'If this is the end, then I'm ready for it.' Sunday Reflections, 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

 

St Francis and Brother Leo Meditating on Death

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 12:32-48 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India). Shorter form, Luke 12:35-40. Omit [text in square brackets]. 

Jesus said to his disciples:

[“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.]

“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

[Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming’, and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. And that servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.]

Léachtaí i nGaeilge  

A stamp with Liam Whelan's photo issued in 2008 by An Post, the Irish Postal Service, for the 50th anniversary of the Munich Disaster. The clock is in Old Trafford, the Manchester United stadium, showing the time and date of the crash.

You also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

I've posted a number of times before about the death of Irish footballer Liam Whelan in a plane crash in Munich in 1958. His life and death for me show the meaning of the words of Jesus in the gospel today: You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. 

I remember the moment I heard of the plane crash in Munich that killed so many young sportsmen in their prime. It was late afternoon and already dark and a man whom I knew as a street-singer, someone I had perceived, wrongly perhaps, to be a beggar, was running around, almost frantically, telling everyone the tragic news. I was 14 and it was my first experience of what some call 'a public private moment'.

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

These were the last words of Liam Whelan who died more than 64 years ago and who is buried near my parents. Fifteen or sixteen years ago  I learned that when they were both around 14 Liam rescued a close friend of mine who had got into difficulties in a swimming pool. [Brendan, my friend, celebrates his 86th birthday this Sunday. I have baptised two of his grandchildren].

The average age of Manchester United's players was only 22. One who was only 21, Duncan Edwards, from the English Midlands, was considered by many to have the potential to become perhaps the greatest footballer ever. He died 15 days after the crash.

These young men who filled stadiums were being paid only a little more than a tradesman could earn at the time, though very few played beyond the age of 35. Endorsements could bring in a little more income for a few talented players. Their counterparts today are often spoiled millionaires.

Those who knew him described 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 (photo below). I pass it each time I visit my parents’ grave.

Clearly young Liam Whelan had his life focused on what was most important. He was ready to meet death. I have often spoken about him at Mass and on retreats. Today's gospel invites us to focus on the essentials, God’s love for us sinners, the hope that the life and death of Jesus offer us, the necessity of acknowledging our sinfulness to enable God’s love to break through and the importance of being always prepared for death.

But the deaths of so many talented young men still leaves a deep sadness among those who saw them play and followed their fortunes. I feel that sadness when I recall the Munich crash. The February 2008 issue of The Word, a magazine that sadly no longer exists and that was published by the Divine Word Missionaries in Ireland and Britain, had an article, A Sporting Tragedy, in which John Scally spoke for me : 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 remember the evening that Liam Whelan's remains were brought to his parish church, Christ the King, Cabra, Dublin, very near to where our family lived. There were thousands outside the church. My brother Paddy went with our Dad. Just recently  he told me that it was the only time he ever saw Dad cry.

I remember reading about Liam Whelan's last words in a newspaper a few days after the tragedy. I've heard Harry Gregg, the Manchester United goalkeeper who survived the crash and who died in 2020, speaking about them. They still move me and challenge me to be ready whenever death may come. Jesus isn't trying to frighten us in today's gospel but to keep us focused on the supremely important realities of The Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. (That article by Monsignor Charles Pope is well worth reading).

Jesus tells us that when we are honestly trying to follow him in doing the Father's will we are blessed: Blessed are those servant whom the master finds awake when he comes.

You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Liam Whelan's grave, Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin

Pope Benedict XVI opens his encyclical Spe Salvi  with these words:  'SPE SALVI facti sumus'—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). He has a beautiful passage about praying for the dead in No 48 of the encyclical, a passage I have often used at funerals. In it he quotes from John Donne's poem No Man is an Island (quotation highlighted below). 

The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today. Who would not feel the need to convey to their departed loved ones a sign of kindness, a gesture of gratitude or even a request for pardon?

. . . We should recall that no man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another . . . The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that there is no need to convert earthly time into God's time: in the communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain. In this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope. Our hope is always essentially also hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me too.

No Man is an Island

by John Donne, read by Peter Baker

Traditional Latin Mass

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 8-07-2022 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 10:6-13. Gospel: Luke 19:41-47.

The Purification of the Temple

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers” (Luke 19:45-46; today's Gospel).