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 Prayer of Abandonment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prayer of Abandonment. 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).
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
GospelMark 10:17-30 [or Mk 10:17-27] (New
Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition)
As Jesus was setting out
on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher,
what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why
do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall
not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You
shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.”’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my
youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one
thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving,
for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus
looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who
have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ And the disciples were
perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it
is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter
the kingdom of God.’ They were greatly
astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is
impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’
[Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left
everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I
tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother
or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news,who will not receive a hundredfold now in
this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with
persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.]
+++
This incident is also recounted in the gospels of
St Matthew and St Luke. It is Matthew who tells us that the man who approached
Jesus was young. Luke describes him as a ruler or aristocrat, depending on the
translation. But it is only Mark who writes, Jesus, looking at him,
loved him . . .
During my second summer vacation
after entering the seminary, the summer of 1963,the biggest story
in Britain and Ireland was that of a senior member of the Conservative Party
and of the British government,John Profumo. He
had served with distinction in the British army in World War II, reaching the
rank of Brigadier (General). He was independently wealthy. He became involved
with a prostitute, Christine Keeler, who also had relations with the
senior Soviet naval attaché in London. Profumo denied in parliament that
he had an improper relationship with Keeler. This was later shown to be untrue.
He was later forced to resign for having lied to parliament. Before resigning
from all his positions he confessed to his wife, Valerie Hobson, and she stood
by him.
John Profumo disappeared from public
life and spent many years as a volunteer washing dishes and cleaning toilets in a place called
Toynbee Hall, a charity in the East End of London. I do not know anything about
the faith of John Profumo, whose paternal ancestors were Italian aristocrats.
He had the inherited title 'Fifth Baron Profumo', though he didn't use it. But
Lord Longford (1905 - 2001), a Labour politician and social reform campaigner
whose Catholic faith - he was a convert from Anglicanism - was the bedrock of
everything he did, was quoted as saying that he, felt more admiration
[for Profumo] than [for] all the men I've known in my lifetime'. Unlike the man in
the gospel, John Profumo had sinned. He lost his reputation but regained it as
years later people came to know what he had been doing.
Blessed Charles de Foucauld(1858 - 1916) [Wikipedia]
Fr Charles de Foucauld, was assassinated in the Sahara on 1 December 1916 when John
Profumo was almost two. Like Profumo, he was born into wealth. Unlike the man
in the gospel, he became a notorious playboy and was thrown out of the French
army because of his behaviour. He went through a conversion experience at 28
and, again unlike the man in today's gospel, gave up everything. His subsequent
journey in the Catholic faith led him to the priesthood and to the Sahara to
live the life of Nazareth as he understood it.
Brother Charles, as he was known,
died alone. He had drawn up a rule for a religious congregation to live the
life of Nazareth in the desert. I once read that one person joined him for a short
while. But in the 1920s his life and writings led to the founding of two
religious congregations, theLittle Brothers of Jesusand theLittle Sisters of Jesus, both of which have communities in the Philippines. The Little Sisters have a community in Northern Ireland. There are a
number of other congregations that have adapted the rule that Brother Charles
wrote.
The Little Brothers and the Little Sisters live
among the poor, support themselves by taking manual jobs. The January-February
2005 issue of Misyon, the Columban magazine in the Philippines of which I was then editor, carried an article, Working Sisters, in
which Little Sister Goneswary Subramaniam LSJ from Sri Lanka writes about her job sewing in a garment factory in Quezon City, Metro Manila, and
Little Sister Annarita Zamboni LSJ from Italy about working as a lavandera, a laundry woman.
Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is at the heart of the life of each
community of the Little Brothers, some of whom are priests, and of the Little
Sisters and neighbours are invited to join.
Blessed Charles was a diocesan
priest, though definitely not a conventional one. But a more conventional
diocesan priest, played a central role in his conversion, Fr Henri
Huvelin.
Among the groups inspired by Blessed
Charles is theJesus Caritas
Fraternity of Priests, a movement that adapts his spirituality to
the lives of pastoral priests, mainly diocesan, though not exclusively. [That
website has links to other branches of the De Foucauld family, including the
Little Brothers and the Little Sisters.]
Peter, troubled by the words of Jesus, said, Look, we have left
everything and followed you. Jesus replied, Truly I tell you, there
is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or
children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news,who
will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters,
mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come
eternal life.
Charles de Foucauld experienced the joy of doing God's will, with
persecutions in his violent death, but the houses and brothers
and sisters . . . didn't come till some years after his death. And
when Cardinal José Saraiva Martins beatified Brother Charles in Rome on 13
November 2005 the Church confirmed that he had indeed attained eternal
life from the moment of his death and that he was a model of holiness
who could guide us as we try to follow Jesus.
Blessed Charles saw clearly what the young man in the gospel, who didn't sin
but had no idea of the riches he was spurning, didn't see - that Jesus
was looking upon him and loved him.
1959 French stamp in honour of
Charles de Foucauld[Wikipedia]
Prayer of Abandonment of Blessed Charles de Foucauld
Father,
I abandon
myself into your hands;
do with me
what you will.
Whatever you
may do, I thank you:
I am ready
for all, I accept all.
Let only
your will be done in me,
and in all
your creatures -
I wish no
more than this, O Lord.
Into your
hands I commend my soul:
I offer it
to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love
you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender
myself into your hands without reserve,
and with
boundless confidence,
for you are
my Father.
This prayer is recited in the Charles de Foucauld video above beginning at 3:38. Below is a video setting of the prayer.
Mocking of Christ
