23 September 2021

'A young Polish priest was clinging to this makeshift altar with one hand, while celebrating Mass. Between his feet lay the body of another priest.' Sunday Reflections, 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

The Harvest
Auguste-Xavier Leprince [Web Gallery of Art]

Behold, the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts (James 5:4; Second Reading).

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea. And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea. And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.

“And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’


Léachtaí i nGaeilge


 

Abbey Road, Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity, Huntsville, Utah, USA
The Abbey, opened in 1947, closed in 2017
[Wikipedia, photo by Exorcisio Te]

In August 1982, after a year’s study in Toronto and before three months of Clinical Pastoral Education in Minneapolis, I supplied in a number of parishes for short periods in the Diocese of Boise, which covers the whole of the state of Idaho in the western USA. One of my purposes for this was to visit the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity, Huntsville, Utah, where I had spent ten days or so in August 1970. There I had met some of the monks who were to be part of the community that would open the first Trappist foundation in the Philippines, in Guimaras island, now Our Lady of the Philippines Trappist Monastery

I spent a week in one parish where the parish priest was from India, there were  reservations of two different Indigenous American tribes, many Spanish-speaking immigrants working on farms in the area. The majority of the people in the town proper were Mormons. The local newspaper carried photos of young Mormons from the area going on mission to other countries.

Just after lunch one day the doorbell rang. A young woman asked me to go to the hospital where an old woman, a Catholic and a relative of hers, had been in a coma for a long time, and was dying. I immediately went to the hospital and, to my surprise, the patient was fully awake and participated joyfully in the Last Sacraments, including Holy Communion, as I had brought the Blessed Sacrament with me. I learned later that she died about twenty minutes after I left.

The young woman who had asked me to go to the hospital was a Mormon. I was able to thank her later.

Finn Street, Dublin

When I was a child we lived in a street of terraced houses in Dublin where no one had a telephone. One time one of our neighbours, Jem Norris, got gravely ill in the middle of the night. Charlie Brooks who lived across the street went for the priest, whose house was about a kilometre away. (The Norris house is the one on the far left above. Ours was the one on the right.)

Charlie was a Protestant.

I have posted in Sunday Reflections before about a Mass in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Germany, shortly after it was liberated in 1945. The account, published in 2004 in The Daily Telegraph (London) but no longer online, is by James Molyneaux (1920 -2015), then a young officer in the Royal Air Force and later leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland. He wrote:

The most moving experience came on the second morning as I was walking from what had been the luxury SS barracks which our troops had transformed into a hospital. My attention was drawn to two packing cases covered by a worn red curtain. A young Polish priest was clinging to this makeshift altar with one hand, while celebrating Mass. Between his feet lay the body of another priest who probably died during the night. No one had had the energy to move the body.

I had no difficulty in following the old Latin Mass, having been educated at St James's Roman Catholic School in County Antrim, and, although an Anglican, I had gained a working knowledge of all the rituals. Still supporting himself against the altar, the young priest did his best to distribute the consecrated elements [Holy Communion]. Some recipients were able to stumble over the rough, scrubby heathland. Others crawled forward to receive the tokens [Sacred Hosts, the Body of  Christ] and then crawled back to share them with others unable to move. Some almost certainly passed on to another - probably better - world before sunset. Whatever one's race or religion one can only be uplifted and impressed by that truly remarkable proof of the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

When I first read this article I was deeply moved in a number of ways. I was surprised to discover that the author had gone to a Catholic school in a community where, at least since the latter 1800s, there has been a deep divide between Catholics and Protestants, for historical reasons that are not entirely theological. But here was an Anglican from that background giving a powerful testimony to the Mass as the Holy Sacrifice. And he noticed how those who were barely able to crawl shared the Body of Christ with those who couldn't move at all.

I find in the three stories above an illustration of the response of Jesus to the complaint of St John, Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.  Jesus says, For the one who is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward. 

St John's complaint reflects that of Joshua to Moses in the First Reading. the response of Jesus reflects that of Moses: Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them! (Numbers 11:29).

Memorial Stone, Bergen

Near the ramps where prisoners for Belsen were unloaded from goods [freight] trains. [Wikimedia]

James Molyneaux's article also illustrates the reality of hell that Jesus speaks about today. He writes:

On arrival at Tactical Headquarters, we had been briefed on the discovery of the Belsen prison camp nearby. In company with our RAF medical unit and the two 2nd Army Field hospitals, we wasted no time. Briefed though we were, the shock excelled all the horrors of the battles of the 12 months since Normandy.

As we passed through the camp gates, the Royal Military Police requested us to drive very slowly to avoid the numerous disoriented prisoners. We were handed adhesive tape to put over the vehicle horns in order to prevent them going off accidentally, lest the shock would cause still more deaths. [This little detail is surely telling.]

The British liberators were staggered and shocked by the inhuman behaviour of some of the former guards, who continued to abuse and torment prisoners nearing death when they assumed we were looking the other way. I confess that on such occasions I may have breached the Geneva Convention to prevent further ill treatment of helpless victims. Their behaviour after we had arrived contradicted the excuse that the SS had forced them to carry out orders. Our new orders to them were ‘Stop acting like savages’. 

The 'Thousand Year Reich' of Hitler was in ruins after twelve years, and millions dead all over the world. These deaths, like countless deaths since, were caused by persons who chose evil over good. Each choice we make for sin is not at the level of choosing the evil of Belsen but it moves us towards that. Other dictators have tried their hand at their own version of Hitler's distorted vision and people have gone along with them.

Each of us likes to have power. We may not be conscious of this and in many instances there's no sin at all. I remember once  seeing in a Catholic magazine a cartoon  of people assembled for Mass where you were asked to 'spot the errors'. One was the proverbial 'little old lady' kneeling in the middle of a pew instead of blocking it at one end. There are times, especially as I grow older, when I can see the 'little old lady' in myself, trying to subtly ensure that things are done my way. Indeed, in the parish in Idaho where that kind young Mormon woman asked me to go to the dying elderly woman, the housekeeper asked me what time I'd like to have dinner at each day. I told her - but she always served it thirty minutes earlier.

But if I am a spouse, a parent, a teacher, a boss, a priest who doesn't listen to the other, who rules my little domain with a heavy hand, the words of Jesus are directed at me. 

What is the 'hand', the 'foot', the 'eye' that causes me to sin, especially in the use of power?


Antiphona ad Communionem
Communion antiphon Cf Pas 118[119]:49-50

Memento etiam verbi tui servo tuo, Domine,
Remember your word to your servant, O Lord,
in quo mihi spem dedisti,
in which you have given me hope.
haec me consolata est in humilitate mea,
This is my comfort when I am brought low.

Choir of St Benedict's Monastery, São Paulo, Brazil

Traditional LaCtin Mass (TLM) 

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost 

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 9-26-2021 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:4-8 .  Gospel: Matthew 9:1-8.

Christ Heals the Paralytic
Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini ]Web Gallery of Art]

Authentic Beauty

Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.

September Song
Singer: Ella Fitzgerald; pianist: Paul Smith
Lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, music by Kurt Weill

Our span is seventy years or eighty for those who are strong (Psalm 90 [89]:10, Grail translation).




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