Sunday Reflections

Young Jew as Christ, Rembrandt, c.1656

 Staatliche Museen, Berlin [Web Gallery of Art]

 
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Mark 13:33-37  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)

Jesus said to his disciples:

Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn,  or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Liam Whelan  (1 April 1935 – 5 February 1958)

 
If this is the end, then I’m ready for it.

These were the last words of Liam Whelan who died in a plane crash at Munich Airport on 6 February 1958 along with other members of the Manchester United football (soccer) team as they were returning from a match in Belgrade. About seven years ago I learned from a friend named Brendan whom I have known for more than 50 years that, when they were both aged 14 or so, Liam rescued him when he got into difficulties in a swimming pool in their area. And last year I discovered that another friend, who was a classmate of mine for five years in secondary school and for two years in the seminary, also named Liam, that this talented young footballer had been a neighbour of his and that even when he had achieved fame as a professional footballer he would still play knockabout football on the street with the local boys whenever he would come home.

The average age of Manchester United’s players at the time of the accident was only 22. These young men were earning only £15 a week, about 25 percent more than a tradesman could earn. Endorsements could bring in a little more income for a few talented players whose career would end for most at 35, if not earlier.

There was snow on the ground at Munich Airport and the plane made three attempts to take off. Harry Gregg, the goalkeeper for Manchester United and who also played in that position for Northern Ireland’s international team, was sitting near Liam Whelan. He survived uninjured and helped save a number of people from death. He has often told the story of Liam Whelan’s last words: If this is the end, then I’m ready for it.

Clearly young Liam had his life focused on what was most important. He was ready to meet death. I have often spoken about him at Mass and in giving retreats. 

Those who knew him describe Liam Whelan as ‘a devout Catholic’. I know that he sent his mother some money for her to go to Lourdes. 11 February 1958 was the centennial of the first apparition of our Blessed Mother to St Bernadette. Mrs Whelan, a widow since 1943 when Liam was 8, used the money instead towards a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Lourdes over the grave of her son. I pass it each time I visit my parents’ grave.

Liam Whelan’s grave (right)

I vividly remember the dark, late afternoon I heard about the crash from a street-singer whom I knew by sight and who was running around agitatedly telling people of the crash. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not but the news on the radio confirmed that it really had happened. It was the first time in my life to experience what has been called a ‘public-private moment’, a public happening, usually a tragedy, that becomes a very personal one for those who learn of it, one that is seared in the memory and often in the heart.

Liam Whelan grew up in the next parish to my own and I remember going to Christ the King Church the evening his remains were brought there. I was outside the church with countless others. An article by John Scally in the February 2008 issue of The Word, the magazine of the Divine Word Missionaries in Ireland that is no longer published, described what many experienced: Their funerals were like no other. Most funerals are a burial of someone or something already gone. These young deaths pointed in exactly the opposite direction and were therefore the more poignant. Normally we bury the past but in burying Liam Whelan and his colleagues, in some deep and gnawing way we buried the future.

I still feel some pain at the deaths of Liam Whelan and his colleagues nearly 57 years after they died but the story of Liam’s preparedness for his sudden death is one that continues to inspire me.

Liam’s last words, If this is the end, then I’m ready for it, are a perfect response to today’s gospel. Jesus is not trying to frighten us but he is telling us starkly to be prepared always for the moment of our death, to do everything with that in mind. Advent is a time when we prepare not only to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas, but to become much more aware of his daily coming into our lives, and to prepare, as individuals and as a Christian community to welcome him when he returns at the end of time in a way that we won’t be ashamed.

What would we say if he asked us here in the Philippines, for example, Have children who have been abused had their court cases finished quickly? I have heard that young Maria, who has gone to the court five or six times for a hearing, something that is quite upsetting for her, has been told on each occasion that the defence lawyer isn’t yet ready.

What would we say if Jesus said, I have been told that many forests have been cut down for profit and that this has resulted in many deaths in Leyte, for example, in 1991 and 2003. Is this true?

Tropical Storm Thelma (Uring) [Wikipedia]

 More than 5,000 died in a flash flood in Ormoc City, Leyte, on 5 November 1991. Deforestation was blamed as a primary cause of the devastation.

 
The gospel this Sunday is, literally, a ‘wake up call’. Beware, keep alert . . . Therefore, keep awake . . . And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.

May the response of Liam Whelan, a young professional footballer who took these words to heart, inspire us and give us a desire to be always prepared to meet the Lord, in this life and in the next: If this is the end, then I’m ready for it.

This was recorded on St Columban’s Day, 23 November 2011, in the Abbey of St Columban, Bobbio, Italy, where the saint died and is buried.

Antiphona ad introitum  Entrance Antiphon  Cf Ps 24 [25]:1-3

Ad te levavi animam meam, Deus meus,

 To you, I lift up my soul, O my God.

 in te confido, non erubescam.

 In you, I have trusted, let me not be put to shame.

 Neque irrideant me inimici mei, 

 Nor let my enemies exult over me;

 etenim universi qui te exspectant non confundentur.

 and let none who hope in you be put to shame.

Ps 24 [24]:4. Vias tuas, Domine, demonstri mihi; et semitas tuas edoce me.

 Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.

Ad te levavi animam meam, Deus meus,

 To you, I lift up my soul, O my God.

in te confido, non erubescam.In you, I have trusted, let me not be put to shame.

Neque irrideant me inimici mei, 

 Nor let my enemies exult over me;

etenim universi qui te exspectant non confundentur.

 and let none who hope in you be put to shame.

The longer version is sung or recited when the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is celebrated.

The Last Judgment, Peter Cornelius, 1836-39

Fresco, Ludwigskirche, Munich [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 25:31-46  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’  

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’  And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ 

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;  for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 

Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’  Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

St Elizabeth of Hungary, 

Sándor Liezen-Mayer, 1882

Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest [Web Gallery of Art]

Linda was able to go home and on at least once occasion we took her on an outing. She was still very small for her age but always cheerful whenever we met her. However, the severe malnutrition had taken its toll and she died in September 1975 while I was at home in Ireland.

 

St Martin and the Beggar, El Greco, 1597-99

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

Today’s Gospel makes me both fearful and hopeful. 

Fearful, because Jesus speaks such harsh language: You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. This is not ‘the Church of nice’.

Hopeful, because Linda and Nonoy will be there at the Last Judgment to speak in my behalf.

 

St Martin de Porres OP [Wikipedia]

Monastery of Rosa of Santa Maria in Lima. This portrait was painted during his lifetime or very soon after his death, hence it is probably the most true to his appearance.

During November the Church honours three saints noted for their extraordinary love for the poor, St Martin de Porres (1579 – 1639) on the 3rd, St Martin of Tours (316 – 397) on the 11th and St Elizabeth of Hungary (1207 – 1231) on the 17th. These three gave of their very self. These exemplified in their lives what Jesus is teaching us in today’s gospel.

El Greco is one of many artists who have depicted the scene of St Martin of Tours, then a young soldier and preparing for baptism, giving half of his cloak in the depths of winter to a beggar clad only in rags. The following night, the story continues, Martin in his sleep saw Jesus Christ, surrounded by angels, and dressed in the half of the cloak he had given away. A voice bade him look at it well and say whether he knew it. He then heard Jesus say to the angels, ‘Martin, as yet only a catechumen, has covered me with his cloak.’ Sulpicius Severus, the saint’s friend and biographer, says that as a consequence of this vision Martin ‘flew to be baptized’.

 

Sándor Liezen-Mayer in his painting of St Elizabeth of Hungary above, shows her protecting a young mother and baby with her cloak. The saint herself was a young mother. She married at 14, bore three children and was widowed at 20. The painting reminds me of a beautiful Irish blessing, Faoi bhrat Mhuire thú/sibh (‘May thou/you be protected by the cloak of Mary’). The young saint, who was only 24 when she died, followed the example of St Francis, with the blessing of her husband, lived very simply and served the poor and the sick each day personally and ate with them at the same table.

St Martin de Porres, a shrine in Lima [Wikipedia]

 

St Martin de Porres, born outside of marriage and of mixed blood, learned some of the medical arts by working with a barber/surgeon in his young days. He devoted his life as a Dominican lay brother to caring for the sick, whether they were rich or poor. It was mostly the latter who came to him and whom he went looking for. Like St Francis he had a special closeness to animals and people brought these to him to be healed. He is often depicted carrying a broom, with a dog, a cat and a mouse at his feet eating from the same plate.

These three saints from different social backgrounds wrestled with situations we wrestle with today. They spent themselves in bringing about the Kingdom of God by serving the very poorest. St Martin of Tours, who like St Elizabeth was born in Hungary, asked himself as a soldier if it was proper to engage in battle, where he would kill others. Wikipedia tells us: Regardless of whether or not he remained in the army, academic opinion holds that just before a battle with the Gauls at Borbetomagus (now Worms, Germany), Martin determined that his faith prohibited him from fighting, saying, ‘I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight.’ He was charged with cowardice and jailed, but in response to the charge, he volunteered to go unarmed to the front of the troops. His superiors planned to take him up on the offer, but before they could, the invaders sued for peace, the battle never occurred, and Martin was released from military service.

Conscientious objection doesn’t only concern those called to join an army. A Swedish midwife,  Ellinor Grimmark, was fired this year for refusing to do abortions. This is an area where, more and more, individuals will have to make choices that may involve losing their jobs, or even worse.

The world is still overwhelmed with the needs of those trapped in poverty, victims of wars, of natural calamities. Pope Francis has spoken of the Church as being ‘a field hospital’. He has asked priests and others to know ‘the smell of the sheep’. St Elizabeth of Hungary and St Martin de Porres immersed themselves in that every day, seeing in each one they served Jesus Christ himself. And those they took care of, whether they were aware of it or not, were being served by Jesus himself through those saints and through the many others down the centuries who have been doing the same.

I am certain that Linda and Nonoy will hear Jesus say to them, Come, you that are blessed by my Father . . . I hope and pray that they and others like them who have crossed my path down the years will put in a good word for me so that I will hear Jesus say the same to me.

 

St Martin de Porres

Music by Mary Lou Williams, lyrics by Fr Anthony Woods SJ

Performed by Mary Lou Williams and the Ray Charles Singers

I don’t think there are too many songs written in a jazz idiom in honor of saints. The above is one, from an album with the title Black Christ of the Andes. The notes that accompany the album tell how Mary Lou Williams asked her confessor, Fr Anthony Woods SJ, to write lyrics to the music she had composed. And we know from today’s gospel that because St Martin de Porres saw Jesus in the sick and poor individuals whom he served that we can see Jesus in him and refer to him as Black Christ of the Andes.

St Martin de Porres

Black Christ of the Andes

St Martin de Porres

His shepherd’s staff a dusty broom

St Martin de Porres

The poor man made a shrine of his tomb.

 

St Martin de Porres

He gentled creatures tame and wild

St Martin de Porres

He sheltered each unsheltered child

 

This man of love

Born of the flesh yet of God

This humble man

Healed the sick

Raised the dead

 

His hand is quick

To feed beggars

And sinners

The starving homeless

And the stray

Oh, Black Christ of the Andes

Come feed and cure us now we pray

 

Oh God help us

Spare Oh Lord

Spare thy people

Lest you be angered with me forever

Lest you be angered with me forever

 

 

 

 

Antiphona ad introitum   Entrance Antiphon Revelations 5:12; 1:6.

 

Dignus est Agnus, qui occisus est,

How worthy is the Lambe who was slain,

accipere virtutem et divinitatem

to receive power and devotion

et sapientiam et fortitudinem et honorem.

and wisdom and honour and strength.

Ipsi gloria et imperium in saecula saeculorum.

to him belong glory and power for ever and ever.

(Ps 72 [71]:1. Deus, iudicium tuum regi da: et iustitiam tuam filio regis.

Give the king your justice, O God,and your righteousness to a king’s son.

 

Dignus est Agnus, qui occisus est,

How worthy is the Lambe who was slain,

accipere virtutem et divinitatem

to receive power and devotion

et sapientiam et fortitudinem et honorem.

and wisdom and honour and strength.

Ipsi gloria et imperium in saecula saeculorum.

to him belong glory and power for ever and ever.

Woman Sewing, Van Gogh

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

She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands (Proverbs 31:13, First reading).

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Matthew 25:14-30 [14-15, 19-21]  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)

Jesus spoke this parable to his disciples:

“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them;  to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 

[The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents.  In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.  But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.]

After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’

[And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ] 

For the shorter form of the Gospel the text in [square brackets] is omitted.

Jesse Robredo (27 May 1958 – 18 August 2012) [Wikipedia]

There was real sorrow throughout the Philippines when news broke that the small plane in which Jesse Robredo, Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in the administration of President Benigno Aquino III of the Philippines had crashed offshore while trying to make and emergency landing on Masbate Island. Secretary Robredo had been on official business in Cebu but wanted to be present at a swimming competition in which his daughter was taking part in their home town, Naga City in the heart of the Bicol Region at the southern end of Luzon. So he hired a small plane to fly from Cebu to Naga.

Naga City Hall [Wikipedia] 

During his six terms as elected Mayor of Naga City Jesse Robredo was noted for being close to ordinary people and for working for the improvement of the lives of all Nagueños. He saw his role as one of service.

Shortly after the Secretary’s death Fr Lucio Rosaroso, a chaplain to the Philippine National Police (PNP), spoke in a homily at a Mass for the soul of Jesse Robredo of the sense of service that he had:  Service is a time-honored value, however, the span of time in service does not matter — it may be long or short. What is more important is how much love one puts into his or her service.

I remember reading at the time of his death the Jesse Robredo, who was based in Manila during his time as Secretary of the DILG, that he made a point of going home each weekend to Naga City to be with his family. By air this takes about 45 minutes but by road maybe six or seven hours, as I recall from going there from Manila a number of times in the 1990s whem I was a vocation director of the Columbans. It’s never easy for a politician or someone in public service to balance family life with public responsibilities. But Jesse Robredo made his wife and three daughters a priority.

 

Our Lady of Peñafrancia [Wikipedia]

The shrine of Our Lady of Peñafrancia is in Naga City.

 

I remember reading too that the day before his death Jesse Robredo went to confession at a church run by the Divine Word Missionaries in Quezon City, the largest component in area and size in Metro Manila. Fr Rosarosa of the PNP in his homily testified to the fact the DILG Secretary confessed regularly: The late secretary used to come here in Crame Church. In fact, every week he would go to confession. We are six priests here in Camp Crame and each one of us experienced being asked by the late secretary to administer to him the Sacrament of Reconciliation from time to time. He really believed in the sanctifying graces of the sacraments. He was a practicing and devout Catholic. He was a holy man in our midst!

Jesse Robredo’s confession the day before he died is a powerful example of what St Paul speaks about in today’s Second Reading: For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night . . . But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief (1 Thess 5:1-6).

The shorter version of the Gospel has a specific focus: You have been trustworthy in a few things. I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master. Because President Aquino saw how well Jesse Robredo had managed Naga City he made him responsible for local government throughout the Philippines.

The longer version shows how harshly the master dealt with the servant who simply buried what had been given to him. The investigation into the accident that killed Jesse Robredo suggests that three people lost their lives because others were not trustworthy in a few things.

The parable of the talents reminds us that whatever gifts God has given each of are not just for ourselves but are meant to be used in the service of others. What we do with them has consequences in the lives of others. Jesse Robredo, whose Catholic faith was at the centre of his life, used his talents in serving the people of Naga City from the time he was elected Mayor at the age of 29 and later in serving the people of the Philippines. He gave his wife and children first priority. The reason for his wanting to fly from Cebu to Naga, a journey that ended in his death, is a testimony to this.

The failure of some to use their talents, to carry out the responsibilities they were given, led to unnecessary deaths.

When the Lord will come like a thief in
the night which words do we
wish to hear from him: As for this worthless slave, throw him into the
outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth – harsh words that call us to
be responsible for what God has given us – or you
have been trustworthy in a few things . . . enter into the joy of
your master?

 

 

 

Antiphona ad introitum     Entrance Antiphon   Jeremiah 21: 11, 12, 14

Dicit Dóminus: Ego cógito cogitatiónes pacis, et non afflictiónis: invocábitis me, et ego exáudiam vos: et redúcam captivitátem vestram de cunctis locis. 

Vs. Benedixísti, Dómine, terram tuam: avertísti captivitátem Jacob.

Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula saeculorum. Amen.

Dicit Dóminus: Ego cógito cogitatiónes pacis, et non afflictiónis: invocábitis me, et ego exáudiam vos: et redúcam captivitátem vestram de cunctis locis. 

 

The Lord said: I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. You will call upon me and I will answer you., and I will lead back your captives from every place.

Vs. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have put an end to Jacob’s captivity.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

The Lord said: I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. You will call upon me and I will answer you., and I will lead back your captives from every place.

The text in bold is the Entrance Antiphon for today’s Mass in the Ordinary Form. The full text is the Entrance Antiphon for Mass in the Extraordinary Form on the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost.

 

Antiphona ad communionem   Communion Antiphon  Mk 11:23-24

 

Amen dico vobis, quidquid orantes petitis,
credite quia accepietis, et fiet vobis.

Amen, I say to you, Whatever you askf in prayer, believe that you will receive, and it shall be given to you, says the Lord.

This is also the Communion Antiphon for Mass in the Extraordinary Form on the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost.

Archbasilica of St John Lateran [Wikipedia]
 

The full name of the church is: Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist at the Lateran. It is the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome.

 
The Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basicila takes precedence over the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel John 2:13-22  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”  His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Christ driving the money-changers from the Temple, Rembrandt, c.1626

Pushkin Museum, Moscow [Web Gallery of Art] 

We are not isolated and we are not Christians on an individual basis, each one on his or her own, no, our Christian identity is to belong! We are Christians because we belong to the Church.

 

Pope Francis spoke these words at his General Audience on Wednesday 25 June this year. He went on to say:

The Christian belongs to a people called the Church and this Church is what makes him or her Christian, on the day of Baptism, and then in the course of catechesis, and so on. But no one, no one becomes Christian on his or her own. If we believe, if we know how to pray, if we acknowledge the Lord and can listen to his Word, if we feel him close to us and recognize him in our brothers and sisters, it is because others, before us, lived the faith and then transmitted it to us. We have received the faith from our fathers, from our ancestors, and they have instructed us in it . . . So, this is the Church: one great family, where we are welcomed and learn to live as believers and disciples of the Lord Jesus.

A few weeks earlier in his homily at Mass in St Martha’s on 15 May the Bishop of Rome spoke in similar words:

But you cannot understand a Christian alone, just like you cannot understand Jesus Christ alone. Jesus Christ did not fall from the sky like a superhero who comes to save us. No. Jesus Christ has a history. And we can say, and it is true, that God has a history because He wanted to walk with us. And you cannot understand Jesus Christ without His history. So a Christian without history, without a Christian nation, a Christian without the Church is incomprehensible. It is a thing of the laboratory, an artificial thing, a thing that cannot give life.

This Sunday we celebrate the dedication of the Cathedral of Rome. In a real sense it is the Mother Church for Catholics.

In his homily in St Martha’s Pope Francis said:

Looking back the Christian is a person who remembers: Let us seek the grace of memory, always. Looking forward, the Christian is a man, a woman of hope.

The feast of the dedication of any church is a feast of the Lord and takes precedence over a Sunday in Ordinary Time. And because St John the Baptist is one of the patrons of the Lateran Basilica the Mass has baptismal overtones, especially the First Reading.

I felt myself drawn by this feast to be a person who remembers, to accept the grace of memory from God and look back at some of the churches in my native Dublin in which I became a Christian and grew in the faith. Before the Holy Week liturgies were changed from the morning to the afternoon or evening by Pope Pius XII in 1955 my mother used to take my brother and me to visit seven churches on the afternoon of Holy Thursday to spend some time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in each. This practice seems to have died out in Dublin but it is very much alive here in the larger cities in the Philippines where it is known by the Spanish term visita iglesia. And I have just discovered that this practice originated in Rome, with the Archbasilica of St John Lateran top of the list.

Here I ‘visit’ a number of churches in Dublin that played a significant part in my becoming a member of the Church and in my growth in the faith. I invite each reader to make a similar pilgrimage of thanksgiving to God for the gift of our faith, for the gift of our Church and for those who have passed on the faith to us and nurtured us in it. The Church is a community of persons, God the Father’s sons and daughters by virtue of our baptism, just as a family is a community of persons. And just as a family normally lives in a home – we describe persons living in extreme poverty as ‘homeless’ – so does the Christian family normally gather in its parish church.

Pope Francis describes the parish in Evangelii Gaudium No 28, in these words: The parish is the presence of the Church in a given territory, an environment for hearing God’s word, for growth in the Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration.

St Joseph’s Church, Berkeley Road, Dublin [Wikipedia]

 

I was born in  small nursing home nearly opposite the church above on 20 April 193, Tuesday of Holy Week, the last time that Easter fell on the latest date possible, 25 April. A few days later, probably on Holy Saturday, I was baptised in that church, which wasn’t our parish church as we lived on the other side of the city.

About five years ago I celebrated Mass for the first time in St Joseph’s. The parish is now run by the Discalced Carmelites. The congregation on the Sunday I celebrated Mass was very different from what it would have been at the time of my birth. There were many Filipinos in the congregation, most of them nurses in the nearby Mater Hospital. And the servers were two girls aged about 12. One was white, from one of the oldest parts of the city, and the other was black, of Nigerian parentage. I was amused by the fact that the white girl would not acknowledge that she was from the inner city of Dublin while her companion was very proud to be a Dubliner! I met their mothers after Mass and they laughed when I told them this.

When I entered the Columban seminary in 1961 I could not have imagined such a congregation in any parish in Dublin, much less an altar-server whose parents were immigrants from Nigeria.

Our Lady Help of Christians Church, Drimnagh, Dublin

 

On a Christmas weekday a few months before I turned three I was thrown out of the church above, along with my pregnant mother, for shouting ‘Ba’ at the Infant in the crib.It was a traumatic experience for my mother. But whenever she would recall the event she would always add that the priest who ordered us out could not have done more for her sister, my Auntie Madge, who died four years later, in another parish.

In 1991, while at home in Dublin, I was asked by the Columbans to preach at all the Masses in that church on a Sunday in Lent when students from their final year in secondary school were observing a 24-hour fast to raise funds for Trócaire, the development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland. I’ve never had a more attention-grabbing opening to a homily than I did that day: I was thrown out of this church. But by the time I had preached for the fourth time I felt a vicarious healing on behalf of my mother, who died in 1970. That was a real grace.

 

St Saviour’s Church, Dominic St, Dublin [Wikipedia]
 

In the old days churches belonging to religious orders in Dublin usually had High Mass on such days as Easter Monday and Whit (Pentecost) Monday and my father would bring me to one or other of them on those occasions. I distinctly recall that when I was maybe seven or eight being particularly attracted by the habit of the Dominican friars. I didn’t recognise then the beginnings of being called by God to be a priest but I see it now as such, even though I subsequently never considered becoming a Dominican.

St Dominic at Prayer, El Greco, 1600-02

Private Collection [Web Gallery of Art]

I must confess that I wasn’t an entirely enthusiastic pilgrim when my father took me to High Mass or when my mother brought my brother and me to seven churches on Holy Thursday. I can see a reflection of my father in these words of Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium, No 167: Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendour and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties.Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus. My father seldom spoke about his faith but I could see even then, and more clearly later, how his faith permeated his whole life and how he felt uplifted by the beauty of the High Mass.

St Agatha’s Church, North William St, Dublin [parish website]

Holy Family Church, Aughrim St, Dublin [Facebook]

It was above all in Aughrim Street Church – Dubliners rarely refer to a church by its patronal name but by the street its on – that my faith grew. That faith was strengthened by the ‘communal cough’ after the second elevation, that of the chalice with the Precious Blood, that to me was a far deeper expression of faith than the perfunctory ‘Christ has died . . .’ introduced in 1969. It was the release of the sense of awe that people had, knowing that the bread and wine had become the Body and Blood of Christ. The church thronged with people young and old, most getting ready to go to work or to school, at the early morning Mass on the weekdays of Lent was also part of my growth in our faith.

I never became and altar-boy in our parish church, though I had enlisted as a trainee shortly after my First Holy Communion in 1950 at St Mary of the Angels, Church Street, the church of the Capuchin Friars (in video above), where my father used to take me some times for High Mass and where my mother took me the Sunday when St Maria Goretti was canonised in 1950. Alessandro Serenelli, who murdered the saint, spent the latter years of his life after being released from prison in a Capuchin friary in Italy, hence the connection with the Capuchin church in Dublin. What I remember is how long it took to say the fifteen decades of the Rosary that day in the church when I was a very unwilling participant!

It was in Aughrim Street church that I celebrated my First Mass on 21 December 1967, the old feast of St Thomas the Apostle, the day after my ordination in St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin.

St Mary’s Pro-cathedral, Dublin [Wikipedia]

Our class was to have been ordained in the seminary chapel in St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, about 35 kms north-west of Dublin, but had to be transferred at the last minute – we were informed about three days before 20 December – due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain. Four opted to be ordained in Derry Cathedral, one in his native Glasgow on the 21st, with the remaining 14 to be ordained in the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin.

With Bishop Patrick Cleary who ordained us.

The papal cathedra in St John Lateran [Wikipedia]

The Latin word cathedra means a chair with armrests, used as a throne. As the throne of the bishop, form which he teaches, it is the root of the word ‘cathedral’.

‘.

Art historian Elizabeth Lev speaks about the Cathedral of Rome

St Matthew and the Angel, Vincenzo Campi, 1588

 San Francesco d’Assis, Pavia, Italy [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 22:34-40 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition: Canada) 
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

In reparation for the visit of Pope Francis to the Philippines in January 2015 Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, Archbishop of Manila, reflects on today’s gospel.

The first of the three videos in this series has the theme The Works of Mercy. In the second Cardinal Tagle looks at The Beatitudes. 

Stephen Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan, Archbishop of Seoul (1922 – 2009)

 
I’m in Korea at the moment, partly because of the ordination to the priesthood on 1 November of revered Lee Jehoon Augustine, a Columban who spent two years working in the Manila area as part of his preparation for the priesthood.

Yesterday, Friday, I went with two Columban priests, Fr Liam O’Keeffe, a classmate from County Clare, Ireland,, Fr Con Murphy from County Cork, Ireland, who has been here in Korea for more than 50 years, and a woman named Pia to visit the graves of five Columbans in a cemetery owned by the Archdiocese of Seoul, but outside both the city and the archdiocese.  One of the five Columbans buried there, Fr Mortimer Kelly from Gort, County Galway, was a classmate of Father Liam and myself. Pia had known Fr John Nyhan, from Kilkenny, Ireland, since her childhood.

The cemetery is on hillsides, as is the Korean custom. A little higher on the hill where my companions are buried is the grave of Stephen Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan, a man who was revered in Korea, not only by Catholics but by nearly all South Koreans.

While we were there Father Con told me of a homily that Cardinal Kim once preached at a Mass in a Catholic university. He took out two daily newspapers and began to speak in such a quiet voice that those present had to strain forward and ‘eavesdrop’. Cardinal Kim was flipping over the pages of both newspapers and some were thinking he was unprepared. Then he came to a particular story about young women working on the railways who collected fares of last-minute passengers and helped ‘push’ people into trains at rush hour.

The report in both papers was about accusations by higher authorities that some of these young women were perhaps pocketing some of the fares. Cardinal Kim’s voice grew stronger as he spoke about this. Then he began to remind the students of how privileged they were, getting higher education and an opportunity to find better jobs than the young women working for the rail company who were at the bottom of the heap.

Cardinal Kim, who was noted for his love for the poor and who knew many poor people, now speaking in a very strong voice, asked the students if they were going to treat others with the contempt that some showed towards the young women in a menial job or if they were going to use their professional qualifications in the service of others.

Cardinal Kim

 
In that homily the late Archbishop of Seoul was bringing together the two Great Commandments that Jesus gives us in today’s gospel and between which there is no conflict. In the First Reading, to which the Gospel is linked by theme, God reminds the Hebrew people of how they are to treat those who are poor or different – aliens, widows, orphans. If you take your neighbor’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down. That cloak was what a person, especially a poor person, slept in.

In other words, Jesus is asking us to see each person through his eyes. GK Chesterton in one of his biographies, maybe that of St Francis of Assisi or of St Thomas Aquinas, has a wonderful image of a huge crowd looking up at God on a balcony, rather as in St Peter’s Square when the Pope is on the balcony there or at his window for the Sunday Angelus. However, Chesterton didn’t see himself among the crowd but with God on the balcony, looking down on the people and seeing them as God sees them.

Cardinal Kim was doing something similar. He was looking at both the university students and the railway workers through the eyes of God. Rank means nothing to God as he looks on his children. As Psalm 149 so beautifully expresses it, God takes delight in his people [Grail translation].

I don’t have my copy of the Handbook of the Legion of Mary with me but in it members are told to look upon each person they meet as higher than themselves. The Legion was born in the slums of Dublin in 1921 and to this day is involved to a large degree in serving people who have little or nothing.

God is constantly blessing the Church and the world through persons who embody the Gospel in their lives. I know from my friends in Korea in particular that Cardinal Kim was an embodiment of the Two Great Commandments, an embodiment of what each of us is called to be in virtue of our baptism in the different situations in which we find ourselves.

Cardinal Kim’s grave [AsiaNews.it]

A Columban colleague who has taught at university here in Seoul, Fr Kevin O’Rourke, captured something of the grace that Cardinal Kim was and still is, not only to the Church in Korea, but to the Church throughout the world, in a poem he wrote after the death of the Cardinal. [Korean personal names may be spelled in different ways when Roman letters are used. Fr Donal O’Keeffe uses ‘Sou-whan’ for the Cardinal’s name while Fr O’Rourke uses ‘Suwhan’.]

In Memory of Cardinal Kim Suwhan

Dust of snow,
a wind that chills to the bone,
pinched mourning faces,
collars raised, hats pulled low,
the shiver of death everywhere.
Cardinal Kim Suhwan
is lowered to his final resting place.

He brought forth simplicity,
a water simplicity that quickened
every root it touched.
He brought forth patience,
a medicament patience that salved
the wounds of the poor.
He brought forth compassion,
a loving compassion that embraced the world.
Simplicity, patience, compassion,
these three:
timber for a master carpenter,
clay for a master potter,
the hub of a master priest’s wheel.
“If you bring forth what is inside,
what you bring forth will save.”

Antiphona ad introitum  Entrance Antiphon  Cf Ps 104 [105]:3-4

Laetetur cor quaerentium Dominum.

Quaerite Dominum et confirmamini, quaerite faciem eius semper.

Let the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice;

Turn to the Lord and his strength, constantly seek his face.

[Confitemini Domino, et invocate nomen eius: annuntiate inter gentes opera eius.

Give glory to the Lord, and call upon his name: declare his deeds among the Gentiles.

Laetetur cor quaerentium Dominum.
Quaerite Dominum, et confirmamini, quaerite faciem eius semper.

Let the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice;
Turn to the Lord and his strength, constantly seek his face.]

[The text in bold is used in the Ordinary Form of the Mass while the rest is included in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.]

Fr McGlinchey, a native of County Donegal, Ireland, has spent his missionary life on Jeju [formerly ‘Cheju’] Island about 139 kms off the southern coast of South Korea. The citation for his award reads:

Arriving in Jeju, Korea in 1954 Fr McGlinchey, a priest with the Missionary Society of St Columban, was faced with a society that was deeply traumatised and ravished by poverty. Lead by his faith and knowledge in agriculture he set about helping to pull thousands of Jeju citizens out of poverty.

His model of development and profitable farming encouraged use of underused farm land and new farming methods. St Isidore farm was founded to include pigs, sheep, cows and now a stud.

A textile factory, employed up to 1,700 Jeju women in a time when jobs on the island were scarce. His forming of a credit union changed the economy of the island and helped the citizens emerge from poverty.

Fr Mc Glinchey never forgot the island people setting up Isidore Nursing home, hospice, kindergarten and a youth centre which for over 18,000 young people from all over Korea. These welfare activities, some funded completely from donations and profits from the farm, take care of Jeju’s most vulnerable.

For 60 years, his extraordinary drive, dedication and vision has changed the lives of those on Jeju and Ireland is now associated with this great island. His tireless dedication gave them not just hope but a belief in what they could achieve themselves.

You can read more about the work of Fr McGlinchey here.

The Inspiration of St Matthew, Caravaggio, 1602

Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome [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 22:1-14 [or 22:1-10] (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition: Canada) 

Jesus said to the chief priest and the elders of the people:

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

[“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”]

Antiphona ad introitum     Entrance Antiphon  Ps 129 [130]:3-4

Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine, Domine, quis sustinebit?

Quia apud te propitiatio est, Deus Israel.

De profundis clamavi ad te Domine: Domine exaudi vocem meam.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto; sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper. Amen.

Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine, Domine, quis sustinebit?

Quia apud te propitiatio est, Deus Israel.

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?

But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice!

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

as it was in the beginning, is now and will be for ever. Amen.

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?

But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel.

[The longer form is used when Mass is celebrated in the Extraordinary Form, using the 1962 Missal.]

A swing made from tires in East Timor

A friend of mine who has three young daughters and a fourth child on the way and who now lives in California posted on her Facebook the other day that the authorities in some school are removing the swings from its playground because they are ‘dangerous’ for children. I wonder if the committee in the Vatican who drew up the Lectionary we have been using since 1969 thought that some of the words of Jesus might be ‘dangerous’ for us since they have given us the option today of leaving out the last four verses of the Gospel [in square brackets above].

In Matthew 3:7 Jesus addresses some Pharisees and Sadducees with the words, You brood of vipers!, which he repeats in 12:34 and in 23:34 he’s even more scathing: You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?

The words of Jesus aren’t always ‘nice’. And not all the words in the homily of Pope Francis last Sunday at the Holy Mass for the opening of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family were ‘nice’. Addressing the assembled participants, mostly bishops, he said, And to satisfy this greed, evil pastors lay intolerable burdens on the shoulders of others . . . We are all sinners and can also be tempted to ‘take over’ the vineyard, because of that greed which is always present in us human beings. God’s dream always clashes with the hypocrisy of some of his servants. We can ‘thwart’ God’s dream if we fail to let ourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit. 

Still-life, Floris, Claesz van Dijck, 1610

Private collection [Web Gallery of Art]

The First Reading and the Gospel speak clearly of God’s desire for all of us to be with him, sharing in the abundance of his riches, symbolized in both readings by a lavish banquet.

President Ramon Magsaysay (died 1957) of the Philippines wearing a barong Tagalog [Wikipedia]

Nearly 30 years ago I officiated at a wedding in Sacred Heart Church, Cebu City. The reception was held next door at a centre attached to the church, which belongs to the Jesuits. At the reception I noticed an elderly man wearing a barong Tagalog, which is formal dress for men in the Philippines, especially at weddings. But it turned out that nobody knew him. He wasn’t a guest, but had invited himself along. As there were weddings almost every day at Sacred Heart Church I figured that maybe he invited himself along whenever the reception was held at the adjacent centre.

But nobody minded. Filipinos are hospitable and nobody is ever turned away. Many of us were amused and I had noticed the man at Mass. In other words, he wasn’t a freeloader but participated in the wedding ceremony, something that many invited to weddings an baptisms don’t do. They just turn up for the meal.

The harsh words of Jesus, which I suspect many priests won’t read at Mass, jolt us out of our complacency. The man who turned up at the banquet without bothering to dress for the occasion clearly thought that cultural norms and good manners didn’t apply to him. It’s not a crime to turn up at a wedding or some similar event dressed casually but to do so shows a lack of respect for the celebrants and for oneself.

However, in the parable, Jesus isn’t telling us to be ‘nice’ and well-mannered. He’s telling us forcefully that in order to share in the ‘dream’ that he and our heavenly Father have for us we have to do the Father’s will. Pope Francis referred to this in the closing words of his homily: My Synod brothers, to do a good job of nurturing and tending the vineyard, our hearts and our minds must be kept in Jesus Christ by ‘the peace of God which passes all understanding’ (Phil 4:7). In this way our thoughts and plans will correspond to God’s dream: to form a holy people who are his own and produce the fruits of the kingdom of God (cf. Mt 21:43).

We have to make choices. We often choose to sin. God is merciful, bending down to welcome us back, to acknowledge our sins and to ask for and receive his forgiveness. Jesus has given the Church the wonderful Sacrament of Reconciliation/Confession/Penance, precisely so that he can meet us in our sinfulness, forgive and heal us. And the Church teaches us clearly that when we have committed a grave sin we must avail of that sacrament. By the same token, he wants us priests to be available for penitents and to go to confession  regularly ourselves.

When God gave us the gift of freedom he also placed some ‘swings’ in our ‘playground’, knowing that we would sometimes fall and ‘graze our knees’ or even hurt ourselves more seriously. He didn’t protect us from all possible eventualities. Had he done so he would have made prisoners of us. He invites us to his heavenly banquet, paid for by the sacrifice of his Son on Calvary.

In the parable the king’s servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. Both good and bad had a sense of being blessed and honored by the invitation, except for one – we don’t know if he was one of the ‘good’ or one of the ‘bad’ – with an insolent sense of entitlement rather than a wondrous sense of being graced.

The Two Trinities, Murillo, 1675-82

National Gallery, London [Web Gallery of Art]

Prayer of Pope Francis for the Synod on the Family

Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendor of true love,
to you we turn with trust. 

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too
may be places of communion and prayer,
authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic Churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division:
may all who have been hurt or scandalized
find ready comfort and healing. 

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may the approaching Synod of Bishops
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,
and its beauty in God’s plan. 

Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
graciously hear our prayer.

Our Lady of Peace, EDSA Shrine, Quezon City, Philippines

 
Universal Intention – Peace

That the Lord may grant peace in those parts of the world  most battered by war and violence.

Members of the Missionary Society of St Columban have been in some ofthose parts of the world most battered by war and violence, as Fr Michael Martin tells us in the video below. Fr Martin experienced the reality of violence during his many years in the Diocese of Bacolod in the province of Negros Occidental in the central Philippines. He is now based in Our Lady of Remedies Parish, Malate, which he speaks about here.

 Evangelization Intention – World Mission Day

That World Mission Day may rekindle in every believer zeal for carrying the Gospel into every part of the world.

The zeal for carrying the Gospel into every part of the world is rooted in our baptism and confirmation. For some, that means leaving their homeland. Fr Carlo Eiukyun Jung, ordained priest on 3 May in his native Korea, spent two years on First Mission Assignment in Fiji while still a seminarian and will be going to Myanmar/Burma in 2015. The Reverend Augustine Jehoon Lee was ordained deacon on 3 May and will be ordained priest on All Saints’ Day. He spent his First Mission Assignment in Quezon City, Metro Manila.

Columbans Celebrate 80 Years in Korea
On 29 October 2013 the Columbans in Korea began a series of celebrations to mark their 80 years of missionary presence in Korea.  

L to R: Fr Carlo Eiukyun Jung, Joon Bin Lim, Rev Augustine Jehoon Lee. 
3 May 2014.  [Source of photo: FB of Joon Bin Lim] 

The Columban Superior General, Fr Kevin O’Neill, joined Archbishop (now Cardinal) Andrew Yeom Soo-jong of Seoul, missionaries, benefactors and parishioners from former Columban parishes in a commemorative Eucharist in St Mary’s Cathedral, Seoul, to give thanks to God for these 80 years of missionary presence.

‘The Columbans have made a wonderful contribution to the Korean Church and people. We are truly grateful to them’, said Archbishop Yeom at the commemorative Eucharist.The first Columbans arrived in Korea on that same date, 29 October in 1933. There were ten of them, nine having been ordained the previous year. Their average age was 25 years. One of them, Fr Dan McMenamin, was to die of uberculosis four years later at just 29 years of age.On the Second Sunday of Easter in April 1934, the newly arrived Columbans took possession of their first parish in Korea on the outskirts of the city of Mokpo. This was to be the first of 129 parishes that the Columbans would establish during those 80 years in Korea. In the city of Seoul alone, Columbans established 25 parishes.The 80-year celebrations of missionary presence in Korea will continue until the Second Sunday of Easter this year, 27 April, and will give thanks to God for the work of Columbans in nine different dioceses throughout the country.

First and third videos from the website of the Apostleship of Prayer, Milwaukee, WI, USA.