'And anchor at peace with God.' Sunday Reflections, 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Christ in Majesty

Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Montmartre, Paris

[Wikipedia; photo]

 Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

June is the month of the

Sacred Heart of Jesus

Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion (Mark 4:37-38; Gospel).

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel  Mark 4:35-41  (English Standard Version, Anglicised)  

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

St Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Ireland

[Wikipedia; photo]

Fr James Wilson was born in Cobh (KOHV), then known as Queenstown, on the south coast of Ireland in 1890. For many years it was the main port from which liners left for the USA. It was the last port from which Titanic left on 11 February 1912 on its fatal maiden voyage, bound for New York City. On 7 May 1915  a German U-boat torpedoed Lusitania as it was on a voyage from New York and was quite near Queenstown. Most of the 1,197 dead and the 763 survivors were taken to that port. 

Father Wilson was ordained in June that year for the Diocese of Cloyne of which St Colman's is the cathedral. He joined the Columbans in 1920 and spent most of the rest of his life teaching Columban seminarians in Ireland and in the USA. I was in our seminary from 1961 to 1968 in the building where I am now living, St Columban's, Dalgan Park. However, we were nearly 200 seminarians then, and now we are about 60 retired missionary priests and no seminarians. 

Fr Wilson was retired here during my student days and had become rather 'forgetful'. This venerable priest had a dignity that his mental decline could not hide and he had a great love for Cobh. Every time he met a student on the corridor he would talk about St Colman's Cathedral and would finish with the last two lines of a poem that I think he wrote himself: When St Colman's bell rings its last farewell and we're laid beneath the sod, / We'll raise the harbour at sunset and anchor at peace with God.

What called Fr Wilson and the last lines of his poem to my mind was this Sunday's First Reading, Responsorial Psalm and Gospel. In the First Reading the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and asked him, who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb . . . and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed'?

The Responsorial Psalm, 106 [107], echoes this, as is its purpose: For [God] spoke, he summoned the gale, tossing the waves of the sea up to heaven and back into the deep. And God responded to those who were terrified: Then they cried to the Lord in their need and he rescued them from their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper: all the waves of the sea were hushed. They rejoiced because of the calm and he led them to the haven they desired. Let them thank the Lord for his love, the wonders he does for men.

Rembrandt, in his only seascape, captures the terror of the Apostles in the Gospel. And we can barely see Jesus in the dark, sleeping in the stern of the boat. That is so often where he seems to us to be. But the Apostles are awestruck when they see the power of Jesus: And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'

Right now we are going through a very stormy period in the life of the world and of the Church. There are a number of regional wars that could develop into something much bigger. There are great divisions in the Catholic Church and the rejection of some of its teachings by some bishops and priests, especially in the area of human relationships and of family, a non-acceptance of the biological reality that each of us is either male or female from the moment of conception. And, as the Book of Genesis teaches, each of us is made in the image of God.

Yet history teaches us that in the midst of the greatest darkness and evil, God has raised up people of extraordinary love and heroism. In so many ways God touches us gently when we sin and leads us to conversion and to accept his forgiveness, especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance, Confession). And Rembrandt's painting shows a break in the black clouds, for me an expression of the hope we are called to place in Jesus our Risen Lord.

For all of this, as the response to the Responsorial Psalm says, O give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures for ever.

+++

When Fr JamesWilson died on 9 January 1970 in a hospital in Dublin, his grave was dug here in Dalgan Park - before his will was read. In that he asked that he be buried in his beloved Cobh. So he had a funeral Mass here, and another in Cobh in St Colman's Cathedral.

When St Colman's bell rings its last farewell and we're laid beneath the sod, We'll raise the harbour at sunset and anchor at peace with God.  When our lives come to an end may all of us raise the harbour at sunset and anchor at peace with God.

Home from the Sea

Words and music by Phil Coulter

Sung by Liam Clancy

The Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) was founded 200 years ago. It has stations on the coasts of Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands and is staffed by volunteers who have saved countless lives. And more than 600 volunteers have died in rescuing others.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

Traditional Latin Mass

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 06-23-2024 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Peter 3:8-15. Gospel: Matthew 5:20-24.

The Mass of St Basil

Pierre Subleyras [Web Gallery of Art]

So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Matthew 5:23-24; Gospel).

'Ag Críost an síol - To Christ the Seed.' Sunday Reflections, 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

'Even unto the complete sacrifice of my life.'

Execution of Blessed Miguel Pro SJ, 23 November 1927, Mexico City

June is the month of the

Sacred Heart of Jesus

Blessed Miguel Pro’s Sacred Heart Of Jesus Prayer

Heart of Jesus, I give my heart to Thee; but so enclose it in Thee that it may never be separated from Thee. Heart of Jesus, I am all Thine; but take care of my promise so that I may be able to put it in practice even unto the complete sacrifice of my life. Amen.

 

The Sower

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel  Mark 4:26-34  (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

Jesus said to the crowds:

“The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Reaper with Sickle (after Millet)

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle.

Just over 30 years ago I was parish priest of Lianga, on the east coast of Mindanao for 11 months, One evening in a nearby barrio I gave a talk on the beginnings of life, how from the moment of conception what we will come to be, the colour of our eyes, of our hair, our sex - male or female, whether we’ll be tall or short, the talents that will emerge, are already there. I could see that the people were awestruck at the wonder of our creation.

Today’s First Reading and Gospel give us an insight into that wonder, showing how God’s creatures are interrelated. Ezekiel tells us how a shoot of a cedar will sprout branches and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar, for every kind of bird will live beneath it, every winged creature rest in the shade of its branches. St Mark echoes this: The kingdom of God . . . is like a mustard seed which at the time of its sowing . . . is the smallest of all the seeds on earth . . . yet  . . . grows into the biggest shrub of them all and puts out big branches so that the birds of the air can shelter in its shade.

Humans are the only creatures on earth who can know this: God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. Only we can know, love and serve God here on earth and be with him for ever in heaven, as we learned from the catechism so many years ago.

Between the Solemnity of the Mother of God on 1 January 2019 and the end of last year more than 30,000 human beings made in the image of God were legally, violently and permanently denied entry into the Republic of Ireland before birth, denied the possibility of ever knowing a loving God in this life, of ever being loved by other humans, of ever loving others, of ever discovering their own giftedness and that of others, of ever discovering the wonders of God’s creation in this life.

In Laudato Si’ Pope Francis addresses this situation very clearly in the context of the interconnectedness of creation that the readings speak about today: Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? ‘If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away’.

However, Jesus tells us in John 10:10, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Today’s readings speak of that abundance. St Mark tell us, A man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing, how he does not know. Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. We are blessed in St Columban's where I live here in Ireland to be surrounded by so many examples of new life as we go through the four seasons. And at the many funerals of elderly Columbans in the last few years I have seen young children, reminders of God’s abundance in constantly creating and nourishing new life, especially human life, passed on from one generation to the next.

I remember too  being at the Menin Gate in Ieper (Ypres), Belgium, in 2002 where each evening the Last Post is sounded by buglers for British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Great War (1914-18) in which the city was destroyed, Many of these were Irish. One was Corporal Laurence Dowd, a half-brother of my maternal grandmother. Anther was Fr Willie Doyle SJ, an army chaplain, who is now being proposed for canonisation. The Last Post ceremony particularly remembers the thousands of soldiers listed on the monument whose bodies were never found. When I was there a very old man laid a wreath. He was possibly one of the last survivors of the First World War. Standing near me was a mother with a baby not more than a week old in her arms. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 

We have all been blessed by knowing married couples, including our parents, welcoming children into their lives, trusting in the providence of a God who gives abundantly and raising their children in the faith. Some have children who need special care right into adulthood and until death, drawing out of their parents a love that is truly heroic. Such families for me are signs of hope, signs of God’s presence among us, of God’s presence in my own life, preventing me from being discouraged by some aspects of a very changed world so different from the one that we older people grew up in.

The Entrance Antiphon reminds us that God is merciful and loving: O Lord, hear my voice, for I have called to you; be my help. Do not abandon or forsake me, O God, my Saviour! One of the expressions of God’s love and forgiveness is a movement I am familiar with, Rachel’s Vineyard (Britain, Ireland, USA) . This offers healing weekends rooted in the Gospel for persons who have been directly affected by abortion: mothers, fathers, grandparents of aborted children, spouses of someone who has had an abortion before they met. So many of these carry a hidden and deep sorrow and shame, often for many years. On a Rachel’s Vineyard weekend they can experience God’s forgiveness, enter into a relationship with their aborted child. And most of the team conducting the weekend, along with the supporting team, have themselves experienced God’s loving and forgiving mercy through it and are now ministers of that mercy to others like them.

The Responsorial Psalm speaks directly to those of us who are no longer young: Planted in the house of the Lord [the just] will flourish in the courts of our God, still bearing fruit when they are old, still full of sap, still green, to proclaim that the Lord is just. In him, my rock, there is no wrong.

As we celebrate the Eucharist, the great act of thanksgiving, may we allow the response to today’s Responsorial Psalm take root in our hearts: It is good to give you thanks, O Lord.

Sheaves of Wheat

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

. . . because the harvest has come.

Ag Críost an Síol

Sung by Laudis Domini of the Second Presbyterian Church, Memphis, Tennessee. 

Arranged by Mark Armstrong and directed by Dr Gabriel Statom

Words written in 1916 by Fr Micheál Ó Síocháin (later Coadjutor Archbishop of Sydney), music by Seán Ó Riada in 1968. This hymn in the Irish language was intended by Ó Riada as an Offertory hymn but is often sung during or after Holy Communion. Fr Micheál Ó Síocháin (Michael Sheehan) was also author of Sheehan's Apologetics, used in religious education in Ireland's Catholic secondary schools in the 1950s and 1960s. The book was one of the seeds of my own vocation to be a Columban missionary priest. 

Ag Críost an Síol - To Christ the Seed

le Micheál Ó Síocháin /English translation by Thomas Kinsella

i n-iothlainn Dé go dtugtar sinn.

Ag Críost an mhuir, ag Críost an t-iasc;

i líonta Dé go gcastar sinn.

Ó fhás go h-aois, is ó aois go bás,

do dhá láimh, a Chríost, anall tharainn.

Ó bhás go críoch, ní críoch ach athfhás,

i bParthas na ngrást go rabhaimid.

To Christ the seed, to Christ the crop,

in barn of Christ may we be brought.

To Christ the sea, to Christ the fish,

in nets of Christ may we be caught.

From growth to age, from age to death,

Thy two arms here, O Christ, about us.

From death to end, not end but growth,

in blessed Paradise may we be.

Traditional Latin Mass

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 06-16-2024 if necessary).

Epistle: Romans 8:18-23. Gospel: Luke 5:1-11.

Miraculous Draught of Fishes

Raphael [Web Gallery of Art]

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, 'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord' (Luke 5:8). 

Sacred Heart of Jesus. Sunday Reflections, 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

The Sanctuary of Christ the King in Almada, Portugal, a monument dedicated to the Sacred Heart

[Wikipedia; photo]

June is the month of the

Sacred Heart of Jesus

Come to me, all you that labour and are burdened; I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon yourselves, and learn from me; I am gentle and humble of heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light (Matthew 11:29-30, Knox).

Young Jew as Christ

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel  Mark 3:20-35  (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

Then Jesus went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.

“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Beggar Resting

Giacomo Ceruti [Web Gallery of Art]

The note that goes with this painting on Web Gallery of Art - a wonderful website - says: The stick of the sitting figure of about seventy years of age, the knapsack on his shoulders, and the wicker basket all identify him as a pilgrim rather than as a beggar seeking alms.

Pilgrims often are beggars in the sense that some depend entirely on the goodness of others for food and lodging along their way. The Columban seminarians in the Philippines used to go on such a pilgrimage as part of their spiritual formation as Kurt Zion Pala, now ordained and serving in Myanmar, describes in The Road to Agoo. (I'm not sure if our seminarians still do that).

But sometimes we can see individuals simply as beggars and, in a sense, dismiss them from our thoughts, never knowing their stories, never knowing their humanity. That has been my experience a number of times down the years.

One such experience was during my seminary years, in the summer of 1964, while working for two weeks at The Morning Star Hostel, run by the Legion of Mary, less than a 15-minute walk from where I lived in Dublin. It was a place of refuge for 'down and out' men. It was far from being a luxury hotel but was a place where every man, whether short-term or long-term, was respected. The facilities have improved since then. 

While at the Morning Star I had a couple of long chats with a man I knew by sight. I'll call him Michael, a man aged 40 or thereabouts. He was a street singer, going around different parts of the city singing popular songs and hoping that people would give him a few pennies. Anytime I saw him he was just another beggar to me. 

But in our conversations I met in Michael a man who had a spirituality that in a real sense was beyond me. He was highly intelligent and reflected on life. He wasn't from Dublin and didn't tell me how he had ended up in the Morning Star. But I got a sense of a person for whom God was very real. I wondered if he was somewhat out of his mind or if he was some kind of mystic. I felt blessed by knowing him and figured that more likely he was a mystic, certainly a man close to God. And I saw his dignity as a person made in the image of God, the serene dignity of the beggar/pilgrim that Giacomo Ceruti captured in his painting, the serene dignity of the young Jew expelled from his native country captured by Rembrandt.

When his family heard it, they went out to seize him,  for  they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind.’ These words in today's Gospel remind me of Michael. It is clear that the perception of some of those who knew Jesus was that he was somewhat 'off-centre'. Jesus is here identifying himself with every person who is, in some way, 'off-centre' or perceived to be such. Such persons are not always taken seriously by the rest of us. They are on the margins.

The note that goes with Rembrandt's Young Jew as Christ says, The sitter of the painting is a young Jew evicted from Spain and settled in Amsterdam in the neighbourhood of Rembrandt. Another person on the margins, evicted by followers of Jesus from his native country because he was ethnically the same as Jesus and his mother. 

I once showed a very poor black and white copy of this painting during a Sunday homily at a Mass in a home for girls in the Philippines where most of the girls had been sexually abused. One, aged 14 or 15, asked if she could keep the copy. I later had a proper print made and framed and gave it to her. I asked her what had drawn her in Rembrandt's painting. She replied, 'He looks so human'.

In today's gospel we see the utter humanity of Jesus, God who became Man. We see his utter vulnerability, allowing himself to be dismissed by some as one who has gone out of his mind.

And then the extraordinary statement by Jesus: Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

Whatever our nationality, our ethnic origins, our social standing, our level of education, our intellectual or physical abilities, our language, Jesus calls us his brother and sister and mother. His own Mother is the only one, apart from Jesus himself, who carried out God's will perfectly. Nevertheless he considers all who desire, with God's grace, to carry out the Father's will his brother and sister and mother. 

Jesus showed himself to me 60 years ago through Michael, whom I had seen only as a beggar before I met him. He shows himself to me through Ceruti's Beggar Resting, through Rembrandt's Young Jew as Christ. And Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, showed his humanity through a very poor print of Rembrandt's painting to my young friend in the Philippines who had been so badly treated!

May the words of Jesus and his presence among us in so many ways fill us with courage and hope!

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Friday 7 June 2024

Readings (New American Bible)

Sweet Heart of Jesus

Sung by Regina Nathan

Traditional Latin Mass

Third Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 06-09-2024 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Peter 5:6-11. Gospel: Luke 15:1-10.

Parable of the Lost Drachma

Domenico Fetti [Web Gallery of Art]

Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost (Luke 15:9; Gospel)..