Darkest Day in Irish History

The Holy Night (The Nativity), Carlo Maratti [Web Gallery of Art]

Today, New Year's Day 2019, is the darkest day in the history of the independent Ireland (the Republic of Ireland) that came into being in 1922. Starting today, it is now legal in Ireland to kill an unborn baby for any reason whatever up to 12 weeks. After that the unborn child may be killed for specific reasons related to the health of the mother or to the perceived chances of a baby being born dead or not likely to live more than 28 days after birth.

It will still be a serious crime to take the life of a child after 12 weeks except within the circumstances where the law allows abortion, though not in the case of a woman ending her own pregnancy.

Early abortions will be carried out mainly by General Practitioners (GPs) who are willing to do them.

Doctors and other medical personnel may refuse to carry out abortions but, as far as I know, doctors will be expected to refer the mother to a doctor who is willing. Many GPs have said that they will refuse to do that.

A referendum last May removed the Eighth Amendment from the Constitution. This had forbidden abortions except in extremely limited situations. The referendum result paved the way for the new legislation. What shocked many people was the sight of so many dancing and rejoicing over the result of the referendum, in effect rejoicing at the prospect of unborn children having their lives taken. This celebrating took place mainly at Dublin Castle, the former seat of British administration in Ireland, an administration that persecuted Catholics in Ireland for centuries and that opposed the independence of Ireland. The new persecutors of the Irish are the Irish themselves. 

A report last week, showed that the birth rate in Ireland is continuing to fall. Though it's not mentioned there, the birth rate was said to be 1.8 children per woman of childbearing age, the third highest in the European Union but way below the maintenance rate of 2.1 children. In the early 1960s the rate was more than 4.0 children per woman of childbearing age. While the population will continue to rise it will lead to a far higher percentage of elderly people, as has happened in countries such as Japan. In other words, Ireland has now opted for a slow demographic suicide, now to be accelerated by abortion on demand.

I feel utterly sickened by all of this and I feel helpless. (One area where I'm not utterly helpless and can do something is by not voting in the next general election for the three TDs - members of parliament - who represent the area where I live.) I feel a sense of rage also at the corruption of language in the whole campaign of those promoting abortion. The new law has been described as 'care and compassion' and the taking of the life of an unborn human being as a 'service'. Fathers don't enter into the picture at all. They have no rights or responsibilities for their children. This is a 'health service' for women, even though the health of the mother is not an issue at all for early abortions. According to one journalist Ireland has shown itself to be a more enlightened place.

Ireland is no longer a Christian country, though Irish people are still remarkably helpful and generous, as I have experienced on many occasions since I came back to live in Ireland in 2017. 

But when it comes to the basic human rights of unborn children there is a blindness, a blindness that I believe is very deliberate in many cases, particularly in the case of the politicians who have pushed for abortion, of journalists who have campaigned for it and doctors who are willing to take life.

A recent article on thecatholicthing.org by David Carlin compares the collapse of the Catholic Christian faith in Quebec a few decades ago with that in Ireland more recently. 

There is something perverse when a country where more than 80 percent of the people in the 2016 census described themselves as Christians and 78.8 percent specifically as Catholics introduces abortion on demand on the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, in the middle of the Christmas Season. There is something almost blasphemous about this.

Pope Francis in Laudato Si' No 120 states (my emphasis added): Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? 'If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away'.

This paragraph has been largely ignored by many concerned about care for the earth and social justice. The new law in Ireland is anti-care for the earth and a rejection of social justice.

The Irish word gin (hard 'g') means 'begetting' or 'birth'. The Irish word for a procured abortion is ginmhilleadh, which literally means the destruction of what has been begotten, a very accurate term.

Please pray for us in Ireland, especially for women who find themselves in pregnancies that, for whatever reason, are difficult for them and that they and their children will find practical help. Pray too that fathers will stand up for their rights and take full responsibility for their children before and after birth, as St Joseph does for Mary his wife and her unborn child, the Son of God, in the painting below.

The Census at Bethlehem (detail)

Peter Bruegel the Elder [Web Gallery of Art]

‘In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist . . . the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.’ Sunday Reflections. Corpus Christi Sunday, Year C

Sheaves of Wheat, Van Gogh, 1885

Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands [Web Gallery of Art]

'Fruit of the earth  and work of human hands,

it will become for us the bread of life.'

Corpus Christi Sunday

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel  Luke 9:11b-17 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)

    

When the crowds found out about it, they followed Jesus; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.

The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.” But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” They did so and made them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

In countries where Corpus Christi is observed as a holyday of obligation on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday

Readings (Jerusalem Bible)

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Corpus Christi. Responsorial Psalm (NAB Lectionary; Philippines, USA)

Chapel at the University of the East, Manila

Before fire on 1 April 2016

After fire

At 9:00 am on 1 April John Lambert Minimo, a 20-year-old student at the University of the East (UE), Manila, where he is the Overall Student Responsible in Campus Ministry, got a phone-call from a fire volunteer friend, John Paul Justin Aquino. UE is on fire, John Paul said. The first and only thought that came into Lambert’s mind was the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel because it is the True Body of Christ, as he later wrote.

Lambert rushed to university but the campus guards wouldn’t let him in. He contacted Fr Bernard Martin, the UE chaplain, at the Columban house but told him not to come as the fire was still raging. Fr Martin turned 85 that day. There were no classes as the academic year had ended a week or two before. The young man, who prepared everything for Mass each day, felt a certain helplessness but prayed as he waited at the gate, Lord, I will save you no matter what happens.

By noon the fire was out but John Lambert’s cellphone was dead by then and he had no money to buy lunch. He still waited. It was three in the afternoon before he was able to get to the chapel as a clearance was needed from the Bureau of Fire Protection. And not everyone seemed to understand why he was so anxious to save the Blessed Sacrament. A number of people told him to go home.

Crucifix and tabernacle after the fire

Finally, at 3:00 pm Lambert, accompanied by a school official and a security guard, was able to enter the chapel, which had been badly damaged. But the crucifix behind the altar hadn’t even been charred and the tabernacle was safe.

Lambert wrote, I genuflected as a sign of reverence to the Lord. I started to sing hymns we use at Mass. I went immediately to the sacristy to get as many corporals as I could to wrap the pyx that contained the Blessed Sacrament. I gave the Paschal Candle to the security guard. Wearing my sotana, I approached the tabernacle. As I opened it, I sang “O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine.” I wrapped the pyx and placed it in my pocket so that I could take it to the Columban house.

Before I left I looked up at the crucifix. It was as if the Lord was saying to me, 'Lambert, anak (son). Don’t worry, I am still here. I’m safe. You can take me. We conquered the fire, I stood up and I am here.' That was a moment I will never forget. The Lord spoke clearly to my heart.

O Sacrament Most Holy

A UE van took Lambert and his friend John Paul to the Columban house. As we travelled, we started to pray and continuously sing 'O Sacrament Most Holy'. I felt tired. My head continued to ache, I was very hungry and my hands were shaking. But I continued to embrace the Blessed Sacrament tightly. When they reached the Columban house at around 4:00pm Fr Martin placed the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel there and Lambert and John Paul then joined the birthday celebration.

Fr Bernard Martin with Lambert (r) and Beth Briones (l) at UE Campus Ministry

Beth spent some years in Fiji as a Columban Lay Missionary

It was an experience that I will never forget, wrote Lambert. Out of my love for the Blessed Sacrament, I would do anything for Him, even in the simplest way. Even in the toughest moments the Lord is always there to remind me and call me anytime He needs my help.

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, UE Chapel

Each time the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered in the chapel of UE, as in every other church, the bread and wine brought to the altar at the offertory become the Body and Blood of Christ. They're not 'symbols' of this. They are the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord Jesus. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church, No 33, puts it, At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood. 

Paul Comtois, (1895-1966) 

Fifty years ago, just after midnight 21/22 February 1966, a fire destroyed the official residence of Paul Comtois, the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, Canada,  the official representative of Queen Elizabeth of Canada who lives in England, where she is also Queen. Lieutenant Governor Comtois had been given permission, reluctantly, by the Archbishop to have the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel in his residence. He prayed there every night

Like John Lambert Minimo, he immediately thought of the Blessed Sacrament when the fire broke out. Having made sure that others in the house were safe he went to the chapel, already in flames. He was able to rescue the Blessed Sacrament but didn't make it to safety. The pyx containing the Blessed Sacrament was found, untouched by the flames, under his charred body.

Canadian priest Fr Raymond de Souza wrote last March in National Post, one of Canada's dailies, Paul Comtois, the former lieutenant governor of Quebec, was a different kind of martyr. He was not killed by the hatred of others; rather, he was motivated by his own love of Christ. He might be considered a martyr for the Eucharist.

I might have missed it, but it didn’t seem as though anything was done last month, by either church or state, to mark the 50th anniversary of his death on Feb. 22, 1966. And his story is one that needs to be told.

Fr de Souza quotes from an article by Andrew Cusack in which a family friend, Mac Stearns, relates: His tremendous religious faith impressed me greatly and was no doubt instrumental in my embracing the Catholic faith some time after his death. Knowing his great fervor for the Blessed Sacrament, I have no doubt whatsoever that Paul would do all in his power to rescue the Holy Eucharist from the fire.

The reason for the death of Lieutenant General Comtois was ignored at the time not only by the secular press but by the Catholic press. Cusack quotes Sr Maureen Peckham RSCJ writing in 1988: Yet, Paul Comtois was a man of the world, a well-known socialite, one who had reached the heights of worldly glory; he was one whom the world could recognize as its own. Furthermore, his chivalrous and brave death should, even on the human and wordly level, have merited the title of hero. That he, who had been honored by the world during his lifetime, should have been ignored by the world at the moment of his death, can only be explained by the fact that he died for One Whom the world does not recognize and has ever refused to acknowledge.

I had never heard of Paul Comtois until quite recently when I came across his story on the internet. I'm sure that young Lambert had never heard of him either until I sent him a link the other evening to this wonderful story. God did not ask Lambert to give his life but he has given him a deep faith in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, as he did Paul Comtois. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church, No 1374, teaches: The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as 'the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.' In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist 'the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.' 'This presence is called "real"- by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be "real" too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present. [Emphasis added.]

It is that Presence of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament that the Church celebrates today.

Corpus Christ Procession, Appenzell, Switzerland

[Thanks to Fr Oliver Quilab SVD on FB for photos]

Antiphona ad communionem   Communion Antiphon  John 6:57

Qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum sanguinem,

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood

in me manet et ego in eo, dicit Dominus.

remains in me and I in him, says the Lord.

'Feed my sheep' fine - but 'feed my cat'?

Tigresa and Whitey, two of my three cats

As a priest who loves cats I couldn't resist this story from the blog of Bishop-elect Thomas Dowd, soon to be auxiliary bishop of Montreal. I'm simply and shamelessly copying and pasting from his blog, Waiting in Joyful Hope. I don't know if he's distantly related to me. My maternal grandmother was Annie Dowd from County Meath, the 'Royal County'.

Post for July 25, 2011

Christopher Curtis, in his recent article on me in the Montreal Gazette, includes this quote: “The job can be a lot of things. When I worked for a hospital, I was on call and you would get everything from a multiple victim car accident to a guy who is sick and needs you to feed his cat.”

In case you were wondering about the reference to a cat, it is from an incident that took place on March 7, 2006. My older posts are still in archives for the moment, but I thought I’d fish this one out and repost it (with just a bit of editing to help it make sense). Enjoy!

I was sick, and you visited me fed my cat

Today I got a call on my pager, 15 minutes before I was going to leave the hospital to teach downtown. Calling the ward desk, I was told that a patient wanted to see me. Could it wait till tomorrow, I inquired? No, it was urgent, was the response. OK, then, I headed downstairs right away.

The nurse let me to the patient’s room. He was quite upset to be stuck in the hospital. I asked him what he wanted to talk about, and it turned out he didn’t want to talk about anything. He wanted me to feed his cat.

Excuse me?

It turns out that this unfortunate gentleman really has nobody here in the city to help him, and by now his cat was 4 or 5 days without food. He did not remember the number of the superintendent of his building, either, so he had nobody to call. Could I head over to his apartment and explain things to the super, and maybe be let in to feed that cat?

Well, this sure wasn’t part of the job description. Running through my head were the words of advice I had received time and time again: “Don’t try and rescue everybody out there! You have to distinguish between what is essential, and what is merely important! There is only one Saviour, and you are not him!”

But on the other hand, this situation involved a starving cat. And I’m a cat person, so I felt for the poor thing. So I said ok, with a rolling of my eyes towards the Lord, who by now (I am sure) was having another one of his divine belly laughs.

Things, it turned out, were not as simple as all that. The super is new there, just recently moved to Canada from Romania, and he could not find the proper key. So it was back to the hospital to get the key (and permission to use it, witnessed by a staff member), until I finally managed to get in the door and feed the poor cat. Boy, was he happy to see me!

It turns out that there is actually a deeper lesson in all of this. At one point, as I was heading back to the hospital, I asked the Lord what the point of all this was. And the Lord answered, in one of those moments of clarity that you just know is a divine response. “Tom,” He said, “if I had asked you to do something extravagently important for this man, something heroic, you would have done it without question. Yet now, when I ask you to merely show him a very simple kindness, you are full of doubts and questions and annoyance. Does that make sense?”

“He who is faithful in small things shows himself worthy to be trusted with greater things. It’s not the big things that count, but the little things, done with great love.”

So I fed his pet, and even pet it for awhile. I also took care of a couple of other things for the man (returned some rented DVDs, etc.) Tomorrow I will see him again, and I’ll talk with the doctor/social worker/whoever about the need to help him put some structure in his life. I know I can’t take all this on as some sort of long-term responsibility — but in the meantime, I can at least feed the cat.

Bishop-elect Thomas Dowd of Montreal, soon to be the youngest bishop in Canada and the second youngest in the world. The article in the Montreal Gazette referred to above, Montreal Blogfather Thomas Dowd ready to be bishop, shows clearly how a bishop or priest can use the internet in the service of the Gospel. It seems that Father Dowd was the first Canadian priest to blog.


Lifesite news sees hope in three recent episcopal appointments in Quebec.

Please pray for Bishop-elect Dowd and for a renewal of the faith in Quebec.

'Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.'

Jacob Blessing the Children of Joseph, Rembrandt, 1656

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph (Exodus 1:8 RSV-CE).

I was really struck by these words at the beginning of the first reading in today's Mass. Last week we were listening to parts of the moving story of how Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers, was later reunited with them and their father Jacob when famine brought them to Egypt where, unknown to them, he had become governor. The descendants of Jacob, grandson of 'Abraham, our father in faith', as the Roman Canon describes him, became the Hebrew people, the Israelites, the Jewish people. The story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph is our story.

But 'there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph'. At Mass this morning I reminded the Sisters and aspirants of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family that our faith is a gift, a gift that can be lost by an individual and by a whole community. When I entered the seminary in Ireland 50 years ago almost everyone went to Sunday Mass. The Columban seminary had nearly 200 students. It has long since closed, as have all but one of the country's seminaries. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin has reminded us more that once that in the archdiocese only around 18 percent attend Sunday Mass and as few as 2 percent in some parishes.

Quebec was similar to Ireland in many ways, an almost totally Catholic society. (About 95 percent of the people of Republic of Ireland and about 75 percent of the population of the whole of Ireland were Catholics 50 years ago. In the 1970s the Church in Quebec collapsed.It has taken somewhat longer in Ireland. A few years ago I was in Canada taking care of a small parish in Haines Junction, Yukon Territory, for the month of June. On CBC Radio, the national service, I heard a young woman who worked for the Province of Quebec being interviewed on Quebec's National Day, 24 June, the Birthday of St John the Baptist. The interviewer asked her to say something about the saint. All she could say was 'He's the patron of Quebec'. She knew nothing else about him.

Some of the Church's greatest bishops and theologians  were from the flourishing Church in North Africa in the early centuries of Christianity. St Augustince (354-430) was perhaps the greatest of them. In less than 400 years after his death Islam had replaced Christianity in that whole area and has continued to be the dominant faith there. Apart from the Coptic Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, significant minorities in Egypt and Ethiopia, there are hardly any Christians in that vast territory. The Catholics of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya, for example, are nearly all foreign workers, many from from such places as the Philippines and India.

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

Now there arose a new generation in Quebec, in Ireland and throughout Europe, who did not know Jesus.

We have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light (Col 1:9-12).