'So must the Son of Man be lifted up.' Sunday Reflections, The Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

Christ in Agony on the Cross, El Greco, 1600s

Art Museum, Cincinnati, USA [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 John 3:13-17 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition; Canada)  

Jesus said to Nicodemus:

No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

 Nicodemus, Unknown Master, Flemish

Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, Belgium [Web Gallery of Art]

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines has designated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross this year as National Day of Prayer for Peace in Iraq and Syria. Archbishop Socrates B. Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, President of the CBCP, wrote to his fellow bishops: In all our Masses on the feast of the Holy Cross, let us unite ourselves with our suffering brothers and sisters, commending to the God who is our hope their pains, their shattered lives and dreams, their bereavement and their loss. He also asked for a special collection at all Masses, the money to be sent by the CBCP to the charity aid of the Apostolic Nunciatures in Iraq and Syria.

Fr Ragheed Aziz Ganni

(20 January 1972 - 3 June 2007)

For me the face of the suffering Christians in Iraq and Syria, Catholic and Orthodox, is that of Fr Ragheed Ganni. This article by Ed West published in the Catholic Herald, a weekly in England, on 20 December 2013 and that has a very personal dimension, gives as good an account of Father Ragheed as any I've read.

Ed West writes: Fr Ragheed was one of 1,000 Iraqi Christians murdered during the pogrom that began after the Coalition invasion of 2003. The persecution culminated in October 31 2010, with the massacre of 52 worshippers at a Catholic church in Baghdad. In the words of one Chaldean bishop, this is a 'Calvary' that has largely been ignored in the western media, outside of the Christian press . . .

It has been a shocking and horrific ordeal for one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, which has been all but driven out of its homeland. A pre-war population of a million is now somewhere in the region of 150,000, many of them elderly, and more than 60 churches have been bombed.  That figure has got smaller in recent months and the ancient city of Mosul, in many ways the heart of the Christian faith in Iraq and Syria, has been emptied of its Christians by ISIS.

The article describes First Holy Communion day in Father Ragheed's parish in 2006: The atmosphere in Ragheed’s home town had become terrifying. On 4 August 2006, when 80 children of his parish of the Holy Spirit received their first Holy Communion, battles broke out in the street outside, and the children cowered from the sounds of guns and rockets.

The good shepherd helped them through. He told AsiaNews: 'Although people are used to it and remained reasonably calm, they started to wonder whether they were going to make it back to their homes or not. I was aware of the immense joy of the 80 children receiving their first Communion so I turned the subject into a joke and said to them: "Do not panic, these are fireworks. The city is celebrating with us." And at the same time I gave them instructions to leave the church quietly and quickly.'

The author further notes: Friends later recalled that he had become increasingly weary and broken by the demands of the priesthood amid such terror. After an attack on his parish, on Palm Sunday 2007, he wrote: 'We empathise with Christ, who entered Jerusalem in full knowledge that the consequence of His love for mankind was the cross. Thus while bullets smashed our church windows, we offered up our suffering as a sign of love for Christ.'

Shortly before his death Fr Ganni wrote in an email: 'Each day we wait for the decisive attack, but we will not stop celebrating Mass; we will do it underground, where we are safer. I am encouraged in this decision by the strength of my parishioners. This is war, real war, but we hope to carry our cross to the very end with the help of Divine Grace.'

This young Iraqi priest of the Chaldean Catholic Church, an engineer by profession, was murdered on Trinity Sunday, 3 June 2007, along with three subdeacons, Basman Yousef Daud, Gassan Isam Bidawed and Wahid Hanna Isho after he had celebrated Mass in Mosul, the city of his birth.

At a Eucharistic Congress in Bari, Italy, in 2005 Father Ragheed said, There are days when I feel frail and full of fear. But when, holding the Eucharist, I say ‘Behold the Lamb of God Behold, who takes away the sin of the world’, I feel His strength in me. When I hold the Host in my hands, it is really He who is holding me and all of us, challenging the terrorists and keeping us united in His boundless love. He also said, Without Sunday, without the Eucharist, the Christians in Iraq cannot survive.

To put some time perspective on the Christian faith in Iraq and Syria: in 2021 the Church in the Philippines will celebrate 500 years of the Catholic Christian faith in this country, a great occasion for thanking God for that precious gift. The Christian faith has been lived in Iraq and Syria for four times as long as that, since the time of the Apostles. Mass was celebrated for 2,000 years in Mosul until a couple of months ago when Christians were driven from their ancestral homeland by ISIS.

Father Raqheed's words, But when, holding the Eucharist, I say ‘Behold the Lamb of God Behold, who takes away the sin of the world’, I feel His strength in me, reflect the words of Jesus to Nicodemus in today's Gospel: And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

A Muslim friend of Fr Ragheed, Adnam Mokrani, professor of Islamic Studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, said that on his ordination day, 13 October 2001, recalled that the new priest said, Today, I have died to self. St Paul in today's Second Reading tells us, Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God has something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave and that he became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.

    

As we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and as we pray for persecuted Christians, particularly in Iraq and Syria, may we thank God for the gift of our Christian faith and ask him for the courage to live it as Father Ragheed and countless others have done, becoming obedient to the point of death.

From what I understand, this hymn to Our Blessed Mother in Arabic is sung by Father Ragheed and was played during his funeral procession. This is  the translation given with the video: We honor you with hymns O Mother of God, you are the pride of the whole earth, because the Word of God whom the Father sent, chose to take His human body from you. The generations call you blessed, all nations and people's honor you and ask for mercy by your prayers. You are a generous earth in which plants of joy always grow.

Calvary, Karel Dujardin, 1661

Musée du Louvre, Paris  [Web Gallery of Art]

Calvaire 

Calvary

le/by Pádraig Ó Croiligh

Ag barr na gcéimeanna

In Eaglais an tSlánaitheora

Tá séipéal tógtha ar rian na croise.

An dara stáisiún déag dearaithe ar a chúl

Agus poll sa talamh faoi

San áit a mbíodh an chrois

Ag an am ar tharla an crith talún.

Ach níl an tarlú féin ná an duine

I láthair anseo anois,

Ach in áiteanna brúite buartha

Ár fud na cruinne

Agus i láthair an uaignis.

An fear a fuair bás anseo,

Den bhás a rinneadh anseo,

Tá sé beo agus aiséirithe.

Tá Íosa ina Chríost go fóill!

At the top of the steps

In the Church of the Saviour

There’s a chapel built on the site of the cross.

The twelfth station painted at the back

And a hole in the ground underneath

In the place where the cross was

At the time of the earthquake.

But neither the event itself nor the person

Are present here now,

But in crushed sorrowful places

Throughout the world

And in the midst of loneliness.

The man who died here,

From the death that was wrought here,

He is alive and risen.

Jesus is still the Christ!

The poet is a priest of the Diocese of Derry, Ireland. The non-poetic English translation from the Irish (Gaelic) is my own. The poem is taken from Brúitíní Creidimh (Mashed Potatoes of Faith) by Pádraig Ó Croiligh, published by Foilseacháin Ábhair Spioradálta, Dublin, 2006.

Antiphon ad introitum     Entrance Antiphon  Cf Galatians 6:14

Nos autem gloriari oportet

We should glory 

in cruce Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, 

in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

in quo est salus, vita et resurrectio nostra,

in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection, 

per quem salvati et liberati sumus.

through whom we are saved and delivered.

'Delay communions until adulthood, says priest' - Irish Examiner today

First Holy Communion, Holy Family Home, Bacolod City

May is the month in Ireland when children make their First Holy Communion. Over the years it has become less and less a significant moment of faith in the lives of young Irish Catholics and more and more an extravagant family celebration where the Christian faith is no more than a background and very often lacking in the parents of the First Communicant.

Today's Irish Examiner carries a story under the headline Delay communions until adulthood, says priest. Fiachra Ó Cionnaith's report begins:

The claim has been made by a leading Catholic priest, who said the age-specific system has lost almost all connection to what is meant to be intended. 

Speaking on RTÉ Liveline programme [a very popular phone-in radio show on the main national station] yesterday, Fr Paddy Byrne said the modern-day version of the religious rites of passage has become a 'hostile' event involving families who do not want to be there. 

He said cultural changes in recent years mean many ceremonies now involve parents who have moved away from the Church, but feel peer pressure to allow their children to join the ceremonies. 

In other cases, he said, otherwise religious families see the events more as family parties and opportunities for their children to be given money and presents. 

The article quotes Fr Byrne: 85% of children taking first communion are not seen again by the Church. This figure may not be quite accurate as probably most of them will appear in church at least once after their First Holy Communion - for their Confirmation about five years later. Then for many, maybe most, it's 'Goodbye'.

TV3, a commercial station in Ireland, broadcast Modern Ireland - My First Holy Communion  (video above) in 2009. It looks at three families, two Irish and a Nigerian family now living in Dublin. Ironically, the immigrant family is the most comfortable financially. For all three families the First Holy Communion of one of their children is a very important family event. One father hopes that it will bring his separated parents together for the occasion. Sadly, it doesn't.

But it is only the Nigerian family that clearly sees the day above all as a celebration of their Catholic faith and an occasion they hope will be one of a deepening in his faith of the young boy making his First Holy Communion.

The excerpts from the Mass in County Louth shown in the video made me shudder.

First Communicants at Holy Family Home for Girls. I had just baptised and confirmed some of them. Most of these girls come from backgrounds of poverty and many have experienced far worse than that.

Though I'm not sure that I'd go along with the idea of leaving the sacraments of initiation until adulthood I think that Fr Byrne is highlighting the crisis of a widespread loss of the Catholic Christian faith in Ireland, something I've posted about before, also in the context of First Holy Communion.

Father Byrne observes that First Holy Communion and Confirmation are losing their meaning for Irish Catholics and notes, There’s a majority [of parents] who are quite unruly when it comes to the basic etiquette of how to behave. I’ve often been asked 'do you have wi-fi here, can people go on Facebook?'

How can someone who doesn't now the alphabet teach another how to read? How can parents or grandparents who have in effect lost the faith or for whom Mass is not important pass on the faith to their children and grandchildren? Pope Francis carries in his breviary a note from his paternal grandmother, born Rosa Margherita Vasallo and who emigrated from Italy to Argentina with his parents: May my grandchildren, to whom I have given my whole heart, have a long and happy life but if pain, sickness or loss of a loved one should fill them with sadness, may they remember that one breath taken at the Tabernacle, where the greatest and august martyr is present and one glance at Mary at the foot of the cross, will act like a balm that is able to heal the deepest and most painful wounds.

Where are the Rosa Margheritas in contemporary Ireland?

Céad míle fáilte romhat, a Íosa, a Íosa

A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Jesus, o Jesus

A traditional Irish Communion / Christmas hymn

SA GHAEILGE / IN IRISH

Céad míle fáilte romhat, a Íosa, a Íosa,
Céad míle fáilte romhat, a Íosa,
Céad míle fáilte romhat, a Shlánaitheoir
Céad míle míle fáilte romhat, a Íosa, a Íosa...

Glóir agus moladh duit, a Íosa, a Íosa,
Glóir agus moladh duit, a Íosa,
Glóir agus moladh duit, a Shlánaitheoir,
Glóir, moladh agus buíochas duit, a Íosa, a Íosa...

Céad míle fáilte romhat, a Shlánaitheoir,
Céad míle míle fáilte romhat, a Íosa, a Íosa...

IN ENGLISH / SA BHÉARLA

A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Jesus, o Jesus,
A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Jesus,
A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Saviour,
A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Jesus, o Jesus...

Glory and praise to you, o Jesus, o Jesus,
Glory and praise to you, o Jesus,
Glory and praise to you, o Saviour,
Glory, praise and thanks to you, o Jesus, o Jesus...

A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Saviour,
A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Jesus, o Jesus...

'Come away . . . and rest a while'. Sunday Reflections, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Jesus, detail from The Calling of St Matthew, Caravaggio, 1599-1600

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Mark 6:30-34 (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition)

The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves. Now many saw them going, and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns, and got there ahead of them. As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

+++

Tagaytay, Philippines

I posted the video below last Monday, a kind of follow-up to last week's Sunday Reflections. But it reminds me very much of the first part of the Sunday's gospel. Jesus had sent out the Twelve Apostles on a mission. We don't know how long they were away but when they came back they were probably tired but excited, wanting to tell Jesus what had happened.

Last Wednesday I had six visitors for dinner, four from Ireland and two from here in Bacolod. Father Michael Murphy is a parish priest in the Archdiocese of Tuam in the west of Ireland, Séamas Mac Eachmharcaigh a teacher in a secondary school, Karen Commins and Rachel Tierney students who have just finished their first year at university. The four live in County Mayo. They are form the same diocese and same county as Fr John Blowick, Co-founder of the Columbans. and are here under the auspices of SERVE. 

Joey Puerta spent some years in Ireland as a lay missionary with the Redemptorists, working in Belfast in Northern Ireland and later in Cork in the south of the Republic of Ireland. Five years ago he came home and married Michelle. They have one child, Jose Antonio.

The four from Ireland are part of a larger group working on two projects with the Presentation Sisters here. The first Presentation Sisters came from Ireland to the Diocese of Bacolod in 1960 at the invitation of the later Fr Michael Doohan, a Columban. They have two schools in what used to be the Columban area in the southern part of the Diocese of Bacolod but that is now the Diocese of Kabankalan. They also run Scala Retreat House here in Bacolod City, owned by the Redemptorists. The Redemptorists came to the Philippines from Ireland in 1906. Later some came from Australia. But most of the Redemptorists and most of the Presentation Sisters are now Filipinos.

Tara Talbot, the current Rose of Tralee, was born in Ireland of an Irish father and Filipino mother and grew up in Australia (SERVE website)

You can find more photos of the group here.

My four Irish visitors have been conducting two three-day retreats for college students who will graduate in March from Binalbagan Catholic College, owned by the Presentation Sisters. Father Mike will stay here for another week for two more retreats, with another three of the Irish group who will fly from Cebu on Sunday morning on the plane that will carry Séamas, Karen and Rachel back to Cebu.

In Cebu the three will continue with the others on the project in Cebu City with the Badjao people with which Presentation Sisters Evelyn Flanagan from Ireland has been very much involved. The SERVE website gives some information about this project here and here.

Though I was aware of the Badjao project I knew nothing about it. When I met Father Mike for the first time last Sunday he told me of the progress he had noticed since he was last here five years ago and of the hope among the people that he hadn't seen before.

As someone from Ireland who gets discouraged at times with what I see happening there, meeting these volunteers, who have raised their own funds with SERVE in all kinds of imaginative ways to come here, I feel a sense of hope.

When I listen to the three young people on the video below I hear part of the reality of the mission of the Church today in a country where most Filipinos can hardly believe that real poverty exists, the USA.

Michael Bialorucki, a college student,  speaks of his first impressions of a place of 'death' with 'things falling apart. Aimee Logsdon, a college freshman, speaks of a beautiful early morning walk with two of her companions, discovering the beauty of God's creation,  knowing that they were there 'to bring Christ to all the people that were in the area' and how she and her two friends 'grew together as sisters - but in that we were doing God's work'.

And God's work for them, as the video shows, involved some hard physical work, as does the Badjao project for the Irish SERVE volunteers.

Michael's reflection on the sadness he witnessed in Kentucky leads him to a simple, direct act of faith in the 'new, beautiful Christ' after his Resurrection. This is at the very heart of our faith. he also talks about hiking up a mountain with a buddy of his and talking about God. Surely the Apostles as they went out in pairs did something similar and 'grew together as brothers', in an experience similar to that of Aimee. And the beautiful spring weather spoke to Michael of the Resurrection, of hope. He speaks of a feeling of anticipation, of something better, just as Father Mike has seen a tremendous change in the life of the Badjao community in Cebu City in five years.

I don't know who interviewed the young Americans but I can imagine Jesus inviting the Twelve to speak to him as they did to the interviewer and to really listen to what they were saying and, in doing so, leading them into a deeper understanding of faith and service.

There are those who would question the idea of 'bringing Christ to others'. But that is what we are meant to do as followers of Jesus. But as we grow older we also see more and more how Christ is present to us in others, especially among those on the margins - and not only with the 'good' people there. When Jesus, in the parable of the Last Judgement, speaks of us visiting him in prison he doesn't distinguish between those unjustly jailed and those who actually committed crimes. He's one with all.

The volunteers in Kentucky discovered that we 'Find God in the Poor', that we 'Find God in Nature' and that each is called to 'Find God in Your Brother and Sister'. These young people spent their spring break from college serving others because of the inspiration of Fr Ralph Beiting, about whom I wrote in my last Sunday Reflections, who continues to draw out the best in young people though he is now 88. I saw that for myself in the four periods in 1969 and 1970 when I worked with him. I know that friends I made then have continued to be strengthened in their faith by what they experienced there, as I continue to be strengthened in mine.

Listening to the young Americans in the video and listening to my new friends from Ireland lifts my heart. And doesn't Jesus, through the priest at the beginning of the Preface of the Mass, tell us very clearly, 'Lift up your hearts'? And can we doubt that when Jesus listened to the Twelve after their mission their hearts were lifted too?

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.

Two million honour the Santo Niño (Holy Child) in Cebu City

I probably underestimated the faith of Filipinos in my Sunday Reflections for the Feast of the Santo Niño (Holy Child), Let the Children Come to Me, which I didn't post on this blog but on Misyon, the online magazine of the Columbans in the Philippines of which I am editor.

The Sun*Star, a daily newspaper published in Cebu, carries a story today, Almost 2 million join solemn procession in Cebu. The video above is included in the paper's online report.

The traditional religious procession, which commemorates the beginnings of the Catholic Christian faith in the Philippines, takes place on Saturday. The commercial parade, which started only in 1980, takes place on Sunday.

The Sinulog dance, two steps forward and one back, is said to resemble flowing water, is a religious dance. The first time I saw it was in a mountain barrio in Mindanao nearly 40 years ago when, after the fiesta Mass and baptisms, the grandmother of one of the newly baptised took the child in her arms and danced in front of an image of the Santo Niño. I have seen what has happened to St Patrick's Day in Ireland in recent where the main celebrations have little or nothing to do with the Christian faith, a faith that more and more Irish people are rejecting, and I have a fear that the same thing is happening here in the Philippines.

Last Saturday's celebration in Cebu, the genuine one, shows that maybe my fear is misplaced. I hope so.

The fluvial procession that precedes the procession through the streets of Cebu City in the video above.



 

'What would Jesus do (or say)?'

Pope Benedict at Wadi Kharrar, Jordan, the reputed location of Jesus' baptism by St John the Baptist.

What would Jesus do?’ is an expression I come across fairly often in comments in blogs. It is often, though not always, accompanied by a viewpoint at variance with the teaching of the Church. Wikipedia traces the popularity, though not the origin, of the phrase, to an 1896 novel by American writer Charles Sheldon, In His Steps. (You have to careful in referring to or quoting Wikipedia. Today’s Irish Times carries a story of how shocked an Irish university student was when he discovered that a quote he wrote and attributed to French composer Maurice Jarre after his death in March and placed on Wikipedia, was quoted in papers throughout the world. The student eventually emailed them to tell them that it was a hoax, though by way of an experiment rather than an effort to deceive anyone).

Pope Benedict in Jordan

A variation of ‘What would Jesus do?’ is ‘What would Jesus say?’ Today’s gospel gives us a clear answer: These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you (Jn 14:25-26).

The Last Supper, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1524-25

That is what Jesus told us when he spoke to the apostles at the Last Supper. He speaks to us today through the teaching authority of the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit. Part of the expression of that is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

My suggestion is that if you want to know what Jesus would say or do, check what the Church teaches, because that is where he speaks to us and calls us to do what he and the Father want us to do.

Was St Monica an 'Irish mother'?

I had a pleasant lunch today at Colegio de San Augustin-Bacolod as the Augustinian Friars celebrated the feast of the great St Augustine (354-430). Present too were the Augustinian Sisters of Our Lady of Consolation who run La Consolacion College, beside San Sebastian Cathedral here in Bacolod. This congregation was founded in the Philippines and has more than 230 sisters. Some of the friars of the Augustinian Recollects, known in the Philippines as the Recoletos, were also present. They own the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos (UNO-R) here in Bacolod.

Both the Augustinian and Recollect friars played a large part in the evangelization of the Philippines in Spanish times.

The second reading in the Office of Readings for the feast of St Monica (332-387) yesterday always brings a smile to my face and leads me to ask, ‘Was St Monica an “Irish mother”?’ St Augustine’s brother had said to their mother when she was dying that it might be better if she died in her homeland in north Africa, rather than in Italy. The extract from St Augustine’s Confessions goes on: But as she heard this she looked at me and said: ‘See the way he talks’. And then she said to us both: ‘Lay this body where it may be. Let no care of it disturb you: this only I ask of you that you should remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be’.

The latter part of the last quotation appears on innumerable memorial cards and I don’t know of a better request for prayers for the dead. But it’s the ‘See the way he talks’ that makes me smile. May’s the time I heard my own mother – and other Irish mothers – say, nearly always in a family-type context, ‘Did you ever hear such nonsense?’ It’s the kind of thing that only people intimately related can say to one another, conveying gentle criticism/a reprimand and affection at the same time.

Both St Monica and St Augustine were from the north-east of present-day Algeria. Hippo, where Augustine was bishop, is also located in Algeria. Today there is hardly a trace of Christianity in most of north Africa. Is Europe heading the same way? Our faith is a gift. We can lose it as individuals and as communities, as I often remind people.