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).
GospelLuke 21:5-19 (English Standard Version
Anglicised: India)
While
some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and
offerings, Jesus said,“As for these things that you see, the
days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that
will not be thrown down.”And they asked him, “Teacher, when will these things be,
and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?”And he said, “See
that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name,
saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them.And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not
be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end
will not be at once.”
Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.There will be
great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And
there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.But before all this they will lay their
hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues
and prisons, and you will be brought before kings
and governors for my name's sake.This will be your opportunity to bear witness.Settle it therefore in your minds not to
meditate beforehand how to answer,for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none
of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.You will be delivered up even by parents
and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to
death.You will be
hated by all for my name's sake.But not a hair of your head will perish.By your endurance you will gain your
lives.
Many of the Gospel stories of the interaction between Jesus and individuals or groups take place on the road. They are not planned though Jesus, who is both God and Man, would have foreseen them. I am often uplifted and strengthened in my Catholic Christian faith by such encounters, usually totally unforeseen.
One such was in Heuston Railway Station in Dublin on Friday 4 November. I was waiting for the noon train from Dublin to Cork, where I was to be part of a team conducting a Marriage Encounter Weekend. At the spot from where the photo at the top of the page was taken I saw a tall young man with his three children, the youngest being carried in a kind of backpack. I was struck with a feeling of utter delight. I approached the man who knew by my Roman collar that I was a priest. When his wife caught up with him and their children he introduced her as 'Lizzie'. Their love for one another and for their children, a girl and two boys aged seven, five and three, was palpable.
The family were from Texas and were waiting for the train to Claremorris, County Mayo, the station nearest Knock Shrine where they were going on a brief pilgrimage. (Unlike other major shrines to Our Lady, most pilgrims to Knock don't stay overnight.) We chatted for only a couple of minutes. Before we parted the couple asked me for a blessing. Lizzie knelt down for this, not in the least bothered by the many people around.
I know that God truly blessed them on that occasion but He also blessed me through them. I was uplifted and strengthened in my faith.
It brought to mind a similar experience in late 1968 or early 1969 when I was studying in Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York. The Religious of the Sacred Heart, who owned the school, had just dropped 'of the Sacred Heart' from its name. It was a time of deep crisis in the Church and, in the USA, of deep crisis because of the Vietnam War.
One Saturday morning after Mass, Sr Kathryn Sullivan RSCJ, one of the first women to become internationally renowned as a Scripture scholar, approached me in the sacristy. She told me she was about to go on a lecture tour overseas and knelt down and asked me for a blessing. As a young priest, about one year in the priesthood, I felt deeply humbled. I was blessed by her humility, which reminded me of what God had called me to be.
Today's gospel reads like today's headlines and 'breaking news' - as it has always done. But in the midst of great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences Jesus tells us, This will be your opportunity to bear witness. The Texan family in Heuston Station and Sr Kathryn Sullivan, without being aware of it, took the opportunity to bear witness to me.
The Prayer over the Offerings reminds us of what our lives are ultimately about : . . . may obtain for us the grace of being devoted to you and gain us the prize of everlasting happiness. The Communion Antiphon from the Old Testament (I wish the Church wouldn't include so many options throughout the Mass) reinforces this: To be near God is my happiness, to place my hope in God the Lord (Psalm 72 [73]: 28).
Whether in great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences or in our ordinary day-to-day quiet lives, Jesus says to each of us, This will be your opportunity to bear witness.
November is the month when we pray in a special way for the dead. On 11 November 1918 the Great War, the First World War (1914 - 1918), ended at 11 AM. It was the slaughter of so many young men in that war that led Pope Benedict XV to allow priests to celebrate three Masses on All Souls' Day.
Tom Kettle was a devout Catholic, a husband and father, an Irish nationalist and Member of Parliament who died in the Great War. A couple of days before his death he wrote the poem below to his infant daughter explaining why he was prepared to die in that war.
The last line of the poem was the title of a collection of writings by Columban Fr John Henaghan, The Secret Scripture of the Poor, published in 1950. Father John was one of five Irish Columbans who died in February 1945 during the Battle of Manila, four of them, including Fr Henaghan, taken away by Japanese soldiers and never seen again.
To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of God
by Tom Kettle
In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown
To beauty proud as was your Mother’s prime.
In that desired, delayed, incredible time,
You’ll ask why I abandoned you, my own,
And the dear heart that was your baby throne,
To die with death. And oh! they’ll give you rhyme
And reason: some will call the thing sublime,
And some decry it in a knowing tone.
So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,
And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,
Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,
But for a dream, born in a herdsmen shed,
And for the secret Scripture of the poor.
Communion Antiphon
First Mass on All Souls' Day
I am the Resurrection and the Life, says the Lord. Whoever believes in me, even though he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will live for ever (John 11:25-26).
Fr John Heneghan
1881 - 10 February 1945
St Columban's Cemetery, Dalgan Park, Ireland
Traditional Latin Mass
Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 11-13-2022 if necessary).
Epistle: Philippians 1:17-21; 4:1-3 . Gospel: Matthew 9:18-26.
Forest Landscape with Two of Christ's Miracles (detail)
What has come into beingin him was life,and the life was the light of all people (John 1:4).
The Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord has four different Mass formularies, each with its own prayer and readings. Any of the four fulfills our obligation to attend Mass. These are:
Vigil Mass, celebrated 'either before or after First Vespers (Evening Prayer) of the Nativity'; that means starting between 5pm and 7pm.
Mass During the Night, known before as 'Midnight Mass'. In many parts of the world it does begin at midnight but here in the Philippines since the 1980s it begins earlier, usually at 8:30pm or 9pm.
Mass at Dawn.
Mass During the Day.
When you click on 'Readings' below from the New American Bible you will find links to the readings for each of the four Masses. The readings from the Jerusalem Bible for the four Masses are all on one page.
In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.He was in the beginning with God.All things came into being through him, and without him not
one thing came into being. What has come into beingin him was life,and the
life was the light of all people.The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all
might believe through him.He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the
light.The true light, which enlightens
everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through
him; yet the world did not know him.He came to what was his own,and his
own people did not accept him.But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he
gave power to become children of God,who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or
of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have
seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,full of
grace and truth.(John testified to him
and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead
of me because he was before me.”’)From his fullness we have all received,
grace upon grace.The law indeed was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.No one has ever seen God. It is God the
only Son,who is
close to the Father’s heart,who has
made him known.
John 1:1-4
This is the Sign Language I am familiar with in the Philippines.
Tom Kettle wrote To My Daughter Betty, The Gift of God just four days before he was killed during an assault on the village of Ginchy, France, on 9 September 1916. The Secret Scripture of the Poor was the title given to a collection of writings by Columban Fr John Henaghan published posthumously in 1951. He was killed by the Japanese during the Battle of Manila in February 1945.
Mary's Boy Child
Written by Jester Hairston in 1956. The lyrics are in a Caribbean dialect of English.
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India
[optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
Gospel
Mark 12:38-44 [12:41-44] (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition)
[In his teaching Jesus said, "Beware of the scribes, who like
to go about in long robes, and to have salutations in the market places and the
best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour
widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the
greater condemnation."]
And Jesus sat down opposite the
treasury, and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich
people put in large sums. And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins,
which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him, and said to them,
"Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who
are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their
abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole
living."
+++
At the grave of my Great-uncle Lawrence Dowd in Belgium, September 2001.
Uncle Larry, my maternal grandmother's older half-brother, was killed on 6 August 1917. I was the first relative to visit his grave.
Pope Benedict XV, Bishop of Rome from 3 September 1914 to 22 January 1922,in 1915 granted priests permission to celebrate three Masses on All Souls' Day, one of their own intentions, one for all the faithful departed and one for the Holy Father's intentions. He had been elected pope a few weeks after the Great War, later known also as World War I, began. He made many attempts to bring about peace, nearly all of which were rebuffed. He was conscious of the slaughter of so many and of churches destroyed and wanted all who died in the war to be remembered in the holy sacrifice of the Mass.
November 11, or the Sunday closest to it, is observed as Remembrance Day (Veterans Day in the USA) or Remembrance Sunday in many countries. This was originally Armistice Day, commemorating the end of fighting in World War I at 11:00 am on 11 November 1918.
In today's gospel Jesus praises the poor widow who out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living. The Great War created many widows, mostly young wives of men who died in the war, many of them left with young children. It left many grieving parents, seeing their sons - it was mostly sons - die in their teens and early 20s. The vast majority were never able to bury their loved ones or to visit their graves after the war was over. Countless soldiers lie in unknown graves. Others lie buried in beautiful cemeteries but with no name on their gravestone.
On the occasion of my officiating at the wedding of two friends in Belgium in September 2001, Stefaan a Belgian and Joy a Filipina, they were able to help me locate the grave of Corporal Lawrence Dowd who died in the Third Battle of Ypres (Ieper), also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, or simply 'Passchendaele', on 6 August 1917.
I don't know why Lawrence Dowd enlisted in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. The whole of Ireland was in the United Kingdom at the time but Irishmen, unlike young men in Britain, weren't conscripted. He was single and in his 30s. Many young men joined their countries' armies out of a sense of patriotism, ready to give up life itself.
Most of the men who fought and died in the Great War came from backgrounds of poverty. Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne described the conflict as 'just a sordid trade war'.
Yet there is no question of the choice that many made to put in everything they had, for the highest reasons.
Two of these, from my native Dublin, were not from a poor background. One died ten days after Uncle Larry and in the same battle, Fr William Doyle SJ (3 March 1873 - 16 August 1917). Father Willie Doyle chose to go to be a chaplain in the war and it was his steady practice of virtue over the years, and his cooperation with grace, that created the hero of the trenches who was willing to run across a battlefield battered with shells and bullets to bring help to his 'poor brave boys', as he called them. [Remembering Fr William Doyle SJ].
In the trenches Fr Doyle made no distinction between soldiers in British uniforms and soldiers in German uniforms when he ministered to them on the battlefield. He died in action having run 'all day hither and thither over the battlefield like an angel of mercy'. His body was never found.
Thomas Kettle (9 February 1880 – 9 September 1916) was a lawyer and was a Member of Parliament in Westminster for some time representing the Irish Parliamentary Party. He kept volunteering to join the army and was turned down a number of times because of poor health. He was eventually commissioned as an officer in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and left Ireland on 14 July 1916. He was killed in action on 9 September that year during the awful Battle of the Somme in France. He too has no known grave. Shortly before his death he wrote a poem to his three-year-old daughter Elisabeth (Betty) which I always find incredibly moving. It also has a connection with Columban Father John Henaghan, one of five Columbans, 'The Malate Martyrs', who died during the Battle of Manila in February 1945. He had written a number of books but a few years after his death another was published, the title taken from the last line of Tom Kettle's poem, The Secret Scripture of the Poor.
Fr John Henaghan (1881 - 10 February 1945)
To My Daughter Betty, The Gift of God by Thomas Michael Kettle dated ‘In the field, before Guillemont, Somme, Sept. 4, 1916’.
IN wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown
To beauty proud as was your mother's prime,
In that desired, delayed, incredible time,
You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own,
And the dear heart that was your baby throne,
To dice with death. And oh! they'll give you rhyme
St Martin of Tours, soldier and later bishop, feast day 11 November.
On this day let us pray, through the intercession of St Martin of Tours, for all who, like the widow in the gospel, freely gave their everything, their very lives, as so many of them believed, like Tom Kettle, for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed, / And for the secret Scripture of the poor.
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