'Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.' Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, Year B

The Ascension of Christ, Rembrandt, 1636
Alte Pinakothek, Munich  [Web Gallery of Art]

These are the readings used on the Solemnity whether it is observed on Ascension Thursday or on the Sunday after it.

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

   

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

Gospel Mark 16:15-20 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to his disciples: 

“Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.

In Regions where the Solemnity is observed on Ascension Thursday the following Sunday is the Seventh Sunday of Easter

Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year B

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel John 17:11-19 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Chapel of the Ascension, Jerusalem [Wikipedia]

As far as I can recall I was ten when my father taught me how to ride a bicycle. I borrowed the child's bicycle of my cousin Deirdre who was - and happily still is! - a year older than me. I can't remember whether I needed a number of lessons or whether everything fitted in to one summer's evening. But what I remember was my father's encouraging patience and his holding on to the back of the saddle so that I wouldn't fall. After a few efforts I managed to keep more or less straight for a few metres before getting wobbly. But Dad was still there holding on to the saddle.

Then the glorious moment when I went beyond a few metres, wasn't in danger of losing my balance - and realized that Dad wasn't holding on to the saddle any more. I was on my own! And quickly the street with the garden in the middle became my racetrack.

I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you (John 14:25-27). 

Jesus spoke these words to the Apostles at the Last Supper and he has been speaking them to us again during the Easter Season. He had to leave them so that they and we could carry out the command he gives us in today's gospel: Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.

My father's teaching me how to ride a bicycle meant that I had the freedom to cycle to school each day, to go for a 'spin' from time to time just for the sheer pleasure of it. It was also a great expression of the trust that both my parents put in me to use this new ability responsibly - something I didn't always do. Even when I didn't, they still showed their trust in me. I can only imagine the worry they felt at times, particularly the occasion when I arrived home very late from a dance when I was 17, long after my regular time, not because I was rebelling, not because I was being deliberately disobedient, but simply because I was enjoying myself rather thoughtlessly. We had no telephone. The mobile phone wasn't even an inventor's dream 55 years ago. My parents could only imagine the worst.

But they continued to trust me, encouraged me in my studies and fully supported my decision to become a missionary priest.

All of this gives me some idea of why Jesus went back to the Father. He wanted the Apostles to grow in faith and in responsibility through the gift of the Holy Spirit that he promised them. He didn't try to control them or to protect them in a way that would stunt their growth. He entrusted them with the enormous task of proclaiming the good news to the whole creation. He entrusted them to call all believers to share in that task.

One thing that has always struck me in the Acts of the Apostles is that there isn't the slightest trace of nostalgia for the Jesus who walked the roads of Galilee, Judea and Samaria. Through the Holy Spirit he was present to them in a far more intimate and personal way: Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them (John 14:23).

But we are anticipating the great feast of Pentecost here!

Let us be content with and encouraged by the closing words of today's gospel and look around us to see the signs that they mention: And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.

The Holy Family with St Mary Magdalen, El Greco, 1595-1600

Museum of Art, Cleveland [Web Gallery of Art]

MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR THE 49th WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY

Communicating the Family:
A Privileged Place of Encounter with the Gift of Love

The Sunday after Ascension Thursday for many years now has also been World Communications Day in the Church. The annual messages of popes in recent years have focused on the modern media as instruments to be used to proclaim the good news to the whole creation. Pope Benedict used the term this digital continent while Pope Francis in a previous message wrote about the digital highway.

But this year Pope Francis, while mentioning the modern media, focuses on the family as the place where we basically learn how to communicate:  'After all, it is in the context of the family that we first learn how to communicate. Focusing on this context can help to make our communication more authentic and humane, while helping us to view the family in a new perspective.'

The message of Pope Francis is particularly relevant to the people of the Republic of Ireland who are being asked on Friday to change the definition of marriage in the Constitution as involving a man and a woman to something 'genderless', in the name of 'equality'. 

Pope Francis in his message writes: 'The family, in conclusion, is not a subject of debate or a terrain for ideological skirmishes.' His closing paragraph speaks clearly about the true meaning of marriage and the family: 'Families should be seen as a resource rather than as a problem for society. Families at their best actively communicate by their witness the beauty and the richness of the relationship between man and woman, and between parents and children. We are not fighting to defend the past. Rather, with patience and trust, we are working to build a better future for the world in which we live.'

El Greco's painting above points towards the Extraordinary Jubilee Jubilee of Mercy that Pope Francis has proclaimed and that will begin on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception this year.

VIRI GALILAEI 

Setting by Palestrina

Viri Galilaei, quid statis aspicientes in coelum? 

Hic Jesus, qui assumptus est a vobis in coelum, 

sic veniet, quemadmodum vidistis eum euntem in coelum. Alleluja. 

Ascendit Deus in jubilatione, et Dominus in voce tubae. Alleluja. 

Dominus in coelo paravit sedem suam. Alleluja. 

----

Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? 

This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, 

shall so come as you have seen him going into heaven. 

God is ascended with jubilee, and the Lord with the sound of trumpet. Alleluia. 

The Lord hath prepared his throne in heaven. Alleluia. 

Performed : Ensemble Vocal Europeén de la Chapelle Royale

Dir : Philippe Herreweghe.

The words highlighted above are those of the Entrance Antiphon at the Mass during the Day. The Vigil Mass has different antiphons and prayers but the same readings.

Marriage Referendum in Republic of Ireland; pre-referendum novena

Peasant Wedding, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c.1567

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna [Web Gallery of Art]

On Friday 22 May voters in the Republic of Ireland will go to polling stations to decided whether or not to amend the Constitution by re-defining marriage: Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.

This is a consequence of the passing of The Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015.

Anyone in the Republic of Ireland is free to marry in accordance with law - anyone. Some choose not to marry, for different reasons. Some who would like to marry don't because perhaps no one has asked them to be a partner in life until death do us part.

This referendum is allegedly about 'equality' but is in reality an attempt to re-define marriage to make it something that has never existed in any society from the beginning of time.

Though I will be in Ireland on 22 May having arrived there the day before, carrying my Irish passport, the only one I have, I will not be eligible to vote on this attempt to radically change society in my country, despite being a natural-born citizen. Because I live outside Ireland I am not considered equal to citizens who live there. This is not an election for a new parliament. I can understand why I cannot vote in that. This is an attempt to re-define the society to which I belong, to change the Constitution of my country.

So much for 'equality'.

In today's Irish Independent Ger Brennan, who plays for the Dublin Gaelic Football team, explains Why I'm voting No. Some of his points:

• For a start, this isn't a referendum on whether we like gay people or whether they should be equal citizens according to the Constitution. They already are equal citizens. Article 40.1, which deals with equality, declares that all citizens shall be held equal before the law. We are not being asked to amend Article 40. We are instead being asked to amend Article 41, which deals with the family and with marriage.
• All legislation is derived from the Constitution and its principles. So it seems pretty clear that if we redefine marriage and the family by making marriage genderless we will be denying that there is any special value in a child having both a mother and a father. We will be denying that children have any kind of a legal right to a mother and father where possible, like when it comes to laws relating to adoption and surrogacy.
• I very nearly decided not to write this piece. I know I'll be targeted for it and labeled for it. It would have been easier to keep my mouth shut and not rock the boat. But I'm sick of the accusations being flung around that if you vote 'No' you are homophobic. I know I'm not homophobic; my gay friends and family can attest to that. I am voting 'No' because I don't want our Constitution to deny that it is a good thing for a child to have a mother and a father.
• The Universal Declaration on Human Rights proclaims that everybody is equal in dignity and it holds that marriage is a male-female union. I don't think the Declaration of Human Rights is homophobic. I'm voting 'No'.

Many of those who are pushing for 'Yes', ie for change, try to make this a 'Catholic' issue in the sense that they make out the old-fashioned, 'conservative' Catholic Church to be holding back progress. Nowhere in his article does Ger Brennan indicate his faith or religion, if any. Nowhere does he refer to the Catholic Church. No society in history has ever seen marriage as other than a union between man and woman, in some societies with polygamous or polyandrous variations on this but always male and female, with the probability of their producing children. The wider society has always been seen as having some responsibility in enabling parents to raise their children, have them educated and so on. That is the only reason the State should have any interest in the union of husband and wife and their children, the family.

Bruce Arnold is an English journalist who has lived and worked in Ireland since 1957. He has argued strongly on his blog against the proposed change. In anything I have read there I don't find any reference to faith or religion or to the sacrament of marriage. Catholics give a special meaning to the sacrament but what we believe is in full harmony with what every society in history until now has believed: that marriage involves man and woman and, as nature teaches us, it is only a man and a woman together who can bring another human being into existence.. And any of the artificial/unnatural means used today to produce a child still need a man and a woman. 

The Holy Family, Sisto Badalocchio, c.1610

Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, USA [Web Gallery of Art]

Today, Wednesday 13 May, a novena has begun for the people of the Republic of Ireland as they prepare for this important vote. One does not need to be a Christian to understand that family has always meant husband and wife and, in most cases, children. But Christians have a great responsibility to work for justice. Justice includes working to ensure that children should never be commodities, as so many are in today's world.

Novena Prayer

Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Holy Family of Nazareth,
we bless and venerate you.

We commend to your care and protection
the cause of marriage and family life.
May the peace which reigned in your home
take possession of all hearts and abide in all families.

Confirm all men and women in the truth
so we may recognise what is good and right
and reject all that hinders life
and the true flourishing of humanity.

Guide the hearts of all citizens
that we may witness to the truth
in forming the laws governing our society.
Bless those who work for the protection
of marriage, family and life.

O Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Holy Family of Nazareth,
We entrust our hearts and our lives to you.

Amen

'In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us.' Sunday Reflections, 6th Sunday of Easter, Year B

From The Gospel of John (2003) directed by Philip Saville

Today's Gospel, John 15:9-17 [1:22 - 2:34]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

              

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

Gospel John 15:9-17 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another."

Christ Blessing the Children, Nicolaes Maes, 1652-53

National Gallery, London [Web Gallery of Art]

Since last Monday morning until noon today, Saturday, I was giving a retreat to the Missionary Sisters of the Catechism in Lipa City, south of Manila. The Sisters have a house dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe where they take care of elderly and sick women whom they refer to as the lolas, the grandmas. In another part of the compound they have a group of orphans, five young boys and six young girls. Four of the boys served Mass every morning, including 'Zacchaeus', as the Sisters call him, the youngest of the boys and small, proudly wearing his white cassock like the others. 'Zacchaeus' is not yet old enough to make his First Holy Communion or First Confession. His role as a server is to hold up the small white towel - and he really has to stretch to do so - when the priest washes his hands during the Offertory.

The youngest of the girls is Chiara, aged four or five. The children were present at lunch today, which had a celebratory air to it. I noticed after I had said Grace Before Meals that Chiara was somewhat tearful. Then I discovered that on such occasions she led the community in a Hail Mary as part of Grace. so the Sisters encouraged her to do so today even though the visiting priest had pre-empted her. After a little hesitation and the drying of her tears she prayerfully led us all in the Hail Mary and then invoked the protectors of the Congregation - Mother of Good Counsel, St Joseph, St Veronica Giuliani, St Gemma Galgani and St Bernadette Soubirous.

During the retreat I told a number of stories of seemingly insignificant events where God had revealed himself to me through the actions of children and of older persons without their being aware of it. Then on the way back to Manila this afternoon Sister Evelyn, whose family I have I have known since she was in high school in Tangub City, Misamis Occidental, and Sister Eppie told me a story about Chiara where she showed an understanding of what today's Second Reading is all about, without being aware of it.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:7-10).

Some time ago a missionary priest visited the Sisters and celebrated Mass for them. Little Chiara saw him as being very severe in his demeanour. After Mass she tugged on his cassock and asked him, Father, are you angry with God? It seems that the following morning he wasn't quite as severe looking!

Some may be angry with God. I don't think that God is too perturbed about that when he knows that the source of our anger may be bewilderment over tragedies in our lives, for example, just as we allow those whom we love to vent their anger on us because basically they trust us and we have some idea of the source of their anger.

Perhaps a more common experience, especially among persons who are serious about following Jesus faithfully but who try to live as if God's love had to be earned, as if it could be earned, is the idea that God is angry with us.

St John tells us so beautifully what the situation really is: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Most of the Gospel readings on the Sundays and weekdays of Easter are taken from John 13-17, the Last Supper Discourse in which Jesus speaks to each of us with intense love about the intimacy into which he calls each of us through our baptism. In today's Gospel Jesus says to each of us, speaking from his heart to ours - Cor ad cor loquiter, 'Heart speaks to heart', as Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman emphasised on his coat-of-arms - As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love . . . this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you . . . you are my friends . . . you did not choose me but I chose you . . .

The initiative comes from God. Love comes from God and our loving response to that love is itself a gift from God. We do not and cannot earn God's love. God who is love gives us himself as pure gift.

How can such a God be angry with us and how can we be angry with such a God?

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10).

For the LORD takes delight in his people; 
he crowns the poor with salvation (Psalm 149:4, Grail translation).

Antiphona ad communionem  Communion Antiphon

John 14:15-16

Si diligitis me, mandate mea servate, dicit Dominus.

If you love me, keep my commandments, says the Lord,

Et ego rigabo Patrem, et alium Paraclitum dabit vobis,

and I will ask the Father and he will send you another Paraclete,

ut maneat vobiscum in aeternum, alleluia.

to abide with you for ever, alleluia.

The setting above by Thomas Tallis (c.15015 - 1585) uses the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible, John 14:15-17a:

If ye love me, keep my commandments. 

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, 

that he may abide with you for ever;

e'en the Spirit of truth.

The singers are The Cantate Boys' Choir.

'I am the vine, you are the branches.' Sunday Reflections, 5th Sunday of Easter, Year B

From The Gospel of John (2003) directed by Philip Saville

Today's Gospel, John 15:1-8 [0:00 - 1:22]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

              

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

Gospel John 15:1-8 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

  

Jesus said to his disciples:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

The Virgin of the Grapes, Pierre Mignard, 1640s

Musée du Louvre, Paris [Web Gallery of Art]

Around this time twenty years ago I paid my only visit to the Holy Land, at the insistence of a friend of mine, Ninfa, whom I had met at a charismatic gathering in Tagum, Davao del Norte, Mindanao, in 1977. When Ninfa worked for a family in Israel she began to organise pilgrimages to the holy sites for her fellow Filipino workers, Overseas Filipino Workers, or 'OFWs', as they are known here in the Philippines.

Ninfa had arranged for us to stay for some nights in Jerusalem in a school run by Salesian Sisters. It was during the long vacation so there were no students there. During dinner the first evening I discovered that among the 14 or 15 visitors in the dining room, pilgrims from many parts of the world, all strangers, apart from Ninfa, there were three who knew persons I knew. Not for the first time I felt in a very personal way the reality that we as Christians truly are one. I am the vine, you are the branches.

Pope Benedict, in a homily during Mass at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on 22 September 2011 reflects on this: 

If we consider these beati and the great throng of those who have been canonized and beatified, we can understand what it means to live as branches of Christ, the true vine, and to bear fruit. Today’s Gospel puts before us once more the image of this climbing plant, that spreads so luxuriantly in the east, a symbol of vitality and a metaphor for the beauty and dynamism of Jesus’ fellowship with his disciples and friends – with us.

In the parable of the vine, Jesus does not say: 'You are the vine', but: 'I am the vine, you are the branches' (John 15:5). In other words: 'As the branches are joined to the vine, so you belong to me! But inasmuch as you belong to me, you also belong to one another.' This belonging to each other and to him is not some ideal, imaginary, symbolic relationship, but – I would almost want to say – a biological, life-transmitting state of belonging to Jesus Christ. Such is the Church, this communion of life with Jesus Christ and for one another, a communion that is rooted in baptism and is deepened and given more and more vitality in the Eucharist. 'I am the true vine' actually means: 'I am you and you are I' – an unprecedented identification of the Lord with us, with his Church.

This last week here in the Philippines brought people together in prayer for an OFW, Mary Jane Veloso, the mother of two young boys, who was due to be executed by firing squad in Indonesia, along with eight others, all having been found guilty, in separate cases, of bringing illegal drugs into that country or trying to smuggle them out. Most people, including myself, believe that she was duped and was unaware of what she was carrying in a new suitcase given her. She had been led to believe, like many others, that a good job awaited her. At the last minute, some hours after she had said goodbye to her family and was preparing for the worst, she was told that the execution had been postponed because of new information from the Philippines. An hour after she learned this the other eight, involved in different cases of smuggling of illegal drugs, were taken out and shot.

One of those was a Brazilian, Rodrigo Gularte, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, apparently did not understand that he was to be executed. This was told by Fr Charlie Burrows OMI, who has been working in the area where the executions took place since the 1970s. He has been present at executions in the past. He also told how guards present when Mary Jane Veloso was bidding goodbye to her children broke down crying.

I discovered that Fr Burrows is from Dublin, is the same age as myself and went to the same school, though he was a year behind me and I can't claim to have known him. But again I was struck by how we are related through our baptism. An Irish priest in Indonesia spending so much time with a Brazilian facing execution there and apparently spending time with Mary Jane Veloso, though there were Filipino priests who were helping her and her family. I am the vine, you are the branches.

All of these were united through their faith in Jesus Christ, a faith received as a precious gift at baptism.

During the last visit of her family to Mary Jane they prayed together and sang, at her request, a hymn written for the Great Jubilee of 2000 by a namesake, Mary Jane C. Mendoza, better known as Jamie Rivera.

Open your hearts to the Lord and begin to see the mystery
That we are all together as one family.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

 Antiphona ad Communionem Communion Antiphon Cf. John 15:1,5

Ego sum vitis vera et vos palmites, dicit Dominus;

I am the true vine and you are the branches, says the Lord.

qui manet in me et ego in eo,

Whoever remains in me, and I in him,

hic fert fructum multum, alleluia.

bears fruit in plenty, alleluia.

Rosary and Scapular [Wikipedia]

The month of May is traditionally one of special devotion to Our Blessed Mother. That is still very strong in the Philippines. It used to be very strong in Ireland. The late Irish tenor Frank Patterson here sings a very popular hymn to Our Lady.

Bring Flowers of the Rarest (Queen of the May)

Attributed to Mary E. Walsh in 1883

Bring flowers of the rarest
bring blossoms the fairest,
from garden and woodland and hillside and dale;
our full hearts are swelling,
our glad voices telling
the praise of the loveliest flower of the vale!

Refrain:
O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today!
Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.
O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.

Their lady they name thee,
Their mistress proclaim thee,
Oh, grant that thy children on earth be as true
as long as the bowers
are radiant with flowers,
as long as the azure shall keep its bright hue

Refrain

Sing gaily in chorus;
the bright angels o'er us
re-echo the strains we begin upon earth;
their harps are repeating
the notes of our greeting,
for Mary herself is the cause of our mirth.

Refrain