Month: March 2017

‘Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ Sunday Reflections, Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A

The Raising of Lazarus, Rembrandt [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)

For the shorter form of the Gospel omit the passages [in square brackets].

Gospel John 11:1-44 [11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45] (New Revised  Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

[Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”] But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”  [The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”  Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”]

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. [Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.] When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,  and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”  She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

[When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When] Jesus [saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he] was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”  Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me.I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.


From The Gospel of John 

I think it was back in the 1980s when I was at home in Ireland on a visit that I heard a young diocesan priest being interviewed on national radio about his work as a prison chaplain. He spoke about an occasion when he spent an hour in a cell with one prisoner who was there for stealing on a large scale. The priest got no response whatever – until he was about to leave. He then looked at the young man, put his arms around him and said, ‘I love you’, adding the man’s name.

The prisoner broke down and began to open up to the priest. Over a period of time they became friends. After he was released the young man set up a successful security agency, no doubt drawing on his ‘professional skills’.

In Worldwide Marriage Encounter we say ‘Love is a decision’. At times it may be accompanied by warm feelings, at other times the very opposite. It is easy for a young man and a young woman who find each other attractive to feel ‘love’. This may lead to ‘until death do us part’, a very solemn decision to love one another.

In his general audience on Wednesday, 2 April 2014, Pope Francis reminded married couples of this, gently, humorously and clearly. The secret is that love is stronger than an argument. And therefore I always advise married couples, ‘Don’t end your day without making peace.

Here the Pope was saying ‘Love is a decision’. He added humorously: It’s not necessary to call the United Nations and have them come to your house to broker the peace. A little gesture will do, a caress, a ‘Goodnight, see you tomorrow’. And tomorrow you start over. This is life, carry on! Go forward with the courage to want to live together. This is great, it’s beautiful. What Pope Francis is saying here is that love is a decision, a major decision made on one’s wedding day that demands many daily ‘minor’ decisions. The same applies to anyone called to a commitment.

The young priest visiting the prisoner in Ireland wasn’t experiencing any feelings of love for the prisoner and the latter probably felt deep anger towards him, maybe even hatred. But the priest made a decision to love that man, no matter how difficult it was, no matter what he was feeling at the time.

The Raising of Lazarus (after Rembrandt), Van Gogh

[Web Gallery of Art]

In the gospel we find Jesus making a number of decisions, all expressions of love:

  • He decided not to go immediately to visit the gravely ill Lazarus when he got news of this: Though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
  • He then decided to go back to Judea despite the fears of his disciples that harm would come to him.
  • He accepted the reproaches of both Martha and Mary: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. He made no attempt to ‘explain’ why he hadn’t come.
  • He told the people: Take away the stone.

The purpose of Jesus in all these decisions was to lead the disciples and Martha and Mary into a deeper faith:

  • To the disciples and later to Martha: Lazarus is dead.  For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.
  • To the Father: Father, I thank you for having heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me. 

It is clear from the gospels that Jesus had a special, though not exclusive, affection for Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Maybe he felt free to drop into their home at any time and not be ‘on duty’. (As an aside, in more than 40 years in the Philippines I have rarely seen a bishop invited to any kind of occasion except to ‘do something’, to be ‘on duty’.) The friendship Jesus had with the three gave them the freedom to be open with him and to be true to themselves.  Luke 10:38-42 shows us Martha scolding Mary in front of Jesus in a way that happens with someone considered part of the family. The Lord, if you had been here . . . of both Martha and Mary can be read as a reproach mingled with hope to someone deeply trusted. 

Jesus invites each of us into that kind of warm, trusting relationship that is expressed in the story about St Teresa of Avila: Once, when she was travelling to one of her convents, St Teresa of Ávila was knocked off her donkey and fell into the mud, injuring her leg. ‘Lord’, she said, ‘you couldn’t have picked a worse time for this to happen. Why would you let this happen?’ And the response in prayer that she heard was, ‘That is how I treat my friends’. Teresa answered, ‘And that is why you have so few of them!’

But above all in the raising of Lazarus, which points towards the death and Resurrection of Jesus himself, we see the resurrection and the life who was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved confronting death and conquering it. The death he was conquering wasn’t only physical death but the sickness and death brought about by sin. Jesus calls us to faith and hope in him and to make decisions to love based on that faith and hope.

It was such faith that gave that young priest in the prison cell the courage to express his love, rooted in the love of Jesus for both, for the prisoner in deed and then in word. And it was that expression of love, in deed and in word, rooted in the love of the resurrection and the life for both, that enabled the man to walk out of the prison cell he had created for himself in his own heart.

The decision of the priest to stay with the prisoner despite the lack of response and the eventual decision of the prisoner to believe in God’s love for him were both examples of love being a decision, decisions based on trust in God’s love for them, the kind of trust that Martha and Mary had in Jesus.

Antiphona ad Introitum Cf Ps 42 (43) 1-2
 
Iudica me, Deus
et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta,
ab homine iniquo et doloso eripe me,
qui tu es Deus meus et fortitudo mea.
 
Entrance Antiphon  Cf Ps 42 (43) 1-2
Give me justice, O God,
and plead my cause against a nation that is faithless.
From the deceitful and cunning rescue me,
for you, O God, are my strength.

Columban Sister Kathleen Melia: ‘Just one more on someone’s hit list’

Sr Kathleen Melia SSC [Sunday Examiner]

Columban Sister Kathleen Melia SSC, from County Leitrim, Ireland, was attacked outside her home in Midsalip, Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines, on the evening of Ash Wednesday. She is now recovering in Manila. Below is an article from the 19 March 2017 issue of Sunday Examiner, the English-language weekly of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong. It is slightly edited and used with permission.

OZAMIZ CITY (SE): ‘The wound in the people’s minds is deeper and more painful than the wounds in the body of Sister Kathleen Melia,’ Columban Father Sean Martin from Ozamiz City in the Philippines told the Sunday Examiner after the 70-year-old Columban Sister was bashed in her home on 1 March, Ash Wednesday.

Sister Kathleen has worked among the Subanen people in the hills of Zamboanga for over 30 years and the unexplained attack is being described by the people as one more step in the chain of evil that is maligning their lives.

Sister Kathleen returned home to Midsalip on the afternoon of 1 March. Around 9.30pm she went out to close windows when she was attacked.

A hand was clamped over her mouth and the other hand began choking her, but she was able to get at her attacker’s face and, in protecting himself, he took his hand off her mouth—she screamed. He then thumped her on the chest and she fell the 30 centimetres from the raised pathway, hurting her leg and losing consciousness. He then ran off.

Sister Kathleen lives in a compound of three houses, the other two are community homes for the Subanen people to gather and speak in their own language without being mocked, derided or laughed at by others. After 30 odd years she speaks their language well and the people came to help her, then the police arrived. As people wondered whether the attacker intended to kill or frighten her, the police sent security with her to a hospital in Ozamiz City.

Midsalip

Sister Kathleen needed a blood transfusion, but the search for a donor was arduous and time consuming, with a seminarian eventually having to travel the five hours from Cagayan de Oro to match her B negative blood type. (Fewer than one percent of Filipinos have RH negative blood).

Then a boat trip to Manila, as flying was problematic. The morning boat had not arrived by nightfall, but there was faith it would come eventually.

Fr Sean Martin

Father Martin, who spent many years in Midsalip, says that this is just one act of violence among many in the volatile area of the nation, where the politics of the gun reign, the rich plunder and grow richer and the poor are squeezed out of even the little they have. But this is how politics and industry operate in Mindanao and deaths related to conflict of interest among various groups does not come as a surprise.

Father Martin related that in the previous week, Rosing Arnosa, who ran in the election last May against the incumbent mayor, Leonida Angcap, was shot five times in front of his house in Midsalip around nightfall. Although badly wounded he did not lose consciousness and recognised the gunman, who is now the murderer, as Arnosa later died of his wounds in a hospital in Pagadian City around 1.00am. He believed that the barangay captain, Eduardo Selim, from Matalang, was angry because his son was arrested and charged with being a goon (violent enforcer) for Angcap. Bail was set at Php120,000 (US$2,400, €2,200).

Picketing area in Midsalip

In the small town of Midsalip alone nine people were killed in the run up to the elections in May last year. Four were goons, thugs or hitmen of another mayor and five worked for Conrado Lumacad, who also ran against Angcap.

Father Martin adds that although the mayor has two charges of plunder against her, it does not seem to concern her, even though President Rodrigo Duterte has used some rhetoric about the crime. He seems more intent on killing the poor and did not complain when the congress removed the charge of plunder from the ‘Kill Bill’ that was passed in the lower house on 7 March.

‘But in these remote areas, killing witnesses and scaring opponents is the usual way for powerful people to keep control,’ Father Martin explained. He also remembered that Angcap’s son killed five road workers while driving under the influence in the early hours of the morning in 2013, but it was hushed up and did not even make it to the newspapers. He still holds his job with the municipality.

‘Plunder, manslaughter with impunity is the name of the game in the world of the mayor and it just increases the brazenness,’ Father Martin reflected.

It is all a warning to Sister Kathleen not to stand in the way of mining and logging companies that come to rape the countryside, mostly illegally. She is just one more person on someone’s hit list.

Columban Father Vincent Busch, of Subanen Crafts and seen at the beginning of the video above, recently sent an update on Sister Kathleen’s situation. Here is the last part of his report.

On 14 March Sister Kathleen’s operation began at 11am as scheduled. The surgical team was led by Osteopathologist Doctor Vicente Gomez. For two hours Dr Gomez tried to take out the old pin that was inserted in her leg during a previous surgery years ago. That pin is now obsolete and the instruments used to extract it were no longer readily available. The doctor knew that the previous pin was old so he asked the manufacturer of the pin for the proper instruments to remove it.  Even with the proper tools the doctor couldn’t remove the old pin.  

He tried alternative instruments but these instruments also did not work.   What he had planned to do was take out the old pin and replace it with a new and longer one. In the end, he inserted the new pin next to the old one.  The old pin had adhered to the bone.   Ordinarily it would have taken only 1 1/2 hours to fix the fracture; instead the surgical procedures lasted from 11am to 6pm.  Sister Kathleen will not be able to put weight on her repaired leg for three months.  She will need to use a walker until the leg and bone have healed and strengthened.

Through all these past three weeks Sister Kathleen has been aware of her situation. She was and remains calmly involved in her recovery.  While in

Ozamiz she had many Subanen visitors who have known and worked with her for decades, as well as visitors she knows from Ozamiz.  I visited her every day and on Sunday 5 March 5 celebrated Mass with her in the hospital, with the Columban Sisters of the Ozamiz City community present.

On the morning of 15 March Sister Kathleen had her first therapy session in which she managed to sit on the side of her hospital bed. 

This chronology presents the events following the attack on Sister Kathleen.  It reveals her calm resolve in facing her ordeal, and it brings to light the efforts of the Subanen Ministry and of Columbans, especially the Columban Sisters, to tend to Kathleen’s needs.

Sister Kathleen with friends in Midsalip

Misyon, now MISYONonline.com, the magazine of the Columbans in the Philippines of which I have been editor since October 2002, published an article by Sr Kathleen Melia in the May-June 1998 issue, Mining: Threat to our Tribes.

In an article by Mary Joy Rile, editorial assistant of MISYONonline.com, in the November-December 2011 issue, Hope for Midsalip, Sister Kathleen is quoted: If a Subanen cuts down one tree, he is charged for breaking the law. But what about the loggers who move freely? The Subanens have been oppressed in their own land. When mining is permitted, the companies will claim the land, the water, the trees and the rest. There is no justice here in Midsalip.

Rice land, Midsalip

God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good (Genesis 1:29-31).

Proposed drilling site, Midsalip

‘One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ Sunday Reflections. Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A

Blind Pensioner with a Stick, Van Gogh [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)

For the shorter form of the Gospel omit the passages [in square brackets].

Gospel John 9:1-41 [9: 1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38] (New Revised  Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. [And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; night comes, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”] As he said this, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the man’s eyes with the clay, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Silo′am” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, said, “Is not this the man who used to sit and beg?” Some said, “It is he”; others said, “No, but he is like him.” He said, “I am the man.” [They said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Silo′am and wash’; so I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”]

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. The Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” There was a division among them. So they again said to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”

[The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight, and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if any one should confess him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age, ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, “Give God the praise; we know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you too want to become his disciples?” And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Why, this is a marvel! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if any one is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”] They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe”; and he worshiped him. [Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.]

From The Gospel of John

In his homily on the Solemnity of the Annunciation in 2014 Pope Francis said, Salvation cannot be bought and sold; it is given as a gift, it is free . . . We cannot save ourselves, salvation is a totally free gift.  The Pope continued: Since it cannot be bought, in order for this salvation to enter into us we need a humble heart, a docile heart, an obedient heart like Mary’s. Moreover, the model on this journey of salvation is God himself, his Son, who did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, and was obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

All of the people in this Sunday’s gospel had been given the gift of faith but only the man who received the gift of sight from Jesus professed his faith openly, his faith in Jesus: Lord, I believe. Not only that, he began to share the gift of his faith with others, most especially the Pharisees who were trying to intimidate him. They proclaimed themselves as disciples of Moses. As such, they should have been prepared for the coming of the Messiah who was now among them.

But they had developed a sense of ‘proprietorship’ of their faith, a righteous complacency that blinded them to the extent that they dismissed a man who was born blind as a sinner with nothing from which they could learn. The man born blind, on the other hand, has an acute sense of being gifted, by the gift of sight and by the gift of faith. He is an embodiment of the thrust of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel.

Our Christian faith is a gift that can be lost by an individual and by a whole community. The Church flourished in North Africa and in the Middle East before Islam came into being but the vast majority lost the gift of our faith. In our own lifetime the faith has been rapidly disappearing from places such as Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Quebec. Fifty years ago these places were sending missionaries to every part of the world and their seminaries were full. Now most of the seminaries have been closed down. Just over 100 years ago CICM brothers and priests (Scheut Missionaries, Missionhurst) and ICM Sisters came to the mountains of northern Luzon from a part of Europe that is as flat as a billiard table, most of Belgium and the Netherlands. In February 2014 Belgium made it legal for sick children to be killed, to be put down like sick animals. There was little international reaction to this, though there was to the putting down of a healthy giraffe in a zoo in Denmark a few days earlier.

There still are people in these places and others like them who are living the Christian life faithfully, often heroically. Martyrs such as Fr Ragheed Ganni of Iraq and politician Shahbaz Bhatti of Pakistan are outstanding examples. Another is the late Professor Jérôme Lejeun, doctor and researcher, who in 1959 discovered the cause of Down syndrome (trisomy 21). 

Servant of God Jérôme Lejeune

In so many places in the gospel we find Jesus going out to those considered unimportant such as the blind man in today’s gospel. Pope Francis met with thousands of persons who are blind or profoundly deaf on Saturday 29 March 2014, the first ever such gathering in the Vatican. And there were probably some present who were both deaf and blind.

John Milton, who went blind as an adult, in his poem On His Blindness (below) shows an acceptance of what he calls his mild yoke and a sense of our sight and everything else being gifts from God.

Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium No 264 gives us some pointers:

We need to implore his grace daily, asking him to open our cold hearts and shake up our lukewarm and superficial existence . . . How good it is to stand before a crucifix, or on our knees before the Blessed Sacrament, and simply to be in his presence!

The best incentive for sharing the Gospel comes from contemplating it with love, lingering over its pages and reading it with the heart.

Sometimes we lose our enthusiasm for mission because we forget that the Gospel responds to our deepest needs, since we were created for what the Gospel offers us: friendship with Jesus and love of our brothers and sisters.

The words of Pope Francis suggest a basic attitude of gratitude to God such as we see in the man who tells everyone, One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. 

Somewhat different from the Pharisees’ Surely we are not blind, are we?

Which statement/question reflects my stance before God?

On His Blindness by John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need

Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed

And post o’er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.”

This video, posted by the Jerome Lejeune Foundation USA, is, I think, an eye-opener.

Columban parish in Peru cut off by devastating floods

March 24, 2017 Media Release –

Flooding in Peru. In wake of the unprecedented flooding in Peru, Columban Fr Kevin McDonagh in his parish in Samanco near Chimbote [420 kms north of Lima], has been cut off from the outside world. He is managing ok, but the situation is getting precarious for the people.

The worst is not quite yet over as rain is still expected over the next few weeks, with some of it moving south. The challenges ahead are enormous in terms of reconstruction, etc. There is little bottled water available, but fortunately there is water flowing again in Lima though with low pressure. It is worrying to think of so many people without clean water especially in the provincial areas.

So far there are 75 known deaths and over 100,000 people who are homeless. That figure will be multiplied when help reaches all the areas that have been incommunicado since the flooding began. It is mind boggling. We had bad flooding in 1982, and we all thought it was terrible. But that was child’s play in comparison to now. The question is how much more can the people take. Their response and solidarity so far has been nothing short of heroic. Even in the midst of all the suffering, we are seeing Peru and Peruvians at their very best. It is inspiring and heartbreaking all at once. These people are really heroic.

Please, we are asking for prayers and positive thoughts in solidarity with the people of Peru in these times of suffering, especially those most directly affected.

In Christ,

Fr Kevin O’Neill

Superior General

Missionary Society of St Columban 

‘To ask for a drink is no big request but to ask it of me?’ Sunday Reflections, Third Sunday of Lent, Year A

Christ and the Samaritan Woman, Duccio di Buoninsegna 

[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)

For the shorter form of the Gospel omit the passages [in square brackets].

Gospel John 4:5-42 [5:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42] (New Revised  Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus came to a city of Samar′ia, called Sy′char, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

There came a woman of Samar′ia to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samar′ia?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

[Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”  The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly.”  The woman said to him,] “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”  Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

[Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, “What do you wish?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the city and were coming to him.

Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has any one brought him food?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”]

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him [because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”] So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

The video is taken from The Gospel of John directed by Philip Saville.

I remember reading a story about Pope John Paul I when he was still known as Albino Luciani, Patriarch of Venice. One of his priests in a rural parish was known more for being absent from his parish than for being present. Cardinal Luciani went to visit the parish – and the priest was away. So the Cardinal covered for him until the priest returned some days later. The wayward parish priest got the shock of his life when his archbishop asked him to hear his confession.

Cardinal Luciani, who later became known as ‘The Smiling Pope’ and was with us for only 33 days in 1978 as Bishop of Rome, didn’t scold the priest. He simply asked him to do for him what only a priest can do – forgive sins in God’s name in the sacrament of confession.

Pope John Paul I, 26 August 1978

In the gospel Jesus asks the woman at the well directly, Give me a drink. As she was to point out to Jesus he didn’t have the wherewithal to draw water himself from the well. She did.

About twenty-five years ago I was at a sports-fest for children and young people with mental disabilities in the campus of a Catholic high school here in the Philippines. As I was leaving I saw a group of teenage boys, who hadn’t been involved in the sports activity, lounging in the lobby. Behind my back they called Hey, Joe! a greeting that goes back to the last days of World War II when American soldiers, ‘GI Joes’, helped Filipinos to defeat the Japanese. The greeting lingered on for many years and you still hear it occasionally. Often it is well meant but sometimes there’s a barb, or at least a lack of respect.

When I heard the Hey, Joe I got mad. Then I saw that my car, an old VW, had a flat tire. I immediately turned to the boys with whom I was mad and asked, Can you help me change the tire? Immediately they came to my aid and I didn’t have to do anything. (Someone once asked me when I told this story if the boys had had anything to do with the flat tire. They hadn’t. It was just one of those things.) When I was leaving we were all smiling at each other and I was full of gratitude.

Manila American Cemetery and Memorial 
Many ‘GI Joes’ are buried here [Wikipedia]
 

In the gospel Jesus gently leads the woman to acknowledge her sinful life, but not by humiliating her. He draws her into an expression of faith, a recognition that he might be the Messiah. Not only that, he leads her to being a missionary. She goes into town to tell others about Jesus.

In a commentary I once read the writer pointed out that the gospel doesn’t tell us if the woman actually gave Jesus the drink he had asked for! But his physical thirst, which was real, was secondary to his thirst for the welfare of the woman and the people of Sychar. Jesus wasn’t the only one to break the taboo of Jews and Samaritans not speaking to one another. So did the people who asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Presumably the disciples were included in the invitation. All were drawn into something higher than ancient divisions by the presence of Jesus. All were drawn into a relationship with Jesus and in that to a new way of relating to one another.

The teenage boys who said Hey, Joe behind my back were being teenage boys. While perhaps there was some lack of respect there was no real malice and it was more of adolescent bravado. But once I let them know my need they didn’t see me anymore as some anonymous foreigner but as a person they could help. A personal relationship, even if fleeting, had been established, one that called on their generosity. When I left we were all smiling at one another and my heart was filled with gratitude.

Cardinal Luciani might well have berated the parish priest for having neglected his parishioners. Instead, he called him to be a priest in the deepest sense, hearing in his archbishop’s request for confession the voice of Jesus asking the Samaritan woman, Give me a drink.

Pope John Paul I 
(17 October 1912 – 28 September 1978) [Wikipedia]

A Woman of No Distinction

by Chris Kinsley & Drew Francis [2007]

I am a woman of no distinction
of little importance.
I am a women of no reputation
save that which is bad.

You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances,
Though you don’t really take the time to look at me,
Or even get to know me.

For to be known is to be loved,
And to be loved is to be known.
Otherwise what’s the point in doing
either one of them in the first place?

I WANT TO BE KNOWN.

I want someone to look at my face
And not just see two eyes, a nose,
a mouth and two ears;
But to see all that I am, and could be
all my hopes, loves and fears.

But that’s too much to hope for,
to wish for,
or pray for
So I don’t, not anymore.

Now I keep to myself
And by that I mean the pain
that keeps me in my own private jail
The pain that’s brought me here
at midday to this well.

To ask for a drink is no big request
but to ask it of me?
A woman unclean, ashamed,
Used and abused
An outcast, a failure
a disappointment, a sinner.

No drink passing from these hands
to your lips could ever be refreshing
Only condemning, as I’m sure you condemn me now
But you don’t.

You’re a man of no distinction;
Though of the utmost importance.
A man with little reputation, at least so far.

You whisper and tell me to my face
what all those glances have been about, and
You take the time to really look at me.
But don’t need to get to know me.

For to be known is to be loved and
To be loved is to be known.

And you know me.
You actually know me;
all of me and everything about me.
Every thought inside and hair on top of my head;
Every hurt stored up, every hope, every dread.

My past and my future, all I am and could be.
You tell me everything,
you tell me about me!

And that which is spoken by another
would bring hate and condemnation.
Coming from you brings love, grace,
mercy, hope and salvation.

I’ve heard of one to come
who could save a wretch like me
And here in my presence, you say
I AM He.

To be known is to be loved;
And to be loved is to be known.

And I just met you.
But I love you.
I don’t know you,
but I want to get to.

Let me run back to town
this is way to much for just me.
There are others: brothers,
sisters, lovers, haters.

The good and the bad, sinners and saints
who should hear what you’ve told me;
who should see what you’ve shown me;
who should taste what you gave me;
who should feel how you forgave me.

For to be known is to be loved;
And to be loved is to be known.
And they all need this, too.
We all do
Need it for our own.

 

Columban Fr Charles Duster RIP

Fr Charles Duster

(15 September 1934 – 7 March 2017)

Father Charlie was born on 15 September  1934 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA, where his parents Charles Henry Duster [‘DOOster’] and Cleo Catherine Handley Duster owned and operated a supermarket. He has an older brother William C. Duster (Audrey) of Littleton, Colorado, a sister Mrs Robert Enns (Katie) of Fort Pierce, Florida, and eleven nieces and nephews and their families. His older sister, Margaret Jeanne Duster, died in 1972.

Cedar Rapids, on the Cedar River [Wikipedia]

Fr. Charlie attended Immaculate Conception Grade and High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, (1952). After high school he attended Regis University, Denver, Colorado (1952-53) and Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1953-1954).

After briefly considering medical school he instead decided to enter the seminary to become a Columban missionary priest in 1955. He studied at St Columban’s Seminary, Milton, Massachusetts. As an exchange student, he studied theology at St Columban’s, Dalgan Park, Navan, Ireland (1958 – ’61). He did his fourth year of theology at St Columban’s, Milton, where he was ordained a priest of the Missionary Society of St Columban on 21 December 1961. He celebrated his first Solemn High Mass at Immaculate Conception Church in Cedar Rapids on 31 December.

Immaculate Conception Church, Cedar Rapids [Parish website]

In 1962 Father Charlie was assigned to Japan where he spent the next six years. The first two of these were spent studying Japanese language in Tokyo, the third one as Acting Regional Bursar, and the last three years as Associate Pastor at Shingu Catholic Church, Wakayama Prefecture, in the Diocese of Osaka.

In Japan

In July 1967 Father Charlie visited the Philippines, accompanied by a Columban confrere. After spending some days with Columban colleagues on the island of Negros, they narrowly missed their flight from Bacolod City to Cebu on 6 July because the plane departed a few minutes ahead of schedule, due to severe weather conditions. The next morning they learned that the plane, a Fokker F27 Friendship, had crashed into a mountain and all 17 passengers and four crew members perished. Father Charlie wrote about this in A Close Shave in the May-June 2016 issue of MISYONonline.com.

From 1969 – 1972, Father Charlie was the Columban Vocation Director for the Midwest Region of the USA based in Omaha. Afterwards, he continued a similar ministry while residing at the Columban house in Chicago. He then served a year in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis as chaplain at Hennepin County General Hospital in Minneapolis accompanied by studies in Clinical Pastoral Education.

With the late Archbishop Petero Mataca of Suva

In November 1974, Father Charlie was assigned to Fiji, Archdiocese of Suva. After initial language studies, he was appointed as Associate Pastor in Holy Family Parish, Nabala, Macuata, and a year later as Pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Solevu, Bua, where he served for six years. 

Following home leave in 1980 he did renewal studies at Notre Dame University. On his return to Fiji he became the Regional Vice-Director. He returned to the USA to undergo by-pass surgery in Houston, Texas, in 1982. Upon returning to Fiji later that year, Father Charlie was appointed Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Suva, and served in this position for four years.

Offices of the Archdiocese of Suva [Wikipedia]

In September 1986, he was appointed Rector of Collegio San Colombano in Rome where he was Superior of the sixteen-member community. During his eight years in Rome, he also earned a licentiate and doctorate in Canon Law at the Angelicum University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. Before being reassigned to the Fijian Region, he worked for six months in the Marriage Tribunal in the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, in order to gain experience in matrimonial law. 

Father Charlie returned to Fiji in November 1994 and served for six years as the Coordinator of the Columban Lay Mission Program, while teaching Canon Law at the Pacific Regional Seminary. In December 1998 he returned to the USA to undergo by-pass surgery for the second time, but returned to Fiji seven months later to continue his ministry to Columban Lay Missionaries. In December, 2003 he was appointed Associate Pastor at Holy Family Parish, Labasa, where he served until returning to the USA in September 2005. This was prompted by the recommendation of his doctors that he should reside in a place where he could receive monitored medical attention, which was unavailable in Fiji. 

With old friends in Fiji

He was assigned to the Columban Magnolia house in Chicago where he worked on Mission Promotion and Vocations (2005 – 2011) and served as house Superior (2008 -2011). In 2011 he began work at the Omaha office in Planned Giving and Development, and later combined this ministry with Superior of the Omaha community (2012 – 2016).

Father Charlie’s warm and outgoing personality, many talents, and deep commitment to his vocation as a Columban missionary priest, drew many people to God in the various places where he ministered. Wherever he was sent, his ability to recognize and celebrate all that was good in the world around him made him a truly joyful messenger of the Good News.

There is one thing I ask of the Lord, 
for this I long,
    to live in the house of the Lord,
    all the days of my life,
to savour the sweetness of the Lord,
    to behold his temple (Psalm 27:4).
 
Some Personal Memories
 
With Fijian Columban Lay Missionary Serafina Vuda in Peru
Serafina died unexpectedly on 31 May 2014
 
I met Father Charlie at long intervals over the years. My abiding memory of him is that he was a joyful person, as the photos of him above indicate. I visited Rome for the first time in April 1988. My first full day there happened to be my birthday and he insisted on taking those of us in the house at the time to a restaurant to celebrate the occasion.
In 2007, if my memory serves me right, he gave a retreat to Columban priests in the Philippines at St Scholastica’s Center of Spirituality in Tagaytay City, south of Manila and much cooler than the latter because of its elevation. The retreat was truly a fraternal one, exemplifying what the psalmist wrote:
How good and how pleasant it is, 
when brothers live in unity (Psalm 133[132]:1).
 
My first time to meet him was in St Columban’s, Dalgan Park, Ireland, during Easter Week 1961 when I went there to be interviewed and to have a medical examination before entering the seminary the following September. I went back to Dublin, where I lived, with a group of the seminarians going to the city for the afternoon. I remember him singing a parody on a popular song from 1911, I Want A Girl (Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad). I never heard Father Charlie’s version again until today when I found it on YouTube.
In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:2-3). 
 
May Fr Charles Duster enter the place prepared for him by Jesus and may he add to the joy of the saints in heaven.
[SC]

 

‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ Second Sunday of Lent, Year A

Transfiguration, Fra Angelico [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Matthew 17:1-9 (New Revised  Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

The Upper Basilica, Lourdes [Wikipedia]

Like Peter, James and John, I caught a glimpse of something of the Purity of God on a hill. Tradition tells us that Jesus was transfigured on Mount Tabor, Israel. My ‘Mount Tabor’ was a hotel at the top of a hill in Lourdes, France.

During Holy Week 2001 I took part in the international pilgrimage of Faith and Light to Lourdes which takes place every ten years. Faith and Light was born of a desire to help people with an intellectual disability and their families find their place within the Church and society. This was the main purpose of the organized pilgrimage to Lourdes at Easter of 1971. The founders of the movement were Jean Vanier and Marie-Hélène Mathieu. 

Jean Vanier is also the founder of L’Arche. In the video below he speaks about the beginnings of that, not as a project or movement but as a covenant with two individuals with learning disabilities and their own dreams, Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux.

Jean Vanier speaks about the early days of L’Arche and finding God in others
 
I was based in Britain at the time and traveled with a group from the north of England. However, before I left the Philippines for Britain in 2000 I had been invited to be chaplain to the small contingent from the Philippines, as I had been on the fringes of Faith and Light in the Philippines between 1992 and 2000. The Filipinos were staying in a hotel at a distance from the shrine and at the top of a hill. There was also a group of Faith and Light pilgrims from Hong Kong, including Fr Giosue Bonzi PIME, an Italian, in the same hotel. (I was with the English pilgrims in a hotel close to the shrine.)
Chinese ceramic plate, circa 1680 [Wikipedia]
 
One of those from Hong Kong was Dorothy, a girl of about eleven with Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21). Her father died suddenly when she was very young. Dorothy’s face had the delicate beauty of Chinese ceramics. But she had an extraordinary inner beauty, a purity that could have come only from God. Though I had no Cantonese and she had no English, we were able to communicate simply by looking at one another. She showed complete trust in me. She had a vulnerability that called forth the deepest respect.
Fr Giosue Bonzi PIME with Dorothy, now an adult, in Hong Kong

In Irish there’s an expression used for a person with a severe mental or learning disability, duine le Dia, ‘a person with God’. Dorothy was such for me, in a very full sense of that phrase: she was a clear expression of the beauty and of the purity of God for me.

The Opening Prayer of today’s Mass reads:
O God, who have commanded us
to listen to your beloved Son,
be pleased, we pray,
to nourish us inwardly by your word,
that, with spiritual sight made pure,
we may rejoice to behold your glory.
Through . . .
When Peter, James and John went up Mount Tabor with Jesus they had no idea that would see the divinity of Jesus there. They had no idea they would hear God the Father say This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him! The Entrance Antiphon [below], taken from Psalm 26 [27], prays, It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face from me. I have no doubt that I saw the face of the Lord in that young girl with Down Syndrome from Hong Kong whom I met in Lourdes in Holy Week 2001.
Jesus may speak to us at any time, unexpectedly, as he revealed his presence to me in that hotel at the top of a hill in Lourdes. May we make the Opening Prayer our own so that, with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory.
Antiphona ad introitum  Cf. Ps 26[27]:8-9; [1]
Tibi dixit cor meum:
quæsívi vultum tuum,
vultum tuum, Dómine, requíram:
ne avértas fáciem tuam a me.
[Dóminus illuminátio mea,
et salus mea: quem timébo?
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, 
et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Tibi dixit cor meum:
quæsívi vultum tuum,
vultum tuum, Dómine, requíram:
ne avértas fáciem tuam a me.]
Entrance Antiphon
Of you my heart has spoken:
Seek his face.
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek;
hide not your face from me.
[The Lord is my light,
and my salvation. Whom should I fear?
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy spirit.
As it was, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Of you my heart has spoken:
Seek his face.
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek;

hide not your face from me.]

The text in bold is used in the Ordinary Form of the Mass and the longer text in the Extraordinary Form, though it may also be used in the Ordinary Form especially if chanted.

‘Jesus, mercy; Mary, help.’ Sunday Reflections, 1st Sunday of Lent, Year A

The Tempation of Christ, Juan de Flandes [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Matthew 4:1-11 (New Revised  Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,

‘One does not live by bread alone,
    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,

‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
    and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,

‘Worship the Lord your God,
    and serve only him.’”

Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Matt Talbot statue, Dublin [Wikipedia]
 
I remember vividly a homily given on the First Sunday in Lent in St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, the Columban seminary in Ireland where I studied from 1961 to 1968, by the late Fr Edward McCormack, who taught us Latin. We all recognised Father Ted, as we called him, as a saintly man. It was clear from his preaching that he was experiencing something of the horror of the very idea of the Devil tempting Jesus, God who became man. It was as if the very soul of Father Ted was shuddering.

Matt Talbot was a Dubliner who had become an alcoholic by the age of 13 or 14 and spent the next fourteen years as a drunkard. He went to the extreme once of stealing a fiddle (violin) from a beggar and pawned it to get money for drink. It was his only living, Matt tells us in the video, and I think that was the worst thing I ever did in my life. Matt made many efforts later to trace the beggar but never succeeded.

Yet during his fourteen years of drinking Matt hardly ever missed Sunday Mass, though he didn’t receive Holy Communion, and always said a Hail Mary before sleeping. I think that’s what saved me in the long run, he tells us.

At the beginning of the second video Matt, masterfully played by Irish actor Seamus Forde, goes through a soul-wrenching temptation right at Communion time, something that happens the same Sunday morning at Mass in three different churches, a temptation that drives him out of each, until he falls on his knees outside one of them and prays Jesus, mercy; Mary help, a prayer that most Dubliners would have been familiar with. Perhaps Jesus had called Matt to share in the experience of his three temptations in the desert.
Matt Talbot towards the end of his life [Wikipedia]

The second video shows Matt sending a donation to the Maynooth Mission to China, as the Columbans were first known in Ireland, some time in the mid-1920s. The note he enclosed is in the Columban archives in Ireland. [A Columban priest told me recently that the original is now in Rome, with a copy in Ireland.] The amount, one pound from himself and ten shillings (half of a pound) from his sister, was considerable for poor people.

Towards the end of the video Matt speaks of the things God had asked him to do. He put these thoughts in my mind when I was praying – and I knew they came from him. Only the priest in confession knew about these special things, small things God wanted me to do. They weren’t for anybody else.

Among the special things, small things were the chains he wore on certain occasions. It was these very chains, found on his body when he died, that led to people asking questions about me . . . God must have wanted it that way . . . using me to say something to people today, now.

Lent is a gift that God gives the Church each year, a personal gift to each member of the Church, a time when he wants to put these thoughts in my mind when I am praying.

Matt Talbot was the farthest thing imaginable from the ‘celebrities’ of today during his life. In the more than 90 years since his death he has given hope to many, especially persons struggling with alcoholism and other addictions. 

Will I allow God this Lent to put whatever thoughts he wants to in my mind by giving him time in prayer? Will I allow him, as Mary did when she said Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word, to use me to say something to people today, now?

Will I fall on my knees in moments of great temptation, as Matt did during the terrible struggle he had right at Communion time three times on the one Sunday morning, perhaps reflecting the three temptations of the Lord in today’s gospel, and plead Jesus, mercy, Mary help?

They thought I was missing the good things in life. But God gave me the best part – and he never took it away.

 

St Francis Xavier Church, Gardiner St, Dublin [Wikipedia]
 
Dubliners refer to churches by their street names rather than by their patronal names. The church above, which Matt calls ‘Gardiner Street church’, is that of the Jesuits. Matt also refers a number of times to the ‘chapel’ in Seville Place, the Church of St Laurence O’Toole, once Archbishop of Dublin. This is another old Dublin usage, calling a church a ‘chapel’. The accent and idioms of Matt in the two videos are pure Dublin. 
 
When I was a child my mother, when ‘going into town’, ie into the city centre, would sometimes go through Granby Lane and we’d pray at the spot where Matt died. Everyone in Dublin then knew who Matt Talbot was. I’m not so sure about today.
 
You can discover more about this wonderful man at the Dublin Diocesan Matt Talbot website and by googling, especially on YouTube.
The Annunciation, El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]
 
Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word (Luke 1:38).