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 Frank Patterson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Patterson. Show all posts
Bring flowers of the rarest bring blossoms the fairest, from garden and woodland and hillside and dale; our full hearts are swelling, our glad voices telling the praise of the loveliest flower of the vale!
Refrain: O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today! Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May. O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.
Their lady they name thee, Their mistress proclaim thee, Oh, grant that thy children on earth be as true as long as the bowers are radiant with flowers, as long as the azure shall keep its bright hue
Refrain
Sing gaily in chorus; the bright angels o'er us re-echo the strains we begin upon earth; their harps are repeating the notes of our greeting, for Mary herself is the cause of our mirth.
Refrain
Request for Prayers
May I ask your prayers for Mariette VandenMunckhof-Vedder and her husband Pieter. Mariette frequently
comments on my blog. Pieter is very ill at the moment. Mariette blogs at
Mariette’s Back to Basics.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit exults in God my Saviour (Luke 1:36-37; Gospel).
I just marvel at the vibrancy of this painting of El Greco. For me it is a dance of life, Mary carrying the Word made flesh and Elizabeth carrying John the Baptist.
Let all rejoice in the Lord and make a festive day in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Introit).
In the calendar used by those who celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass in the Missal of Pope St John XXIII issued in 1962 this feast is celebrated on 31 May. However, this year that falls during the Octave of Pentecost, a First Class octave, and so the feast will not be celebrated this year.
Bring Flowers of the Rarest
This hymn, very popular in Ireland particularly in May, was written by Mary E. Walsh in the late 1800s. The words are here. It was sung by the late Irish tenor Frank Patterson at the Faith of Our Fathers concert in Dublin in 1997. Frank was a deeply committed Catholic and died in 2000 at the age of 61. May he rest in peace.
This hymn, very popular in Ireland particularly in May, was written by Mary E. Walsh in the late 1800s. The words are here. It was sung by the late Irish tenor Frank Patterson at the Faith of Our Fathers concert in Dublin in 1997. Frank was a deeply committed Catholic and died in 2000 at the age of 61. May he rest in peace.
This Gregorian chant setting of the Mass is sung on Solemnities and Feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is sung here by the Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis, Milan.
Virgin and Child in a Stone Niche, Surrounded by Garland of Flowers
GospelJohn 15:9-17(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
Jesus said to his disciples:
As the
Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.If you keep my
commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my
Father's commandments and abide in his love.These
things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your
joy may be full.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as
I have loved you.Greater love
has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.You are my friends if you do what I
command you.No
longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his
master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard
from my Father I have made known to you.You did not choose me, but I chose you
and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit
should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give
it to you.These
things I command you, so that you will love one another.”
If ye love
me, keep my commandments,
and I will pray the Father,
and he shall give you another comforter,
that he may 'bide with you forever,
e'en the spirit of truth. (John 14:15-17)
This is a
setting by Thomas Tallis (c.1505 - 1585) of today's Communion Antiphon, with
the first part of John 14:17 added.
Communion
Antiphon Antiphona ad communionem (Jn 14:15-16)
Si diligitis me, mandata mea servate, dicit
Dominus. Et ego rogabo Patrem, et alium Paraclitum dabit vobis, ut maneat
vobiscum in aeternum, alleluia.
If you love me, keep my commandments, says the
Lord,and I will ask the Father and he
will send you another Paraclete, to abide with you for ever, alleluia.
In May 2015 I gave a retreat to the Missionary
Sisters of the Catechism in Lipa City, south of Manila. The Sisters have a
house dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe where they take care of elderly and
sick women whom they refer to as the lolas, the 'grandmas'. In
another part of the compound they had at the time a group of orphans, five
young boys and six young girls. (If my memory is correct the Sisters were
planning to build an orphanage). Four of the boys served Mass every morning,
including 'Zacchaeus', as the Sisters called him, the youngest of the boys and
small, proudly wearing his white cassock like the others. 'Zacchaeus' wasn't
yet old enough to make his First Holy Communion or First Confession. His role
as a server was to hold up the small white towel - and he really had to stretch
to do so - when the priest washed his hands during the Offertory.
The youngest of the girls was Chiara, aged four or
five at the time. The children were present at lunch on the last day of the
retreat, which had a celebratory air to it. I noticed after I had said Grace
Before Meals that Chiara was somewhat tearful. Then I discovered that on such
occasions she led the community in a Hail Mary as part of Grace. So the Sisters
encouraged her to do so even though this visiting priest had pre-empted
her. After a little hesitation and the drying of her tears she prayerfully led
us all in the Hail Mary and then invoked the protectors of the Congregation -
Mother of Good Counsel, St Joseph, St Veronica Giuliani, St Gemma Galgani and
St Bernadette Soubirous.
During the retreat I told a number of stories of
seemingly insignificant events where God had revealed himself to me through the
actions of children and of older persons without their being aware of it. Then
on the way back to Manila after the retreat Sister Evelyn Cortes SMC, whose
family I have I have known since she was in high school in Tangub City, Misamis
Occidental, and Sister Eppie Resano SMC told me a story about Chiara where she
showed an understanding of what this Sunday's Second Reading is all about,
without being aware of it.
Beloved, let
us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born
of God and knows God.Anyone who does not love does not know God,
because God is love.In this the love of God was made manifest among us,
that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through
him.In this is love, not that we have loved
God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for
our sins (1 John 4:7-10).
Some time before I gave the retreat a missionary
priest visited the Sisters and celebrated Mass for them. Little Chiara saw him
as being very severe in his demeanour. After Mass she tugged on his cassock and
asked him, Father, are you angry with God? It seems that the
following morning he wasn't quite as severe looking!
Some may be angry with God. I don't think that God
is too perturbed about that when he knows that the source of our anger may be
bewilderment over tragedies in our lives, for example, just as we allow those
whom we love to vent their anger on us because basically they trust us and we
have some idea of the source of their anger.
Perhaps a more common experience, especially among
persons who are serious about following Jesus faithfully but who try to live as
if God's love had to be earned, as if it could be earned, is the idea that
God is angry with us.
St John tells us so beautifully what the situation
really is: In this is
love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his
Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Most of the Gospel readings on the Sundays and
weekdays of Easter are taken from John 13-17, the Last Supper Discourse in
which Jesus speaks to each of us with intense love about the intimacy into
which he calls each of us through our baptism. In today's Gospel Jesus says to
each of us, speaking from his heart to ours - Cor ad cor loquiter,
'Heart speaks to heart', as St John Henry Cardinal Newman emphasised on his
coat-of-arms - As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide
in my love . . . This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have
loved you . . . You are my friends . . . You did not choose me, but I chose you
. . . The initiative comes from God. Love comes from God and our loving
response to that love is itself a gift from God. We do not and cannot earn
God's love. God who is love gives us himself as pure gift.
How can such a God be angry with us and how can we be angry - choosing to
remain angry as distinct from a spontaneous feeling - with such a God? In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10).
For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the poor with salvation (Psalm 149:4, Grail translation).
Bring flowers of the rarest bring blossoms the fairest, from garden and woodland and hillside and dale; our full hearts are swelling, our glad voices telling the praise of the loveliest flower of the vale!
Refrain: O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today! Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May. O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.
Their lady they name thee, Their mistress proclaim thee, Oh, grant that thy children on earth be as true as long as the bowers are radiant with flowers, as long as the azure shall keep its bright hue
Refrain
Sing gaily in chorus; the bright angels o'er us re-echo the strains we begin upon earth; their harps are repeating the notes of our greeting, for Mary herself is the cause of our mirth.
Refrain
Extraordinary Form of the Mass
Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)
Fifth Sunday after Easter
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 5-9-2021 if necessary).
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.
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England &
Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
GospelJohn 14:1-12 (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition, Canada)
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘Do not let
your hearts be troubled. Believe[a] in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there
are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to
prepare a place for you?And if I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may
be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’Thomas
said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the
way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen
him.’
Philip
said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said
to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know
me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the
Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in
me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who
dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the
Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very
truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do
and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the
Father.
About 45 or 46 years ago I gave a
live-in weekend retreat to students graduating from a high school for girls in
the Philippines run by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. Most of the girls
were aged around 16. As the weekend went on I noticed one girl - I'll call her
‘Lucy’ - who was small in stature and behaving rather immaturely, though not
misbehaving. At times she would be running around like a child in kindergarten.
The retreatants had an opportunity, insofar as time allowed, to meet me
individually in the home economics building. As is usual on such occasions
tears would be shed. When Lucy noticed tear-stains on some of her classmates
she laughed at them
But then she came to see me. There was a life-size
inflatable doll in the room. She clung on to it and cried her heart out for
five or ten minutes before I could get her to calm down. Then she said to
me, Father, my parents give me everything I want. But they never ask me
'How did you do in school today?' And they never even scold me.
Lucy could see clearly, because of its absence in
her life, what perhaps most of her companions at their age didn't: the daily
reality of the love of their parents, sometimes expressed in scolding.
Nobody likes a scolding but most of us, when we
reflect on it, see it as a sign of care, of love. I've told the story of Lucy
to many groups of young people over the years and have always got nods of
recognition.
When Philip asked him, Lord, show us the
Father, and we will be satisfied, I wonder if Jesus felt some mild
exasperation? This incident reminds me of what the father in the story of the
Prodigal Son said to the elder son, Son,
you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours (Luke 15:31). The well behaved son had failed to see this, as he
failed to see the wonder of this brother of yours was dead and has come
to life; he was lost and has been found (Luke 15:32).
After the sudden death of Columban Fr
Patrick Sheehy at the age of 80 in St Columban's, Ireland, where I have been
living since 2017, in December 1999 his fellow Columbans living there, many of
them retired and/or infirm, began to notice that certain little things weren't
being done anymore, such as letters and newspapers being delivered to priests
unable to get around easily. When Father Pat retired he took it upon himself to
do such little things for others, without being asked and without being noticed
too much.
It was only in its absence that
many saw clearly the quiet, loving thoughtfulness of Father Pat, just as Lucy
saw clearly in its absence what she longed for. Father Pat, who had experienced
being expelled from China five years after going there, followed by many years
of service as a priest in Japan, interrupted for a couple of years because of poor
health, was able to choose to show us the Father to his
brother priests, without fanfare. Lucy through her immature behaviour was
crying out, without being aware of it, Show us the Father.
We are in the middle of the Easter
Season when we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, celebrating that fact that,
in the words of St Peter in the second reading today, weare a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you
may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his
marvellous light(1 Peter 2:9). God's mighty acts are perhaps most often seen in the
'little acts' of those around us. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to countless acts of kindness by individuals and by groups. Every loving act has its origin in that community of perfect love that we call the Holy Trinity, even if the giver or receiver is unaware of it. But Christians see Jesus present in others, especially in persons in need. Jesus has told us this specifically: Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,[g] you did it to me (Matthew 25:40).
The readings invite us to see the
Father's presence in the daily realities of our lives, the many blessings that
come to us through others and that we often don't see clearly as blessings. And
the readings invite us to be aware of the many 'Lucys' around us who in one way
or another are crying out, Show us the Father. St John Paul II in his encyclical Redemptor Hominis, No 10,put it this way: Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This, as has already been said, is why Christ the Redeemer 'fully reveals man to himself'. If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity.
'Lucy' would be in her early 60s
now. I've no idea what became of her but my meeting her so many years ago in her moment of need was a blessing not only for her but remains a blessing for me. Perhaps each of us might offer a
prayer for her.
The Call
Words by George Herbert, music by Ralph Vaughan Williams
Sung by the King's College Choir, Cambridge
Come,
my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such
a Way, as gives us breath:
Such
a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such
a Life, as killeth death.
Come,
my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such
a Light, as shows a feast:
Such
a Feast, as mends in length:
Such
a Strength, as makes his guest.
Come,
my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such
a Joy, as none can move:
Such
a Love, as none can part:
Such
a Heart, as joys in love.
George Herbert (1593-1633) was born in Wales and became a priest in the Church of England, serving in a rural parish in Wiltshire where he was noted for his commitment to the spiritual and physical needs of the people, especially of the poor. His poetry reflects his deep Christian faith. A number of his poems, The Call among them, are included in The Divine Office (Breviary, Liturgy of the Hours) used in Australia, England & Wales, Ireland and Scotland. In this poem Herbert draws on the words of Jesus in today's gospel: I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
Music for the Easter Season
Regina Coeli Setting by Palestrina, sung by The Sixteen
This popular hymn to the Blessed Mother is not an Easter song as such, but is associated with the month of May in which Catholics honour the Virgin Mary in a particular way. And a substantial part of May, sometimes the whole month, falls within the Easter Season. This recording by the late Irish tenor Frank Patterson is from the Faith of Our Fathers condert in Dublin in 1996.
