Last week Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, Archbishop of Manila, raised eyebrows in Cebu during the International Eucharistic Congress when he spoke directly about the greed and corruption of Philippine politicians who are so much a part of the throwaway society of greed, corruption, materialism and waste.
“Politicians, will you throw away people’s taxes for your parties and shopping, or guard them as gifts for social service?” He said politicians when elected consider the public treasures as their own piggy bank and plunder it wherever they can without being caught.
In recent years several senators and others have been charged with plunder and theft of billions of pesos.
The young cardinal’s statement against corruption and thievery is just touching the painful wound of poverty and low wages suffered by 99 percent of the one hundred million Filipinos. The painful truth is that the Philippines is just part of the great global inequality that is driving more money into the bank accounts of the super-rich and ripping it off the hard working poor and middle class people and driving hundreds of thousand into demeaning poverty in slums and working brothels for the sexual satisfaction of the rich.
Fr Brendan Fahey died peacefully in the Columban Nursing Home, Dalgan Park, Ireland, on 24 January 2016. Born on 8 May, 1930, in Cloonfad, where three western counties, Roscommon, Mayo and Galway, meet.
He was educated at Derrylea National School, Cloonfad National School and St Jarlath’s College, Tuam, before joining the Columbans in 1947. He was ordained on 21 December 1953 and appointed to Japan. He began his ministry as an assistant in Wakayama Parish and worked there until he became pastor of Chigasaki, Yokohama, in 1962. Ten years later he moved to the parish of Kisarazu in Chiba district. He developed great skills in Japanese language and culture and maintained his links with Japanese friends all his life.
He left Japan for the USA in 1978 and took the opportunity to pursue his interest in spirituality and spiritual direction, spending his first month at a House of Intercessory Prayer for Priests and then doing further studies in Cambridge, MA. Father Brendan was then assigned to Britain and to St Bede’s Parish in Widnes, Archdiocese of Liverpool.
After nearly ten years in that parish, he was appointed to the staff of St Beuno’s Centre for Spirituality in Wales where his skills as a lecturer and spiritual director were highly regarded. Following this, he became pastor of the nearby St Joseph’s Parish, Denbigh, where he spent ten happy years.
St Beuno’s Ignatian Spirituality Centre [Wikipedia]
Returning to Ireland in 2002 he made himself available to help out in the Nursing Home and continued to care for less-abled colleagues till he needed that level of care himself. In Dalgan he was a very esteemed member of the Nursing Home Pastoral Team and much in demand for First Friday Reflections and other Spiritual Conferences. His health deteriorated rapidly in the last few months.
Father Brendan’s quiet and caring personality, made him an attractive and approachable mentor and guide for many people. He left us with memories of a caring missionary, with an impish sense of humour, who introduced many people to the loving God whom he served so well.
May he rest in peace.
St Columban’s Cemetery, Dalgan Park, Ireland
Obituary prepared by Frs Noel Daly and Cyril Lovett.
+++
The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ studied theology at St Beuno’s in the 1870s where he wrote one of his best-known poems, God’s Grandeur.
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
GospelLuke4:21-30 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)
Jesus began speaking in the synagogue, saying: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”
He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”
When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
I left home for the first time when I was 11, though only for a month. It was during the summer of 1954 and I spent the four weeks in an Irish-speaking part of County Galway in the west of Ireland, just beyond An Spidéal (Spiddal) on the northern shore of Galway Bay.
I was one of around 100 children aged between 10 and 14, all sons and daughters of members of trade / labour unions in Dublin which sponsored a summer-school / holiday each year so that the youngsters involved could become more fluent in the Irish language (Gaelic), which we all studied at school. We used to have outdoor classes in the mornings, unless it rained, and were free in the afternoon. We all stayed in groups of three or four boys or girls with local families. We were excused from class if we went to the bog with our hosts when they were cutting turf (peat).
In the house where I stayed with two other boys a family from Dublin came down for their annual holiday. I had never met them before and they didn’t know me. The husband/father, whom I later learned was named Paddy O’Neill, asked me the first time he met me if I was the son of John Coyle. At that time I knew nothing about where we come from, though I knew that children often looked like one or other of their parents but had no idea why. I felt a surge of pride as I said ‘Yes’ to Mr O’Neill.
He had seen my father’s face in mine. Then he told me that he had worked as a young carpenter with my father, who was older than he was, and that he had found my Dad very helpful to him. Over the years others were to tell me the same thing, how my father was such a great mentor to young men learning their trade. Dad was a carpenter too but became first a foreman of the carpenters and later a general foreman on the building/construction sites where he worked for 54 years.
My father in turn often spoke with great respect and affection of foremen he had worked under and who had helped him. I remember Ned Boyle, who lived near us. He had a big moustache, as I recall, and his wife had beautiful white hair and a lovely smile. They looked like every child’s favourite grandparents. My mother often described them as a real ‘Darby and Joan‘ couple. In the song The Folks Who Liveon the Hill Oscar Hammerstein II’s lyrics to Jerome Kern’s music include these lines:
We’ll sit and look at the same old view, Just we two. Darby and Joan who used to be Jack and Jill, The folks who like to be called, What they have always been called, ‘The folks who live on the hill’.
I remember Dad talking about Mr Grace, another foreman under whom he worked. I never knew him, though I had some contact with some of his sons, all of whom were older than me. Two of them, Fr Ronald and Fr John, became Capuchin priests and were assigned to what is now Zambia. Both have gone to their reward. Another, Mick, died in an accident while building a church in Dublin. He, a married man, was very active in the Legion of Mary. Two sisters of theirs became nuns in the USA. I got the impression from my father that Mr Grace was a man of great integrity, of nobility of character. I could see something of that in his sons.
I could see it in my father and how foremen such as Mr Boyle and Mr Grace had helped to form him as a person, without even being aware of it.
As I grow older I see more clearly how my parents and others formed me. Very often when I’m writing I think of John Galligan, my teacher in Fourth Class (Grade Four) who gave us a great grounding in the grammar of both Irish and English, encouraged us to read the newspaper critically and gave us many opportunities to write. But above all, he shared his faith as he prepared us for confirmation and as he spoke so often about his wife Mary. I came to know them years later as a friend and saw in them a real ‘Darby and Joan’ couple.
Is not this Joseph’s son? the people in the synagogue asked in wonder before they turned against Jesus and tried to kill him. There’s a gap of 18 years between the time when Mary and Joseph, sick with worry, went back to Jerusalem to try to find the 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple, where in his humanity his sense of his vocation was beginning to awake. The First Reading, from Jeremiah, has the word of the Lord saying to the prophet, Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Further on the Lord tells Jeremiah, They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you (Jer 1:5, 19).
God the Father had the mission of his Son Jesus, God who became Man, in mind from from all eternity. He knew that many would fight against Jesus, but they shall not prevail against you . . . And the Father called two human beings to prepare Jesus for his mission, Mary to be his very mother and Joseph, her husband, to be like a father to him.
Jesus in his humanity learned from St Joseph how to be a responsible man. The years when Jesus went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them and increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor (Luke 2:51, 52) were the years when Joseph and Mary were preparing Jesus for his mission, Mary treasuredall these things in her heart but probably neither of them fully realising the importance of daily life in the house, in the carpenter’s shop, in preparing Jesus for his mission.
Mr Boyle and Mr Grace were among those who formed my father as an upright man of deep faith. I doubt if any of them ever spoke to each other about their faith, just as my father rarely spoke about it to me. They simply lived it. I’m prouder now, more than 28 years after his death, to be known as ‘John Coyle’s son’ because I can see how much he has influenced me as a priest.
Our influence on each other is for good and for bad. Those who hear someone ask as a compliment about them, Isn’t this the son/daughter of . . .? are blessed. Those of whom it is said that they are saintly, not because they are ‘pious’ but because there is something Christ-like about their lives, are blessed and are a blessing to others.
When Jesus heard the people in the synagogue ask Is not this Joseph’s son? I’m certain that in his humanity he felt deeply blessed because the love and care of Joseph had been central to the loving plan of God the Father for his Son, God who became Man.
Communion Antiphon Cf Psalm 30:17-18. [Latin]
Illúmina fáciem tuam super servum tuum,
et salvum me fac in tua misericórdia.
Dómine, non confúndar, quóniam invocávi te.
Let your face shine on your servant.
Save me in your merciful love.
O Lord, let me never be put to shame, for I call on you.
In the video above the antiphon is sung in Latin in Gregorian chant. Below is a setting of the Latin text for five voices by Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (1566 – 1613) sung by a choir in Brno in the Czech Republic.
+++
I mentioned above the song The Folks Who Live on the Hill. I came across this version by Liverpool-born singer Michael Holliday who took his own life at the age of 38 in 1963, a couple of years after he had a nervous breakdown. It seems he suffered badly from stage fright, as his hands seem to indicate during his introduction to the song. Remember him in your prayers. Remember too all who have taken their own lives.
Porferio D. Matulac was the father of Fr Cirineo ‘Dodong’ Matulac, a Columban priest ordained a few days after Christmas 2002. Father Dodong started off under my care as a 16-year-old first-year college seminarian in Cebu City, studying at the University of San Carlos. Later in his formation Dodong spent two years on mission in Chile as a seminarian on what we call ‘First Mission Assignment’. After his ordination he spent some years in China and is now involved in the formation of Columban seminarians in Quezon City but is currently doing a year’s study in Chicago.
I remember being very touched when he told me how his family welcomed each New Year. Shortly after his ordination I asked him to write an article about that for MISYON, now MISYONonline.com. It was published in the January-February 2004 issue. The Matulac Family live in a remote part of southwestern Mindanao, in a small village that is part of the municipality of Payao, Zamboanga Sibugay.Father Dodong was able to spend nearly a month with his family over Christmas and the New Year before returning to Chicago. The funeral of Porferio takes place in Payao on 30 January at 10am.
How My Family Welcomes The New Year
by Fr Cirineo Matulac
Father Dodong with his parents ‘Poping’ and ‘Vering’ on his ordination day
There’s growing excitement in our family as we prepare for the New Year’s celebration. My brother has just left for the población to buy ice cream, the only time we have it, a real New Year’s treat. I feel that this New Year’s celebration will be different. My mother has insisted on baking rice cakes which she hadn’t done for years. My two sisters are preparing their favorite dish and my other brother is preparing his usual pork and chicken barbecue. My family has certainly become a lot bigger. I now have seventeen nephews and nieces, the oldest in his early twenties, and all of them are extremely excited. I’ve heard the younger ones say, ‘Uncle will celebrate Mass for the New Year in Lola’s house.’ [‘Lola’ is ‘Grandma’].
Our time of the year
Celebrating the New Year has always been a happy occasion for my family. We welcome it in a festive manner even in dire times. My father makes sure that everyone is present and leads us in our family para-liturgical celebration, like a family Gagmayng Simbahanong Katilingban, (GSK), or basic ecclesial community. We start at 11pm and finish a few minutes before midnight when we wish each other ‘Happy New Year.’
My father selects a gospel reading and then expounds on it with the passionate homily he has prepared weeks before. His sermon usually revolves around how our family has gone through hardships and difficulties but has always been able to move forward. He attributes this not to any of his strengths and gifts but to prayer that God always answers. He reminds us that every evening my mother leads us in the rosary. I remember that as a child I always fell asleep before we finished. My father speaks of the generosity of God who continues to bless us all the days of our lives. When he comes to this point, my mother seconds him with her sobs and tears. She isn’t particularly sad. Her tears express a joy for which there are no words.
Father Dodong on a recent ‘field-trip’ in the USA
What binds my family
After our liturgy, we have the family dinner. This is the time when we make wishes for the coming year. When I was a young boy I asked God to make me a little taller. God answered my other prayers but not this one. This New Year, however, I can’t wish for anything more except for our family to be always together.
I know that this New Year will be different. I am the youngest child and I was ordained to the priesthood only a a few days ago. My mother told her grandchildren that this time we would have Mass instead of my father leading the family liturgy. Secretly, to his great delight, I asked my father to prepare the homily. Deep in my heart I know that this is a tradition that sustains us as a Christian family and that my vocation sprang mainly from my parents’ faith articulated by my father in his New Year’s sermon and made a lot more profound by my mother’s sobs and tears. I’m sure that it is going to be a different celebration this year, as my mother has told her grandchildren. But then it’s always different because each time we welcome the New Year we’re growing deeper in our faith in God. This yearly ritual has always been a wellspring of my family’s faith and my vocation to the priesthood.
Every New Year is indeed different and yet a continuation of what we’ve always been doing.
The fear of punishment and dire threats from the live-in partner of her mother kept 13-year old Sylvia from opening her mouth and telling that she was being repeatedly sexually abused. After four months of repeated heinous acts, she could not take and endure it anymore and thanks to a good, caring teacher in Subic, Zambales she opened it up after class one day.
“Mam, please I have something to tell you and ask help but I am afraid.”
“What is it? Come to the counseling room and tell me,” she said.
“Mam, it is Papa Virgel. He is doing things to me and my private parts hurt and he said he will kill me and my four sisters if I tell anyone and never to tell my Mama. I am so afraid, I don’t know what to do or who to tell, where to run. I want to run away.”
“Didn’t you tell your mama about this?” she asked
“No Mam, every time I try to say something about Papa hurting me, she becomes angry and tells me not to speak and that I am a bad girl to say anything against Papa.”
Sylvia began to cry and the tears ran down her face and the good teacher wiped them away.
“Don’t worry, you are doing the right thing to tell me. You are not to blame for what he did to you I will get help for you. Just go home, tell your mama you are not feeling well and stay at home tomorrow and help will come very soon.”
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
GospelLuke 1:1-4; 4:14-21 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, St Luke tells us. Thirty-three years ago in the Diocese of Bacolod on the island of Negros where I now live in the Philippines the Spirit led nine men to jail, three priests and six laymen, all falsely charged with multiple murder. Fourteen months were to pass before the nine were released.
Two of the priests were Columbans, Fr Brian Gore from Australia and the late Fr Niall O’Brien from Ireland. The third was a diocesan priest, Fr Vicente Dangan, now deceased.
The six laymen, all working for the Church during the very difficult Martial Law years in the Philippines, were Jesus S. Arzaga, Peter Cuales, Lydio J. Mangao, Conrado Muhal (RIP), Geronimo T. Perez (RIP) and Ernesto Tajones. They became known as The Negros Nine and you can find their photos here.
While the Negros Nine were in jail in Bacolod City the late Bishop Antonio Y. Fortich appointed the three priests as chaplains there. The vast majority of prisoners were from poor backgrounds and their cases were being constantly put back. The three priests, as well as ministering to the spiritual needs of the prisoners were able to get lawyer-friends to follow up on the cases of many of those languishing, wondering if they would ever get out.
As a result of this, many of them did. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives . . . to let the oppressed go free . . .
The Negros Nine in prison, 1983-84
L to R: Lydio Mangao, Peter Cuales, Jesus Arzaga, Fr Vicente Dangan(+), Geronimo Perez(+), Fr Brian Gore, Conrado Muhal(+), Fr Niall O’Brien(+), Ernesto Tajones
I’m writing this on 21 January. Tomorrow the 43rd annual March for Life will take place in Washington DC. According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute in a July 2014 report, From 1973 through 2011, nearly 53 million legal abortions occurred. This is the consequence of the infamous Roe v Wade decision in 1973 by the US Supreme Court.
A charge that is often made is that those who are pro-life when it comes to the unborn and abortion are really only ‘pro-birth’ and not interested in the lives of children once they are born.
My friend Lala and her friend Jordan, whom I also know, might dispute this if they had the ability to express themselves in such a way. Lala was left in a garbage bin after birth and raised by the Daughters of Charity in Cebu City. Lala was born with Trisomy 21 (Down’s Syndrome) and Jordan with intellectual and physical disabilities. They now live in the L’Arche community in Cainta, Rizal, part of the Manila urban sprawl. Over the years those who have chosen to live with Lala, Jordan and others for long periods, enabling them to live normal lives, have come from as far away as Germany and Japan.
Lala feeding Jordan
The late King Baudouin of the Belgians, about whom I’ve written in the two previous Sunday Reflections wrote in a letter to a young mother about a children’s party that he and Queen Fabiola had hosted:
In one corner there was a group of handicapped children, several of them with Down’s Syndrome. I brought a plateful of toffees to a little girl who had scarcely any manual control. With great difficulty, she succeeded in taking a toffee but, to my astonishment, she gave it to another child. then for a long time, without ever keeping one for herself, she distributed these sweets to all the healthy children who could not believe their eyes. What a depth of love there is in these physically handicapped bodies . . .
Lala and the little girl who astonished King Baudouin are truly sisters in Christ. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. King Baudouin and the able-bodied children with whom the little girl with the disabilities shared her toffees were poor in spirit in the sense that St Matthew means in the first of the Beatitudes, ie, they knew their need of God. They recognised God’s presence at the party, just as those who know Lala, especially those who live in L’Arche with her, recognise that the scripture has been fulfilled in their presence and is being fulfilled each day.
The Negros Nine were involved in organizing Christian Communities where people would work together for the peace and justice that the Gospel demands in an area of awful poverty for many, poverty caused by greed. They suffered with the people because of the demands of the Gospel. Those of the Negros Nine who remain continue to work for justice and peace through the Negros Nine Human Development Foundation. Among other things the foundation is involved in trying to prevent the trafficking of women and minors. To set at liberty those who are oppressed . . .
While looking for a musical setting of the Entrance Antiphon I discovered Cantate Domino in B-flat, a setting of part of Psalm 96 (95) in Latin from which the Antiphon is taken, by Japanese composer Ko Matsushita. This came out of the Sing for Japan Choir Project, an international response to the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011. I had not heard of Ko Matsushita nor had I heard of the Sing for Japan Choir Project. I discovered quite a few videos of Cantate Domino and finally settled on one featuring the Kaohsiung Chamber Choir from southern Taiwan.
The Entrance Antiphon is taken from Psalm 95 (96) 1, 6. The above is Cantate Domino in B-flat, a setting of verses 1, 2, 4, 5 ,6, 11 by Japanese composer Ko Matsushita. Verses 1 and 6 are highlighted.
Cantate Domino canticum novum,
cantate Domino omnis terra.
Cantate Domino benedicite nomini eius,
adnuntiate diem de die salutare eius;
quoniam magnus Dominus et laudabilis valde
terribilis est super omnes deos;
quoniam omnes dii gentium daemonia
at vero Dominus caelos fecit. Confessio et pulchritudo in conspectu eius,
sanctimonia et magnificentia in sanctificatione eius.
Laetentur caeli et exultet terra
commoveatur mare et plenitudo eius.
Entrance Antiphon Cf Psalm 95:1,6
O sing a new song to the Lord,
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
In his presence are majesty and splendour,
strength and honour in his holy place.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor . . .
And in so many ways, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we can say with Jesus, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
51st International Eucharistic Congress, Cebu, Philippines
[15 January 2016] “Houses of Horror” is how one visitor described the centers where children are held illegally behind bars or in cages.
Senior Philippine officials responsible for the protection of Filipino children at risk made spot inspections of four child detention centers around Metro Manila this week on the orders of Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman following reports in the foreign media. The officials representing various government agencies were shocked and greatly disturbed when they saw the terrible conditions of the jailed children behind bars in these detention centers run by local government units. The national government has limited jurisdiction over them.
In one center, children are held in these conditions from three months to over one year and nine months. The cells for boys are overcrowded. In another detention center, there is only one social worker to handle the 43 cases. In three centers, the children were in prison cells behind bars. In one jail, a child looked as young as 6 years old.
All the children in another center were barefooted walking on wet floors. One little girl had swollen feet. The children interviewed told the team that they just do cleaning and food preparation all day. Some of the children were mentally challenged and in need of special care. A mentally challenged old lady was in with the children in one center.
Columban Fr John A. Keenan (in photos above and below) wrote about one center in Manila in the March-April 2012 issue of MISYONonllne.com. You will find his article here.
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
GospelJohn 2:1-11 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it.When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroomand said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
On the third Sunday of January the Church in the Philippines celebrates the Feast of the Sto Niño, the Holy Child. These Sunday Reflections focus on the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C. You will find Sunday Reflections for the Feast of the Sto Niño here.
I used this material for the same Sunday three years ago. I have made one or two small changes here. I do believe that the lives of King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola can speak to all Christians no matter what their state of life or social positions are.
Last Sunday I featured the late King Baudouin of the Belgians. This week I feature him again, with Queen Fabiola, who died on 5 December 2014. The King died suddenly on 31 July 1993. The story of how they met is quite remarkable and the late Cardinal Suenens tells the story in his biography of the King, Baudouin, King of the Belgians, The Hidden Life.
The video above has as background music an Irish song that I learned in Grade Three, The Dawning of the Day, in Irish Gaelic Fáinne Geal an Lae, the version I learned. (The singer in the video is Mary Fahl). An Irish song is not at all inappropriate as the matchmaker of the marriage of Baudouin and Fabiola was an Irish woman, Veronica O’Brien.
Veronica was envoy of the Legion of Mary to France and some other European countries. Much ‘cloak and dagger’ work was involved in finding a wife and queen for the young king. Much more importantly, much prayer was involved too, prayer that was basically a searching for God’s will. They became formally engaged in Lourdes, France, King Baudouin travelling incognito, as he always did when he went there. (There are references online in obituaries of the King and elsewhere to Veronica O’Brien as ‘Sister Veronica’. She was not a religious but a lay person. Members of the Legion of Mary address each other as ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister’ only during Legion meetings, not elsewhere).
The couple were married in Brussels on 15 December 1960. The video shows photos of both the civil and church ceremonies. In a number of European countries a separate civil ceremony is required by law and takes place before the church celebration. The King wrote in his spiritual diary for that day: Normally we are awake by day and dream at night, but this time it’s as if I’m in a dream all day.
On 8 July 1978 Baudouin wrote in his diary: My God, I thank you for having led us by the hand to the feet of Mary, and every day since then, I thank you, Lord, that we have been able to love each other in your Love, and that that love has brown each day.
And Queen Fabiola wrote to Veronica: I knew Our Blessed Lady was a Queen and a Mother, and all sort of other things, but I never knew that she was a Matchmaker!
Quoting the Queen led Cardinal Suenens to quote a Spanish verse:
Cristo dijo a su Madre
el dia de la Asunción
no te vaya de este mundo
sin pasar por Aragón.
Christ said to his Mother
on the day of the Assumption:
do not leave this world
without passing through Aragón.
Before her marriage the Queen was Doña Fabiola de Mora y Aragón.
The Cardinal quotes freely from Baudouin’s diary about Queen Fabiola.
Fill Fabiola with your holiness. May she live her life in your joy and your peace. Teach me to love her with your own tenderness . . .
Fabiola is so loving; she warms my heart. Her silent, yet active presence is a source of great joy to me. My God, how you have spoiled me!
Thank you, Jesus, for having nurtured in me an immense love for my wife. Thank you for having given me a spouse whose love for me is second only to her love for You. May we both grow in you, Lord.
When Veronica O’Brien met Fabiola in Spain she asked the young woman, who had no idea why where things were leading, why she had never married. She replied, What can I say? I have never fallen in love up to now. I have put my life into the hands of God. I abandon myself to Him, maybe he is preparing something for me.
Veronicarecounted all of this in a letter to the King and concluded, It was utterly astounding, because I knew exactly what God was preparing for her.
Thirty years later the King wrote in his spiritual diary: Mary, show me what I should do so as not to miss an opportunity of loving, of denying myself for your sake, of living the present moment to the full, as if it were my last, and of loving my darling Fabiola infinitely more. yes, Mother, teach me to love her with tenderness, gentleness, thoughtfulness, respect, and teach me to have faith in here . . .
And Baudouin, addressing the Lord, wrote, Teach me too to respect her personality with its differences and its inconsistencies. Jesus, I thank you for having given me this wonderful treasure.
Both King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola in these extracts reflect the spirituality of a book that Cardinal Suenens had given the King before he met his future queen and wife,Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade SJ. One English translation of this masterpiece has the title The Sacrament of the Present Moment, which captures the essence of the book, that God’s will is in the present moment.
Shortly before he left for Motril, Spain, in 1993, where he died suddenly, King Baudouin confided to Cardinal Suenens and Veronica, I love Fabiola more and more each day: what an inspiration she is to me!
This led the Cardinal to quote Jean Guitton, the first lay person to be invited to Vatican II as an observer, Love is always fruitful, were it only because it transforms those who love.
One of the great sorrows in the life of Baudouin and Fabiola as a married couple was that they had no children. The Queen had five miscarriages. Reflecting on this, the King said to a group visiting the Palace, We have pondered on the meaning of this suffering and, bit by bit, we have come to see that it meant that our heart was freer to love all children, absolutely all children.
In a letter to a young mother the King wrote about a children’s party that he and the Queen had hosted at the Palace: In one corner there was a group of handicapped children, several of them with Down’s syndrome. I brought over a plateful of toffees to a little girl who had scarcely any manual control. with great difficulty, she succeed in taking a toffee but, to my astonishment, she gave it to another child. then for a long time, without ever keeping one for herself, she distributed these sweets (candies) to all the healthy children who could not believe their eyes. What a depth of love there is in those physically handicapped bodies . . .
One by one the children left. We really felt as if they had become in some sense our children. I think they felt it too. It was a very special afternoon; the presence of the Lord was really tangible. There was such peace and joy. that was pure gift!
I have read Baudouin, King of the Belgians, The Hidden Life, a number of times and each time I am moved by it. I see in it a reflection of what’s in today’s gospel: his gratitude to God, like the gratitude of all at the wedding feast, not mentioned explicitly but clearly there; his and Fabiola’s submission to God’s will through Mary: Do whatever he tells you; and the extraordinary generosity of Jesus, God and Man, turning water into the equivalent of about 500 or 600 bottles of the best wine, a generosity that led Baudouin and Fabiola, who couldn’t have children of their own, to see that our heart was freer to love all children, absolutely all children.
When we allow him, Jesus can turn the very ordinary in our lives into the extraordinary, just as a little girl with physical and mental disabilities revealed the presence of God to the King of the Belgians, just as Fabiola, his wife and queen, was a daily revelation of God’s loving presence to him.
God has the same desire to reveal himself to each of us every day, specifically in the present moment. And He has given us his Mother, who is our Mother also, to guide us with her words of absolute faith, do whatever he tells you.
Each year the parents of Jesus went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom.After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced [in] wisdom and age and favor before God and man.
This first appeared in Cebu Daily News three years ago. It is used here with permission. Simeon Dumdum, Jr, known to his friends as ‘Jun’, is a retired Regional Trial Court judge, a writer and a poet.
Not too long ago, a couple gifted us with a wood carving of the Child Jesus. It has the size, curls and royal garments of the Santo Niño of Cebu, as well as its crown, globe and scepter. Except that the globe lies on a seat and the figure reclines on it, sleeping – the scepter resting on a leg.
The statue, which has apparently gained popularity, goes by the name Sleeping Santo Niño.
In the house we give pride of place to a copy of the standard, the official representation enshrined in the basilica. It occupies the center of a table that serves as altar, together with the crucifix and the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. But I am unsure as to where to put the Sleeping Santo Niño. My decision on the matter would almost certainly depend on whether it is a holy object or a mere artistic item – an objet d’art. I have since been inclined to the latter, having dragged my feet towards having it blessed (terrified of the priest’s refusal or ridicule), and for the moment having installed the statue above a console together with a paper weight portraying the head of a plumpish baby angel.
How did the first Sleeping Santo Niño come about? Did the one who carved it, true to his restless, artistic soul, make it purely for the purpose of creating something different, just as others have come up with their own different versions of the Holy Child, many of them clearly out of character, such as a Santo Niño holding a saw, a sight that would have terrified good St. Joseph himself.
Did the carver want to make such a statement? By the way, the official statement of the official representation of the Santo Niño is of the universal Kingship of Jesus, who is God, who became man, and is shown as a child to stress the need in the kingdom for the childlike virtues –dependence, trust, simplicity.
Someone, who apparently was losing in his grapple with faith, wrote about the Sleeping Santo Niño being a revelation of the “real” character of God – detached, indifferent, unconcerned with human problems.
This was exactly what the disciples felt when, while aboard a boat on the lake, a storm arose and the waves began swamping them, and Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. Mark tells us that they woke Jesus up, saying, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are about to die?”
Jesus got up and rebuked the wind, commanded it to stop, and then turned towards the disciples to chide them, “Why are you cowardly? Do you still not have faith?”
I doubt that the originator of the Sleeping Santo Niño had this episode in mind when applying chisel to wood. Likely as not, he thought of a tender human scene – Baby Jesus, like any infant elaborately dressed up by its parents for a pageant and unmindful of adult concerns, succumbing to sleep, the thing that infants most need and yield to no matter the occasion.
But subconsciously the carver has conveyed to me the message that Mark gives in the incident about the storm on the lake. It was not accidental that Jesus slept on a cushion at the stern (neither was it inconceivable – it was evening, and as usual Jesus must have had a full day). His rebuke being proof, he gave the disciples a lesson on faith – of reliance on the protection of the Father so complete that like him they should have slept the storm away, as well as that his mere presence among them should have been assurance enough of safety. After all, he had power at any time to tell off the wind and the waves.People who complain that God does not intervene enough in human affairs really want Him to do the work for them. But really with full faith in God they should first act, carry out their roles, let the play of their lives unfold, and not always whine for the Author to appear. Incidentally, C. S. Lewis tells us, “When the author walks on the stage, the play is over.”Perhaps the Sleeping Santo Niño deserves a second look. It does no more than remind, not of a divine pastime, but of the proper human attitude – trust. The God who appears to sleep is really an unsleeping God – as watchful as a parent is of an infant that is learning to walk, and coming to its aid only when necessary.
+++
I love Jun’s reference to the sight of the Child Jesus holding a saw as something that ‘would have terrified good St Joseph’! As the son of a carpenter named Joseph myself I felt embarrassed the first time I tried to use a saw and didn’t have a clue. I still don’t!
Pope Francis in Manila speaking about his statue of the sleeping St Joseph.
CHRIST IN YOU, OUR HOPE OF GLORY
Colossians 1:27
51st International Eucharistic Congress, Cebu, Philippines
[8 January 2016] This was a very happy Christmas and New Year celebration for the 70 children, boys and girls IN THE PREDA children’s homes in Zambales. They are recovering and finding a new life.
The boys are aged from nine to 15 and have been rescued from terrible sub-human jail conditions. The girls have been rescued from rapists and sex bars; some are victims of human trafficking and sex slavery. Other are rescued from abusive parents.
The greatest moment for the children is to be to be rescued from cages and prison cells or saved from brothels and rapists. To be rescued and to be brought to a place that is in a beautiful location in the countryside surrounded by nature and to feel safe from abusers is what the children tell is their greatest joy .
The first thing a child will experience in the Preda children’s home is freedom, respect and a feeling that they are wanted and belong to a family.
It is the community spirit of affirmation, support, encouragement, respect and dignity that the children love. They are taught their rights and human dignity and receive therapy and values formation and education.
They soon learn that the abuse done to them is a heinous crime, that it is always wrong for the adult and the children are not to blame. Usually the adult will claim that the child seduced them and the child gave consent.
This cannot be upheld anywhere.
The case of Marianne, is a case of abduction and human trafficking of a deft mute child who had no way to cry out and defend herself or even to make a complaint. A woman using sign language offered her snacks and food in a 7/11 store in the next town. There she was introduced to two men and they brought her to a hotel and raped her continually for almost 24 hours.
Her sister was looking for her and traced her to the hotel and called the police.The rapists were arrested and Marianne was rescued. But her two sisters took her home but blamed her and shaved off her hair as a punishment as if she had been responsible for her own abduction.
