'Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.' Sunday Reflections, Christ the King, Year C

Crucifixion, Pedro de Campaña, c.1550

Musée du Louvre, Paris [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 Luke 23:35-43 (New Revised StandardVersion, Anglicised Catholic Edition) 

The people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at Jesus, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’  The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!’ There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom (Luke 23:42) Taizé chant

About six years ago Dominican friar in Dublin told me about one of his confreres who was to celebrate Mass one morning in a nearby Sisters' convent. Since it was only a short walk he decided to wear his habit. (It was the Dominican habit that first caught my imagination about the priesthood when I was six or seven, though later on I never considered joining the Dominicans.) Along the way the friar met a Sister from another convent who chided him for being so 'old-fashioned' or 'pre-Vatican 2' or words to that effect. A little further on a young man stopped him. This was the conversation that followed:

You're a priest, right?

Yes.

Well I'm getting married tomorrow and I need to go to confession.

So Father heard the young man's confession on the street and went on his 'pre-Vatican 2' way to celebrate Mass.

Today's Gospel shows us Jesus hanging on the Cross under a sign that said in Greek, Hebrew and Latin 'King of the Jews'. And the Kingdom he came to establish broke through in the conversation between him and one of the two thieves crucified with him. 

The brief conversation that St Luke records shows us what the Sacrament of Confession is all about. This young man acknowledged his sinful ways and accepted the punishment he received. He recognised the innocence of Jesus and saw in him something that spoke profoundly to him of God's love and mercy. It is very unlikely that he could see that Jesus was indeed God who became Man. But he saw in him a man of God and saw in some way the true nature of the Kingdom that Jesus had established.

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.

Fr William Doyle SJ

(3 March 1873 - 16 August 1917)

Received my appointment from the War Office as chaplain to the 16th Division. Fiat voluntas tua. What the future has in store I know not but I have given Jesus all to dispose of as He sees best. My heart is full of gratitude to Him for giving me this chance of being really generous and of leading a life that will be truly crucified. (Fr William Doyle, 15 November 1915). 

Having fulfilled his priestly duties in an outstanding fashion for almost two years, he was killed in the Battle of Ypres, Belgium, on August 16, 1917, having run 'all day hither and thither over the battlefield like an angel of mercy'. This good shepherd truly gave his life for his sheep.

Fr Doyle’s body was never recovered.

Wounded British soldiers, 16 July 1916, Battle of the Somme [Wikipedia]

The soldier carrying a staff is a German prisoner-or-war, now helping his erstwhile enemy.

[The battle ended exactly 100 years ago, 18 November 1916, with more than a million casualties, killed and wounded.]

The June 2013 issue of The Pioneer, the magazine of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association has an extraordinary story of how a young woman received the grace of forgiveness in baptism hours before her execution for murder in England just over a century ago. Snatched from the Brink tells how a young woman, Fanny Cranbush, a former prostitute, had asked if she could see a priest whose name she didn't know and had no idea where he was.

Through God's grace the priest, Fr Willie Doyle SJ, who was to die in Belgium on 16 August 1916 as a chaplain in the British army during the Great War, was located, travelled across from Ireland and spent the last few hours with Fanny. She wanted to be baptised and was also able to receive her First and Last Holy Communion as Fr Doyle celebrated Mass with her in her cell. The Bread of Life was the last food she ate.

A couple of years before this Father Willie had been giving a mission in a parish in the east of England. He had been hearing confessions well into the night and happened to pass Fanny on the street as he went to his lodging and she was plying her 'trade'.

Father Doyle was totally in the dark when he arrived at the prison but Fanny reminded him of their previous encounter.

You said to me, ‘Child, aren’t you out very late? Won’t you go home? Don’t hurt Jesus. He loves you.’ You said this so gently, so appealingly, and then you gave me a look that seemed to go right through me.

The memory of those words were what led her to the moment when she knew that Jesus was speaking the same words to her as she went to her execution that he spoke to the thief on the cross on his right: Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.

The Jubilee Year of Mercy that began last year on 8 December, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, ends this Sunday. In the video above Pope Francis, in his homily during a Lenten penitential service on 13 March 2015 announces the Jubilee Year and explains, why he called it.

In his homily Pope Francis said: Dear brothers and sisters, I have often thought of how the Church may render more clear her mission to be a witness to mercy; and we have to make this journey. It is a journey which begins with spiritual conversion. Therefore, I have decided to announce an Extraordinary Jubilee which has at its centre the mercy of God. It will be a Holy Year of Mercy. We want to live in the light of the word of the Lord: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (cf. Lk 6:36). And this especially applies to confessors! So much mercy!

As a priest who is, as every priest should be, familiar with both sides of the confessional box, I am truly grateful to Pope Francis for reminding us so often of God's love, of the reality of sin and of the Devil, of the reality of God's mercy, expressed most especially through the beautiful Sacrament of Confession, Penance, Reconciliation, Forgiveness.

About 15 minutes before he died on the battlefield while trying to rescue a wounded soldier Fr Willie Doyle, who had an extraordinary gift of bringing hardened sinners back to God, himself went to confession for the last time.

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

Art Museum, Cincinnati [Web Gallery of Art]

Christ the King is a King of Mercy

Antiphona ad Communionem

Communion Antiphon    Psalm 28[29]:10-11

Sedebit Dominus Rex in aeternum;

The Lord sits as King for ever.

Dominus benedicet populo suo in pace.

The Lrod will bless his people with peace.

Columban Fr Bernard Toal RIP

Fr Bernard E. Toal

(17 October 1915 - 14 November 2016)

The greeting above was for his 100th birthday on 17 October 2015. He was the first Columban to reach that age.

Fr Bernard E. Toal died at St Elizabeth’s Manor, Rhode Island, on November 14, 2016.  Please remember him in your Masses and prayers. 

Fr Toal was born on 17 October 1915 in Gloucester, New Jersey, USA.  There he attended the local parish school. Thinking of becoming a missionary priest, he entered St Columban's Minor Seminary, Silver Creek, New York, for high school studies in 1931. After graduating in 1937, he entered the Columban Fathers spiritual formation program in Bristol, RI. Back in Silver Creek he studied Philosophy 1938-1940. He completed his theological studies in St Columbans, Nebraska, and was ordained a priest on 18 December 1943 at the Cathedral of St Joseph in Buffalo, NY.

A baptism in Ozamiz City

Because of World War II he did not immediately go to the missions but did parish work in California and Arizona. At the end of hostilities in 1945 he went to the Philippines where, in Ozamiz City, he taught in the parish high school.

In 1951 he returned home for vacation. He was then appointed as Spiritual Director and Bursar of the seminary in Bristol, RI. In 1957 he became Director of Probationers there, a position he held until going to Lima, Peru, in 1968.

Fr Toal (L) with Columban seminarians in Bristol, 1962-63

Fr Toal worked in Peru for eleven years and spent most of that time in the parish of 'The Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary' in Reynoso, Callao. Before he left, he had just completed a new parish church and rectory and had built up a thriving parish community.

In Peru

Returning to the USA in April 1979 he was appointed assistant pastor in Blessed Sacrament Parish, Westminster, California. After seven years there he was assigned to Immaculate Conception parish in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Then, in the summer of 1992, he was assigned to Immaculate Conception in Grand Prairie, Texas, where he served with Columban Fathers, Dennis O'Mara and Gerald Wilmsen.

In Fontana, CA

In 2001, Fr Toal was asked to move to Los Angeles while waiting for his assignment to St Mary’s Parish in Fontana, California.  He enjoyed serving at St Mary’s for almost ten years and was beloved by the parishioners. In the fall of 2011 he moved to the Columban House in Bristol, RI. In the last few years he suffered from declining health. He was cared for at St Elizabeth Manor in Bristol, where he remained cheerful and did not complain. He was 101 when he passed away. 

Fr Toal (R) 26 September 2015

Thanks to his gentle spirit and genuine interest in all those who crossed his path, Fr Toal touched the lives of a great number of people and maintained personal contact with many of them for several decades up until the end of his life.

100th Birthday Mass, 17 October 2015, with Fr Charles Lintz

Funeral Mass will take place at 10:30am on Friday, 18 November at St Columban’s Retirement Home (65 Ferry Rd, Bristol) in Rhode Island. After lunch, burial will take place at the cemetery of St Mary’s, Bristol.  May he Rest In Peace.

Thanks to Fr Timothy Mulroy, Columban Regional Director, USA.

The great Russian-born American songwriter, Irving Berlin (1888 - 1989), like Fr Toal, lived to be 101. The year the latter was born Berlin wrote When I Leave the World Behind. This version, sung by Al Jolson, is from a radio broadcast in 1943, the year Fr Toal was ordained.

'By your endurance you will gain your souls.' Sunday Reflections, 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Nave of the Archbasilica of St John Lateran [Wikipedia]

The Cathedral of Rome, the 'Mother of all Churches'

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Luke 21:5-19 (NewRevised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition) 

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said,  ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’

They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?’ And he said, ‘Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and, “The time is near!” Do not go after them.

‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.’ 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 plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

‘But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Earthquake destroys Basilica of St Benedict on 30 October 2016

Norcia (or Nursia) is the place where St Benedict was born c.480

This Sunday falls between two celebrations of church buildings in Rome, the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica on 9 November and the Optional Memorial of the Dedication of the Basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul on 18 November. When the former falls on a Sunday its celebration takes precedence over the Sunday. The official name of the Lateran Basicilica is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist and is the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome.

In the gospel Jesus speaks of the future destruction of the Temple where he had worshipped all his life, where he had been presented to the Father as an infant by Mary and Joseph, from which he threw the moneylenders because they were turning it into a market.

On 30 October the Basilica of St Benedict in his birthplace Norcia in Italy was destroyed in seconds by a powerful earthquake as if fulfilling the words of Jesus today, all will be thrown down.

Destroyed Basilica of St Benedict [Source:The Monks of Norcia]

In today's gospel Jesus warns us of wars and insurrections . . . great earthquakes . . . famine and plagues . . . You will be hated by all because of my name.

We are seeing all of these things in our time. They can lead us to lose hope - if we forget the closing words of Jesus in today's gospel: But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.

On 4 October this year Hurricane Matthew caused great destruction in southwestern Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. But the Sunday Examiner, the weekly newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong carried the following report in its issue for 30 October.

Port-au-Prince. Survivors of Hurricane Matthew put on their Sunday finest as they picked their way through rubble and downed power lines to gather in ruined churches on October 9, just three days after the devastating storm ravaged their homes. 

Photographs posted on news websites show pews in the open air, with the rubble from the hurricane piled to one side, as a neatly clad congregation in suits and ties, smart slacks and dresses made a colourful scene in what had once been churches with roofs.

Mass celebrated in Qaraqosh, Iraq, after its recent liberation

Archbishop Youhanna Boutros Moshe is the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Mosul

In 2104 Christians were driven out of Mosul and nearby cities in Iraq by ISIS, also known as Daesh. For the first time in nearly 2,000 years Mass could not be celebrated in the area. But on Sunday 30 October Mass was celebrated again in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Qaraqosh, near Mosul.

A church building is where Christians gather to celebrate the Eucharist, the Holy Mass, where they meet and receive the Risen Lord. Down the centuries Christian communities have built churches that are beautiful in order to draw people into the beauty and life of the Blessed Trinity. And even if the building is destroyed by an earthquake as in Norcia, by a hurricane as in southwestern Haiti, or by persecution  as in Qaraqosh, Iraq, the Lord is still present to and among the Christian community, especially when believers come together on Sunday, as Jesus Christ has asked us to do, to celebrate his life, death and Resurrection, and our hope in eternal life, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Grave of Bishop Edward Galvin

St Columban's, Dalgan Park, Ireland

'But the spiritual edifice is, I think, intact.'

Since posting this week's Sunday Reflections I received the November 2016 issue of Far East, the magazine of the Columbans in Ireland and Britain, which has the following story that is connected so much with this Sunday's gospel.

After being expelled from China, September 1952

In the January/February 2006 issue of Far East, Fr Dan Fitzgerald recalled the following of Bishop Edward Galvin (Co-founder of the Columbans with Fr John Blowick):

Bishop Galvin was my bishop in China for six years. Three of us Columban priests arrived in Hanyang in central Chine in July 1946. We were the first Irish priests to arrive there after the war had ended in 1945.

The man we met on that July day looked older and more worn than his 64 years would suggest. He didn't look like a bishop either. He was in an old crumpled cotton Chinese shirt and pants, with perspiration running down his face and chest. Only for the plain episcopal ring he had on his finger, he might have been the gate-man. There was something about him that suggested one who had lived through a lot, had suffered and had survived.

His exile for Christ ended in September 1952. As he arrived in Hong Kong he said, They have taken our churches, schools, hospital and mission compounds, but the spiritual edifice is, I think, intact. I blessed the compound and the cathedral, the whole diocese, its Sisters, priests and people. I put then under the protection of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother, and of St Columban, the patron of the diocese and the cathedral. It was all I could do, but it was enough.

Fr Daniel Fitzgerald

(1916 - 2016)

Antiphona ad Communionem   

Communion Antiphon  Mark 11:23-24

Amen dico vobis, quidquid orantes petitis, 

Amen, I say to you: whatever you ask in prayer,

credite quia accipientis, et fiet vobis, [dicit Dominus]. 

believe that you will receive, and it shall be given to you, [says the Lord]. 

Prayer Intentions of Pope Francis for November 2016

Vietnamese refugee in Malaysia, 1980 [Wikipedia]

Universal Intention 

Countries Receiving Refugees: That the countries which take in a great number of displaced persons and refugees may find support for their efforts which show solidarity.

Reflection from the Apostleship of Prayer.

Evangelization Intention

 Collaboration of Priests and Laity: That within parishes, priests and lay people may collaborate in service to the community without giving in to the temptation of discouragement.

Reflection from the Apostleship of Prayer.

Thanks to Apostleship of Prayer, USA.

'And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush . . .' Sunday Reflections, 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Moses before the Burning Bush, Domenico Fetti, 1613-14

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna [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 Luke 20:27-38 [or 20:27, 34-38] (NewRevised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition) 

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus(.) [and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man  shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless;  then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.  Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’]

Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’

Fr William Spicer (1949 - 2009)

Seven years ago a Columban colleague of mine, Fr Willie Spicer, died suddenly in Ireland at the age of 59. And in a very real sense he preached at his own funeral. The homilist, Columban Fr Michael Scully, a very close friend of Father Willie because of their many years in Japan, told a remarkable story of how central the Resurrection was in the late priest's preaching at funerals and of how a man was led to the faith by this. Here is part of the homily of Father Scully. I have highlighted some passages.

Over that period of eight or nine years Willie and I enjoyed a game of golf together on a regular basis even though we lived quite far apart. Willie was pastor at the Church in Chigasaki City in the Diocese of Yokohama; I was assigned to a church in the Archdiocese of Tokyo about 80 miles away from where Willie lived. Sometimes before our game of golf I would stay overnight at Willie’s house.

On one of those occasions I noticed a painting which I had not seen before on the wall of his living-room. So, I asked him where he got the painting. ‘There is a story behind that’ was his answer. I would like to tell that story as Willie told it to me. These are his words: ‘About a year ago I did a funeral Mass here in Chigasaki Church. And, as usual, during the homily I emphasized that death was not the end of everything; and then went on to talk of Christian hope in the resurrection of the dead’. At this point, Willie paused and turned towards me: ‘I think it is meaningless’ he said, ‘to preach a homily at a wake or funeral Mass if we don’t make some mention of the resurrection of Christ and our own hope in the resurrection. Isn’t that what our Christian faith is all about? It’s because of that faith that we are on mission!’

Those words of Willie were for my benefit, but, needless to say, I was in complete agreement with what he said. However, Willie’s story did not end there. ‘You know’, he said ‘after that funeral Mass an elderly man approached me and said to me “Today was the first time I ever heard a talk like the talk you gave at the Mass. Until now, I had never heard of the resurrection of the dead – and somehow, it makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to hear that homily. If I had a chance I’d like to study the Catholic faith. Do you know if there’s a Catholic Church close to where I live?” And Willie continued, ‘That was about a year ago – something that I did not know at that time was that that man was an artist who lived about a hundred miles away. That painting came from him to me as an expression of thanks – thanks for my homily at the funeral Mass, but also as an expression of profound gratitude for the fact that he was studying the Catholic faith, and in hoping to be baptized in the not too distant future in a church close to where he lives’.

I have told this story because I believe that if Willie Spicer had a chance to speak to us today, he would say to us: ‘It’s all right to feel sad and to grieve on this occasion. I would feel the same way if I were in your place. But, don’t be carried away by sadness and grief. Today’s sadness and grief cannot compare with the joy and the happiness and the glory that will be ours if we but believe that the God who loves us, loves us so much that He gave His only Son for us’.

The Resurrection, Passignano, 1600-25

Pinacoteca, Vatican [Web Gallery of Art]

Today's First Reading and the Gospel - they are always related by a common theme - look at the Resurrection. In the story of the martyrdom of the seven brothers in the Second Book of Maccabees the fourth brother When he was near death, he said, ‘One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life! (2 Maccabees 7:14). 

The Gospel also has a story of seven brothers, in a situation put to Jesus by some Sadducees, a group that didn't believe in the resurrection, that strains credulity. This gives Jesus the opportunity to teach about the resurrection: And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.

St Columban's Cemetery, Dalgan Park, Ireland

I don't go along with the idea that seems to have crept in in recent years of a funeral Mass being 'a celebration of the life' of the deceased. There certainly is a place for celebrating a person's life during the wake or, in the Philippines, during the novena held  in the home of the one who has died or when the family and other mourners gather to eat after the burial. Rather I see the funeral Mass as an occasion above all to pray that the one who has died will share fully in the life that God desires for everyone,

Preface I for the Dead puts it this way:

In him [Christ] the hope of blessed resurrection has dawned, 
that those saddened by the certainty of dying 
might be consoled by the promise of immortality to come. 
Indeed for your faithful, Lord, 
life is changed not ended, 
and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, 
an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.

Father Willie Spicer emphasised that belief in the Resurrection and the hope it gives when preaching at funerals. In Japan probably at every funeral Mass he celebrated there were people present who weren't Christians. To them he was proclaiming the central truth of our Christian faith. In the case of the artist he spoke about  that proclamation of our faith and of the hope of the resurrection spoke to his heart and led him to Jesus the Risen Lord.

In November we remember and pray for the dead in a special way. The readings in this Sunday's Mass can lead us to reflect on the reality that one day each of us will be remembered and prayed for by others. May the Collect for the first of the three Masses on The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, 2 November, help us in this:

Listen kindly to our prayers, O Lord, 
and, as our faith in your Son, 
raised from the dead, is deepened, 
so may our hope of resurrection for your departed servants 
also find new strength.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, 
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 
one God, for ever and ever.

Antiphona ad Communionem        

Communion Antiphon Cf. Ps 22 [23]:1-2

Dóminus regit me, et nihil mihi déerit;

The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want

in loco páscuae ibi me collocávit,

Fresh and Green are the pastures where he gives me repose,

super aquam refectiónis educávit me.

near restful waters he leads me.