Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
Showing posts with label Fr Rufus Halley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fr Rufus Halley. Show all posts
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again (Mark 8: 31; Gospel).
Readings(Jerusalem
Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)
GospelMark 8:27-35(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea
Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”And they
told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one
of the prophets.”And
he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”And he strictly charged them to tell no one
about him.
And he began to teach them that the
Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and
the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise
again.And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and
began to rebuke him.But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and
said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not
setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come
after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.For whoever
would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my
sake and the gospel's will save it.
On 28 August 2001 my Columban confrere and friend Fr Rufus Halley, was ambushed while on his motorcycle from Balabagan to nearby Malabang, his parish in Lanao del Sur, Philippines, and murdered. This was in the the Prelature of Marawi, sometimes called the Prelature of St Mary's in Marawi, in a predominantly Muslim area of Mindanao, the southern island that is larger than Ireland.
After spending ten years or so in a rural parish near Manila he felt called by God to go to the Prelature of Marawi around 1980 where he learned Cebuano, the language of the Christians there, and Maranao, the language of most of the Muslims. He became fluent in both, as he was in Tagalog, now the basis of the national language, Filipino.
Father Rufus chose to live in a situation where for centuries there had been tension and, at times, violence. Ten years before he went to Marawi there had been civil war in the area.
At the heart of his life each day was the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and an hour's adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Both Christians and Muslims saw him as a man of God. He was deeply influenced by the spirituality of St Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), a French priest who spent most of his priestly life living among Muslims in the Sahara, spending much time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and welcoming the Muslims who knocked on his door looking for help.
Father Rufus was an active member of the Jesus Caritas Fraternity of Priests, an international movement inspired by the spirituality of St Charles. St Charles was murdered in the Sahara on 1 December 1916.
He was very aware of the possible danger he lived with daily but was deeply respected and loved by those who knew him, Christian and Muslim. On one occasion he was invited to mediate between two warring Maranao clans, a truly extraordinary situation. With God's help he succeeded.
This heroic priest, who came from a wealthy background in County Waterford, Ireland, chose to live very frugally. In a letter to his father he explained, My needs are few and one of the things I feel called to do is to make my life a little simpler. This vision, if that's what you'd call it, comes from trying to be a follower of a poor man, and also, from the poverty on a grand scale which I've seen in the Philippines.
St George Maronite Cathedral and Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque, side by side in Beirut
Pope Benedict XVI visited Lebanon from 14-16 September 2012. Lebanon is a country that has seen much conflict down the centuries. Roughly 60 percent of the people are Muslims and 40 percent Christians. In his homily on the last day of his visit, which used the readings of this Sunday's Mass, some of his words might have been about Father Rufus: Following Jesus means taking up one’s cross and walking in his footsteps, along a difficult path which leads not to earthly power or glory but, if necessary, to self-abandonment, to losing one’s life for Christ and the Gospel in order to save it. We are assured that this is the way to the resurrection, to true and definitive life with God.
Choosing to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, who made
himself the Servant of all, requires drawing ever closer to him, attentively
listening to his word and drawing from it the inspiration for all that we do.
Prayer of Abandonment of St Charles de Foucauld
The Prayer of Abandonment of St Charles de Foucauld was central to the life of Fr Rufus Halley.
Traditional Latin Mass
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 09-15-2022 if necessary).
GospelMatthew 18:15:20 (English Standard Version
Anglicised, India)
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.”
Fr Rufus Halley, from County Waterford in Ireland, was one year behind me in the seminary. We both worked in the Philippines. After working in Luzon for many years, where he had become fluent in Tagalog, he asked to be transferred to the predominantly Muslin Prelature of Marawi in Mindanao where we Columbans had worked for many years. There he became fluent in two more Filipino languages, Cebuano-Visayan, spoken by the Christians in the Prelature, and Maranao, spoken by the majority of Muslims in that area. Over the years he built up great trust with many Muslims. There was a long history of mistrust between the two communities. At times this broke out into warfare.
Because of the trust he had built up he received an extraordinary request: to mediate in a dispute between two Muslim clans that could become violent. This was an extraordinary request at three levels: he was a foreigner, a Christian and a priest. He agreed to the request but sought the advice of a Muslim elder who wasn't involved in the dispute.
There was much going back and forth between the two leaders, and visits to the elder for guidance, but it finally reached the point where the two leaders agreed to meet in the presence of Father Rufus. There was still an air of tension when they came together. However, they agreed to end the dispute. A few days later the Columban priest happened to drop by the house of one of the two leaders. He found the other there, the two of them drinking coffee and laughing together.
This whole event was one of the highlights of Father Rufus's life and his face would light up whenever he would recount it.
For me, Father Rufus was living out today's gospel in a very difficult situation. His goal was, with God's grace, to bring about peace and reconciliation. The leaders of the two clans were also men of faith and the words of Jesus were realised: For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.
On the afternoon of 28 August 2001, the feast of St Augustine, Father Rufus was ambushed while on his way home on his motorcycle from an interfaith meeting with Muslim religious leaders and shot dead.
Where did Father Rufus draw his strength from? His close friend Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Archbishop Emeritus of Manila, wrote in an article for Misyon, the magazine of the Columbans in the Philippines of which I was editor at the time. In the last two paragraphs of his article Cardinal Rosales wrote:
I knew of the intensity with which Father Rufus lived his own Christian faith, how he began each day with an hour of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, the centrality of the Mass in his life. A big influence on him was the life of Blessed Charles de Foucauld, 1858-1916, beatified on 13 November 2005. This Frenchman was also from a privileged background. Unlike Pareng Rufus, he lost his Catholic faith and became a notorious playboy before re-discovering it, partly through the example of Muslims living in North Africa. He spent many years as a priest living among the poorest Muslims in a remote corner of the Sahara, pioneering Christian-Muslim dialogue by discovering himself as the Little Brother of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and as the Little Brother of the Muslims who came knocking at his hermitage door.
(Pope France canonised Charles de Foucauld last year. Pareng is a Tagalog word expressing respect for a male friend.)
On 1 December 1916 Charles de Foucauld died at the hands of a young
gunman outside his hermitage and on 28 August 2001 Pareng Rufus
died at the hands of gunmen who ambushed him as he was riding on his motorcycle
from a meeting of Muslim and Christian leaders in Balabagan to his parish in
Malabang. The local people, both Christian and Muslim, mourned for him deeply.
The grief of the Muslims was all the greater because the men who murdered
my Pareng Rufus happened to be Muslims. The death of this great
missionary priest brought both communities together in their shared grief for a
man of God, a true follower of Jesus Christ.
What a magnificent and worthy setting for the
celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!
I am preparing Sunday Reflections on the Feast of the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Last week I came across the video below on Facebook and shared it. It is a setting of the Hail Mary and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as the Litany of Loreto, by Sam C. Ezugwu, and performed by Trinity Choir, St Luke's Catholic Church, Kubwa, and Amemuso Choir. The full credits are at the end of the video. Kubwa is located in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.
Columban Ordinations
in the Philippines
On Saaaturday 9 September at 4:00PM local time Bishop Honesto F. Ongtioco of Cubao will ordain two Columban seminarians to the diaconate in the chapel of our formation house in Quezon City. One is Iowane Naio from Fiji, the other Nbwi La Aung, Francis Xavier from Myanmar, the first Columban from that country to become a deacon. The Columbans first went to Fiji in 1952 and to Myanmar, then Burma, in 1936.
Please remember our two young deacons in your prayers.
Traditional Latin Mass
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English ishere. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 09-10-2023 if necessary).
Epistle: Galatians 5:25-26; 6:1-10.Gospel: Luke 7:11-16.
GospelMatthew 5:38-48 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)
Jesus said to his
disciples:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is
evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the
other also.And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic,[a] let him have your cloak as well.And if anyone forces you to go one
mile, go with him two miles.Give to the one who begs from you, and do not
refuse the one who would borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall
love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray
for those who persecute you,so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.
For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on
the just and on the unjust.For if you love those who love you, what reward do you
have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than
others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?You therefore must be perfect, as
your heavenly Father is perfect.”
FrRufus Halley was one year behind me in the Columban seminary in Ireland. We were close friends. He came to the Philippines in 1969, two years before I did. He spent his early years in the country in Tagalog-speaking parishes in an area of the Archdiocese of Manila south of the metropolitan area, now the Diocese of Antipolo. He was fluent in the language. After about ten years he began to feel a clear call from God to leave the security of working in an area overwhelmingly Christian and mostly Catholic to a part of Mindanao where Columbans had worked for many years that is overwhelmingly Muslim, the Prelature of Marawi. There he became fluent in two more Filipino languages, Meranao, spoken by the majority of Muslims in the area, and Cebuano, spoken by most of the Christians. Both Muslims and Christians saw Father Rufus as a man of prayer, a man of peace, a man of God. He spent an hour each day before the Blessed Sacrament. Over the years he earned the trust of some Muslim leaders despite the long history of distrust between Muslims and Christians that sometimes led to outright conflict. Because of the trust he had built up he, a foreigner, a Christian and a Catholic priest, got an extraordinary request: to mediate in a feud between two groups of Meranaos. Father Rufus saw this as another call from God and agreed. He also sought the advice of a Muslim elder who wasn't involved in the conflict. Over a period of many weeks he was going back and forth between the leaders of the two factions until eventually they agreed to meet. The morning of the meeting was filled with tension but when the leaders arrived they agreed to end the feud. A week or so later Father Rufus dropped into the house of one of the leaders of the conflict and, to his delight, saw a leader of the other faction having coffee with him, the two men engaged in a lively, friendly conversation into which they invited the Irish priest. Father Rufus used to speak about this event as the highlight of the twenty years he spent living among Muslims, a period when tension was seldom absent from his life and where there was often danger. Though a person who had a naturally optimistic disposition - five minutes in his company would get rid of any 'blues' you might feel - that didn't keep him going. His Christian hope and faith did.
Father Rufus with young friends
On the afternoon of 29 August 2001 while returning on his motorcycle from an inter-faith meeting in Balabagan, Lanao del Sur, to Malabang, maybe five or six kilometres away and where he was assigned, Father Rufus was ambushed by a group of men who happened to be Muslims and shot dead.
Both Christians and Muslims were devastated by his death.
Father Rufus came from a privileged background and could have entered any profession. But he chose to answer God's call to be a missionary priest. Our Columban superiors sent him to the Philippines.
He later chose, in answer to God's call and with the blessing of our superiors, to go to a very difficult mission. That choice led to twenty years of joyful service there to Catholics and Muslims. It also led to his death.
Father Rufus wasn't the enemy of anyone. Because of that and because they saw him as a man of God, two groups of Muslims who were enemies accepted him as a mediator. He wasn't a man to greet only your brothers and sisters but one who crossed barriers.
The closing words of Jesus in today's gospel are You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. For years my understanding of becoming perfect in this sense was of a blueprint like that of an architect. If you found this blueprint and built according to its specifications then you'd have a perfect product.
But a building is inanimate.
However, I found a very different image of perfection in Story of a Soul, the autobiography of St Thérèse of Lisieux: Perfection consists simply in doing his will, and being just what he wants us to be.This is an image of a living being, of a unique being. God's will gradually unfolded in the life of Father Rufus, as a flower unfolds, the growth being silent and hardly noticeable most of the time.
I see in the stages of the life of Father Rufus, whose baptismal name was Michael, a testimony of the truth of the words of St Thérèse and a model of how we can follow the words of Jesus. Through his daily prayer, his daily faithfulness, his responding to God's will at crucial moments in his life, he became what God willed him to be: a Catholic priest who as he laid in death on the side of a road in a remote area of the southern Philippines, became an even stronger bridge between Christians and Muslims, a man who in life and death showed the true face of Jesus Christ, God who became Man out of love for all of us.
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Author of the original Latin unknown; English translation below by St John Henry Cardinal Newman
Ánima Christi, sanctífica me.Soul of Christ, be my sanctification; Corpus Christi, salva me. Body of Christ, be my salvation; Sanguis Christi, inébria me. Blood of Christ, fill all my veins; Aqua láteris Christi, lava me. Water of Christ's side, wash out my stains; Pássio Christi, confórta me. Passion of Christ, my comfort be; O bone Iesu, exáudi me. O good Jesus, listen to me; Intra tua vúlnera abscónde me. In Thy wounds I fain would hide; Ne permíttas me separári a te. Ne'er to be parted from Thy side; Ab hoste malígno defénde me. Guard me, should the foe assail me; In hora mortis meæ voca me. Call me when my life shall fail me; Et iube me veníre ad te, Bid me come to Thee above, ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te With Thy saints to sing Thy love, in sǽcula sæculórum. Amen. World without end. Amen.
Traditional Latin Mass
Quinquagesima Sunday
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 02-19-2023 if necessary).
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. Gospel: Luke 18:31-43.
No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62, today's Gospel).
I am posting this early because I will be in Lourdes from 20 to 27 June and will not be doing any work on the computer. The post for 19 June, Corpus Christi Sunday, 19 June, is here.
Readings(Jerusalem Bible:
Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand,
Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
GospelLuke 9:51-62 (English Standard Version
Anglicised: India)
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set
his face to go to Jerusalem.And he
sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the
Samaritans, to make preparations for him.But the people did not receive him, because his
face was set towards Jerusalem.And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord,
do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”But
he turned and rebuked them.And
they went on to another village.
As they were going along the
road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”And
Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of
the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me
first go and bury my father.”And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go
and proclaim the kingdom of God.”Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me
first say farewell to those at my home.”Jesus said to him, “No one who
puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Columban Fr Rufus Halley (1944 - 28 August
2001) with friends in Mindanao
Jesus speaks clearly to us in Sunday's gospel about
the cost of following him. Christians are still prepared to give up their very
lives to follow Jesus. One example is Fr Rufus Halley, killed on 28 August 2001
in the Philippines. He was a close friend of mine and a Columban confrere.
Father Rufus was from County Waterford in Ireland. He entered the Columbans one
year after me, in 1962, and was from a relatively wealthy family. But he lived
very simply and chose to spend the last 20 years of his life in a predominantly
Muslim area in Mindanao, an area where for centuries there has been distrust,
and sometimes open hostility, between Christians and Muslims.
Many of us tend to react as James and John did in a
'them and us' situation. Not Father Rufus. He chose the path of dialogue,
learning two new Philippine languages in order to do that - he was already fluent
in Tagalog, the language spoken in central Luzon where he had worked for many
years - Maranao, the language of most of the Muslims in Lanao del Sur where he
was based, and Cebuano, the language of most of the Christian minority there.
He was ambushed and shot dead while riding back to
his parish in Malabang from the neighbouring parish of Balabagan. He had been
at a meeting of Christian and Muslim leaders. Though the killers happened to be
Muslims, both Christians and Muslims mourned him.
Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, then
Archbishop of Manila, now retired, wrote an article about Father Rufus, who was
known to many as ‘Father Popong’, published in Misyon in July-August
2006.
Fr Rufus Halley
In the last two
paragraphs of his article Cardinal Rosales writes:
I knew of the intensity with which Father Rufus lived his own Christian faith,
how he began each day with an hour of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament,
the centrality of the Mass in his life. A big influence on him was the life of
Blessed Charles de Foucauld, 1858-1916, beatified on 13 November 2005. This
Frenchman was also from a privileged background. Unlike Pareng Rufus,
he lost his Catholic faith and became a notorious playboy before
re-discovering it, partly through the example of Muslims living in North
Africa. He spent many years as a priest living among the poorest Muslims in a
remote corner of the Sahara, pioneering Christian-Muslim dialogue by
discovering himself as the Little Brother of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and
as the Little Brother of the Muslims who came knocking at his hermitage door.
Pope Francis canonised St Charles on 15 May this year.
On 1 December 1916 Charles de Foucauld died at
the hands of a young gunman outside his hermitage and on 28 September 2001 Pareng Rufus
died at the hands of gunmen who ambushed him as he was riding on his motorcycle
from a meeting of Muslim and Christian leaders in Balabagan to his parish in
Malabang. The local people, both Christian and Muslim, mourned for him deeply.
The grief of the Muslims was all the greater because the men who murdered
my Pareng Rufus happened to be Muslims. The death of this great missionary
priest brought both communities together in their shared grief for a man of
God, a true follower of Jesus Christ.
Plaudite Manibus (Psalm 46[47]:2-3, 6-7, 2-3)
Composed by Branko Stark, performed by Thai Youth
Choir conducted by Dr Pawasut Piriyapongrat
Branko Stark is a contemporary Croatian composer.
Only 1.13 per cent of the population of Thailand is Christian so it is quite
possible that there are no Christians in this choir.
The setting above includes the
words of today's Entrance Antiphon, in bold below, taken from
the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible.
Antiphona ad introitumEntrance Antiphon Ps 46[47]:2
Omnes gentes,
plaudite manibus; jubilate Deo in voce exsultationis:quoniam Dominus excelsus,
terribilis, rex magnus super omnem terram.
Clap your hands, all you
peoples; shout to God with loud songs of joy. For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome, a great king over all the earth.
Ascendit Deus in jubilo, et Dominus in voce tubae.Psallite Deo nostro, psallite;
psallite regi nostro, psallite;
God has gone up with
a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.Sing
praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises.
Omnes gentes,
plaudite manibus; jubilate Deo in voce exsultationis:quoniam Dominus excelsus,
terribilis, rex magnus super omnem terram.
Clap your hands, all
you peoples; shout to God with loud songs of joy. For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome, a great king over all the earth.
Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy) 36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin
language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.
Vatican II, while it introduced the use of the mother tongue, did not banish
Latin from the Mass and other liturgies!
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 06-26-2022 if necessary).
Mocking of Christ
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