Sunday Reflections

Sheaves of Wheat, Van Gogh, 1885

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

‘Fruit of the earth  and work of human hands,

it will become for us the bread of life.’

Corpus Christi Sunday

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel  Luke 9:11b-17 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)

When the crowds found out about it, they followed Jesus; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.

The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.” But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” They did so and made them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

In countries where Corpus Christi is observed as a holyday of obligation on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday

Readings (Jerusalem Bible)

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Corpus Christi. Responsorial Psalm (NAB Lectionary; Philippines, USA)

Chapel at the University of the East, Manila

Before fire on 1 April 2016

After fire

At 9:00 am on 1 April John Lambert Minimo, a 20-year-old student at the University of the East (UE), Manila, where he is the Overall Student Responsible in Campus Ministry, got a phone-call from a fire volunteer friend, John Paul Justin Aquino. UE is on fire, John Paul said. The first and only thought that came into Lambert’s mind was the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel because it is the True Body of Christ, as he later wrote.

Lambert rushed to university but the campus guards wouldn’t let him in. He contacted Fr Bernard Martin, the UE chaplain, at the Columban house but told him not to come as the fire was still raging. Fr Martin turned 85 that day. There were no classes as the academic year had ended a week or two before. The young man, who prepared everything for Mass each day, felt a certain helplessness but prayed as he waited at the gate, Lord, I will save you no matter what happens.

By noon the fire was out but John Lambert’s cellphone was dead by then and he had no money to buy lunch. He still waited. It was three in the afternoon before he was able to get to the chapel as a clearance was needed from the Bureau of Fire Protection. And not everyone seemed to understand why he was so anxious to save the Blessed Sacrament. A number of people told him to go home.

Crucifix and tabernacle after the fire

Finally, at 3:00 pm Lambert, accompanied by a school official and a security guard, was able to enter the chapel, which had been badly damaged. But the crucifix behind the altar hadn’t even been charred and the tabernacle was safe.

Lambert wrote, I genuflected as a sign of reverence to the Lord. I started to sing hymns we use at Mass. I went immediately to the sacristy to get as many corporals as I could to wrap the pyx that contained the Blessed Sacrament. I gave the Paschal Candle to the security guard. Wearing my sotana, I approached the tabernacle. As I opened it, I sang “O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine.” I wrapped the pyx and placed it in my pocket so that I could take it to the Columban house.

Before I left I looked up at the crucifix. It was as if the Lord was saying to me, ‘Lambert, anak (son). Don’t worry, I am still here. I’m safe. You can take me. We conquered the fire, I stood up and I am here.’ That was a moment I will never forget. The Lord spoke clearly to my heart.

O Sacrament Most Holy

A UE van took Lambert and his friend John Paul to the Columban house. As we travelled, we started to pray and continuously sing ‘O Sacrament Most Holy’. I felt tired. My head continued to ache, I was very hungry and my hands were shaking. But I continued to embrace the Blessed Sacrament tightly. When they reached the Columban house at around 4:00pm Fr Martin placed the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel there and Lambert and John Paul then joined the birthday celebration.

Fr Bernard Martin with Lambert (r) and Beth Briones (l) at UE Campus Ministry

Beth spent some years in Fiji as a Columban Lay Missionary

It was an experience that I will never forget, wrote Lambert. Out of my love for the Blessed Sacrament, I would do anything for Him, even in the simplest way. Even in the toughest moments the Lord is always there to remind me and call me anytime He needs my help.

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, UE Chapel

Each time the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered in the chapel of UE, as in every other church, the bread and wine brought to the altar at the offertory become the Body and Blood of Christ. They’re not ‘symbols’ of this. They are the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord Jesus. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church, No 33, puts it, At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ’s Body and Blood. 

Paul Comtois, (1895-1966) 

Fifty years ago, just after midnight 21/22 February 1966, a fire destroyed the official residence of Paul Comtois, the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, Canada,  the official representative of Queen Elizabeth of Canada who lives in England, where she is also Queen. Lieutenant Governor Comtois had been given permission, reluctantly, by the Archbishop to have the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel in his residence. He prayed there every night

Like John Lambert Minimo, he immediately thought of the Blessed Sacrament when the fire broke out. Having made sure that others in the house were safe he went to the chapel, already in flames. He was able to rescue the Blessed Sacrament but didn’t make it to safety. The pyx containing the Blessed Sacrament was found, untouched by the flames, under his charred body.

Canadian priest Fr Raymond de Souza wrote last March in National Post, one of Canada’s dailies, Paul Comtois, the former lieutenant governor of Quebec, was a different kind of martyr. He was not killed by the hatred of others; rather, he was motivated by his own love of Christ. He might be considered a martyr for the Eucharist.

I might have missed it, but it didn’t seem as though anything was done last month, by either church or state, to mark the 50th anniversary of his death on Feb. 22, 1966. And his story is one that needs to be told.

Fr de Souza quotes from an article by Andrew Cusack in which a family friend, Mac Stearns, relates: His tremendous religious faith impressed me greatly and was no doubt instrumental in my embracing the Catholic faith some time after his death. Knowing his great fervor for the Blessed Sacrament, I have no doubt whatsoever that Paul would do all in his power to rescue the Holy Eucharist from the fire.

The reason for the death of Lieutenant General Comtois was ignored at the time not only by the secular press but by the Catholic press. Cusack quotes Sr Maureen Peckham RSCJ writing in 1988: Yet, Paul Comtois was a man of the world, a well-known socialite, one who had reached the heights of worldly glory; he was one whom the world could recognize as its own. Furthermore, his chivalrous and brave death should, even on the human and wordly level, have merited the title of hero. That he, who had been honored by the world during his lifetime, should have been ignored by the world at the moment of his death, can only be explained by the fact that he died for One Whom the world does not recognize and has ever refused to acknowledge.

I had never heard of Paul Comtois until quite recently when I came across his story on the internet. I’m sure that young Lambert had never heard of him either until I sent him a link the other evening to this wonderful story. God did not ask Lambert to give his life but he has given him a deep faith in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, as he did Paul Comtois. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church, No 1374, teaches: The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as ‘the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.’ In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist ‘the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.’ ‘This presence is called “real”- by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be “real” too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present. [Emphasis added.]

It is that Presence of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament that the Church celebrates today.

Corpus Christ Procession, Appenzell, Switzerland

[Thanks to Fr Oliver Quilab SVD on FB for photos]

Antiphona ad communionem   Communion Antiphon  John 6:57

Qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum sanguinem,

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood

in me manet et ego in eo, dicit Dominus.

remains in me and I in him, says the Lord.

The Two Trinities, Murillo, 1675-82

National Gallery, London [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  John 16:12-15 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Responsorial Psalm

New American Bible version (Philippines, USA)

During my kinder, primary and secondary school years, 1947 to 1961, my brother and I had breakfast and dinner – a midday meal in Ireland in those days – with our mother. In the evening we had ‘tea’, as that lighter meal was known in some English-speaking countries. My father had his dinner and tea combined, the four of us together. I often heard my mother ‘complain’ about having to prepare two meals for my father in the evening. It would never have crossed her mind, or that of any other working-class housewife in urban Ireland in those days, to have dinner for the whole family in the evening.

However, we did have dinner together on Saturdays and Sunday’s. My father, like other construction workers, had a half-day on Saturday. Saturday was the only day when we had soup, very often barley soup, served in cups, not in bowls.

Phoenix Park, Dublin, in the summer [Wikipedia]

Sunday dinner was special, as it was for all families, and meant extra work for my mother who would spent the whole morning after Mass and breakfast preparing it. My father would take the two of us to meet our paternal grandfather and then for a walk in the nearby Phoenix Park. 

I don’t ever recall my parents telling us that we were a family. We just knew. But it was only as an adult and after ordination that I realised that it was at our evening meals on weekdays and at our midday meals on Saturdays and Sundays that I experienced, without being aware of it, what family is. And our Sunday walks with my father were what is now called ‘bonding’. Another part of that was Dad taking us to soccer games from time to time in nearby Dalymount Park. 

When I went as a young priest to the USA to study I discovered that families had to really work at being families, as the family couldn’t be taken for granted, as it still could be in Ireland at that time.

Pope Francis is probably familiar with Murillo’s painting above, The Two Trinities. In his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, On Love in the Family he states in No 29: With a gaze of faith and love, grace and fidelity, we have contemplated the relationship between human families and the divine Trinity. The word of God tells us that the family is entrusted to a man, a woman and their children, so that they may become a communion of persons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Begetting and raising children, for its part, mirrors God’s creative work. The family is called to join in daily prayer, to read the word of God and to share in Eucharistic communion, and thus to grow in love and become ever more fully a temple in which the Spirit dwells. [Emphases added.]

Pope Francis highlights this link again in No 71: Scripture and Tradition give us access to a knowledge of the Trinity, which is revealed with the features of a family. The family is the image of God, who is a communion of persons. At Christ’s baptism, the Father’s voice was heard, calling Jesus his beloved Son, and in this love we can recognize the Holy Spirit. Jesus, who reconciled all things in himself and redeemed us from sin, not only returned marriage and the family to their original form, but also raised marriage to the sacramental sign of his love for the Church.In the human family, gathered by Christ, ‘the image and likeness’ of the Most Holy Trinity has been restored, the mystery from which all true love flows. Through the Church, marriage and the family receive the grace of the Holy Spirit from Christ, in order to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s love. [Emphases added.]

Holy Family with the infant St John, Murillo, 1655-60

Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest [Web Gallery of Art]

Almost every Catholic in Ireland went to Sunday Mass in those days and our Protestant neighbours went to church. When I was a child it was usually my father who took me to Mass on Sunday morning. And on special days such as Easter Monday, Whit (Pentecost) Monday, which were public but not Church holidays, he would take me to High Mass in one of the churches in Dublin belonging to religious orders such as the Capuchins and the Dominicans. 

Before Pope Pius XII changed the Holy Week liturgies in 1955 the ceremonies on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday were held in the morning. Not too many would attend these. but on the afternoon of Holy Thursday my mother would take my brother and me to visit seven churches for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the Altar of Repose. That practice disappeared after 1954 in Dublin but is alive and well here in the Philippines in the larger cities where it is called Visita Iglesia. This was an experience, without being aware of it, of being drawn into the wider family that is the Church.

I must confess that as a child I didn’t appreciate too much my father bringing me to High Masses or my mother bringing me to visit seven churches on Holy Thursday. But I could see clearly how Dad loved the solemnity of the  High Mass and how central the Mass was to his life. He went to Mass every day of his life right up to the day he died. I am grateful now for the way my parents brought me into the life of the Blessed Trinity in this way. But I am also grateful for the way they drew me into the life of the Trinity, without being aware of it, through our daily family life, especially our evening meal together.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are often referred to as the three monotheistic faiths. Those who belong to these three faiths believe in only One God.

I have often heard Catholics say in a well-meaning way, ‘We all believe in the same God.’ But that is not so. Only Christians believe in a God who is a communion of persons.

And Pope Francis has very forcefully reminded us that while the Most Holy Trinity is a mystery that we can never fathom, the Triune God is intimately part of our lives, especially through the sacrament of matrimony and the family: The word of God tells us that the family is entrusted to a man, a woman and their children, so that they may become a communion of persons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Family Meal, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, 1757

Villa Valmarana ai Nani, Vicenza, Italy [Web Gallery of Art]

Antiphona ad introitum    Entrance Antiphon

Benedictus sit Deus Pater, Unigenitusque Dei Filius,

Blest be God the Father, and the Only Begotten Son of God,

Sanctus quoque Spiritus,

and also the Holy Spirit, 

quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.

for he has shown us his merciful love.

This is the Offertory Antiphon in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass on the Feast of the Holy Trinity.

Pentecost, El Greco, 1596-1600

Museo del Prado, Madrid [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Vigil Mass  (Years A, B and C)

Mass during the Day

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) [This page gives the readings for both the Vigil Mass and the Mass during the Day]

Liturgical Note. Pentecost, like Easter and some other solemnities, has a Vigil, properly so-called. This is not an ‘anticipated Mass’ but a Vigil Mass in its own right, with its own set of prayers and readings. It fulfills our Sunday obligation. There may be an extended Liturgy of the Word,er similar to the Easter Vigil, with all the Old Testament readings used. 

The prayers and readings of the Mass During the Day should not be used for the Vigil Mass, nor those of the Vigil Mass for the Mass During the Day. 

Gospel  John 20:19-23 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Or

Gospel  John 14:15-16,  23b-26 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)  

Jesus said to his disciples:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.

“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate,  the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

The Gospel of John

John 20:19-23 (Good News Bible)

More than 20 years ago I was asked to celebrate Mass for a group of girls aged around 14  from a Catholic school in Cebu City in the central Philippines. They were having a recollection day in a retreat house. I made myself available for confession about 30 minutes before Mass. It soon became clear to me that many wanted to go to confession and after half an hour I went to the teacher and suggested we wait a while before starting Mass.

As the girls continued to come, some also sharing problems, I realized that this was their need. I spoke again to the teacher and suggested that we not have Mass that afternoon but that we arrange for one in school a few days later. She readily agreed.

These youngsters were experiencing God’s infinite loving mercy and recognised that. Pope Francis has been highlighting this ever since he was elected. 

In his homily on 17 May 2013 at his Mass in St Martha’s, where he lives, Pope Francis spoke again about God’s mercy. In his homily he said, Peter was saddened that, for a third time, Jesus asked him, “Do you love me?” This pain, this shame – a great man, this Peter – [and] a sinner, a sinner. The Lord makes him feel that he is a sinner – makes us all feel that we are sinners. The problem is not that we are sinners: the problem is not repenting of sin, not being ashamed of what we have done. That’s the problem. 

Pope Francis added, Peter let himself be shaped by his many encounters with Jesus and this ‘is something we all need to do as well, for we are on the same road,’ the Holy Father said, stressing that ‘Peter is great, not because he is good, but because he has a nobility of heart, which brings him to tears, leads him to this pain, this shame – and also to take up his work of shepherding the flock.’ [Emphases added.]

Regular confession is an ongoing encounter with the loving Jesus in which he shapes us. Pope Francis notes that ‘Peter let himself be shaped’. We make a decision each time we go to confession, a decision that’s not always easy to make. But Jesus never spurns us.

On 28 April 2013 Pope Francis confirmed a group of young people from different countries. The last of three points he made in his homily was this: And here I come to my last point. It is an invitation which I make to you, young confirmandi, and to all present. Remain steadfast in the journey of faith, with firm hope in the Lord. This is the secret of our journey! He gives us the courage to swim against the tide. Pay attention, my young friends: to go against the current; this is good for the heart, but we need courage to swim against the tide. Jesus gives us this courage! There are no difficulties, trials or misunderstandings to fear, provided we remain united to God as branches to the vine, provided we do not lose our friendship with him, provided we make ever more room for him in our lives. This is especially so whenever we feel poor, weak and sinful, because God grants strength to our weakness, riches to our poverty, conversion and forgiveness to our sinfulness. The Lord is so rich in mercy: every time, if we go to him, he forgives us. Let us trust in God’s work! With him we can do great things; he will give us the joy of being his disciples, his witnesses. Commit yourselves to great ideals, to the most important things. We Christians were not chosen by the Lord for little things; push onwards toward the highest principles. Stake your lives on noble ideals, my dear young people! [Emphases added.]

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Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.

Pope Francis hears young persons’ confessions, 23 April 2016

Among other things, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost has given us the sacrament of confession/reconciliation/penance, that beautiful expression of God’s mercy.

In his Message for the Jubilee of Mercy for Adolescents, held in Rome 23-25 April this year, Pope Francis writes: I realize that not all of you can come to Rome, but the Jubilee is truly for everyone and it is also being celebrated in your local Churches. You are all invited to this moment of joy. Don’t just prepare your rucksacks and your banners, but your hearts and your minds as well. Think carefully about the hope and desires you will hand over to Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and in the Eucharist which we will celebrate together. As you walk through the Holy Door, remember that you are committing yourselves to grow in holiness and to draw nourishment from the Gospel and the Eucharist, the Word and the Bread of life, in order to help build a more just and fraternal world. [Emphases added].

One of my greatest joys as a sinner is receiving forgiveness in confession from the priest, who absolves me in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that is, with God’s full authority. One of my greatest joys as a priest is to welcome a fellow sinner, whether young or old, whether someone who comes frequently to confession or is returning after many years, and to assure that sinner of God’s mercy and absolving my fellow pilgrim in the name of that merciful God.

Veni Sancte Spiritus

(Sequence for Mass on Pentecost Sunday. This may be sung or said after the Second Reading.)

Veni, Sancte Spiritus,

et emitte caelitus

lucis tuae radium.

Come, Holy Spirit,

send forth the heavenly

radiance of your light.

 

Veni, pater pauperum,

veni, dator munerum

veni, lumen cordium.

Come, father of the poor,

come giver of gifts,

come, light of the heart.

 

Consolator optime,

dulcis hospes animae,

dulce refrigerium.

Greatest comforter,

sweet guest of the soul,

sweet consolation.

 

In labore requies,

in aestu temperies

in fletu solatium.

In labor, rest,

in heat, temperance,

in tears, solace.

 

O lux beatissima,

reple cordis intima

tuorum fidelium.

O most blessed light,

fill the inmost heart

of your faithful.

 

Sine tuo numine,

nihil est in homine,

nihil est innoxium.

Without your grace,

there is nothing in us,

nothing that is not harmful.

 

Lava quod est sordidum,

riga quod est aridum,

sana quod est saucium.

Cleanse that which is unclean,

water that which is dry,

heal that which is wounded.

 

Flecte quod est rigidum,

fove quod est frigidum,

rege quod est devium.

Bend that which is inflexible,

fire that which is chilled,

correct what goes astray.

 

a tuis fidelibus,

in te confidentibus,

sacrum septenarium.

Give to your faithful,

those who trust in you,

the sevenfold gifts.

 

Da virtutis meritum,

da salutis exitum,

da perenne gaudium.

Grant the reward of virtue,

grant the deliverance of salvation,

grant eternal joy.

[The English translation is one of many].

 

 

The Ascension of Christ, Rembrandt, 1636

Alte Pinakothek, Munich [Web Gallery of Art]

The Solemnity of the Ascension

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Luke 24:46-53 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, andreturned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Where the Ascension is observed on Ascension Thursday

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Responsorial Psalm for the Ascension

(New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

World Communications Day

The Sunday on which the Ascension is now celebrated in many countries is also the Church’s World Communications Day. The first was in 1967. Jesus tells the disciples in today’s Gospel – and through them tell us – You are witnesses of these things. Jesus is asking us to use all modern means of communication so that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

When I went home to Ireland on vacation from the Philippines in 1994 before beginning six years as vocation director I took a short course for missionaries in the use of computers given by a religious sister who had worked in an African country for many years. She wasn’t the best teacher I’ve ever had in teaching the ‘mechanical’ basics of her subject but she was a wonderful motivator. Although the internet was still in its infancy she told us stories of how it had helped save lives in the country where she worked.
Some years ago when checking my email in the Philippines I found myself ‘chatting’ with a friend, a Filipina married to a Westerner and living in her husband’s country. I’ll call her Maria. It was clear to me very quickly that she was going through a crisis and thinking of doing the worst to herself. At the time she ‘hated’ everyone except me and ‘didn’t believe’ in God anymore.

I was able to help Maria see that the issue wasn’t any of the things she mentioned but was within herself. I also got her to agree to meet a priest in her own area, someone I had never met and still haven’t. But I was able to contact him through email, having got his address from someone else whom I have never met in person. 

I learned later that that meeting with the priest was to be a turning point for my Maria. She was able to face the world again with hope and hasn’t looked back since.

At the time this happened I had come to know a 16-year-old girl in the Philippines who had been made pregnant by her boyfriend. I’ll call her Ana. I’m not sure to what degree she had consented to the activity that led to her carrying a baby. She was from another part of the country but was welcomed by religious sisters who run a home for girls, most of whom have had pretty bad experiences. Ana was was very angry and part of that anger was directed at the baby she was carrying.

I told Maria about Ana. One of the ironies was that Maria couldn’t have a child, a great sorrow to her and her husband. Despite her ‘not believing’ in God I asked her to pray for Ana, something she readily agreed to do, and told her that I would ask Ana to pray for her. When I met Ana a day or two later she too readily accepted her mission of prayer.

Visitation, Luca della Robbia, c.1445

San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia, Italy [Web Gallery of Art]

Shortly after that we celebrated the feast of the Visitation. After Mass I asked Ana if she would like me to bless her and the baby in her womb. She was happy with this and later told me that she had felt the baby moving for the first time. More importantly, her anger had disappeared. Some time later she was able to go home to her own family and delivered her baby there.

This incident opened my eyes to the truth of what the Sister who gave us classes on the use of computers and the internet had told us. Here was I at my computer in the Philippines when ‘by chance’, the ‘chance’ being undoubtedly the Holy Spirit, giving crisis counselling to a friend on another continent and helping her to meet someone I had never met who could listen to her in person.

Pope Francis, Palo, Leyte, Philippines

17 January 2015 [Wikipedia]

Ascension Sunday this year is the Church’s 50th World Communications Day. The theme of the message of Pope Francis is Communication and Mercy: A Fruitful Encounter.

I’ve added my own emphasis to this paragraph from the message: Emails, text messages, social networks and chats can also be fully human forms of communication. It is not technology which determines whether or not communication is authentic, but rather the human heart and our capacity to use wisely the means at our disposal. Social networks can facilitate relationships and promote the good of society, but they can also lead to further polarization and division between individuals and groups. The digital world is a public square, a meeting-place where we can either encourage or demean one another, engage in a meaningful discussion or unfair attacks. I pray that this Jubilee Year, lived in mercy, ‘may open us to even more fervent dialogue so that we might know and understand one another better; and that it may eliminate every form of closed-mindedness and disrespect, and drive out every form of violence and discrimination’ (Misericordiae Vultus, 23). The internet can help us to be better citizens. Access to digital networks entails a responsibility for our neighbour whom we do not see but who is nonetheless real and has a dignity which must be respected. The internet can be used wisely to build a society which is healthy and open to sharing.

My online communication with ‘Maria’ was fully human and charged with the grandeur of God (Gerard Manley Hopkins). So was my communication with ‘Ana’ and her unborn child when I blessed them both after Mass on the Feast of the Visitation.

Pope Francis concludes his message with these words (emphasis added): Communication, wherever and however it takes place, has opened up broader horizons for many people. This is a gift of God which involves a great responsibility. I like to refer to this power of communication as ‘closeness’. The encounter between communication and mercy will be fruitful to the degree that it generates a closeness which cares, comforts, heals, accompanies and celebrates. In a broken, fragmented and polarized world, to communicate with mercy means to help create a healthy, free and fraternal closeness between the children of God and all our brothers and sisters in the one human family.

Both Maria and Ana experienced the encounter between communication and mercy, one through the internet the other face-to-face. God communicated his merciful love to each.

May all of us accept and use the internet as a gift of God which involves a great responsibility.

Last week I included Portia’s speech from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Pope Francis quotes from this in his message for today. Above is the speech from a 2004 film production of the play.

Pope Francis: For this reason, I would like to invite all people of good will to rediscover the power of mercy to heal wounded relationships and to restore peace and harmony to families and communities. All of us know how many ways ancient wounds and lingering resentments can entrap individuals and stand in the way of communication and reconciliation. The same holds true for relationships between peoples. In every case, mercy is able to create a new kind of speech and dialogue. Shakespeare put it eloquently when he said: ‘The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes’ (The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I).

The Trinity, El Greco, 1577

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)

Gospel John 14:23-29 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate,  the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.

Responsorial Psalm

New American Bible Lectionary (Philippines, USA)

Bishop Bienvenido Tudtud of Marawi

(1931 – 1987)

The late Bishop Bienvenido ‘Benny’ S. Tudtud of Marawi, Philippines, visited my Dad (below) in Dublin some time in the early 1980s. As it happened, Dad was about to leave for the wedding of a cousin of mine but he was able to entertain his unexpected guest for a while. Later on he told my brother, ‘The bishop made me feel at home’. My brother laughed and said to him, ‘You were the one supposed to make him feel at home!’ But my Dad was always himself no matter whose company he was in and so was Bishop Tudtud, whose Christian name is the Spanish for ‘Welcome’. They were both to die suddenly in 1987, Bishop Tudtod in a plane crash in the Philippines on 26 June and Dad at home on 11 August from a heart attack. He had been at Mass that morning, as he had been every day of his adult life. The photo below was taken the week before his death.

My father hadn’t expected Bishop Tudtud. But he made him feel welcome. The bishop felt free to just turn up because I had worked with him and had asked him to drop by my Dad if he had time. I have found over the years that there are friends’ homes to which I need no invitation. These are friends with whom I truly feel at home and who feel at home with me.

Sometimes we feel fully at home with someone whom we have just met. Sometimes that being at ease with each other comes after being together many times, maybe through working together.

In the gospel of this Sunday’s Mass Jesus makes the extraordinary statement, Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

The Father and Jesus are not only coming for a visit but to make their home with us. And the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Counselor/Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will come and will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

Fr Anselm Moynihan OP, an Irish Dominican friar who died in 1998, wrote a short book in 1948 about the Blessed Trinity living in our hearts, The Presence of God. Here is an extract: Awareness of God, whether it come to us thus by a dazzling rending of the heavens or through the gentle whisper of his voice in our conscience, is at the beginning and end of our spiritual life, at the beginning and end of all religion.  It is the root of what is truly the most radical division of mankind, one to which Holy Scripture constantly reverts, that between the ‘wise’ who keep God before their eyes and the ‘fools’ who ignore him.  The first awakening of the soul to God’s reality brings with it that fear of the Lord which is the ‘beginning of wisdom’; the end of life should bring with it the ‘wisdom of the perfect,’ the fruit of charity, whereby a man will experience God’s living presence within himself and be filled with longing for that full awareness of God which is the vision of his face in heaven.

Supper at Emmaus, Caravaggio, 1606

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan [Web Gallery of Art]

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus invited Jesus to join them and they pressed him to have supper with them at the inn, as it was getting dark. It was through their welcoming him that they discovered who their unknown companion was, the Risen Lord. And in the intimacy of the breaking of the bread when they recognized him and he disappeared from their sight, they felt his presence even more strongly, even more intimately. He was now dwelling in their hearts, just as he dwells in ours, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Communion Antiphon John 14:15-16

Composed by Thomas Tallis (1505 – 1585)

English text used by Tallis: If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth. (John 14:15-17a, King James Version).

Text in the Roman Missal: If you love me, keep my commandments, says the Lord, and I will ask the Father and he will send you another Paraclete, to abide with you for ever, alleluia.

The Jubilee of Mercy and Shakespeare

The Church is currently observing the Jubilee of Mercy. 23 April this year was the 400th death anniversary of William Shakespeare, who was baptized on 26 April 1564.

Portia’s speech from The Merchant of Venice, which I studied in school in Ireland almost 60 years ago, is very much in tune with the Jubilee.

Father (later Bishop) Edward Galvin  

Co-founder of the Columbans (1882-1956)

Photo taken in China between 1912 and early 1916

Fr John Blowick

Co-founder of the Columbans (1888-1972)

Photo taken around 1913, the year of his ordination

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel John 13:31-33a, 34-35 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Frs Owen McPolin, John Blowick, Edward Galvin 
China 1920

On the evening of 29 January 1918 an extraordinary event took place in Dalgan Park, Shrule, a remote village on the borders of County Mayo and County Galway in the west of Ireland. At the time Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, which was engaged in the Great War. Thousands of Irishmen were fighting in the trenches in France and Belgium. Many, including my great-uncle Corporal Lawrence Dowd, never came home. There was a movement for independence in Ireland that led to the outbreak of guerrilla warfare in Ireland later in 1918. There was widespread poverty in the country, particularly acute in the cities.

Despite all of that, on 10 October 1916 the Irish bishops gave permission to two young diocesan priests, Fr Edward J. Galvin and Fr John Blowick to have a national collection so that they could open a seminary that would prepare young Irish priests to go to China. The effort was called the Maynooth Mission to China, because Maynooth, west of Dublin, is where St Patrick’s National Seminary is, where Fr Galvin had been ordained in 1909 and Fr Blowick in 1913.

The seminary opened that late winter’s evening with 19 students and seven priests. Many of the students were at different stages of their formation in Maynooth but transferred. The seven priests belonged to different dioceses but threw in their lot with this new venture which, on 29 June 1918, would become the Society of St Columban.

This Sunday’s gospel was part of what the new group reflected on as they gathered in the makeshift chapel in Dalgan Park, the name of the ‘Big House’ and the land on which it was built. Among the seven priests was Fr John Heneghan, a priest from the Archdiocese of Tuam, as was Fr Blowick, and a classmate of Fr Galvin. Fr Heneghan never imagined that despite his desire to be a missionary in China he would spend many years in Ireland itself teaching the seminarians and editing the Columban magazine The Far East. But his dream was to take him to the Philippines in 1931 and to torture and death at the hands of Japanese soldiers during the Battle of Manila in February 1945, when 100,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed and most of the old city destroyed.

Fr John Blowick emphasised the centrality of the words of Jesus in this Sunday’s gospel, I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. The second sentence there was written into the Constitutions of the Society, drawn up the following year.

To this particular Columban these words of Jesus from the Gospel of St John are the greatest legacy of Fr John Blowick to the many men from different countries who have shared his dream and that of Bishop Galvin to this day. 

And not only men, but women too, as Columban Sisters and as Columban Lay Missionaries. 

The Society of St Columban was born in the middle of the First World War because of the vision of two young men who saw beyond that awful reality and who took Jesus at his word. Down the years Columbans have lived through wars, in remote areas where their lives and the lives of the people they served were often in danger. Some have been kidnapped and not all of those survived. Among those who did was Fr Michael Sinnott, kidnapped in the southern Philippines in October 2009 when he was 79 and released safely a month later on 12 November.

Fr Michael Sinnott in Manila on the day of his release.

With his sisters, Mrs Aine Kenny, left, and Mrs Kathleen O’Neill, right, at Dublin Airport, 3 December 2009

Father John Blowick’s insistence on the words of Jesus in this Sunday’s gospel becoming part of the very fibre of the being of Columbans sustained Fr John Heneghan, Fr Patrick Kelly, Fr John Lalor and Fr Peter Fallon, as Japanese soldiers took them away from Malate Church, Manila, on 10 February 1945, and their companion Fr John Lalor who was working in a makeshift hospital nearby who with others was killed there by a bomb three days later. 

Frs Lalor, Kelly, Francis Vernon Douglas, Fallon, Monaghan and Heneghan

Fr Douglas died, most probably on 27 July 1943,  after being tortured  by the Japanese in Paete, Laguna.

The words By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another are not only the hallmark of Columbans but of countless other groups, of countless families. They are meant to be the hallmark of every Christian.

First group of Columban priests [Names]

Fr John Blowick accompanied the first group of Columbans to China in 1920 but didn’t stay there as he was needed in Ireland as Superior General and as a teacher in the seminary. 

Earthquake in Ecuador, 16 April 2017

In Memory of Sister Clare

Sr Clare Crockett, from Derry, Northern Ireland, died in the 7.8 earthquake that hit Ecuador last Saturday, 16 April at 7pm local time. She was 33. The death toll as I write this on 21 April is at least 570. Five postulants – young women preparing to be religious sisters – died along with Sister Clare. The video above is from the website of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother Congregation to which Sister Clare belonged.

The young Clare Crockett was no angel. Her own words: ‘I liked to party a lot. My weekends, since I was 16-17, consisted in getting drunk with my friends. I wasted all my money on alcohol and cigarettes.’

Before the age of 18 when she pledged to a life of servitude, Sister Clare has aspirations to be an actress. She joined an agency, presented television shows and even had a small part in a movie.

A self-confessed party animal she signed up for what she thought was a free trip to Spain only for her to later realise it was for a pilgrimage during Holy Week. It was during this trip that she realised the Grace of God and realised she had to change her ways. [Belfast Telegraph]

I thank God for the patience that He has had with me, and still has!!!! I do not ask Him why He has chosen me, I just accept it. I depend totally on Him and Our Blessed Mother and I ask them to give me the grace to be whatever they want me to be. [Sister Clare, quoted in Belfast Telegraph]

The Five postulants who died

[Source of photos]

When I entered as a sister in the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother I did so to dedicate my life to God and I knew that by entering into a religious community I was putting my life totally in his hands. And therefore I had to be open to whatever the Lord asked of me. So when I was told that I was going to go to Ecuador to do missionary work, then I put my life in God’s hands and I totally accepted it. [Sister Clare, video 2:07 – 2:32]

Our life is completely safe in the hands of Jesus and the Father, Who are one, one love, one mercy, revealed once and for all in the sacrifice of the Cross. To save the lost sheep that is all of us, the Pastor became Lamb and let Himself be sacrificed to take upon Himself, and take away, the sin of the world. [Pope Francis, 17 April 2016]

Pope Francis arriving in Ecuador on 5 July 2015

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

The Good Shepherd, Marten van Cleve

Private Collection [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 John 10:27-30 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said:

“My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

‘My sheep hear my voice’

I know nothing about tending sheep and until I looked at the video above never quite understood the reality of the words of Jesus in today’s gospel:  ‘My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me’.

An extraordinary example of the power of words is a story involving Fr Willie Doyle SJ, the army chaplain who was killed in 1917 in Belgium during the Great War. Some years before the War he was giving a retreat to a community of nuns in Ireland. He got a telegram on the last day from his Provincial Superior telling him to get back to Dublin immediately so that he could catch the boat for England that night. When Fr Doyle got to Dublin the Provincial showed him a telegram he had received from the governor of a prison in England: Please send Fr William Doyle SJ to D ___ Prison. Woman to be executed tomorrow asks to see him. The message was a mystery to both priests but Fr Doyle left for England immediately.

When he got to the prison at 5am the Governor told Fr Doyle that Fanny Cranbush wanted to talk to him. She was a prostitute who had got involved in a murder and was to pay the penalty. When she first arrived in jail she said she didn’t need any minister of religion. But a few days before the execution she told the Governor that she wanted to see a particular priest. She didn’t know his name or where he lived. All she could say was that a couple of years before this he had been in the town where the prison was giving some kind of ‘mission’.

The good Governor asked local priests who this might be and this led to the two telegrams.

Fr William Doyle SJ 

(1873 – 1917)

Fanny herself, who welcomed Father Doyle with joy, reminded him that one night, during the mission, he had come across her on the street as he was heading back to where he was staying and she was looking for customers. He spoke to her kindly and said, My child, aren’t you out very late? Won’t you go home? Don’t hurt Jesus. He loves you. He also gave her a book.

She did go home, gave up her ‘trade’ for a while but hunger drove her back to it and to worse.  In prison, as her execution approached, the words Don’t hurt Jesus. He loves you came back to her. When Fr Doyle arrived Fanny asked him to tell her more about Jesus. Won’t you set me on the road that leads to him? she asked.

Fr Doyle baptized her and was then able to arrange to celebrate Mass with her, her first and last, and he accompanied Fanny to the scaffold.

You can read the full story here on pages 16 to 19 under the title Snatched From the Brink.

The story of Fanny finding her loving Saviour through the kind words of a stranger is to me a great expression of God’s mercy, something that Pope Francis has spoken about many times. (I wonder if the Pope is familiar with the life and death of his saintly fellow Jesuit?) Fanny heard the voice of the Good Shepherd through the gentle words of Fr Doyle. His Provincial Superior and the Governor of the Prison were also ‘Good Shepherds’. Fanny realised that Jesus really did know her and she wanted to follow him. She went joyfully to her death knowing that she was to experience the truth of the words Jesus speaks to us today:  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. Through God’s loving mercy and Father Doyle’s great love for sinners she was ‘snatched’ by the hand of Jesus, not out of it.

And Jesus, the Risen Lord, speaks those same words to us in Mass and gives himself as the Bread of Life as he gave himself to Fanny when she made her First and Last Holy Communion before entering into the Eternal Communion that is heaven.

[Thanks to Remembering Fr William Doyle SJ.]

Sr Miriam Cousins SSC

Read about the ministry of Columban Sister Miriam Cousins to prostitutes in Korea in Not without you in the March 2016 issue of The Far East, the magazine of the Columbans in Australia and New Zealand.

Antiphona ad communionem  Communion Antiphon

Surréxit Pastor bonus, 

The Good Shepherd has risen, 

qui ánimam suam pósuit pro óvibus suis, 

who laid down his life for his sheep 

et pro grege suo mori dignátus est, alléluia.

and willingly died for his flock, alleluia.

Orlando di Lasso (c.1530 – 1594), who composed this Latin setting of the Communion Antiphon, was Flemish. Vox Angelorum is a Catholic choir from Jakarta, Indonesia, singing here in St Paul’s Within the Walls Episcopal Church, the first Protestant church built in Rome.

The Gospel of John (2003) Directed by Philip Saville

Narrator: Christopher Plummer

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel John 21:1-19  [or 21:1-14] (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples.  Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.  That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.  Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.  Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

^[When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”  He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.  Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”  (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”]

Apostle St Peter, El Greco, 1610-14

Museo de El Greco, Toledo, Spain [Web Gallery of Art]

I am using here the reflection I wrote three years ago for the same Sunday, with one or two minor changes. However, one line I wrote, near the end, doesn’t need to be changed, even though I was referring to events in 2013: Technically (the Korean War) has never ended and at this moment nobody is sure what North Korea is up to, its having raised tensions considerably in recent weeks.

When I turned 13 I wanted to be a pilot in the Irish Army Air Corps. With three or four classmates in O’Connell Schools, Dublin, run by the (Irish) Christian Brothers, now known in some places as ‘The Edmund Rice Brothers’, I was enthralled by the exploits of Biggles, a fictitious character created by Captain W. E. Johns. Biggles started his career in the Royal Flying Corps in World War I and was still flying, in the Royal Air Force, during World War II.

When I discovered that you needed some proficiency in physics my interest in being a pilot waned but my desire to be a military officer was still there. But ‘coming up from the rear’ was a desire to be a missionary priest. By the time I was 14 I knew that that was what I wanted to be.

Servant of God Fr Emil Kapaun

(20 April 1916 – 23 May 1951)

Around that time, or maybe when I was 15, I found a book in one of the branches of Dublin city’s public libraries about a man who had combined being a priest and an army officer, Father Emil Kapaun of the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, who served as a US army chaplain in World War II and in the Korean War (1950 – 53). When his unit retreated after being attacked by Chinese soldiers Father Kapaun stayed behind with the wounded, knowing he would be captured. I was truly inspired by the accounts of how he had helped so many soldiers, giving them hope, strengthening their faith, sharing his pipe with them, scrounging for food and medicines, ie, ‘stealing’ them. He was taking the words of Jesus to St Peter literally: Feed my lambs . . . feed my sheep. One of the veterans in the video above tells how Catholics, Protestants and Jews were all saying the rosary every night. 

At the beginning of the video we hear the voice of Father Kapaun himself speaking of the choice we must make ‘between being loyal to the true faith or of giving allegiance to something else’. His own choice led to his death in a North Korean prisoner of war camp, his last public act being a service at sunrise on 25 March 1951, Easter Sunday. One of those who carried him later to the camp ‘hospital’from which no ‘patient’ ever returned alive, recounts in the video how he was blessing his captors.

The first time I visited Korea, towards the end of September 1971 on my way to the Philippines, I was very conscious of Fr Kapaun when I celebrated Mass in the chapel of the Columban house in Seoul. On a visit there in 2015 I discovered that his name and the names of other US Army Catholic chaplains who died in the Korean War are on a plaque in our chapel. (Seven Columban priests who died in the War have been proposed for beatification as martyrs by the bishops of Korea).

On Thursday 11 April 2013, nine days before the 97th anniversary of his birth, Fr Kapaun was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the USA’s highest award for valour, President Obama giving the medal to the priest’s nephew at the White House.

In 1993 Fr Kapaun was declared a ‘Servant of God’, the first step towards possible canonization, and on 29 June 2008 the cause for his sainthood was officially opened. The Diocese of Wichita has a website dedicated to this.

The Crucifixion of St Peter, Caravaggio, 1600-01

Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome [Web Gallery of Art]

In the gospel for this Sunday Jesus asks Peter three times, ‘Do you love me?’, adding ‘more than these’ the first time. When Peter professed his love each time Jesus told him to ‘feed my lambs’, ‘feed my sheep’. His tending the flock was not to be a ‘job’ but something done joyfully and wholeheartedly out of his relationship with Jesus. Yet it was to lead to the cross, just as Father Kapaun’s following of Jesus was to lead him to his death, which the Church may one day recognize as that of a martyr, like the death of St Martin I, who wasn’t directly killed but whose harsh treatment led to his death and whom the Church honours on 13 April.

Fr Emil Joseph Kapaun is an outstanding example of one who allowed Jesus to ask him, ‘Do you love me?’ and who answered ‘Yes’ with his very life, turning what was a man-made hell into a touch of heaven for the soldiers he was called to serve.

The Korean War began on 25 June 1950 and lasted till the ceasefire of 27 July 1953. Technically it has never ended and at this moment nobody is sure what North Korea is up to, its having raised tensions considerably in recent weeks. Perhaps we can invoke the intercession of Father Kapaun for peace in the land where he is buried. This prayer is from the website dedicated to the cause of his canonization.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus, in the midst of the folly of war,
your servant, Chaplain Emil Kapaun spent himself 
in total service to you on the battlefields and
in the prison camps of Korea, until his 
death at the hands of his captors.

We now ask you, Lord Jesus, if it be your will,
to make known to all the world the holiness 
of Chaplain Kapaun and the glory of his 
complete sacrifice for you by signs of 
miracles and peace.

In your name, Lord, we ask, for you are the 
source of peace, the strength of our 
service to others, and our final hope. 

Amen

All in the April Evening

Words by Katherine Tynan Hinkson, music by Sir Hugh S. Roberton, sung by the Glasgow Phoenix Choir

In temperate climes in the northern hemisphere Easter always occurs during spring. It is also lambing season for sheep. The symbolism in all of this is closely linked to the meaning of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

All In the April Evening 

The sheep with their little lambs
Pass’d me by on the road;
All in an April evening
I thought on the Lamb of God.

The lambs were weary, and crying
With a weak human cry;
I thought on the Lamb of God
Going meekly to die.

Up in the blue, blue mountains
Dewy pastures are sweet:
Rest for the little bodies,
Rest for the little feet.

But for the Lamb, the Lamb of God
Up on the hill-top green;
Only a cross of shame
Two stark crosses between.

All in the April evening,
April airs were abroad;
I saw the sheep with their lambs,
And thought on the Lamb of God.

 
Second Reading  Revelations 5:11-14

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,  singing with full voice,

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughteredto receive power and wealth and wisdom and might

and honor and glory and blessing!”

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing,

“To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb

be blessing and honor and glory and might

forever and ever!”

And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the elders fell down and worshiped.

 

 

The Incredulity of St Thomas, Rembrandt, 1634

Pushkin Museum, Moscow [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 John 20:19 – 31 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

To embrace, to embrace – we all have to learn to embrace the one in need, as Saint Francis did. There are so many situations in Brazil, and throughout the world, that require attention, care and love, like the fight against chemical dependency. (PopeFrancis, St Francis of the Providence of God Hospital, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 24 July 2103). [Photo: Wikipedia]

On Holy Thursday 2013 Pope Francis ‘gatecrashed’ a lunch for seven priests hosted by Archbishop Angelo Becciu, Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State. Most of the priests work with the poor and under-privileged in the suburbs of Rome, according to Vatican Radio.

Monsignor Enrico Feroci, the Director of Caritas Rome and one of the guests quoted Pope Francis: Open the doors of the Church, and then the people will come in . . . if you keep the light on in the confessional and are available, then you will see what kind of line there is for confession. Msgr Feroci added that he (Pope Francis) was confident of the need of the people of God for priests to open the doors and allow the people to meet God.

St John Paul named the Second Sunday of Easter – still its primary name – as ‘Divine Mercy Sunday’. Pope Francis has spoken about God’s mercy a number of times since he was elected. [Emphases added below.] 

In his very first homily as Pope, in St Anne’s church, the parish church of the Vatican, Pope Francis spoke about confession and God’s mercy: It is not easy to entrust oneself to God’s mercy, because it is an abyss beyond our comprehension. But we must! “Oh, Father, if you knew my life, you would not say that to me!” “Why, what have you done?” “Oh, I am a great sinner!” “All the better! Go to Jesus: he likes you to tell him these things!” He forgets, he has a very special capacity for forgetting. He forgets, he kisses you, he embraces you and he simply says to you: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more” (Jn 8:11). That is the only advice he gives you. After a month, if we are in the same situation … Let us go back to the Lord. The Lord never tires of forgiving: never! It is we who tire of asking his forgiveness. Let us ask for the grace not to tire of asking forgiveness, because he never tires of forgiving. Let us ask for this grace. 

In his general audience on Wednesday of Holy Week 2013 Pope Francis spoke again about God’s mercy: God came out of himself to come among us, he pitched his tent among us to bring to us his mercy that saves and gives hope. The Pope said that Jesus brought God’s mercy and forgiveness; he healed, he comforted, he understood; he gave hope; he brought to all the presence of God who cares for every man and every woman, just as a good father and a good mother care for each one of their children.

God does not wait for us to go to him but it is he who moves towards us, without calculation, without quantification. That is what God is like. He always takes the first step, he comes towards us . . . There is such a great need to bring the living presence of Jesus, merciful and full of love!

The Return of the Prodigal Son (detail), Rembrandt, c.1669

The Hermitage, St Petersburg, Russia [Web Gallery of Art]

During that same audience Pope Francis speaks of the father of the Prodigal Son: God always thinks with mercy: do not forget this. God always thinks mercifully. He is the merciful Father! God thinks like the father waiting for the son and goes to meet him, he spots him coming when he is still far off . . .

What does this mean? That he went every day to see if his son was coming home: this is our merciful Father. It indicates that he was waiting for him with longing on the terrace of his house.
Pope Francis emphasised the mercy of God again in his Urbi et Orbi message on Easter Sunday 2013: Most of all, I would like it to enter every heart, for it is there that God wants to sow this Good News: Jesus is risen, there is hope for you, you are no longer in the power of sin, of evil!  Love has triumphed, mercy has been victorious! The mercy of God always triumphs!

The Holy Father returned to the theme of ‘that beautiful mercy of God’ next day at the Regina Coeli on Easter Monday: And with the grace of Baptism and of Eucharistic Communion I can become an instrument of God’s mercy, of that beautiful mercy of God.

It would seem that the mercy of God is a central theme of Pope Francis, echoing what Jesus says to the Apostles in today’s gospel: If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.

Our loving Father shows his mercy to us as sinners above all in the Sacrament of Reconciliation/Penance/Confession. Here Cardinal) Luis Antonio G. Tagle, Archbishop of Manila, answers some questions about this sacrament. 

 

The setting is by James MacMillan, a contemporary Scottish composer.

 Antiphona ad communionem   

Communion antiphon Cf. John 20:27

Mitte manum tuam, et cognoxce loca clavorum,

Bring your hand and feel the place of the nails,

et noli esse incredulus, sed fidelis, alleluia.

and do not be unbelieving, alleluia.

The Resurrection of Christ, Rembrandt, c.1639

Alte Pinakothek, Munich [Web Gallery of Art]

The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

At the Mass during the Day

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) 

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

Gospel John 20:1-9 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

Dear brothers and sisters! The risen Christ is journeying ahead of us towards the new heavens and the new earth (cf. Rev 21:1), in which we shall all finally live as one family, as sons and daughters of the same Father. He is with us until the end of time. Let us walk behind him, in this wounded world, singing Alleluia. In our hearts there is joy and sorrow, on our faces there are smiles and tears. Such is our earthly reality. But Christ is risen, he is alive and he walks with us. For this reason we sing and we walk, faithfully carrying out our task in this world with our gaze fixed on heaven.

Happy Easter to all of you! (Pope Benedict, Easter Sunday 2011).

I have told the following story before here and on many other occasions, especially giving retreats. Each time I share it or recall it I experience the truth of Pope Benedict’s words, Christ is risen, he is alive and he walks with us. I have also learned that persons with a deep, committed faith can sometimes be very fragile.

More than 30 years ago I spent part of a summer working in a suburban parish in the USA. One night at around 11 I did something I rarely did: make a late night phone call, and for no other reason than to say ‘Hi’. I phoned a friend who was a teacher whom I had first met eleven years earlier when I was a young priest and she a generous, idealistic but confused 16-year-old. Over the years I saw ‘Lily’ – I’ll call her that since that flower is often associated with Easter in northern climes and this is an Easter story – very rarely as I was here in the Philippines.

Lily [Wikipedia]

I was shocked when ‘Lily’ answered. Her speech was slurred. She told me she had taken an overdose of a drug prescribed for a serious illness she had. I told her I would come over immediately but she said she would not let me in. She lived on her own but near her parents, about thirty minutes from where I was. I took another priest with me.

‘Lily’, of course, let us in. We spent about three hours with her. I was satisfied that what she had taken wasn’t enough to kill her and that she wouldn’t do anything drastic in the meantime. I promised to return in the morning.

I spent most of the next two days with ‘Lily’. I called her doctor and also phoned a helpline for those dealing with or attempting suicide. 

I had seen ‘Lily’ grow in her faith over the years. After qualifying as a teacher she chose to teach in a parochial elementary school rather than in a public school, even though the salary was lower. She had a sense of mission. She came from a Catholic family but was aware since her childhood of her father’s infidelity. But when she had attempted suicide when about 17 she saw her parents’ great love for her, despite everything.

Yet it was something her mother said to her that had triggered off this latter attempt at suicide. ‘Lily’ felt that she wasn’t living up to her mother’s expectations. I think it was during the second morning I was with ‘Lily’ that she asked me, ‘What are your expectations of me?’ I answered, ‘I don’t have any expectations, only hopes’.

Hearing the word ‘only hopes’ was the turning point. That was when ‘Lily’ decided to live.

A few days later ‘Lily’ came to the parish where I was for confession and Mass and she was truly filled with the joy that only the Lord can give. She also wrote me a long letter – she was a wonderful letter-writer – about her experience. 

Woman writing a letter, Gerard Terborch, c.1655 

Mauritshuis, The Hague [Web Gallery of Art]

In her letter ‘Lily’ said: I have come to learn more about myself – as a ‘vulnerable‘ yet ‘hopeful‘ person, and yet even more important – I feel that my relationship with the Lord has deepened. I have a deeper hunger to be united with Him on a more intimate and dependent level.

Further on ‘Lily’ wrote: Most times we need to see and hear and feel Christ through another, to be able to believe in Him more faithfully and securely . . . I realize that years and years of therapy can amount to nothing unless the Lord is a very central part of it. I was able to share my fears, hurts, confusion, pain and – thank God – tears with you in and through the anointing of your priesthood . . .

I find ‘Lily’s’ words echoed in those of Pope Francis when he celebrated Mass on Holy Thursday in Casal del Marmo Prison for Minors. He ended his homily with these words: Now we will perform this ceremony of washing feet, and let us think, let each one of us think: ‘Am I really willing, willing to serve, to help others?’. Let us think about this, just this. And let us think that this sign is a caress of Jesus, which Jesus gives, because this is the real reason why Jesus came: to serve, to help us.

After the Mass Pope Francis met with the prisoners and said, Go forward, alright? And do not let yourselves be robbed of hope, do not let yourselves be robbed of hope!Understood? Always with hope. Go forward! Thank you. 
In his final greetings as he was leaving Pope Francis said, Now I leave. Thank you so much for your welcome. Pray for me and do not let yourselves be robbed of hope. Always go forward! Thank you so much! [Emphases mine.]

The following summer, at the end of a sabbatical, I was in that same parish again. I met up with ‘Lily’. She told me that she didn’t think she had long to live. Knowing something of her medical history I took her seriously and we had a very deep and faith-filled conversation about that. There was nothing morbid about it. We were facing a reality but with faith and hope in the Resurrection. Afterwards we had lunch together in a restaurant and our conversation was totally lighthearted.

That was the last time we met. ‘Lily’ died peacefully a few months later at the age of 29. I know from those who were with her at the time that she did so as one who had faithfully carried out hertask in this world with her gaze fixed on heaven, to use the words of Pope Benedict above.

I learned from that experience that there are persons of deep faith who can be very fragile. I have seen that in others subsequently.

I also saw God’s utter love. Why did I make that late night phone call? I can see the Lord’s hand in that visit. And I know that I was the only person whom ‘Lily’ could totally confide in at that time. Somehow it has been easier to share the past month’s conflicts, feelings, tears and hopes with you which have built up over the years than with anyone else.

Lent and Easter is a prolonged moment every year when Jesus the Risen Lord says to each of us what Pope Francis said three times to the young prisoners last Thursday: Do not let yourselves be robbed of hope.

Through God’s mercy more than thirty years ago the same Risen Lord said to my friend ‘Lily’, Do not let yourself be robbed of hope – and she took him at his word.

The meditations for the Via Crucis led by Pope Francis in the Colosseum on the night of Good Friday 2013, just after he was elected Pope, were prepared by young people from Lebanon, as Zenit reports: The youth of Lebanon received the invitation from Pope Benedict XVI to take part in this year’s Stations of the Cross – or Via Crucis – following the Holy Father’s apostolic visit to Lebanon, and were invited to compose meditations for the event. A delegation of 45 Lebanese youth have come to Rome on pilgrimage for this evening’s Via Crucis with Pope Francis.

The video above is that of a proclamation of Easter in Arabic in a mall in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2011. I have used it many times and it never fails to remind me that He is risen as he said, Alleluia; Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia.