'They ate and had their fill.' Sunday Reflections, 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

 

Three Poplars, Summer

Claude Monet [Web Gallery of Art]

He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit (Jeremiah 17:8; First Reading).

He is like a tree
    planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
    and its leaf does not wither (Psalm 1:3; Responsorial Psalm).

Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,)

Readings (English Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, India, Scotland) 

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 6:17, 20-26 (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

At that time: Jesus came down with the Twelve and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.’

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Prayer Before the Meal

Adriaen Jansz van Ostade [Web Gallery of Art]

About 45 years ago when I was in charge of a small formation house for young men preparing for the diocesan priesthood in Mindanao, Philippines, I came to know a young girl named Patricia. She had just turned ten when we first met. I learned that her father had died when she was an infant. She 'adopted' me and called me Tatay, Dad, as she still does. She is now a widow and a grandmother.

The first time I visited her home, a small wooden structure built on stilts, I thought that it might fall over. Patricia's family, like most of the families around them, were poor, though not destitute. They struggled from day to day and managed to get by.

Very often after class in the public elementary school Patricia would drop by the formation house for a chat. One day when we were talking in the dining room upstairs we heard the 'clump-clump-clump' of somebody coming up the stairs wearing heavy boots and carrying a staff. It was a man named William Smith, probably the poorest person I have ever met. It was believed that his father had been an American soldier. William was tall and thin, never looked healthy, had very poor sight and had no home of his own. Sometimes children would tease him in a disrespectful way. He would go from parish to parish and the priests, at the time mostly Columbans, would give him a place to sleep, food, clothes, shoes and some money. After a few days he would head off to another parish. Poor William went to his reward when struck by a truck one day. May he rest in peace.

When William arrived at the top of the stairs Patricia went over to him, took him by the hand, sat him down at a table and brought him something to eat and to drink. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. 

I asked Patricia some years later if she remembered this incident. She had no recollection whatever of it.

The Infant Jesus Distributing Bread to Pilgrims

Murillo [Web Gallery of Art]

St Matthew's first beatitude reads, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The New English Bible translation of this is, How blest are those who know their need of God; the kingdom of heaven is theirs. I find that latter translation very helpful.

 St Luke's version has a different emphasis. He shows us Jesus speaking about those who are economically poor. Jesus is also, I think, giving a message of hope pointing towards eternal life where the injustice that is the cause of so much economic poverty will no longer have any force, where God's will reigns. The words of Jesus also call us to work for a world in the here and now where economic poverty caused by greed and injustice no longer exists.

Jesus has very harsh words for those whose focus is only on the present life and the ultimately shallow 'rewards' so much of it offers: But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

God reveals himself as Love in so many 'insignificant' moments. What I saw that day 45 years ago was an expression of God's pure love: a child who was poor serving an adult who had absolutely nothing of his own. Patricia was blessed by God in serving William and he was blessed by God in being served by a child. I have been blessed by this little incident ever since. The kingdom of God broke through that afternoon. 

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Antiphona ad Communionem

Communion Antiphon (Cf Psalm 77 [78]:29-30).

Manducaverunt, et saturaviti sunt nimis,  et desiderium eorum attulit eis Dominus,  non sunt fraudati a desiderio suo. 

They ate and had their fill, and what they craved the Lord gave them; they were not disappointed in what they craved.

Traditional Latin Mass

Septuagesima Sunday

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 02-16-2025 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 10:1-5.  Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16.

Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

Johann Christian Brand [Web Gallery of Art]

For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard (Matthew 20:1; Gospel).

'In the human family, gathered by Christ, "the image and likeness" of the Most Holy Trinity has been restored.' Sunday Reflections, Trinity Sunday, Year C

 

The Two Trinities 

Murillo [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 John 16:12-15 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)  

Jesus said to his disciples:

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Holy Family and Trinity

Jacob de Wit [Web Gallery of Art]

During my kindergarten, primary and secondary school years, 1947 to 1961, my brother and I had breakfast and dinner - a midday meal for almost everybody in Ireland in those days - with our mother. In the evening we had 'tea', as that lighter meal is known in some English-speaking countries. The four of us were together for tea, my father having his dinner and tea combined. I often heard my mother 'complain' about having to prepare two dinners on weekdays. It would never have occurred to her or to any other working-class housewife in urban Ireland in those days to have dinner for the whole family in the evening. Now that is the norm.

However, we did have dinner together on Saturdays and Sundays. My father, like other construction workers, had a half-day on Saturday. Saturday was the only day when we had soup, usually barley soup, served in cups, not in bowls. Sunday dinner was special and the only day when we had dessert.

People's Gardens, Phoenix Park, Dublin

[Wikipedia; photo]

Sunday dinner was special, as it was for all families, and meant extra work for my mother who would spend the whole morning after Mass and breakfast preparing it. My father would take the two of us to meet our paternal grandfather and then for a walk in the nearby Phoenix Park. 

I don't ever recall my parents telling us that we were a family. We just knew. But it was only as an adult and after ordination that I realised that it was at our evening meals on weekdays and at our midday meals on Saturdays and Sundays that I experienced, without being aware of it, what family is. And our Sunday walks with my father were what is now called 'bonding'. Another part of that was Dad taking us to soccer games from time to time in nearby Dalymount Park. 

When in 1968 I went as a young priest to the USA to study I discovered that families there had to really work at being families, as the family couldn't be taken for granted, as it still could be in Ireland at that time.

Pope Francis is probably familiar with Murillo's painting above, The Two Trinities. In his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, On Love in the Family he states in No 29 [emphases added]: With a gaze of faith and love, grace and fidelity, we have contemplated the relationship between human families and the divine Trinity. The word of God tells us that the family is entrusted to a man, a woman and their children, so that they may become a communion of persons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Begetting and raising children, for its part, mirrors God’s creative work. The family is called to join in daily prayer, to read the word of God and to share in Eucharistic communion, and thus to grow in love and become ever more fully a temple in which the Spirit dwells.

Pope Francis highlights this link again in No 71: Scripture and Tradition give us access to a knowledge of the Trinity, which is revealed with the features of a family. The family is the image of God, who is a communion of persons. At Christ’s baptism, the Father’s voice was heard, calling Jesus his beloved Son, and in this love we can recognize the Holy Spirit. Jesus, who reconciled all things in himself and redeemed us from sin, not only returned marriage and the family to their original form, but also raised marriage to the sacramental sign of his love for the Church. In the human family, gathered by Christ, ‘the image and likeness’ of the Most Holy Trinity has been restored, the mystery from which all true love flows. Through the Church, marriage and the family receive the grace of the Holy Spirit from Christ, in order to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s love.

Holy Family with the Infant St John 

Murillo [Web Gallery of Art]

Almost every Catholic in Ireland went to Sunday Mass in those days and our Protestant neighbours went to church. When I was a child it was usually my father who took me to Mass on Sunday morning. And on special days such as Easter Monday, Whit (Pentecost) Monday, which were public but not Church holidays, he would take me to High Mass in one of the churches in Dublin belonging to religious orders such as the Capuchins and the Dominicans. 

Before Pope Pius XII changed the Holy Week liturgies in 1955 the ceremonies on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday were held in the morning. Not too many would attend these. But on the afternoon of Holy Thursday my mother would take my brother and me to visit seven churches for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the Altar of Repose. That practice disappeared after 1954 in Dublin but is alive and well in the Philippines in the larger cities where it is called Visita Iglesia. This was an experience, without being aware of it, of being drawn into the wider family that is the Church.

I must confess that as a child I didn't appreciate too much my father bringing me to High Masses or my mother bringing me to visit seven churches on Holy Thursday. But I could see clearly how Dad loved the solemnity of the High Mass and how central the Mass was to his life. He went to Mass every day of his life right up to the day he died. I am grateful now for the way my parents brought me into the life of the Blessed Trinity in this way. But I am also grateful for the way they drew me into the life of the Trinity, without being aware of it, through our daily family life, especially our evening meals together.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are often referred to as the three monotheistic faiths. Those who belong to these three faiths believe in only One God. I have often heard Catholics say in a well-meaning way, 'We all believe in the same God.' But that is not so. Only Christians believe in a God who is a communion of persons. And only Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God who became Man, who died for us on the Cross and rose again form the dead on Easter Sunday.

Pope Francis has very forcefully reminded us that while the Most Holy Trinity is a mystery that we can never fathom, the Triune God is intimately part of our lives, especially through the sacrament of matrimony and the family: The word of God tells us that the family is entrusted to a man, a woman and their children, so that they may become a communion of persons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Prayer before the meal 

Adriaen Jansz van Ostade [Web Gallery of Art]

Glory be to the Father . . .

Sung in Latin by the monks of San Pedro Monastery

I cannot find any information on the location of this monastery in Spain.

Traditional Latin Mass

Trinity Sunday

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 06-12-2022 if necessary).

Epistle: Romans 11:33-36. Gospel: Matthew 28:18-20.

Communion Antiphon (TLM) 

Tobias [Tobit] 12:6

Music by James MacMillan; sung by Sydney Chamber Choir

Benedicimus Deum caeli, et coram omnibus viventibus confitebimur ei: quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.

We bless the God of heaven, and before all living we will praise Him because He has shown His mercy to us.

What I saw that day more than 40 years ago was an expression of God's pure love. Sunday Reflections, 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

 

River Bank in Springtime

Vincent van Gogh [Wikipedia; source]

He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit (Jeremiah 17:8; First Reading).

He is like a tree
    planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
    and its leaf does not wither (Psalm 1:3; Resposnorial Psalm).

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 6:17, 20-26 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)  

Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon.

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

“Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.

“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”

 Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Prayer Before the Meal

Adriaen Jansz van Ostade [Web Gallery of Art]

More than 40 years ago when I was in charge of a small formation house for young men preparing for the diocesan priesthood in Mindanao, Philippines, I came to know a young girl named Patricia. She had just turned ten when we first met. I learned that her father had died when she was an infant. She 'adopted' me and called me Tatay, Dad, as she still does. She is now a widow and a grandmother.

The first time I visited her home, a small wooden structure built on stilts, I thought that it might fall over. Patricia's family, like most of the families around them, were poor, though not destitute. They struggled from day to day and managed to get by.

Very often after class in the public elementary school Patricia would drop by the formation house for a chat. One day when we were talking in the dining room upstairs we heard the 'clump-clump-clump' of somebody coming up the stairs wearing heavy boots and carrying a staff. It was a man named William Smith, probably the poorest person I have ever met. It was believed that his father had been an American soldier. William was tall and thin, never looked healthy, had very poor sight and had no home of his own. Sometimes children would tease him in a disrespectful way. He would go from parish to parish and the priests, mostly Columbans, would give him a place to sleep, food, clothes, shoes and some money. After a few days he would head off to another parish. Poor William went to his reward when struck by a truck one day. May he rest in peace.

When William arrived at the top of the stairs Patricia went over to him, took him by the hand, sat him down at a table and brought him something to eat and to drink. I asked her some years later if she remembered this incident. She had no recollection whatever of it.

The Infant Jesus Distributing Bread to Pilgrims

Murillo [Web Gallery of Art]

St Matthew's first beatitude reads, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The New English Bible translation of this is, How blest are those who know their need of God; the kingdom of heaven is theirs. I find that latter translation very helpful.

 
St Luke's version has a different emphasis. He shows us Jesus speaking about those who are economically poor. Jesus is also, I think, giving a message of hope pointing towards eternal life where the injustice that is the cause of so much economic poverty will no longer have any force, where God's will reigns. The words of Jesus also call us to work for a world in the here and now where economic poverty caused by greed and injustice no longer exists.

Jesus has very harsh words for those whose focus is only on the present life and the ultimately shallow 'rewards' so much of it offers: But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

God reveals himself as Love in so many 'insignificant' moments. What I saw that day more than 40 years ago was an expression of God's pure love: a child who was poor serving an adult who had absolutely nothing of his own. Patricia was blessed by God in serving William and he was blessed by God in being served by a child. I have been blessed by this little incident ever since. The kingdom of God broke through that afternoon. 

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Antiphona ad Communionem

Communion Antiphon (Cf Psalm 77 [78]:29-30).

Manducaverunt, et saturaviti sunt nimis, [They ate and had their fill,] 

et desiderium eorum attulit eis Dominus, [and what they craved the Lord gave them;] 

non sunt fraudati a desiderio suo. [they were not disappointed in what they craved.]

Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) 

Septuagesima Sunday 

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 02-13-2022 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 10:1-5.  Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16.

SAINT Valentine's Day

Shrine of St Valentine, Whitefriar St, Dublin

Monday 14 February is SAINT Valentine's Day, not 'Valentine's Day'. He was a Roman priest martyred for officiating at weddings when the pagan emperor of the day forbade that. His feast day is celebrated by those who use the Roman Missal of 1962 authorised by Pope St John XXIII in the year that the Second Vatican Council began.

You can read about the saint on the website of the Carmelite Friars (OCarm), Whitefriar Street, Dublin. 

'For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.' Sunday Reflections, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Prayer Before a Meal

Adriaen Jansz van Ostade [Web Gallery of Art]

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them (Matthew 18:20).

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 (English Standard Version Anglicised)

Jesus said to his disciples:

'If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 

'Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 

'Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.'

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

During my primary school years I came to know an exceptional person, Brother Mícheál. S. Ó Flaitile, known to us as ‘Pancho’ from the sidekick of the Cisco Kid, a syndicated comic-strip [above] that we used to read in The Irish Press, an Irish daily newspaper that no longer exists. 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 during my primary school years 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’. Maybe 'a man of noble character' would be a better translation. A stare from him made you feel humbled, but not humiliated. He had the kind of authority that Jesus had, that we read about in the gospels.

I remember one event in our last year. ‘Pancho’ used to take the A and B sections - another set of teachers taught the C and D sections - for religion class together during the last period before lunch every day. One day he scolded a student in the B section for something or other that was trivial 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 in his late 50s 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 the apology of our revered teacher was for me a formative moment, a moment when I experienced the truth of the words in today's Gospel: For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. I mentioned the incident to Brother Ó Flaitile  many years later when he was in his 80s. He told me he didn’t remember it, but he smiled. He died in the late 1980s. 

The Merciful Christ

Juan Martínez Montañes [Web Gallery of Art]

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 almost immediately felt remorse. He went back to ‘Pancho’ and apologized. The Brother accepted this totally and unconditionally and never referred to the incident again.

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 your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother

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.

After my father, I don't think that anyone else had such a formative influence on me when I was young as 'Pancho'. Solas na bhFlaitheas ar an mbeirt acu - The Light of Heaven on both of them.

A Thiarna, déan Trócaire

Setting by Patrick Davey from his Aifreann Feirste (Belfast Mass)

A Thiarna, déan Trócaire;

Lord, have mercy;

A Chríost (a Chríost), dean trócaire.

Christ (Christ), have mercy.

Brother Ó Flaitile had a great love for the Irish language and a keen sense of the artistic. I think he would have liked Patrick Davey's setting of the Kyrie.

+++

Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Tuesday 8 September

Birth of the Virgin

Jerónimo Antonio Ezquerra [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings for Mass from the New American Bible Lectionary.

Readings for Mass from the Jerusalem Bible Lectionary.

Ave Regina Caelorum

Composed by Cipriano de Rore, sung by the VOCES8 Foundation Choir

Ave Regina caelorum,

Mater Regis angelorum,

O Maria, flos virginum,

Velut rosa vel lilium.

Funde preces ad Dominum

Pro salute fidelium.

Amen.

Hail, Queen of Heaven,

Mother of the King of Angels,

O Mary, flower of Virgins,

Like a rose or a lily;

Pour out prayers to the Lord

For the salvation of the faithful,

Amen.

This is a different hymn from the Ave, Regina Caelorum that is sung or recited at the end of Compline (Night Prayer), especially from the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on 2 February through Wednesday of Holy Week.