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 Henryk Jan Botor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henryk Jan Botor. Show all posts
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
GospelLuke 23:35-43 (New Revised
Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition, Canada)
And the
people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at Jesus, saying, ‘He saved
others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen
one!’ The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour
wine, and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save
yourself!’ There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King
of the Jews.’
One of the
criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not
the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked
him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of
condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting
what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then
he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you
will be with me in Paradise.’
About nine years ago Dominican friar in Dublin told me about one of his confreres who was to celebrate Mass one morning in a nearby Sisters' convent. Since it was only a short walk he decided to wear his habit. (It was the Dominican habit that first caught my imagination about the priesthood when I was six or seven, though later on I never considered joining the Dominicans.) Along the way the friar met a Sister from another convent who chided him for being so 'old-fashioned' or 'pre-Vatican 2' or words to that effect. A little further on a young man stopped him. This was the conversation that followed:
You're a priest, right?
Yes.
Well I'm getting married tomorrow and I need to go to confession.
So Father heard the young man's confession on the street and went on his 'pre-Vatican 2' way to celebrate Mass.
Today's Gospel shows us Jesus hanging on the Cross under a sign that said in Greek, Hebrew and Latin 'King of the Jews'. And the Kingdom he came to establish broke through in the conversation between him and one of the two thieves crucified with him.
The brief conversation that St Luke records shows us what the Sacrament of Confession is all about. This young man acknowledged his sinful ways and accepted the punishment he received. He recognised the innocence of Jesus and saw in him something that spoke profoundly to him of God's love and mercy. It is very unlikely that he could see that Jesus was indeed God who became Man. But he saw in him a man of God and saw in some way the true nature of the Kingdom that Jesus had established.
Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
GospelLuke 9:28b-36 (New Revised Standard
Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition)
Jesus took with him Peter
and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed,
and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses
and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of
his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter
and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed
awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master,
it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you,
one for Moses, and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said. While he was
saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as
they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This
is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ When the voice had spoken,
Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any
of the things they had seen.
[The LORD] brought [Abram]
outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to
count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’
(From First Reading, Gen
15:5, NRSVACE)
+++
By the mystery of this water and wine
may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in
our humanity.
The deacon or priest says these words
quietly as he pours wine and a little water into the chalice during the
Offertory of the Mass. In today's gospel Jesus, who humbled himself to
share in our humanity, allowed Peter, James and John to get a glimpse of
his divinity. Moses and Elijah spoke of what Jesus was to accomplish at
Jerusalem. That was not only his death but his Resurrection and
glorification.
Jesus calls us to share in his
Resurrection and glorification, to share in the divinity that
is his.
We don't share in the Resurrection,
glorification and divinity of Jesus Christ only after death but also, as Peter,
James and John did in the Transfiguration, in this life when we experience the
gift of God's love in events that can transform us here and now.
My Australian fellow Columban, Fr
Warren Kinne, who worked in Mindanao, Philippines, for a long time before spending many years in China, tells the story of Xiao Ai, who was in her early days a 'non-person'.
But through the love and care of strangers, Chinese and foreign, she now has
possibilities open to her that she never could have imagined. And Father
Warren, who has some Chinese ancestry, sees her story as encapsulating in some
ways the meaning of Lent and Easter. Here's how he tells it. It's taken
from the January-February 2013issue
of MISYONonline.com,
the Columban online magazine I used to edit in the Philippines. It is also on the website of the Columbans in Australia and New Zealand.
Before the
great Feast of Easter when we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus,
the Church goes through a period of preparation by prayer and fasting. We call
this Lent. In the northern hemisphere, where Christianity started, it was
celebrated in spring and slowly, throughout that time, the dead of winter burst
forth into the luxuriance of new growth, signifying life and the resurrection.
Xiao Ai is a young friend of mine. She was left at
the steps of a convent about 2004 or 2005 in a remote village of Shan Xi
Province, China. She was born with clubbed feet and abandoned. Xiao was brought
to Shanghai where a group of foreigners provided money and logistical support
for multiple operations.
During that period she was taken in by a family who
took great care of her and eventually wanted to adopt her as their own. However
there were many hurdles to be overcome. Xiao Ai did not have any identification
as the convent was not a registered orphanage and so was not in a position to
register her.
Indeed people could only guess at her actual birth
date. She was really a ‘non-person’.
After years of effort Xiao Ai has had all her
paperwork completed and she now has a Chinese passport that will allow her to
travel with her adopted family to Singapore. What happiness followed the long
and anxious wait where a wonderful outcome was hoped for rather than expected.
Xiao Ai and
Fr Warren Kinne
For the Lord
takes delight in his people (Psalm 149:4, Grail translation)
Xiao’s struggle to me is a Lenten story that has
become an Easter story; a fast that turned into a feast; a long journey in a
desert that ended in freedom; a near death that heralded a resurrection, a new
life.
Shanghai is a city of tinsel and glitter. Most
people recognize the image of its iconic buildings and towering structures
along the Huang Pu River. There are myriad neon signs and a ‘yuppie’ lifestyle
for many expatriates who ride the wave of economic frenzy. But it has its
under-belly.
The construction of this city has been done on the
backs of migrant workers - currently seven million - who have travelled to the
city to find work. They left their villages and often their families in order
to make a little money on construction sites and in restaurants and factories.
These people do not have residency permits in
Shanghai and so they cannot settle down where they work. Often they leave their
children back in the village in the care of grandparents and may only get home
once a year – during the Chinese New Year – to see how the family is going.
Children can resent their absence and may not
appreciate the sacrifice of the parent or parents in order to better the whole
family economically.
In the cities where they work they do not have
equal access to medical and educational opportunities that are open to the
local population.
Their sacrifice is a sort of ‘Lent’ lived in the
hope of a better future for their family. Like Xiao Ai’s adopting parents or
the migrant parents, they in fact live the admonition of God in Isaiah 58: 6-7:
‘Is not this the fast that I choose: to share your bread with the hungry and
bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him’.
God brought the slaves out of the land of Egypt
where they had made bricks for the ostentatious buildings of the Pharaohs. This
same God made a covenant with them and subsequently with us that we might treat
each other differently because in one way or another we have all been freed.
The worship of the market and the God of money has caused many to suffer. May
we all have the courage to live a Lent that will usher in true life for the
world.
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
Gospel Mark 5:21-43 (or 5:21-24, 35b-43) (New
Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition)
When Jesus
had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered
round him; and he was by the lake. Then one of the
leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his
feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the
point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well,
and live.’ So he went with him.
And a large
crowd followed him and pressed in on him. [Now
there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent
all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the
crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I
but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her
body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that
power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who
touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing
in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”’ He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in
fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go
in peace, and be healed of your disease.’]
While
he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your
daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ But overhearing what they
said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and
John, the brother of James. When they came to the
house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and
wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a
commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and
took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in
where the child was. He took her by the
hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about
(she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and
told them to give her something to eat.
Lyn was someone I met when she was
about 15. Three years later, when she was only halfway through her four-year
college course, she quit to marry Roberto. (I’m not using their real names).
Lyn was madly in love with Roberto, who had a good job and came from a
relatively wealthy family. Lyn’s family could not be described as poor
either. I celebrated the wedding Mass and attended the reception in a classy
hotel. In the Philippines it’s the groom’s father who pays for the reception.
the young couple went to live in Manila, where Roberto was from. About a year
later a daughter, whom I’ll call Gloria, was born. She had a mental disability.
Another daughter, ‘Gabriela’, arrived a year or two later.
Then tragedy struck. Roberto discovered
that his kidneys weren’t working properly and that he needed dialysis. Over the
next couple of years Roberto and Lyn spent practically all they had on this and
it ended in Roberto’s death. Meanwhile, Lyn’s parents both had serious
illnesses and had to spend most of their resources on treatment.
Lyn returned to her own city with her
two young daughters. She couldn’t find a job and had no qualifications since
she hadn’t finished in college. With much embarrassment she came to see me and
asked if I could give her an ‘allowance’. She was able to survive the next few
years with help from her siblings and friends and eventually remarried.
I’ve met so many ‘Lyns’ in the
Philippines who are like the woman in today’s gospel, who have spent all their
resources on doctors and medicine and are still sick. I’ve met families who
have pawned their little bit of land in order to enable an aged parent to have
surgery that ultimately leaves the whole family impoverished and the person on
whom they had spent the money, out of a perhaps misplaced
love, ending up in the cemetery.
Most Filipinos have little access to
good health care. Even those who have government health insurance have to come
up with ready cash if they go to hospital, unlike in Ireland or the United
Kingdom. They are eventually reimbursed but have to pay interest on money they
have borrowed in the meantime. I’ve heard people in Ireland and in the UK
complain about the poor health services they have and their complaints are
often justified. I have also heard many unsolicited words of praise for nurses
from the Philippines working in hospitals in those countries.
But the sad reality is that most of
these nurses, if they were still in the Philippines, would not have access to
the kind of care they provide in Ireland and the UK. They would be like the
woman in the gospel.
I met a Filipina in Reykjavík in 2000
who told me that she had had a kidney transplant in Denmark, paid for by the
taxpayers of Iceland, a country of only 350,000 people or so. Had she been at
home she would probably have ended up like Roberto.
Twenty-five years ago in a parish in
Mindanao I buried Eileen, like the daughter of Jairus, a 12-year-old.
Again, poverty was a significant factor in her illness and death, despite the
efforts of the doctors and nurses in the small government hospital where she
died.
So the two stories interwoven by St
Mark are stories that many have lived or are living, and not only in the Philippines.
But sometimes persons experience
healing. I once gave a recollection day to a group of 11- and 12-year old
children in a Catholic school in Cebu City. We reflected on the story of Jesus
staying behind in the Temple when he was 12 and that of the daughter of Jairus,
also 12. Before the afternoon session a group of the boys and girls came to
tell me that Maria, one of their classmates, had a bad toothache and asked if
we could pray with her. Maybe Jesus would heal her as he had healed ‘Talitha’.
They thought that that was the name of the girl in the gospel! We prayed with
Maria – and her toothache disappeared. The children were delighted.
St Mark gives us illustrations of the
humanity of Jesus more than do St Matthew and St Luke when they recount the
same stories. Scholars tell us that St Mark’s was the first gospel to be
written and that the other two drew on his in writing theirs. St Matthew omits
the detail of Jesus perceiving in himself that power had gone forth
from him. This shows us that Jesus wasn’t a ‘magician’. When he healed a
sick person he gave of himself.
St Matthew leaves out another beautiful
detail about the humanity of our Saviour. Jesus says to the people in the
house, Give her something to eat. I can imagine the joy of
everyone, including Jesus. I picture him with a smile on his face, a smile that
reflects his joy – and his awareness that the girl’s family had forgotten the
very practical detail that she was starving, as is anyone who has come through
a serious illness. This detail of St Mark brings home to me the great reality
that St John expressed in his gospel and that we pray in the Angelus, The
Word became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14).
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Setting by contemporary Polish composer Henryk Jan Botor
Sanctus, Sanctus, SanctusDominus
Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis.
