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).
Today, 31 May, is the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the liturgical calendar introduced in the Roman Catholic Church in 1969. In the older calendar, observed by those who celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, it is the Feast of Our Lady Virgin and Queen.
This Mass is celebrated in places where the Ascension is observed on Ascension
Thursday: England & Wales, Scotland and in these ecclesiastical provinces
in the USA: Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, Philadelphia.
You will find Sunday Reflections for The Ascension here.
Readings, (Jerusalem Bible:
Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand,
Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
Gospel, John 17:20-26 (English Standard Version
Anglicised: India)
Jesus lifted up his eyes to
heaven and said:
“I do not ask for these only, but also for
those who will believe in me through their word,that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in
me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the
world may believe that you have sent me.The glory that you have given me I
have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,I in them and you in me, that they may
become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me
and loved them even as you loved me.Father, I desire that they also, whom you
have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that
you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.O righteous Father, even though the
world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.I made known to them your name, and I will
continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may
be in them, and I in them.”
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55; First Reading).
Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world (John 17:24; Gospel).
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).
Come down, O love divine
Translated
from the Italian of Bianco da Siena by Richard Frederick Littledale; music
by Ralph Vaughan Williams
A hymn
to the Holy Spirit sung between the Ascension and Pentecost.
Traditional Latin Mass
Sunday After the Ascension
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 05-29-2022 if necessary).
Epistle: 1 Peter 4:7-11 . Gospel: John 15:26 - 16:1-4.
The Ascension is celebrated on Ascension Thursday, 26 May, in
England & Wales, Scotland. In the USA it is celebrated on Ascension
Thursday in the Ecclesiastical Provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark,
Omaha, Philadelphia, elsewhere on Sunday 29 May. In all of these areas
Ascension Thursday is a Holyday of Obligation.
The
Ascension is observed on Sunday, 29 May, in Aotearoa-New Zealand, Australia,
Canada, Ireland, Philippines.
Readings, (Jerusalem Bible:
Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand,
Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
Gospel, Luke 24:46-53 (English Standard Version
Anglicised: India)
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and
on the third day rise from the dead,and
that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his
name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.You are witnesses of these things.And behold, I am sending the promise of
my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed
with power from on high.”
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up
his hands he blessed them.While he blessed them, he parted from
them and was carried up into heaven.And they worshipped him and returned to
Jerusalem with great joy,and were continually in the temple blessing God.
Here is part of the homily Pope Benedict XVI gave in Błonia Park, Kraków, Poland, on Sunday 28 May 2006, the Solemnity of the Ascension. The emphases are added.
'Men of Galilee, why do you stand
looking up to heaven?' (Acts 1:11).
Brothers and
Sisters, today in Błonie Park in Kraków we hear once again this question from
the Acts of the Apostles. This time it is directed to all of us: 'Why do you
stand looking up to heaven?' The answer
to this question involves the fundamental truth about the life and destiny of
every man and woman.
The question has to
do with our attitude to two basic realities which shape every human life: earth
and heaven. First, the earth: 'Why do you stand?' - Why are you here on earth? Our answer is that we are here on earth
because our Maker has put us here as the crowning work of his creation.
Almighty God, in his ineffable plan of love, created the universe, bringing it
forth from nothing. Then, at the completion of this work, he bestowed life on men and women, creating them in his own image and
likeness (cf. Gen 1:26-27). He gave them the dignity of being children of God and the gift of
immortality. We know that man went astray, misused the gift of freedom and
said 'No' to God, thus condemning himself to a life marked by evil, sin,
suffering and death. But we also know
that God was not resigned to this situation, but entered directly into
humanity’s history, which then became a history of salvation. 'We stand' on
the earth, we are rooted in the earth and we grow from it. Here we do good in
the many areas of everyday life, in the material and spiritual realms, in our
relationships with other people, in our efforts to build up the human community
and in culture. Here too we experience the weariness of those who make their
way towards a goal by long and winding paths, amid hesitations, tensions,
uncertainties, in the conviction that the journey will one day come to an end. That is when the question arises: Is this
all there is? Is this earth on which 'we stand' our final destiny?
And so we need to turn to the second
part of the biblical question: 'Why do you stand looking up to heaven?' We have read that, just as the
Apostles were asking the Risen Lord about the restoration of Israel’s earthly
kingdom, 'He was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.”'And 'they
looked up to heaven as he went' (cf. Acts 1:9-10). They looked up to heaven because they
looked to Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Risen One, raised up on high. We
do not know whether at that precise moment they realized that a magnificent,
infinite horizon was opening up before their eyes: the ultimate goal of our
earthly pilgrimage. Perhaps they only realized this at Pentecost, in the light
of the Holy Spirit. But for us, at a distance of two thousand years, the
meaning of that event is quite clear. Here
on earth, we are called to look up to heaven, to turn our minds and hearts to
the inexpressible mystery of God. We are called to look towards this divine
reality, to which we have been directed from our creation. For there we find
life’s ultimate meaning.
Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.You are witnesses of these things.
These are from the closing words of St Luke's Gospel, read today. The First Reading is the opening words of the Acts of the Apostles, written by St Luke and the continuation of his gospel. It also describes the Ascension and gives us these words of Jesus: You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Jesus sends us to the ends of the earth to proclaim his name, to proclaim forgiveness of sins for those who repent when they hear the Good News of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Our mission is not to be 'nice' to everyone, not to be 'good' but to be witnesses to Jesus the Risen Lord by the lives we lead.
I am preparing this early, on 20 May, the feast of St Bernardine of Siena (1380 - 1444) a Franciscan friar who promoted devotion to the name of Jesus. There is an extract from one of his homilies in the Office of Readings in the Breviary on his feast day. The saint said, Hence this name must not be hidden. But when it is preached if must not be proclaimed by an impure heart or an unclean mouth, but it must be kept safe and handed on in a chosen vessel.
Further on St Bernardine speaks about St Paul in these words: For he carried the name of Jesus around by his words, his letters, his miracles and his example. He praised Jesus' name without ceasing, and gave glory to it with thanksgiving.
May those words be said of each of us.
Antiphona ad introitum Entrance Antiphon Acts 1:11
Viri Galilaei, quid admiramini aspicientes in
caelum? [alleluia].
Men of Galilee, why gaze in wonder at the heavens?
[Alleluia].
Quemadmodum vidistis eum ascendentem in caelum, ita
veniet, alleluia [alleluia, alleluia].
This Jesus whom you saw ascending inot heaven will
return as you saw him go, alleluia [alleluia, alleluia].
Traditional Latin Mass
The Ascension of the Lord
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 05-26-2022 if necessary).
The funeral took place today in his native Conahy, County Kilkenny, Ireland, of Fr William Carrigan. He died last Saturday after an illness of only a few weeks.
Father Billy spent 45 years in parish, work in Mindanao, Philippines where he showed an extraordinary love for persons, especially children, with little or nothing in life.
You will find a short obituary of Father Billy on the website of the Columbans in Ireland here.
In his retirement years in Ireland Father Billy served the Filipino community in County Kilkenny and surrounding counties. Many of these attended his wake and his funeral Mass. They also started the traditional Filipino novena for the dead, celebrated in the home of the deceased. At the Our Father in the Mass they surrounded his coffin and sang it in Cebuano Visayan, Amahan Namo.
Irish people have an extraordinary connection with their native county, of which there are 32, particularly in the context of the Irish sports of Hurling and Gaelic Football. Ironically, the county divisions were made by the English.
County Kilkenny is a place where hurling reigns supreme and Father Billy played it well in his youth. The unofficial anthem of the county is The Rose of Mooncoin, a song sung in Croke Park, Dublin, on the many occasions - far too many for those of us not from Kilkenny! - when that county has won the Liam McCarthy Cup in the All-Ireland Hurling Final. Even though we worked in the same area in Mindanao in the 1970s and early 1980s I don't recall hearing Father Billy sing but I know that as a good Kilkenny man, with a strong sense of his roots in Conahy, a rural area, he knew and loved this song.
Indeed, I believe that it was this sense of rootedness in his own community, knowing who he was, that enabled Fr William Carrigan to enter so deeply into the lives of the people, especially the very poor, he served in Mindanao.
Gospel, John 14:23-29 (English Standard Version
Anglicised: India)
Jesus said to his disciples:
“If
anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we
will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me
does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the
Father's who sent me.
“These
things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper,
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. Peace
I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give
to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You
heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you
loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father,
for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before
it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe."
The late Bishop Bienvenido 'Benny' S. Tudtud of Marawi, Philippines, visited my Dad (below) in Dublin some time in the early 1980s. As it happened, Dad was about to leave for the wedding of a cousin of mine but he was able to entertain his unexpected guest for a while. Later on he told my brother, 'The bishop made me feel at home'. My brother laughed and said to him, 'You were the one supposed to make him feel at home!' But my Dad was always himself no matter whose company he was in and so was Bishop Tudtud, whose Christian name is the Spanish for 'Welcome'. They were both to die suddenly in 1987, Bishop Tudtod in a plane crash in the Philippines on 26 June and Dad at home on 11 August from a heart attack. He had been at Mass that morning, as he had been every day of his adult life. The photo below was taken a week before his death.
My father hadn't expected Bishop Tudtud. But he made him feel welcome. The bishop felt free to just turn up because I had worked with him and had asked him to drop by my Dad if he had time. I have found over the years that there are friends' homes to which I need no invitation. These are friends with whom I truly feel at home and who feel at home with me.
Sometimes we feel fully at home with someone whom we have just met. Sometimes that being at ease with each other comes after being together many times, maybe through working together.
In the gospel of this Sunday's Mass Jesus makes the extraordinary statement, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
The Father and Jesus are not only coming for a visit but to make their home with us. And the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Counselor/Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will come and will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.
Fr Anselm Moynihan OP, an Irish Dominican friar who died in 1998, wrote a short book in 1948 about the Blessed Trinity living in our hearts, The Presence of God. Here is an extract: Awareness of God, whether it come to us thus by a dazzling rending of the heavens or through the gentle whisper of his voice in our conscience, is at the beginning and end of our spiritual life, at the beginning and end of all religion. It is the root of what is truly the most radical division of mankind, one to which Holy Scripture constantly reverts, that between the 'wise' who keep God before their eyes and the 'fools' who ignore him. The first awakening of the soul to God's reality brings with it that fear of the Lord which is the 'beginning of wisdom'; the end of life should bring with it the 'wisdom of the perfect,' the fruit of charity, whereby a man will experience God's living presence within himself and be filled with longing for that full awareness of God which is the vision of his face in heaven.
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus invited Jesus to join them and they pressed him to have supper with them at the inn, as it was getting dark. It was through their welcoming him that they discovered who their unknown companion was, the Risen Lord. And, in the intimacy of the breaking of the bread when they recognised him and he disappeared from their sight, they felt his presence even more strongly, even more intimately. He was now dwelling in their hearts, just as he dwells in ours, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Communion Antiphon John 14:15-16
Setting by Thomas Tallis (1505 - 1585)
Sung by Cantate Boys Choir
English text used by Tallis: 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; even the Spirit of truth. (John 14:15-17a, King James Version).
Text in the Roman Missal (John 14:15-16): If you love me, keep my commandments, says the Lord, and I will ask the Father and he will send you another Paraclete, to abide with you for ever, alleluia.
Traditional Latin Mass
Fifth Sunday after Easter
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 05-22-2022 if necessary).
Fr Joseph Houston was from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and was ordained at Easter 1969. He spent the early years of his priesthood in Chile before coming back to Ireland to teach in our seminary. He later returned to Chile but was to spend the last 25 years of his life in China.
Father Joe was a Christian gentleman to the core. Solas na bhFlaitheas air - The light of Heaven upon him.
Gospel, John 13:31-33a, 34-35 (English Standard Version
Anglicised: India)
When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son
of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify
him in himself, and glorify him at once.Little children, yet a little while I
am with you. A new commandment I give to
you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also
are to love one another.By this all people will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”
A familiar sight four years ago here in St Columban's, Dalgan Park, Ireland, where we have a community of more than 60 Columban priests, mostly retired and many in our nursing home, was that of Fr Jim Gavigan, then in his late 80s, pushing the wheelchair of Fr Paddy Hurley, then over 90. When I came home from the Philippines in 2017 Father Jim was using a wheelchair himself for a while after a hip operation.
Father Paddy went to his reward on 15 April 2019. He had spent more than 60 years in the Philippines on the large island of Negros. His two Columban brothers, the late Fathers Dermot and Gerry, had spent many years in Fiji. That's where Fr Jim Gavigan had worked all his active years, being a member of the pioneering Columban group that went there in 1952, as was Fr Gerry Hurley.
I sometimes saw Father Jim 'driving' another priest's wheelchair. (We have professional staff here who do this work very efficiently and with great care but sometimes others chip in.)
Father Jim died on 23 June 2020 a few months before another classmate of his, Fr Terry Bennett, who had spent most of his life in the Philippines. When Father Terry began to fail, Father Jim always sat opposite him in our dining room. Someone asked him why. He replied, 'To keep Terry company'.
In all of this I see today's gospel being lived out. It is a gospel that is central to the Missionary Society of St Columban to which I belong.
Frs Owen McPolin, John Blowick, Edward Galvin China 1920
Frs John Blowick and Edward Galvin were the co-founders of the Columbans. Fr Blowick, the first superior general, accompanied the first group to China but was based in Ireland.
On the evening of 29 January 1918 an extraordinary event took place in Dalgan Park, Shrule, a remote village on the borders of County Mayo and County Galway in the west of Ireland. At the time Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, which was engaged in the Great War. Thousands of Irishmen were fighting in the trenches in France and Belgium. Many, including my great-uncle Corporal Lawrence Dowd, never came home. There was a movement for independence in Ireland that led to the outbreak of guerrilla warfare in Ireland later in 1918. There was widespread poverty in the country, particularly acute in the cities.
Despite all of that, on 10 October 1916 the Irish bishops gave permission to two young diocesan priests, Fr Edward J. Galvin and Fr John Blowick to have a national collection so that they could open a seminary that would prepare young Irish priests to go to China. The effort was called the Maynooth Mission to China, because Maynooth, west of Dublin, is where St Patrick's National Seminary is, where Fr Galvin had been ordained in 1909 and Fr Blowick in 1913.
The seminary opened that late winter's evening with 19 students and seven priests. Many of the students were at different stages of their formation in Maynooth but transferred. The seven priests belonged to different dioceses but threw in their lot with this new venture which, on 29 June 1918, would become the Society of St Columban.
This Sunday's gospel was part of what the new group reflected on as they gathered in the makeshift chapel in Dalgan Park, the name of the 'Big House' and the land on which it was built. Among the seven priests was Fr John Heneghan, a priest from the Archdiocese of Tuam, as was Fr Blowick, and a classmate of Fr Galvin. Fr Heneghan never imagined that despite his desire to be a missionary in China he would spend many years in Ireland itself teaching the seminarians and editing the Columban magazine The Far East. But his dream was to take him to the Philippines in 1931 and to torture and death at the hands of Japanese soldiers during the Battle of Manila in February 1945, when 100,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed and most of the old city destroyed, like Mariupol in Ukraine today.
Fr John Blowick emphasised the centrality of the words of Jesus in this Sunday's gospel, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. The second sentence there was written into the Constitutions of the Society, drawn up the following year.
These words of Jesus from the Gospel of St John are for me the greatest legacy of Fr John Blowick to the many men from different countries who have shared his dream and that of Bishop Galvin to this day.
The Society of St Columban was born in the middle of the First World War because of the vision of two young men who saw beyond that awful reality and who took Jesus at his word. Down the years Columbans have lived through wars, in remote areas where their lives and the lives of the people they served were often in danger. Some have been kidnapped and not all of those survived. Among those who did was Fr Michael Sinnott, kidnapped in the southern Philippines in October 2009 when he was 79 and released safely a month later on 12 November. He died here in Dalgan Park on St Columban's Day, 23 November, 2019.
Fr Michael Sinnott in Manila on the day of his release
Father John Blowick's insistence on the words of Jesus in this Sunday's gospel becoming part of the very fibre of the being of Columbans sustained Fr John Heneghan, Fr Patrick Kelly, Fr John Lalor and Fr Peter Fallon, as Japanese soldiers took them away from Malate Church, Manila, on 10 February 1945, and their companion Fr John Lalor who was working in a makeshift hospital nearby who with others was killed there by a bomb three days later.
Frs John Lalor, Patrick Kelly, Francis Vernon Douglas, Peter Fallon, Joseph Monaghan and John Heneghan
Fr Douglas died, most probably on 27 July 1943, after being tortured by the Japanese in Paete, Laguna.
The words By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another are not only the hallmark of Columbans but of countless other groups, of countless families. They are meant to be the hallmark of every Christian.
Canonisations on 15 May
Pope Francis will canonise ten saints in the Vatican on Sunday. Among them will be Blessed Titus Brandsma OCarm, from the Netherlands, who was killed by lethal injection in Dachau Concentration Camp, Germany, on 26 July 1942.
Blessed Titus Brandsma OCarm
23 February 1881 - 26 July 1942
Another priest who will be canonised is Blessed Charles de Foucauld. I have often written about him on Sunday Reflections.
Blessed Charles de Foucauld
15 September 1858 - 1 December 1916
Cantate
Domino
Taizé Chant
Cantate
Domino canticum novum (alleluia)
O
sing a new song to the Lord (alleluia)
These words from Psalm 97[98]:1 are the opening words of today's Entrance Antiphon.
Traditional Latin Mass
Fourth Sunday after Easter
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 05-15-2022 if necessary).
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