"He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went." Sunday Reflections, 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

St Matthew, El Greco, 1610-14

Museo de El Greco, Toledo, Spain [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Matthew 21:28-32 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition: Canada)

  

Jesus said to the chief priest and the elders of the people:

“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

The above scene, at the Coliseum in Rome, comes shortly before the end of the 1983 made-for-TV move, The Scarlet and the Black, which tells the true World War II story of Vatican-based Irish priest Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, known as 'The Vatican Pimpernel' and played here by Gregory Peck, and Colonel Herbert Kappler, head of the Gestapo in Rome during the Nazi occupation from September 1943 till June 1944, played by Christopher Plummer. The priest has managed to save the lives of many Allied soldiers and others, getting under the skin of Kappler.

When the German knows that the Allies are about to liberate Rome he sends for the Irishman at night, guaranteeing his safety. The Wikipedia article on the movie tells us what happens after their exchange of 'pleasantries' above. 

[Wikipedia]

Colonel Kappler worries for his family's safety from vengeful partisans, and, in a one-to-one meeting with O'Flaherty, asks him to save his family, appealing to the same values that motivated O'Flaherty to save so many others. The Monsignor, however, refuses, disbelieving that after all the Colonel has done and all the atrocities he is responsible for, he could expect mercy and forgiveness automatically, simply because he asked for it, and walks away in disgust . . .

Kappler is captured in 1945 and questioned by the Allies. In the course of his interrogation, he is informed that his wife and children were smuggled out of Italy and escaped unharmed into Switzerland. Upon being asked who helped them, Kappler realizes who it must have been, but responds simply that he does not know.

At the very end we read on the screen: After the liberation Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty was honored by Italy, Canada and Australia, given the U.S. Medal of Freedom and made a Commander of the British Empire.

Herbert Kappler was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes. In the long years that followed in his Italian prison, Kappler had only one visitor. Every month, year in and year out, O'Flaherty came to see him.

In 1959 the former head of the dreaded Gestapo in Rome was [received] into the Catholic faith at the hand of the Irish priest.

The real Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty (1898 - 1963) [Wikipedia]

[You can view the whole scene between the Colonel Kappler and Monsignor O'Flaherty on Gloria TV here, starting at 06.10. The whole movie is available on Gloria TV in ten segments.]

St Paul tells us in the Second Reading, Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. The priest has been putting his life at risk time and again to save the lives of others, while the soldier has been taking the lives of others. But now Kappler looks beyond himself and wants to save the lives of his wife and two children.

St Paul tells us that Christ Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. Kappler in a real sense can be said to have emptied himself when he compares himself to a beggar and lame dog as he requests the priest to help his wife and children get to safety. Saving others is all part of your faith, he says to the priest. Brotherly love and forgiveness - that's the other half of what you believe.

When the priest storms off with I'll see you in hell first! Kappler says to himself, You're no different from anyone else. Your talk means nothing. Charity, forgiveness, mercy - it's all lies.

But when Kappler is being interrogated by officials of the Allies [here from 1:30 to 3:06]  we discover that the Irish priest too had emptied himself by overcoming his anger at the request to help his enemy's family to escape, and by enabling them to get to Switzerland. 

Very few of us will have to face the kind of danger that Monsignor O'Flaherty faced. But every day we have to make choices, often between good and bad. The choice to forgive his enemy that the Irish priest made is the kind of choice that faces all of us, even if the perceived crime or 'crime' of our enemy or 'enemy' is rarely on the scale of those of Colonel Kappler. But the latter, in his need, felt the stirrings of hope in his heart, the stirrings of faith in a merciful God, when he approached his nemesis with his plea. 

Those stirrings were dashed by the priest's angry refusal. Charity, forgiveness, mercy - it's all lies. But those stirrings were raised again when he learned that his wife and children were safe and knew that only one person could have seen to that. Then he knew he was wrong when he said, Charity, forgiveness, mercy - it's all lies. Now he knew it was all true.

I don't know if the Irish priest was familiar with these words of St Caesarius of Arles (c.470 - 27 August 542): Whenever you love brothers or sisters you love friends, for they are already with you, joined to you in Catholic unity. If they live virtuously you love them as people who have been changed from enemies into brothers and sisters. But suppose you love people who do not yet believe in Christ, or if they do, yet believe as the devil believes - they believe in Christ but still do not love him. You must love just the same, you must love even people like that, you must love them as brothers and sisters. They are not such yet, but you must love them so that they become such through your kindness. All our love, then, must be fraternal.

Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went.

[You can read a fine article by William Doino Jr published in First Things, November 2013: Hugh O'Flaherty, Ireland's Shining Priest.]

Antiphona ad communionem   Communion Antiphon Cf Ps 118 [119]:49-50

Memento verbi tui servo tuo, Domine,

Remember your word to your servant, O Lord,

in quo mihi spem dedisti;

by which you have given me hope.

haec me consolata est in humilitate mea.

This is my comfort when I am brought low.

Persecution of Christians in Iraq and Syria

Though the video above was uploaded in 2010 it shows what many Christians in Iraq have been suffering in recent years. As we continue to pray for the Christians in Iraq and Syria, many of whom have been driven in the last two months or so from the ancestral lands, may we and they find hope in the suffering of Christians and Muslims in the post-World War II decades in Albania, a country that is now free.

Last Sunday Pope Francis, before celebrating Evening Prayer in St Paul's Cathedral, Tirana, was moved as he listened to the testimony [video below] of Fr Ernest Simoni, 84, and Sister Marije Kaleta, 85, who had survived that persecution. To hear a martyr talk about his own martyrdom is intense, the Pope told journalists on the papal plane back to Rome the same evening. I think all of us there were moved, all of us.

70th Death Anniversary of Wing Commander Brendan 'Paddy' Finucane

Wing Commander Brendan 'Paddy' Finucane (16 October 1920 - 15 July 1942)

I'm not sure when or how I first came to know of Brendan Finucane, one of the greatest 'aces' in the Royal Air Force during World War II and whose 70th death anniversary occurs on Sunday. Maybe it was in reading English 'comics' when I was in primary school. Weeklies such as The Rover, Adventure, The Hotspur, The Wizard,  featured adventure stories for boys and sometimes had real-life stories. My Uncle Joe Kiernan drove a delivery van for Easons newsagents in Dublin and kept me well supplied.

At some stage I discovered that this airman, known in England as 'Paddy', had become the youngest ever Wing Commander - equivalent to Lieutenant colonel - in the RAF and that he had studied in the same school as myself, O'Connell Christian Brothers' School, Dublin. By the time I began in secondary school there (I was in primary from 1951 to 1956 and in secondary from then till 1961) I heard his name being mentioned from time to time in the school. He had left in 1936 when his family moved to England and he joined the RAF two years later. Among his classmates in O'Connell's were two famous sports commentators, Mícheál O’Hehir and Philip Greene. Philip died only last year.

My great desire when I turned 13 was to be a pilot. This desire was fuelled by reading adventure stories about James Bigglesworth, a fictional character known as 'Biggles', created by Captain W.E. Johns, who had fought as a pilot in the Great War. 'Biggles' managed to fly in both World Wars! In the Second he flew Spitfires and Hurricanes.With some of my closest friends at school I used to devour the 'Biggles' stories, which we borrowed from the public libraries of Dublin. We all wanted to be like 'Biggles' but none of us ended up doing anything more exciting than flying as passengers. Tim Corcoran became a diplomat and Shay Mullany a psychiatrist, both gone to their reward. A third, John Donohoe, became a top kidney doctor and I became a Columban priest. Another classmate, the late Kevin Brady, had an older brother Jim who flew Spitfires in the Irish Air Corps.

Brendan Finucane's 'Spitfire' with shamrock marking

But when I was 15 or 16 I discovered Wing Commander Brendan Finucane in a new way in a book called Daring to Live: Heroic Christians of Our Day by Doris Burton, who wrote for young people. The book came out in 1955 and had chapters on such persons as Louis Pasteur, Fr Miguel Pro SJ, the Mexican martyred in 1927 at the age of 36 and beatified by Blessed John Paul, as was Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian born of a wealthy family who discovered at his funeral how he had served the poor of Turin. He died suddenly of polio in 1925 aged only 24. 

One of the things I remember from the book is that the young Irish pilot, when he'd return from a sortie, used to go and pray the rosary for any German whose plane he had shot down. That meant at least 26 rosaries. In a programme on RTÉ Radio 1 broadcast in 2004,  In Search of 'Paddy' Finucane,  one of his brothers, Raymond, speaks of Brendan being 'a good Catholic', taking after their father whom he describes as 'a very keen Catholic, indeed'.

In the RTÉ documentary one of those in his squadron speaks about a song that Brendan loved and that was very popular at the time, Tangerine. The pilots would usually listen to it on their gramophone before going up and Brendan was always among them - except for the day he died.

Brendan is quoted as saying that the Luftwaffe would never get him. Nor did they. During a raid on some ground installations near the French coast a gunner on the ground hit Brendan's plane as it was flying low. He never made it back to England and crashed into the English Channel not far from where this photo of the White Cliffs of Dover was taken. He was too low to bail out.

I don't know if Brendan ever heard Dame Vera Lynn's recording of The White Cliffs of Dover, a song that will be for ever associated with World War II. She recorded it in 1942 but I don't know if this was before or after his death. (I've an idea that this is not Vera's original recording but one she made some years later). Someone has put the song together with a display by Spitfires, in a peaceful setting. I'm sure that Brendan, whom you can find 'live' at 3:54 into a video here, would have enjoyed this.

May this handsome, talented young men who died around the time I was conceived and who inspired me during my adolescent years rest in peace.