Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart (Deuteronomy 6:4-6). [First Reading; quoted by Jesus in the Gospel].
Readings(Jerusalem
Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)
GospelMark 12:28b-34 (shorter form: 10:42-45)(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
One of the
scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he
answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”Jesus answered, “The most
important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.And you shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your
strength.’The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour
as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”And the scribe said to him, “You are right,
Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other
besides him.And to love him with all the heart and with all the
understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbour as
oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely,
he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom
of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him
any more questions.
The first reading today is one the most important in the whole Bible for people of the Jewish faith. There is only one God. Only the Hebrews in the ancient Mediterranean world believed that. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:4-6 in his response to the scribe. These words are at the heart of Jewish prayer and are prayed by or spoken to a Jew when he is dying, reminding him of the most important reality of all, that God is God. The Hebrew for Hear, O Israel is Shema Yisrael, שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵלin Hebrew. Believing Jews pray or sing the Shema Yisrael, or Shema, just as Christians pray or sing the Our Father, the opening words giving their name to the whole prayer. Jews pray it twice a day and before sleeping.
The setting of the Shema in the video above is modern and joyful. Jesus would have prayed the Shema everyday and perhaps chanted it first as a child when St Joseph took him to the Temple and later when he went there as an adult.
And at the wedding in Cana Jesus would have danced with the other men in a style like that of the man in the video. The Shema is a profoundly joyful proclamation of faith in the one God.
Often enough I've heard people creating a gap between the two great commandments, which are a summary of the Ten Commandments. There is no such gap. You shall love your neighbor as yourself is a consequence of you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart . . . just as in God’s plan being a father or mother is a consequence of being first of all a husband or wife.
In his homily at the opening of the Year of Faith on 11 October 2012 Pope Benedict said, Jesus is the centre of the Christian faith. The Christian believes in God whose face was revealed by Jesus Christ. He is the fulfilment of the Scriptures and their definitive interpreter.
The testimony of the saints shows us men and women, young and old, even children, whose lives were focused on Jesus the Lord, God who became Man, and because of this gave themselves in the service of others. It is impossible to live the first great commandment without wanting to live the second. It is impossible to live the second without wanting to live the first.
On 21 October 2012 when he canonised seven new saints including St Pedro Calungsod, the young catechist-martyr from the central Philippines and St Kateri Tekakwitha, the first native North American saint, Pope Benedict underlined the mission of the saints: The tenacious profession of faith of these seven generous disciples of Christ, their configuration to the Son of Man shines out brightly today in the whole Church. He used a term that St John Paul used many times in his apostolic exhortation of 1992, Pastores Dabo Vobis, configuration to the Son of Man.
St John Paul's document was about the ordained priesthood and he reminded priests in it a number of times that they were called to be configured to Christ. But here Pope Benedict is calling all of us to be such, that is to become, with God's grace, so like Jesus Christ that others will see him in us.
Jesus, as he quotes the ShemaYisrael in today's gospel, is not calling us to be 'nice' to others, but to be configured to him. He is calling us to be able to say with St Paul in Philippians 1:18, What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
GospelMark 10:46-52 (shorter form: 10:42-45)(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
As Jesus was
leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind
beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he
began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”And many rebuked him, telling him to
be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind
man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.”And throwing off his cloak, he sprang
up and came to Jesus.And Jesus said to him, “What
do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man
said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.”And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the
way.
Fr John Burger is an American Columban who was member of the Columban General Council from 2006 till 2012. He spent the early years of his priesthood in Japan and tells a wonderful story about a blind man who was a member of a prayer group in a parish where he served. Each week the group met to share on the following Sunday’s gospel and to pray. Father John was a little nervous when this Sunday’s gospel came up, wondering how his blind friend would respond.
He and the others were astonished when the man shared that this was one of his favourite passages in the gospels. Why? Because Jesus asked Bartimaeus, What do you want me to do for you? The blind parishioner went on to say that he was quite happy as he was. He had his own apartment and he knew his way around. But if the Lord were to ask him directly What do you want me to do for you? he would tell him that there were parts of his life where he would like Jesus to shed his light, even though he would hesitate to ask him to do so.
Probably the blind Japanese man had experienced people, with every good intention, wanting to help him when he needed no help. On a pilgrimage to Lourdes in Easter Week 1991 with a group of persons from Ireland, some with physical disabilities, I shared a room with our leader, Joe, able-bodied like myself, and Tony and Tom who weren’t. Both needed help in some very personal matters. However, I learned very quickly from Tom not to do something for him when he could do it himself. That was a very good lesson for me.
Jesus didn’t presume that Bartimaeus wanted his sight back. He asked him, What do you want me to do for you? The blind man, who had shouted Jesus, Son of David, a title indicating he was the Messiah, answered, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.
Do I allow Jesus to ask me, What do you want me to do for you? And if I allow him do I have the faith of Bartimaeus to tell him what I want him to do for me? Jesus responded to the faith of the blind man: Go your way; your faith has made you well. And the blind beggar’s response to this was a further expression of his faith: And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.
On 11 October 2012 in his homily at the Mass marking the opening of the Year of Faith and the 5oth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council Pope Benedict said, The Year of Faith which we launch today is linked harmoniously with the Church’s whole path over the last fifty years: from the Council, through the Magisterium of the Servant of God Paul VI, who proclaimed a Year of Faith in 1967, up to the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, with which Blessed John Paul II re-proposed to all humanity Jesus Christ as the one Saviour, yesterday, today and forever. Between these two Popes, Paul VI and John Paul II, there was a deep and profound convergence, precisely upon Christ as the centre of the cosmos and of history, and upon the apostolic eagerness to announce him to the world. Jesus is the centre of the Christian faith. The Christian believes in God whose face was revealed by Jesus Christ. He is the fulfilment of the Scriptures and their definitive interpreter. Jesus Christ is not only the object of the faith but, as it says in the Letter to the Hebrews, he is 'the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith' (12:2).
Bartimaeus seemed to have grasped something of this, calling Jesus by a Messianic title, Son of David, putting his faith in him and following him on the way.
Fr Willie Byrne spent the early years of his priesthood and the latter years of his active ministry as a Columban priest in Japan. After a cerebral haemorrhage he gradually lost his sight and returned to Ireland in 2014 and lived in our nursing home until his death. He suffered quite a bit in the last months of his life, spending most of those in hospital, but was always patient, cheerful and welcoming. May he rest in peace.
When I was in secondary school we studied some of the poetry of John Milton, most of which I disliked. But his sonnet On His Blindness was an exception.
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
‘Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?’
I fondly ask. But Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: ‘God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.’
. . . who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best . . . They also serve who only stand and wait.
Father Willie lived those words of Milton in his latter years, as so many are doing right now, God speaking to us through their needs.
Traditional Latin Mass
Our Lord Jesus Christ the King
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-20-2024 if necessary).
Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.” (John 18:37; Gospel).
GospelMark 10:35-45 (shorter form: 10:17-27)(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
[James and
John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we
want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”And he said to them, “What
do you want me to do for you?”And they said to him,
“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in
your glory.”Jesus said to them, “You do
not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink,
or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”And they said to him, “We are able.” And
Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you
will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be
baptized,but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to
grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”And when the ten heard it, they began to be
indignant at James and John.]
And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the
Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over
them.But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would
be great among you must be your servant,and
whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.For even the Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
When I was reflecting on the gospel the late Fr Nicholas Murray came to mind. I knew him as a friend and as my superior. He was Regional Director in the Philippines in the early 1980s when we started to invite young Filipinos to become Columbans. In 1983 he appointed me as first Columban vocation director in the Philippines and in 1984 on his recommendation and that of his council our Superior General, Fr Bernard Cleary, put me in charge of our first group of Filipino seminarians in Cebu City. Last July Fr Andrei Paz from La Union became the first Filipino Superior General / Society Leader of the Columbans.
Father Nick later found himself appointed to Ireland to do vocations work but before long he became Regional Director here. In 1988 he was elected Superior General and six years later was re-elected, the only Columban with that distinction. He and his council made one particular decision that didn't sit well with many, but he stood by it and made no excuses. In this he showed himself to be the kind of person his classmate Fr Gerry French recalled after his death: He was the natural captain of every team'. (Father Gerry went to rejoin Father Nick's team on 12 December last year. May they both rest in peace.)
Father Nick then went to teach English as a second language
at a university in China where he was known as 'Mr Nick'. He wrote about his
experience there in an article in Misyon, 'When you learn, teach; when you get, give'. He chose a certain obscurity after having been in senior positions of
authority for so much of his life. He was also aware that no everyone saw what
he was doing as proper missionary work. In his article he wrote:
The witness of presence can be particularly effective. As I have come to realize from personal experience. Some Chinese teachers of English, who employ journal writing as part of their course to the same students I teach, inform me that their students are deeply impressed by my life, work and values and have recorded such admiration in their journaling. One of those same students, actually the brightest in my own classes, one day shared the following reflection in my class. I was so deeply impressed that I asked her to write it out for me. Here is her sharing: ‘Never have I so seriously reflected on the power of religion (it is far from and alien to us Chinese). By sharing life’s journey with us, our Oral English teacher, Mr Nick, aroused my reflection on religion. Now I realize it’s not only a relief from anxiety, distress and grief, but also a motive for one who believes in it to strive to do good deeds; a way to have a noble heart and a remedy for spiritual barrenness. I feel that it is his beliefs that inspire Mr Nick to do what he has done. Now I’m thinking of converting to Christianity, though I’m quite at a loss about how to do it.’
'Mr Nick' with some of his students in China
Father Nick reflected further:
My travels and lifestyle did not escape her attention and reflection either. She went on to say, ‘I could see Mr Nick’s eyes shining and face glowing when he referred to the places where he traveled: the Philippines, Brazil, Japan, Pakistan . . . to name just a few, and now China . . . When his privacy was intruded by a question about his own family he smiled and said, “No one will marry a man who never has enough time for his wife and children.” Now Mr Nick is 65-years-old and forty years have passed since he embarked on his road of serving and helping people. He sticks to the life-long pursuit, the calling, at the price of hardship, marriage and his precious youth (I know how difficult it is to travel around and help people). I was deeply moved when I heard Mr Nick’s answer to the question, "Is there one day when you will stop doing all these things?" "Yes," he said, "when my health won’t allow it." I was seized by this simple answer and began to realize how profound the saying is, "When you learn, teach; when you get, give.”’
When Father Nick returned to Ireland he
worked for a couple of years in his native Diocese of Clonfert but he
eventually reached a point where he had to say to himself, as he had said to
the student in China, My health won't allow it. He died on Holy
Thursday 2011.
Father Nick never sought to be at the
right or left hand of the Lord. But he accepted heavy responsibilities when the
Lord sent them his way. He carried them out with full and cheerful
responsibility. Father French said of him, I remember one of my
colleagues saying of his election, 'Nick never thought of himself as superior
or inferior to anyone else' - what a beautiful tribute.
As we say in Irish, ‘Fear ann
féin a bhí ann’, 'He was a man at home with himself'.
He also believed in individuals doing
what they were supposed to do. I remember one time when he sent an article to
the editors of the different Columban magazines he wrote in a covering note in
his humorous way: You lads are paid to edit! He trusted us to
do a good job - and his articles needed very little editing.
The other ten apostles were indignant
with James and John over their request. I'm quite sure that this was because
each of them wanted positions of importance. They still had much to learn. Yet
James was to become the first of them to die for the gospel in AD44. St James
is sometimes known as 'The Greater' or 'The Elder' to distinguish him from St
James the Less, the son of Alphaeus.
Rembrandt paints a very different James
from the one in this Sunday's gospel. We see a prayerful, humble man in the
dress of a pilgrim. El Camino, the pilgrimage across northern Spain
to the saint's shrine in Santiago de Compostela, 'Santiago' being the
Spanish form of 'St James', is one of the oldest in the Church.
As Superior General, Father Murray went
on many a 'pilgrimage' visiting the different Columban missions and was very
familiar with all of them, countries such as the Philippines, Chile and Peru
that are predominantly Catholic, Korea where Christians have become prominent
in public life, Japan and Pakistan where Christians are a small minority, Fiji,
where the ethnic Fijians are all Christian and the Indian-Fijians mostly Hindu.
By choosing to go to China to teach and
to be a missionary through his presence there he was living out the vision of
our patron, St Columban, to be a peregrinus pro Christo, a pilgrim
for Christ, following in the footsteps of Bishop Edward Galvin, with Fr John
Blowick co-founder of the Columbans who was expelled in 1952 from the China he
loved and who once said to some fellow Columbans, You are not here to
convert the people of China, you are here rather to make yourself available to
God.’
''To make yourself available to
God' is for each of us a grace to pray for as we observe Mission Sunday.
Fr Andrei Paz
Superior General / Society Leader of
the Columbans
Traditional Latin Mass
Twenty-second Sunday After Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-20-2024 if necessary).
I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel (Philippians 6:7; Epistle).
GospelMark 10:17-30 (shorter form: 10:17-27)(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
As Jesus was setting out on his journey, a man ran up
and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do
to inherit eternal life?”And Jesus said to
him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good
except God alone.You
know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not
steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour your father and
mother.’”And he
said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”And Jesus, looking at him, loved
him, and said to him, “You lack one thing:
go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”Disheartened by the saying, he went away
sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looked around and said to his
disciples, “How difficult it will be
for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”And the
disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of
God!It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to
enter the kingdom of God.”And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to
him, “Then who can be saved?”Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are
possible with God.”
[Peter
began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.”Jesus
said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one
who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or
lands, for my sake and for the gospel,who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time,
houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with
persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.]
The incident in this Sunday's gospel is also recounted in the gospels of St Matthew and St Luke. It is St Matthew who tells us that the man who approached Jesus was young. Luke describes him as a ruler or aristocrat, depending on the translation. But it is only St Mark who writes, Jesus, looking at him, loved him . . .
Pope Francis canonised St Charles, usually referred to as 'Brother Charles' by those with a devotion to him, on 15 May 2022.
St Charles de Foucauld, was assassinated in the Sahara on 1 December 1916. He had been born into wealth. Unlike the man in the gospel, he became a notorious playboy and was thrown out of the French army because of his behaviour. He went through a conversion experience at 28 and, again unlike the man in today's gospel, gave up everything. His subsequent journey in the Catholic faith led him to the priesthood and to the Sahara to live the life of Nazareth as he understood it.
Brother Charles, as he was known, died alone. He had drawn up a rule for a religious congregation to live the life of Nazareth in the desert. I once read that one person joined him for a short while. But in the 1920s his life and writings led to the founding of two religious congregations, theLittle Brothers of Jesusand theLittle Sisters of Jesus, both of which have communities in the Philippines. There are a number of other congregations that have adapted the rule that Brother Charles wrote.
The Little Brothers and the Little Sisters live among the poor, support themselves by taking manual jobs. The January-February 2005 issue of Misyon, the Columban magazine in the Philippines of which I was then editor, carried an article, Working Sisters, in which Little Sister Goneswary Subramaniam LSJ from Sri Lanka writes about her job sewing in a garment factory in Quezon City, Metro Manila, and Little Sister Annarita Zamboni LSJ from Italy about working as a lavandera, a laundry woman. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is at the heart of the life of each community of the Little Brothers, some of whom are priests, and of the Little Sisters and neighbours are invited to join.
Blessed Charles was a diocesan priest, though definitely not a conventional one. But a more conventional diocesan priest, played a central role in his conversion, Fr Henri Huvelin.
Among the groups inspired by Blessed Charles is theJesus Caritas Fraternity of Priests, a movement that adapts his spirituality to the lives of pastoral priests, mainly diocesan, though not exclusively. I have been part of this movement since the late 1970s, in the Philippines and now in Ireland
Troubled by the words of Jesus, Peter said, See, we have left everything and followed you. Jesus replied, Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel,who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.
St Charles de Foucauld experienced the joy of doing God's will, with persecutions in his violent death, but the houses and brothers and sisters . . . didn't come till some years after his death. And when Cardinal José Saraiva Martins beatified Brother Charles in Rome on 13 November 2005 the Church confirmed that he had indeed attained eternal life from the moment of his death and that he was a model of holiness who could guide us as we try to follow Jesus.
The man in the gospel didn't sin but had no idea
of the riches he was spurning. St Charles, a repentant sinner, saw clearly what the young man didn't see: that Jesus was looking upon him and loved him.
Prayer of Abandonment of Blessed Charles de Foucauld
Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.
This prayer is recited in the Charles de Foucauld video above beginning at 3:38.
Traditional Latin Mass
Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-13-2024 if necessary).
