.  They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Old Man in Sorrow, Van Gogh, April-May 1890

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

In the Second Reading today St James asks in his blunt way, If a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

More than 30 years ago I spent three months working in a hospital in a city in the the US Midwest. I noticed that a particular nurse always wore a pro-life badge, for which I admired her. But in the three months I was there as chaplain to patients and staff on the floor we both worked on she never spoke to me except at a weekly staff meeting. I was curious rather than hurt by this and before I finished I asked her if we could meet. I told her what I had noticed and expressed my admiration for her quiet pro-life stand. She was quite taken aback, as she had never been conscious of ignoring me. It turned out that she had once had a bad experience with a priest and had ‘tuned out’ on all priests. We had a very good conversation and ended up hugging each other.

The nurse had been making distinctions but was far from being a judge with evil thoughts. We can be such, by deliberately shutting out another person or group of persons from our life. But very often we are unaware of others or of their needs.

Fr Joseph Coyle 

(28 February 1937 – 18 December 1991)

One group of persons that is largely ignored in the Church, especially here in the Philippines, is the Deaf. Those who are profoundly deaf refer to themselves as a group as ‘The Deaf’, with an upper-case ‘D’. One of my late Columban colleagues, Fr Joseph Coyle from the city of Derry in Northern Ireland, worked for many years in what is now the Diocese of Kabankalan, in the southern part of the province of Negros Occidental. Early in his time in remote parishes he became aware of the needs of persons who had lost limbs. He helped many to get artificial limbs.

But later he noticed that there were persons who were more or less totally isolated, even from their own families – persons who were profoundly deaf from birth or from early childhood. They did not even have a common language with their parents or siblings. Their deafness was experienced as an affliction by themselves and their families. They all felt a sense of powerlessness.

In English the word ‘dumb’ has come to mean ‘stupid’ because of the perception in the past that those who used to be described as ‘deaf and dumb’ were stupid.

Fr Joe Coyle then focused his ministry on the Deaf. Nearly 30 years ago he set up a residence in Bacolod City, Welcome Home, for out-of-town students so that they could attend schools with special education programmes for the Deaf. That particular need is now being met more and more in public schools in other cities and towns.

One of the services of Welcome Home Foundation, Inc. today is to send catechists to local public schools where there are profoundly deaf students. Some of these catechists are themselves profoundly deaf. Welcome Home also strongly encourages parents of profoundly deaf children to learn Sign Language and holds classes for them.

On the first Sunday of the month, during the academic year, the Deaf in Bacolod City are especially welcome at Sunday Mass in the public chapel of the University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos (UNO-R). On the second Sunday they have Mass in the public chapel attached to the Diocesan seminary. On the last Sunday they participate in one of the Masses at the Cathedral. On other Sundays they have Mass at Welcome Home. Quite often I celebrate that Mass, using my limited Sign Language and with the help of interpreters, some of them profoundly deaf.

But I know that there have been times when parishioners and priests in various places have complained that signing interpreters were a ‘distraction’. In some instances the Deaf have been made clearly unwelcome at Mass. Maybe some of those who made them feel such are already in ‘St James territory’.

I do not know the source of the sorrow of the old man in Van Gogh’s painting, which expresses  very painful isolation. But isolation is what many profoundly deaf persons feel, especially if they are seen as ‘dumb’ in the modern sense. And what must deaf persons feel if some don’t even want to welcome them at the celebration of Holy Mass, our most important act of worship as Catholic Christians to our loving Father?

As in so many of the healing stories in the Gospel, we see Jesus giving his full attention to the person in need. We see him engaging physically with that person, using his very spittle in the act of enabling the man to hear and to speak clearly.

Again, as in so many of the healing stories, Jesus is bringing someone back into the circle. The man’s deafness and speech impediment, a direct result of the former, isolated him to a large degree from his own family and community. Now he was fully part of it again.

I remember seeing the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestial with a young friend, Glenn, who is profoundly, though not totally deaf, due to Usher’s Syndrome, which also affects his sight. At the time he was about the same age as Elliott, the boy in the clip above. I watched the movie through Glenn’s eyes, with a deeper appreciation of what is involved when a profoundly deaf person and a hearing person are trying to communicate. It can be very hard work, but rewarding.

More than twenty years ago I saw something very beautiful at the Home of Joy in Tayuman, Tondo, Manila, a home for children run by the Missionaries of Charity. I was looking for a particular girl who was profoundly deaf. I’ll call her Maria. I found her playing with a group of other girls, all of them using Sign Language. But only Maria was deaf. Without being aware of it, she had invited her friends into her world of silence – and they, without being aware of it, had invited her into their world of sound. All were equal.

A very important detail in the gospel is that not only did the deaf man’s friends bring him to Jesus but they begged him to lay his hand on him.

Many churches in the western world have what is called a ‘loop system’ whereby those who are hard of hearing and use hearing aids can participate fully in Mass and other services. Being hard of hearing is something that very often comes with growing old, and I am experiencing that myself now. but it is a very different reality from profound deafness, especially if that deafness has been since birth or early childhood.

Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God; my soul is thirsting for God, the living God (Cf. Psalm 41 [42]:2-3). These are the words of the Communion Antiphon from the Old Testament in today’s Mass. The soul of a profoundly deaf person yearns for the living God just as much as the soul of a hearing person. But do we, the majority who are hearing, really allow the Deaf to slake that thirst by enabling them to participate fully in the Holy Mass?

Sicut cervus by Palestrina

Sung by Poznańskie Słowiki, The Poznań Nightingales

Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum,

Like the deer that yearns for running streams,

ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus.

so my soul is yearning for you, my God.