Month: January 2016

The Philippine struggle for power 2016. Fr Shay Cullen’s Reflections, 2 January 2016

The Philippine struggle for power 2016

by Fr Shay Cullen

Soliciting Votes, William Hogarth, 1754

Sir John Soane’s Museum, London [Web Gallery of Art]

[2 January 2016] The New Year has begun and the road ahead will be filled with the challenges of Elections in several countries; in Ireland, the United States and the Philippines among many. And what are elections in a democratic system of governance but the selection and election of the leaders who are appointed by the citizens to take command of a nation .
They will be given the power and authority to craft its laws, raise it’s wealth to be spent for the common good and to direct its course and the welfare and safety of the people they represent.
In the selection process the personal and moral values and way of life of the candidates are scrutinized and examined. Because it will be these values or the lack of them that will determine if that person who is elected president or leader has the qualification and the ability to lead the nation along a path of peace and prosperity.
It will be his or her vision, moral courage and determination to do what is true, right and just that will greatly effect the lives and well being of every man, woman and child in the nation.
The task of the leader is to listen to the needs of the people and to respond with concern and the resources, human and material at his or her disposal to improve the lot of the people especially the poor and the excluded. That is among other things the way it should be.
In the Philippines the population is more than a hundred million and the wealth of the nation is in the hands of about 1% or less of the population.

Full post here.

‘You are my Son, the Beloved.’ Sunday Reflections. The Baptism of the Lord, Year C

The Baptism of Christ, El Greco, 1596-1600

Museo del Prado, Madrid [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)

Note: In each of the above you will find an alternative First Reading, Responsorial Psalm and Second Reading that may be used in Year C. The Gospel below is always used in Year C.

Gospel Luke 3:15-16, 21-22 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened,  and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

A friend of my brother was asked about 25 years ago if he would mind playing a round of golf on a course near Belfast with a visitor from the European Continent. He agreed and the visitor was introduced as ‘Monsieur So-and-so’. Naturally,  the two men got chatting and the Irishman asked his companion, ‘What do you do for a living?’ ‘Monsieur So-and-so’ smiled and said, ‘I’m the King of the Belgians’. It was indeed the late King Baudouin.

King Baudouin of the Belgians (1930 – 1993)

King Baudouin, a saintly man, often travelled incognito, as Leo Cardinal Suenens, the late Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, tells in his biography of the King, Baudouin, King of the Belgians, The Hidden Life. They sometimes went on pilgrimage to Lourdes together, the King driving. On one such occasion, the Cardinal recalled, they passed a wayside shrine of the Blessed Mother that had been vandalized. King Baudouin stopped the car and fixed the shrine.

While the video above, from Franco Zeffirelli’s 1977 TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth, doesn’t follow St Luke’s gospel word for word, it does highlight one remarkable aspect of the baptism of Jesus – he lined up with sinners who wouldn’t have known who he was. He is God who became Man, utterly sinless, and yet he asks for baptism, which for John the Baptist was a sign of repentance.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8).

In the video St John the Baptist speaks the beautiful words of the Father to Jesus, You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. And when each of us was baptized the Father spoke the same words to each of us, his beloved sons and daughters. On one of the weekdays after Epiphany we hear at Mass these powerful words of St John: God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:9-10).

There at his baptism in the Jordan God’s love was revealed among us. What greater assurance can we have of God’s love?

King Baudouin wrote a letter in 1984 in response to one he had received from ‘someone who had written to him full or rebellion and indignation against everything that is even remotely related to religious or accepted ways of behaving’, as Cardinal Suenens put it. Here are some extracts from the King’s reply to this person.

When I was still a teenager, I discovered that God, in the person of Jesus, loved us and loved me with a love that is foolish, but very real. He suffered the most excruciating torture in order to save us, to save me, to save each one of us personally from the grip of evil, and to enable us to share, if we so will, in his divine life. That, if we accept him, his Father will become our Father, my Father. That Mary, his mother, will also become my mother, our mother.

From that day on my life changed. by that I mean my way of looking at things, because I’m afraid I’m still the same poor chap, with the same faults as before. but my weaknesses don’t discourage me any longer: on the contrary, they provide me with a reason for trusting totally in the all-powerful strength of my Father who is also your Father.

This is a king writing to one of his people, an angry young person who trusted him enough to write him. King Baudouin is taking the words of St John to heart: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

And in recognizing that he himself is still the same poor chap he is acknowledging that Jesus is not ashamed of him, no more than he was ashamed of the sinners he lined up with to be baptized by John, even if he himself was utterly sinless.

The Royal Palace in Laeken, near Brussels

King Baudouin wasn’t ashamed of his subjects or of those who came to his country from elsewhere. The London newspaper, The Independent, carried an astonishing story about his funeral (I’ve highlighted some parts):

A former prostitute paid an emotional homage to King Baudouin at the funeral Mass. One of a handful of people chosen to deliver orations, Luz Oral, a Filipino, praised the King for his fight against the international sex trade. She stood in silence as a writer, Chris de Stoop, read aloud the words she had written. Ms Oral had met the King when he paid a highly-publicised visit to a brothel in Antwerp, and De Stoop said both the King and Queen had wanted her to address the funeral. This was her homage.

Now my friend passed away, who else can help us? I come from Manila. My family is very poor. I was promised a nice job in Europe. But Belgian men put us in a sex club. Belgian men put us in prostitution. We cried and we refused. But nobody could help us. We were forced. We were treated like slaves. When I could run away, I was arrested by police. I had many problems. 

Last year the King came to see us in Antwerp. We were five girls there. We cried again but it was different tears. The King was holding my arm. He listened to me. Only the King listened to us. He was shocked. There are too many victims here. From Manila. From Bangkok. From Santo Domingo. From Budapest. From eastern Europe. All looking for a better life in the West. All pushed into prostitution. The King was fighting against this sex trade. He was standing up for us. He was a real king. I called him my friend.

The first part of the video shows Luz Oral at the funeral of the King, the words she wrote being read by Chris de Stoop, a writer. This note comes with the video: ‘This is a small portion of the funeral of King Baudouin I of the Belgians from August 1993. It contains an interview of Journalist-author Chris De Stoop. He discusses the impact of Philippine, Luz Oral, a subject of De Stoop’s book about the trafficking of women into Belgium and the work done by King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola to help these women escape their sexual slavery bonds. Luz Oral writes a small eulogy of King Baudouin I/Boudewijn I and De Stoop reads the address at King Baudouin’s funeral. This small speech is in English while the other portions are in Dutch and French.’

Princess Astrid of Sweden, Queen Consort of the Belgians (1905 – 1935)

King Baudouin, living his faith in Jesus Christ, brought hope into the lives of people on the margins, the hope that Jesus brought into the world by standing with us sinners in the River Jordan. The King himself had suffered much in his lifetime. His mother, Princess Astrid of Sweden, died in a car accident when he was only five. He, his sister and brother, with their father King Leopold III were under house arrest during World War II and spent part of it in Germany. In 1951 Leopold, a cause of bitter division in Belgium because of his surrender to Nazi Germany in 1940, abdicated and his elder son took over, not yet 21.

King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola
Queen Fabiola died on 6 December 2014 aged 86.

In 1960 the young king married Doña Fabiola de Mora y Aragón from Spain. To their great sorrow, they had no children. Queen Fabiola had five miscarriages.

In 1990 King Baudouin asked the government to declare him temporarily unable to reign so that he wouldn’t have to sign a bill legalising abortion. The government agreed. The King’s stand was one of principle, though he was unable to stop the law coming into force.

Church of Our Lady of Laeken where King Baudouin is buried

King Baudouin went to Mass every day and to confession regularly. The baptism of Jesus by St John the Baptist might spur each of us on to avail of the sacrament of reconciliation often and to us priests to make ourselves available for it. The King would write a ‘thought for the day’ in his pocket diary, a text from the Mass.

And in that diary, after his death, this prayer was found:

Lord, make us suffer with the suffering of others. 

Lord, let us never again keep our happiness to ourselves. 

Make us share the agony of all suffering humanity. 

And deliver us from ourselves, if that is in accordance with your will.


Leo Joseph Cardinal Suenens

(1904 – 1996)

Cardinal Suenens writes that Baudouin once confided to a friend his purpose in being King:

To love his country, 

to pray for his country, 

and to suffer for his country.

[Photos from Wikipedia and Wikimedia]


John 1:1-5 (New International Version)


John 1:6-34 (New International Version)

The narrator is David Harewood. The production is by the Lumo Project.

CHRIST IN YOU, OUR HOPE OF GLORY

Colossians 1:27

51st International Eucharistic Congress, Cebu, Philippines

24-31 January 2016

Website

Columban Fr Geoffrey Revatto RIP

Fr Geoffrey Revatto

(15 October 1925 – 28 December 2015)

Fr Geoffrey (Geoff) Revatto was born on 15 October 1925 at Guileen, Whitegate, County Cork, Ireland. He was educated at Guileen National School and at St Colmanʼs College, Fermoy, County Cork. He came to St Columban’s, Dalgan Park, Navan, in 1943 and was ordained priest there on 21 December 1949.

Sipalay Beach [Wikipedia]

He was assigned to the Philippines and to the the Diocese of Bacolod on the island of Negros, Philippines. At the time the diocese covered the whole of the province of Negros Occidental. He spent the next twenty-seven years in various assignments on Negros, including La Castellaña, Sipalay, Ma-ao Central, Dancalan, Binalbagan and Biscom. Biscom is a large sugar mill located in Binalbagan and had its own priest for many years.

Sugarcane trucks, Philippines [Wikipedia]

Father Geoff served for three years on mission promotion in Ireland from 1978 to 1980. Then he was once again assigned to Negros where he served as Bursar in Batang, Himamaylan, the central house for the Columban District of Negros, for five years and then as Pastor in Cauayan in the Diocese of Bacolod.

Mount Kanlaon, from the east [Wikipedia]

Mt Kanlaon dominates much of northern Negros. La Castellaña, one of the parishes where Father Geoff served, is at its base.

In 1988 he was appointed back to Ireland, where he took up various tasks in the Far East offices. (Far East is the the Columban magazine for Ireland and Britain). Even as he gradually lost the use of his legs, he continued to drive in a specially modified car and to faithfully put in a dayʼs work in the offices. By the year 2000 he had to give up that activity also.

Father Geoff was a quiet, dedicated, patient man who rarely complained as his health deteriorated and even the simplest activities demanded huge effort. He enjoyed a joke, the company of fellow-Columbans and always found ways of contributing to the life of the community. He died peacefully in the Columban Nursing Home, Dalgan Park on 28th December 2015.

Fr Thomas Revatto, also a Columban, spoke briefly at the funeral Mass. Father Tom was ordained one year before his brother.

May he rest in peace.

St Columban’s Cemetery, Dalgan Park

Homily at Fr Geoff Revatto’s Funeral Mass

St Columban’s, Dalgan Park, 31 December 2015

by Fr Donal Hogan

I was one of a group of Columbans who arrived in the late 1960s in Negros.  Geoff, Tom (his brother) and so many of the pioneers on the island since 1950 were so supportive of us young ones.  Their experience, friendship and sound advice helped us greatly during those first years. In fact, I see one of the last group of Columbans to be assigned in Negros in the early 1970s is with us today – Jim Martin, and I know that for him, too, the friendship of Geoff and Tom were a great source of encouragement and support.

I often wondered how on earth these pioneers managed without older Columbans to guide them when they first arrived.  No doubt it was by the grace of God and the support of one another.

Geoff is now at peace with the Lord.  He has been received into the loving embrace of his heavenly Father in the company of his parents, sister  Mary and many Columban confreres, especially his friends from Negros – Mark Kavanagh, Des Quinn, Sean Holloway and so many others.

In the Gospel Jesus says, ‘Come to me . . .’  the final call of the Lord to Geoff . . . ‘and I will give you rest.’  In another place the Lord says ‘Come , my beloved . . .  winter is past . . . darkness is over and the light has come.’  Geoff has now been welcomed into the light of God’s presence.

In the first reading we heard, ‘It is good to wait in silence for the Lord to save’.  This echoes the psalmist, ‘Be still before the Lord and wait in patience.’ Observing Geoff during these last years he lived these scriptures.  He was so patient in accepting the limitations his failing health brought to him.  He maintained his good humour, courtesy and kindness.  There was a calmness and contentment about him.  Clearly his prayer was  ‘Not my will but thy will be done.’  His presence was a blessing for us all.

The second reading says:  ‘The life and death of each of us has its influence on others.’ Geoff touched the lives of so many people – especially the poor in Negros, I think in particular of the parish of Sipalay which had been without a resident priest for 50 years till Geoff arrived in the early 1950s.  His presbytery was a simple  nipa house. In the dry season the parish could be reached by road but in the rainy season only by boat.

A traditional nipa hut [Wikipedia]

The people in the photo are exercising ‘Bayanihan’, an expression of a Philippine communal value very similar to that of the Irish ‘Meitheal’.

For recreation Geoff played bridge and golf when the opportunity arose.

Regarding the golf when I arrived in Negros in 1969, Tom and his brother Geoff, together with Mark Kavanagh and Jack Hynes (both deceased) had a regular four-ball with all competing fiercely.  Then I arrived – the new kid on the block.  One week Geoff challenged me to a game.  As Noel said last night, I had a feeling I was walking into an ambush.  On the first tee Geoff said ‘We’ll play strokes’ I was a bit surprised as usually it would have been match play – where it’s hole by hole.  But he knew what he was about. He was short and straight I hit longer but wilder – the ball could end up anywhere!  We went along till 10th hole – he was one stroke up.  Then I chalked up 10 strokes to his 4 on the 10thand never recovered after!

Where the ‘exploits’ above took place [Source]

In more recent times when Geoff was confined to the wheel chair, I remember at lunch complaining about the terrible day’s golf.  Geoff smiled and said to me, ‘Any day you can play golf is a “Good Day!”‘  It was so true and made me realise how much I take for granted in life.

In the 1970s Geoff was assigned on Mission Promotion in Ireland and spent some time in the Cathedral Parish in Waterford and in Gort, County Galway.  He is fondly remembered by the local clergy and the people.   He had wide interests – he was a good golfer and bridge player and enjoyed the horses.

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Waterford [Wikipedia]

One day in 1981 he received a phone call from superior in Negros asking him if he would come back and take up the position of Bursar in our central house in Negros.  Without hesitation he accepted and again in the central house his kindly and always supportive presence was much appreciated by Columbans young and old,  especially as that time was a stressful time with Niall O’Brien having been jailed with the other members of what became known as the Negros Nine.  Geoff was regularly in the courtroom to give support to those falsely accused.

A psalm Geoff often recited that is also a favourite of some family members is ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want’.  The last few verses are so appropriate for this occasion:  ‘You have prepared a banquet for me in the sight of my foes.  My head you have anointed with oil, my cup is overflowing.’  Indeed the final verse sums up Geoff’s life, ‘Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me all the days of my life.  In the Lord’s own house shall I dwell forever and ever.’

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal – May his noble soul rest in peace.