Sunday Reflections

The Virgin of the Grapes, 1640s, Pierre Mignard

 Musée du Louvre, Paris [Web Gallery of Art]

 
Winegrowers in France celebrated the Feast of the Nativity of Mary  as the Feast of Our Lady of the Grape Harvest.

 
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Matthew 21:33-43 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition: Canada) 
Jesus said to the chief priest and the elders of the people: “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’  But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.  Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”  They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.

First Reading, Isaiah 5:1-7 [Revised Standard Version]

 

The young Fr Edward Galvin in China

 
Just over a century ago the young Fr Edward Galvin of the Diocese of Cork, Ireland, was sent by his bishop to work for some years in the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, because he had no place to put him. This was common at the time and many young Irish diocesan priests spent their early years on loan to English-speaking dioceses in other countries. While in Brooklyn Father Galvin found himself answering God’s call to go to China. This was to lead eventually to the formal founding of the Missionary Society of St Columban, to which I belong, in 1918 with Fr Galvin and Fr John Blowick, another young Irish diocesan priest, as the co-founders. Fr Galvin later became Bishop of Hanyang, China, and was expelled by the Communist authorities.

When I was growing up in Ireland people who were critical of the Church, sometimes with good reason, often used the term ‘priest-ridden’ to describe the country. Today there are parishes without priests and the average age of priests is over 60. In twenty years or so it could well happen that priests will be a relative rarity in the country.

When I was young almost every Catholic in Ireland went to Sunday Mass and the seminaries were full. Today only a minority take part in Sunday Mass, the seminaries have nearly all closed and only a handful or young men are preparing for ordination in the two or three that still remain open. More and more young people are choosing not to get married and not to have their children baptised.

In 1961, the year I entered the seminary, Ireland celebrated the 1,500th anniversary of the death of St Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland. Very few could have foreseen the falling away, not only from the Church, but from the Christian faith, within two generations.

St Paul tells us in the Second Reading today: Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

I sometimes get disheartened at the situation of the Church in my native land and in other Western countries. The First Reading and the Gospel remind us that many have rejected God’s love, God’s gift, especially the gift of faith. Through the Prophet Isaiah God poignantly asks, What more was there to do for my vineyard  that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

St Andrew Kim Daegon, Martyr, First Korean Priest

 
But in the readings the Lord is really asking us to see what he has given us, to treasure it and to pass it on. In his homily at the beatification of 124 martyrs in Korea on 16 August Pope Francis said: The victory of the martyrs, their witness to the power of God’s love, continues to bear fruit today in Korea, in the Church which received growth from their sacrifice. Our celebration of Blessed Paul and Companions provides us with the opportunity to return to the first moments, the infancy as it were, of the Church in Korea. It invites you, the Catholics of Korea, to remember the great things which God has wrought in this land and to treasure the legacy of faith and charity entrusted to you by your forebears.

The following day in the opening sentence in his homily at the concluding Mass of Asian Youth Day Pope Francis said, The glory of the martyrs shines upon you! These words – a part of the theme of the Sixth Asian Youth Day – console and strengthen us all. Young people of Asia: you are the heirs of a great testimony, a precious witness to Christ. 

The Pope was reminding the young people, and all of us, of the legacy of the Christian faith that we have received.

Pope Francis in Korea

The Bishop of Rome touched on this again on 21 September when he celebrated Mass in Mother Teresa Square, Tirana, very conscious of the persecution that had ended less than 30 years ago. He concluded his homily with these stirring words: To the Church which is alive in this land of Albania, I say ‘thank you’ for the example of fidelity to the Gospel. Do not forget the nest, your long history, or your trials. Do not forget the wounds, but also do not be vengeful. Go forward to work with hope for a great future. So many of the sons and daughters of Albania have suffered, even to the point of sacrificing their lives. May their witness sustain your steps today and tomorrow as you journey along the way of love, of freedom, of justice and, above all, of peace. So may it be.

The Lord is calling each of us today to look back with gratitude for the gift of faith we have received individually and as community so that we can live that faith fully in the present as we move in hope and love into the future.

But the readings also remind us of the reality that the precious gift of the Christian faith has been lost, not only by individuals but in large areas of the world such as North Africa not that long after the time of such giants as St Augustine.

The Repentant Peter, El Greco, c.1600

 Phillips Collection, Washington [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 18:15-20 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition: Canada) 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.  But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.  Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.  Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Today’s gospel looks at forgiveness, mainly from the point of view of helping someone to acknowledge a wrongdoing and thereby asking for and receiving forgiveness. During this week I kept thinking about a Christian Brother who taught me in Dublin and one incident involving him that I witnessed and another I heard about years later. I’ll simply copy from a previous post, with one or two slight changes.

During my primary school years I came to know an exceptional person, Brother Mícheál. S. Ó Flaitile, known as ‘Pancho’ from the sidekick of the Cisco Kid, a syndicated comic-strip [above] that we used to read in The Irish Press, a no longer existing Irish daily newspaper. Our ‘Pancho’, like the Cisco Kid’s friend, was on the pudgy side, though minus the hair and moustache. He organized an Irish-speaking club and arranged for me to be secretary. I don’t think I was too happy at the time to get that job but I realized later that he had spotted my ability to write. Other teachers had encouraged me in this too.

 My class was blessed to have had Brother Ó Flaitile in our last two years in secondary school, 1959 to 1961, when we were preparing for our all-important Leaving Certificate examination. He taught us Irish and Latin. He probably should have been teaching at university level. What I remember most of all about him was his character. Everyone described him as ‘fear uasal’, the Irish for ‘a noble man’ – as distinct from ‘a nobleman’. A stare from him made you feel humbled, but not humiliated. He had the kind of authority that Jesus had, as we read in the gospels.

I remember one event in our last year. ‘Pancho’ used to take the A and B sections for religion together in our last class before lunch every day for religion class. One day he scolded a student in the B section for something trivial or other and the student himself and the rest of us took it in our stride and forgot about it. We were nearly 70 boys aged between 16 and 18. ‘Pancho’ was probably around 60 then. The next day Brother Ó Flaitile apologized to the boy in question and to the rest of us because he had discovered that the student hadn’t done what he had accused him of. Whatever it was, it had been very insignificant. But ‘Pancho’’s apology was for me a formative moment. I mentioned it to him many years later when he was in his 80s. He told me he didn’t remember the incident, but he smiled. He died in the late 1980s.

Some years ago a classmate told me about an incident between himself and Brother Ó Flaitile in 1959 when we were on a summer school/holiday in an Irish-speaking part of County Galway. If my friend had told me the story at the time I would not have believed him. He got angry with ‘Pancho’ over something or other and used a four-letter word that nobody would ever express to an adult, least of all to a religious brother and teacher whom we revered. The lad stormed back to the house where he was staying and before too long felt remorse. He went back to ‘Pancho’ and apologized. The Brother accepted this totally and unconditionally and never referred to the incident again.

After my father, I don’t think that anyone else influenced me more for good when I was young than ‘Pancho’.

Looking back on the first incident I figure that the student in question must have gone to ‘Pancho’ afterwards and explained to him what had really happened. Brother Ó Flaitile was the kind of authority figure whom you felt free to approach in such a situation. If that is what happened, and I believe it was, then the opening words of today’s gospel were what we all experienced in class the following day: If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 

Brother Ó Flaitile’s asking for forgiveness that day was all the more powerful because he was more than three times our age, an authority figure, a religious brother and a truly revered person. What he did showed why he was revered, as did the ‘four-letter word incident’ with my classmate.
For me ‘Pancho’ exemplified the Christian leadership that Jean Vanier, founder of L’Archeand, with Marie-Hélène Mathieu, co-founder of Faith and Light, talks about in the video below. He knew and called each of us by name and loved each of us, especially when we were ‘the enemy’, wrongdoing or perceived to be such, and led us by example, most powerfully of all when he asked our forgiveness for having judged one of us wrongly.

.

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Schola Bellarmina, Brussels, Belgium
 

Antiphona ad introitum  Entrance Antiphon  Ps 118[119]:137, 124

Iustus es, Domine et rectum iudicium tuum;

You are just, O Lord, and your judgement is right;

fac cum servo tuo secundum misericordiam tuam.

treat your servant in accord with your merciful love.

Ps 118[119]:1. Beati immaculati in via: qui ambulant in lege Domini. 

 Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum, Amen! 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen!

Iustus es, Domine et rectum iudicium tuum;

You are just, O Lord, and your judgement is right;

fac cum servo tuo secundum misericordiam tuam.

treat your servant in accord with your merciful love.

[The text in bold is what is in the Ordinary Form of the Mass. The fuller text is used in the Extraordinary Form, the ‘Tridentine Mass’. It may also be used in the Ordinary Form when it is sung.]

At his General Audience last Wednesday, 3 September, Pope Francis once again expressed his concern for the Christians of Iraq, many of whom have been driven from their homes. It cannot be stressed enough that their ancestors accepted the gift of our Christian faith in the time of the Apostles, that they are Arabs and that the places from which they have been driven by ISIS are the places where their ancestors have lived for thousands of years.

The Pope’s words of encouragement and solidarity:

Today, I want to reassure my closeness to Christians, to the defenseless and persecuted. You are in the heart of the Church. The Church suffers with you and the Church is proud of you. It’s proud to have sons and daughters like you. You are its strength and you offer a concrete and authentic testimony of salvation, forgiveness and love. I embrace all of you. May the Lord bless and protect you.

+Louis Raphael SakoPatriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church

Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, to which most Iraqi Catholics belong, published an impassioned statement on the website of the Church on 3 September. He calls what is happening ‘genocide’. Some extracts:

. . . The curtains have been drawn on the painful events, and 120.000 Christians are uprooted from their historical homeland because the Political Islam does not want them there, and the world is silent, standing still, either because it approves or because it is incapable of acting . . . These people were living in their hometowns in prosperity, pride and dignity; in the blink of an eye, they were ousted from their homes, terrified and fleeing on foot in search of a shelter. It is a scene that takes us back to the dark centuries of the past although it has become a horrific reality of our present civilization!

What these peaceful Christians and loyal citizens experienced is a real genocide, a sad ending, and a proof of the privation of the religious, human, moral, and national values. Therefore, it is a shameful stain in history. Everybody should know is a threat for all.

Few days ago we saw the 13 year old girl on Ishtar satellite channel, screaming: ‘I want to go back to my own town, Qaraqosh. I am tired of this life here; I would rather die for it rather than living here in humiliation’. It’s a loud call to the conscience of the world!

This BBC report was published 9 August

Let us, with Pope Francis, embrace our suffering Christian brothers and sisters in Iraq and others being persecuted there, at least through our prayers, most of all as we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

St Peter, El Greco, 1610-13

 Monasterio de San Lorenzo, El Escorial, Spain [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 16:13-20 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.  And I tell you, you are Peter,and on this rock  I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Pope Francis in Korea, 13-18 August 2014 [Wikipedia]

In his homily on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, 29 June 2013, Pope Francis said: I would like to offer three thoughts on the Petrine ministry, guided by the word ‘confirm’.  What has the Bishop of Rome been called to confirm? By ‘Petrine ministry’ the Pope was speaking of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, of the Pope, the successor of St Peter. He said that the Pope is called to confirm in faith, to confirm in love and to confirm in unity. Here is what he said about confirming in faith.

The Gospel speaks of the confession of Peter: ‘You are Christ, the Son of the living God’ (Mt16:16), a confession which does not come from him but from our Father in heaven.  Because of this confession, Jesus replies: ‘You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church’ (v. 18).  The role, the ecclesial service of Peter, is founded upon his confession of faith in Jesus, the Son of the living God, made possible by a grace granted from on high.  In the second part of today’s Gospel we see the peril of thinking in worldly terms.  When Jesus speaks of his death and resurrection, of the path of God which does not correspond to the human path of power, flesh and blood re-emerge in Peter: ‘He took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him . . . This must never happen to you’ (16:22).  Jesus’ response is harsh: ‘Get behind me, Satan!  You are a hindrance to me’ (v. 23).  Whenever we let our thoughts, our feelings or the logic of human power prevail, and we do not let ourselves be taught and guided by faith, by God, we become stumbling blocks.  Faith in Christ is the light of our life as Christians and as ministers in the Church!

Apostolic Journey on the Occasion of 6th Asian Youth Day (AYD2014)

 13-17 August 2014, Republic of Korea

 
On his recent Apostolic Journey to the Republic of Korea Pope Francis through his words and actions carried out his ministry of confirming in faith, as well as in love and in unity, not only the people of Korea, not only the delegates to the 6th Asian Youth Day, but all of us.

At the Mass in the World Cup Stadium in Daejeon – the Diocese of Daejeon hosted AYD2014 –  on the Solemnity of the Assumption the Bishop of Rome said [emphasis added]: 

Today, in venerating Mary, Queen of Heaven, we also turn to her as Mother of the Church in Korea. We ask her to help us to be faithful to the royal freedom we received on the day of our Baptism, to guide our efforts to transform the world in accordance with God’s plan, and to enable the Church in this country to be ever more fully a leaven of his Kingdom in the midst of Korean society. May the Christians of this nation be a generous force for spiritual renewal at every level of society. May they combat the allure of a materialism that stifles authentic spiritual and cultural values and the spirit of unbridled competition which generates selfishness and strife. May they also reject inhumane economic models which create new forms of poverty and marginalize workers, and the culture of death which devalues the image of God, the God of life, and violates the dignity of every man, woman and child.

As Korean Catholics, heirs to a noble tradition, you are called to cherish this legacy and transmit it to future generations. This will demand of everyone a renewed conversion to the word of God and a passionate concern for the poor, the needy and the vulnerable in our midst.

The same day at the Shrine of Solmoe, known as ‘The Birthplace of Catholicism in Korea’, Pope Francis met with the delegates to AYD2014 and once again spoke of the importance of baptism along with the two other sacraments of initiation into the faith, Confirmation and the Eucharist:

Dear young friends, in this generation the Lord is counting on you! He is counting on you!He entered your hearts on the day of your Baptism; he gave you his Spirit on the day of your Confirmation; and he strengthens you constantly by his presence in the Eucharist, so that you can be his witnesses before the world. Are you ready to say ‘yes’? [Yes!] Are you ready? [Yes!] Thank you! Are you tired? [No!] Really? [Yes!]

Beatification Mass

On Saturday 18 August Pope Francis beatified Paul Yun Ji-chung and 135 martyr companions at the Gwanghwamun Gate, Seoul. In his homily he emphasised the gift of faith that we are called to pass on, no matter what the cost:

The victory of the martyrs, their witness to the power of God’s love, continues to bear fruit today in Korea, in the Church which received growth from their sacrifice. Our celebration of Blessed Paul and Companions provides us with the opportunity to return to the first moments, the infancy as it were, of the Church in Korea. It invites you, the Catholics of Korea, to remember the great things which God has wrought in this land and to treasure the legacy of faith and charity entrusted to you by your forebears.

The Holy Father linked the sacrifice of these martyrs of Korea with the situation in today’s world and what our Christian faith demands of us:

The example of the martyrs also teaches us the importance of charity in the life of faith. It was the purity of their witness to Christ, expressed in an acceptance of the equal dignity of all the baptized, which led them to a form of fraternal life that challenged the rigid social structures of their day. It was their refusal to separate the twin commandment of love of God and love of neighbor which impelled them to such great solicitude for the needs of the brethren. Their example has much to say to us who live in societies where, alongside immense wealth, dire poverty is silently growing; where the cry of the poor is seldom heeded; and where Christ continues to call out to us, asking us to love and serve him by tending to our brothers and sisters in need.

Pope Francis spoke of the joy of being a Christian, one of his basic themes since becoming Pope:

If we follow the lead of the martyrs and take the Lord at his word, then we will understand the sublime freedom and joy with which they went to their death . . . The legacy of the martyrs can inspire all men and women of good will to work in harmony for a more just, free and reconciled society, thus contributing to peace and the protection of authentically human values in this country and in our world. 

In his address to leaders of the apostolate of the laity the Pope spoke once again of faith as a gift, as a legacy handed down to us:

The Church in Korea, as we all know, is heir to the faith of generations of lay persons who persevered in the love of Christ Jesus and the communion of the Church despite the scarcity of priests and the threat of severe persecution . . . This precious legacy lives on in your own works of faith, charity and service. Today, as ever, the Church needs credible lay witnesses to the saving truth of the Gospel, its power to purify and transform human hearts, and its fruitfulness for building up the human family in unity, justice and peace. We know there is but one mission of the Church of God, and that every baptized Christian has a vital part in this mission. Your gifts as lay men and women are manifold and your apostolates varied, yet all that you do is meant to advance the Church’s mission by ensuring that the temporal order is permeated and perfected by Christ’s Spirit and ordered to the coming of his Kingdom.

The faith was introduced to Korea by Korean laymen who were part of a delegation to Beijing and who discovered the faith there.
The inspiring words of Pope Francis were meant not only to confirm Korean Catholics in their faith but all of us. Faith is the most precious gift that God has given us but one that can be lost by individuals and by whole areas of the world. North Africa is one example, where the Christian faith disappeared everywhere except in Egypt and Ethiopia after the rise of Islam. Western Europe is another example, where the Christian faith has been rapidly disappearing in recent decades, as it has to a lesser degree in North America.Two generations ago Quebec in Canada had a flourishing Church that was sending missionaries to many parts of the world, including the Philippines, but where it is now pretty much on the margins.

The words of Jesus to Peter show us clearly that our faith is a gift: Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.

May we thank God each day for the gift of our faith and ask for the grace for ourselves and for Pope Francis to live it as the Korean martyrs did, with the sublime freedom and joy with which they went to their death.

In the words with which Pope Francis concluded his homily at the beatification of the 124 martyrs: 

May the prayers of all the Korean martyrs, in union with those of Our Lady, Mother of the Church, obtain for us the grace of perseverance in faith and in every good work, holiness and purity of heart, and apostolic zeal in bearing witness to Jesus in this beloved country, throughout Asia, and to the ends of the earth. Amen.

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The following petition was added to the Prayer of the Faithful at the Pope’s Mass for Reconciliation in Myeong-dong Cathedral, Seoul, on 18 August before he flew back to Rome:

Prayer for Cardinal Filoni for Iraq:

For Cardinal Fernando Filoni, who cannot be with us because he was sent by the Pope to the suffering people of Iraq in order to assist our persecuted and dispossessed brothers and sisters, and all the religious minorities who are afflicted in that country. May the Lord be close to him in his mission.

May we continue to pray for all who are being persecuted in Iraq and Syria, especially those who are suffering because they are Christians.

A report on Arirang TV, Korea, a few days before the beatifications.

Antiphona ad introitum   Entrance Antiphon  Cf Ps 85[86]:1-3

Inclina, Domine, aurem tuam ad me, et exaudi me.

 Turn your earl, O Lord, and answer me;

 Salvum fac servum tuum, Deus meus, sperantem in te.

 save the servant who trusts in you, my God.

 Miserere mihi, Domine, quoniam ad te clamavi tota die.

 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I cry to you all the day long.

 
Laetifica animam servi tui, quia ad te, Domine, animam meam levavi.

Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, Lord, I lift my soul.
Inclina, Domine, aurem tuam ad me, et exaudi me.

Turn your earl, O Lord, and answer me;Salvum fac servum tuum, Deus meus, sperantem in te.

save the servant who trusts in you, my God.Miserere mihi, Domine, quoniam ad te clamavi tota die.

Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I cry to you all the day long.

[The text above in bold print is sung or said in the Ordinary Form of the Mass; in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass the whole text above is sung or said.]

The Sower, Vincent van Gogh

 June 1888, Arles, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo [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 13:1-23 (or 13:1-9)  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach.  And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up.  Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil.  But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.  Let anyone with ears listen!”

[Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to 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. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears,and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.

But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it. “Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”]

Harvest at La Crau (The Blue Cart), Vincent van Gogh

 June 1888, Arles. Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam [Web Gallery of Art]

In the spring of 1982 I made the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius at Loyola House, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. We spent 40 days there, a few days of preparation for the Thirty-Day Retreat proper and five days of reflection on the experience afterwards. One of the spiritual directors, though not my own, was an American Jesuit priest named George. He was probably in his 60s at the time. He had worked for some years in South America and he was a recovering alcoholic.

One evening I saw Father George come out of the Jesuit residence dressed very nattily, wearing a rather nice sports coat and hat, his pipe in one hand – and his rosary beads in the other. I said to myself, ‘That man has it all together!’

He gave unusual homilies, laced with a delightfully dry and ironic humour. One was simply about a tiny bird – I think it was a species of hummingbird – that migrates each year in both directiosn between Alaska and Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America, without stopping. All of us listening were filled with awe at God’s creation, at the power and endurance of one of God’s creatures, one that didn’t have the power of reasoning but that knew how to get from one end of the landmass of the Americas to the other and to know where to go.

The First Reading and its Responsorial Psalm along with the Gospel invite us to reflect on how God’s word takes root in our hearts. But they also invite us to reflect on God’s bounty as revealed in nature itself. Isaiah tells us in the First Reading that it is impossible for the rain and snow that God sends not to bear fruit: For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater.

Landscape near Auvers: Wheatfields, Vincent van Gogh

 July 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise. Neue Pinakothek, Munich [Web Gallery of Art]

 
Psalm 64 [65] echoes this: You crown the year with your bounty; 

 your wagon tracks overflow with richness.

The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
    the hills gird themselves with joy,
 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
    the valleys deck themselves with grain,
    they shout and sing together for joy.

Jesus takes something simple in nature as an example of how God’s word, God’s very life, takes root in our lives. But we can see God’s loving power, presence and bounty in the seed itself, without drawing any analogies or other meanings from it. Those of us who aren’t from a farming background can take for granted the food that lands on our table. All the nourishment that we find in a loaf of bread or in a bowl of rice is there already in the grains the farmer sows. The seed of a husband fertilized by the egg of his wife becomes a new human being containing already in its microscopic size all that will be evident when that person is born and grows to maturity
There is great emphasis today on the urgency of respecting nature and of not abusing it, in order to avoid possible disastrous consequences.

But the basic reason we should respect all of nature is that it is an expression of God’s infinite bounty ‘singing’ in its own way: the hills gird themselves with joy . . .

 Father George conveyed something of that to all of us on retreat in Guelph 32 years ago. Another Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, captured that in some of his poems, including Pied Beauty, published 29 years after his death and 41 years after he wrote it rather like the seed being buried in the ground in spring and bearing fruit at harvest-time.

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things —
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Wheat Field with a Lark,Vincent van Gogh

 Summer 1887, Paris. Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam [Web Gallery of Art]

Christ Blessing the Children, Nicolaes Maes, 1652-53
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 Matthew 11:25-30  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.  All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

”

One night about forty years ago when I was chaplain in the college department of Immaculate Conception College (ICC) – now La Salle University – I was looking out of an upstairs window of the convento (presbytery/rectory). There were only two persons to be seen in the plaza in front of Immaculate Conception Cathedral. One was a young man, a beggar. The other was a gentle, simple-minded woman known to everyone, Goria, whose baptismal name I take to be Gregoria. Sometimes Goria would ask for money. However, she wasn’t a beggar and, as far as I know, spent most of her time with her family in nearby Tangub City. She would smile if you declined to give her money.

Sometimes Goria would wander into a classroom in ICC, as she would also do in St Michael’s High School in Tangub City. But she would never disturb anyone, never say anything while there. She’d simply doodle with chalk on the blackboard.

Pandesal

The Trinity with the Dead Christ

Lodovico Carracci, c.1590. Pinacoteca, Vatican [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 3:16-18  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to Nicodemus:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

The Two Trinities

Moses

Carlo Dolci, 1640-45. Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence [Web Gallery of Art]

Carracci’s The Trinity with the Dead Christ shows us the Trinity in the context of the death of Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, who became Man and died for us on the Cross. This is a common theme in many paintings, the Suffering Trinity. Not only Jesus suffered. So did his Father and the Holy Spirit.

Return of the Prodigal Son (Detail)

Rembrandt, c.1669. The Hermitage, St Petersburg [Web Gallery of Art]

Likewise, the Persons of the Blessed Trinity never cease to be a loving God, a God who calls each of us to share in the intense and eternal Love that they are for all eternity. Every human relationship is meant to reflect that to some extent, most of all the relationship between husband and wife.

Firmly I believe and truly

 
Firmly I believe and truly
God is Three, and God is One;
and I next acknowledge duly
manhood taken by the Son.

And I trust and hope most fully
in that Manhood crucified;
and each thought and deed unruly
do to death, as he has died.

Simply to his grace and wholly
light and life and strength belong,
and I love supremely, solely,
him the holy, him the strong.

And I hold in veneration,
for the love of him alone,
holy Church as his creation,
and her teachings are his own.

And I take with joy whatever

Now besets me, pain or fear,

And with a strong will I sever

All the ties which bind me here.

Adoration aye be given,
with and through the angelic host,
to the God of earth and heaven,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Words by Blessed John Henry Newman. Tune: Shipston, arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The fourth and fifth stanzas above are not sung in the recording. You can read more about this hymn, which may be sung to a number of different tunes, here.

Antiphon ad introitum.  Entrance Antiphon

Benedictus sit Deus Pater, Blest be God the Father,

Unigenitusque Dei Filius,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 is merciful love.

The Ascension of Christ, Rembrandt, 1638

 Alte Pinakotech, Munich [Web Gallery of Art]

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 Matthew 28:16-20  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The readings above are used whether the Solemnity is celebrated on Ascension Thursday or on the following Sunday. They are used both at the Vigil Mass and at the Mass during the Day. The two Masses have a different set of prayers. Both fulfill the obligation of participating at Mass on a holyday of obligation, as Ascension Thursday is where the solemnity is observed on that day, and as every Sunday is.

The Seventh Sunday of Easter, where the Ascension is celebrated on Ascension Thursday

 
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)                                  

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

Gospel John 17:1-11  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

The Ascension

Bicycles in Buenos Aires [Wikipedia]

Early in the summer of 1953 when I was ten my father taught me how to ride a bicycle. In August of that year, when we were on holiday in Bray, south of Dublin, he taught me how to swim. I borrowed cry cousin Deirdre’s bike, a small blue one and practised on Halliday Square, Dublin,, just below our street. It had a long enclosed garden in the centre where some local people grew vegetables, as I recall, and in my young mind was a kind of racing circuit.

However, in order to do any racing I had to learn first to keep on the bike while moving. My father held on to the saddle while I moved forward, wobbling quite a bit for about ten metres before we’d start again. I’m not sure how many times we repeated this or over how many evenings. But a moment arrived when I realized that I was moving forward steadily and surely – and Dad wan’t holding on to the saddle. I was on my own. A great thrill – with an awareness that I could’t ‘unlearn’ how to ride. From that moment I could only move forward, in more senses than one. And before long I found myself racing around the circuit that was Halliday Square, sometimes against others, sometimes just ‘against myself’.

Seafront and Bray Head, Bray, Ireland [Wikipedia]

Dad’s approach to teaching me how to swim was similar. He held his hand under my chest, in fairly shallow water, off the stony beach in the photo above. I was trying to do the breaststroke. As with the bike, he showed great patience and I had absolute trust in him knowing that he wouldn’t let me sink, just as he hadn’t let me fall off the bicycle.

Once again there was the magic moment when I realized that Dad’s hand was no longer touching my chest – I was swimming on my own. And as with cycling, this is an ability that you cannot ‘unlearn’.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, Jesus tells the Apostles in the First Reading (Acts 1:8).

My experience with my father – and with my mother too who often said to me in my childhood years When you’re 21 you’ll be responsible for yourself, giving me a goal to reach – helps me understand something of the meaning of today’s feast. If my Dad had kept holding on to the saddle of my cousin’s bike I would never have learned to go on my own. If he had kept holding me while teaching me to swim I would have remained dependent on him.

If Jesus, the Risen Lord, had stayed with the Apostles they would have remained in Jerusalem and never have gone to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

For the next eight years after learning to ride a bike I cycled to school twice each day, unless it was raining, coming home for lunch, getting about an hour’s exercise in the process without calling it that. And in a very real way my Dad was always with me because he had enabled me to acquire a skill that in turn gave me a new freedom that brought with it new responsibilities and new possibilities. New possibilities and the responsibilities that go with them continue to arise in my life as a priest. 

And in the life of the Church, as in the life of each individual, new situations with their challenges are constantly arising. The one thing that we can be certain of as disciples of Jesus, carrying out the mission he has entrusted to the Church, whatever our particular part may be in that mission, is the truth of his final words before his Ascension, And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

He is with us always through his Holy spirit whose coming we will celebrate next Sunday

Ascension: Mass during the Day

 Antiphona ad Introitum  Entrance Antiphon Acts 1:11 

Viri Galilei, quid admiramini aspicientes in caelum?

 Men of Galilee, why gaze in wonder at the heavens?

Quemadmodum vidistis eum ascendentem in caelun, ita veniet, alleluia.

 This Jesus whom you saw ascending into heaven will return as you saw him go, alleluia.

Hymn for the Ascension by Georgi Popov

Sung in Vienna by the Bulgarian choir Hosanna

Apostle St Thomas

El Greco, 1610-14, Museo de El Greco, Toledo [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 14:1-12  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.  And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.

Apostle St Philip

El Greco, 1610-14, Museo de El Greco, Toledo [Web Gallery of Art]

 
About forty years ago I gave a live-in weekend retreat to students graduating from a high school for girls in the Philippines run by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. Most of the girls were around 16. I noticed one girl  – I’ll call her Lucy -who was small in stature behaving rather immaturely, though not misbehaving, as the weekend went on. At times she would be running around like a child in kindergarten. The retreatants had an opportunity, insofar as time allowed, to meet me individually in the home economics building. As is usual on such occasions tears would be shed. When Lucy noticed tear-stains on some of her classmates she’d laugh at them.

But then she came to see me. There was aa life-size inflatable doll in the room. She clung on to it and cried her heart out for five or ten minutes before I could get her to calm down. Then she said to me, Father, my parents give me everything I want. But they never ask me ‘How did you do in school today?’ And they never even scold me.

Lucy could see clearly, because of its absence in her life, what perhaps most of her companions at their age didn’t: the daily reality of the love of their parents, sometimes expressed in scolding.

Nobody likes a scolding but most of us, when we reflect on it, see it as a sign of care, of love. I’ve told the story of Lucy to many groups of young people over the years and always get nods of recognition.
When Philip asked him, Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied, I wonder if Jesus felt some mild exasperation? This incident reminds me of what the father in the story of the Prodigal Son said to the elder son, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours (Luke 15:31). The well behaved son had failed to see this, as he failed to see the wonder of this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found (Luke 15:32).

After the sudden death of Fr Patrick Sheehy at the age of 80 in St Columban’s, Ireland, in December 1999 his fellow Columbans living there, many of them retired and/or infirm, began to notice that certain little things weren’t being done anymore, such as letters and newspapers being delivered to priests unable to get around easily. When Father Pat retired he took it upon himself to do such little things for others, without being asked and without being noticed too much’

It was only in its absence that many saw clearly the quiet, loving thoughtfulness of Father Pat, just as Lucy saw clearly in its absence what she longed for. Father Pat, who had experienced being expelled from China five years after going there, followed by many years of service as a priest in Japan, interrupted for a couple of years because of poor health, was able to choose to show us the Father to his brother priests, without fanfare. Lucy through her immature behaviour was crying out, without being aware of it, to be ‘shown the Father’.

We are in the middle of the Easter Season when we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, celebrating that fact that, in the words of St Peter in the second reading today, that we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). God’s mighty acts are perhaps most often seen in the ‘little acts’ of those around us.

The readings invite us to see the Father’s presence in the daily realities of our lives, the many blessings that come to us through others and that we often don’t see clearly as blessings. And the readings invite us to be aware of the many ‘Lucys’ around us who in one way or another are crying out, Show us the Father.
‘Lucy’ would be in her mid-50s now. I’ve no idea what became of her but perhaps each of us might offer a prayer for her.

Antiphonaad Communionem  Cf Jn 15:1, 5

Ego sum vitis vera et vos palmites, dicit Dominus;

 qui manet in me et ego in eo, hic fecit fructum multum, alleluia.

 
Communion Antiphon  Cf John 15:1, 5

I am the true vine and you are the branches, says the Lord.

Whoever remains in me, and I in him, bears fruit in plenty, alleluia.