'This will be your opportunity to bear witness.' Sunday Reflections, 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

 

Heuston Railway Station, Dublin

[Wikipedia; photo]

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 21:5-19 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

While some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” And they asked him, “Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” And he said, “See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.”

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 pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge 

Knock Shrine, County Mayo, Ireland

[Wikipedia; photo]

Many of the Gospel stories of the interaction between Jesus and individuals or groups take place on the road. They are not planned though Jesus, who is both God and Man, would have foreseen them. I am often uplifted and strengthened in my Catholic Christian faith by such encounters, usually totally unforeseen.

One such was in Heuston Railway Station in Dublin on Friday 4 November. I was waiting for the noon train from Dublin to Cork, where I was to be part of a team conducting a Marriage Encounter Weekend. At the spot from where the photo at the top of the page was taken I saw a tall young man with his three children, the youngest being carried in a kind of backpack. I was struck with a feeling of utter delight. I approached the man who knew by my Roman collar that I was a priest. When his wife caught up with him and their children he introduced her as 'Lizzie'. Their love for one another and for their children, a girl and two boys aged seven, five and three, was palpable. 

The family were from Texas and were waiting for the train to Claremorris, County Mayo, the station nearest Knock Shrine where they were going on a brief pilgrimage. (Unlike other major shrines to Our Lady, most pilgrims to Knock don't stay overnight.) We chatted for only a couple of minutes. Before we parted the couple asked me for a blessing. Lizzie knelt down for this, not in the least bothered by the many people around.

I know that God truly blessed them on that occasion but He also blessed me through them. I was uplifted and strengthened in my faith.

It brought to mind a similar experience in late 1968 or early 1969 when I was studying in Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York. The Religious of the Sacred Heart, who owned the school, had just dropped 'of the Sacred Heart' from its name. It was a time of deep crisis in the Church and, in the USA, of deep crisis because of the Vietnam War.

One Saturday morning after Mass, Sr Kathryn Sullivan RSCJ, one of the first women to become internationally renowned as a Scripture scholar, approached me in the sacristy. She told me she was about to go on a lecture tour overseas and knelt down and asked me for a blessing. As a young priest, about one year in the priesthood, I felt deeply humbled. I was blessed by her humility, which reminded me of what God had called me to be.

Today's gospel reads like today's headlines and 'breaking news' - as it has always done. But in the midst of great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences Jesus tells us, This will be your opportunity to bear witness. The Texan family in Heuston Station and Sr Kathryn Sullivan, without being aware of it, took the opportunity to bear witness to me. 

The Prayer over the Offerings reminds us of what our lives are ultimately about : . . . may obtain for us the grace of being devoted to you and gain us the prize of everlasting happiness. The Communion Antiphon from the Old Testament (I wish the Church wouldn't include so many options throughout the Mass) reinforces this: To be near God is my happiness, to place my hope in God the Lord (Psalm 72 [73]: 28).

Whether in great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences or in our ordinary day-to-day quiet lives, Jesus says to each of us, This will be your opportunity to bear witness.

Tom Kettle and Columban Fr John Henaghan

Tom Kettle Memorial, Dublin

9 February 1880 -  9 September 1916

[Wikipedia; photo]

November is the month when we pray in a special way for the dead. On 11 November 1918 the Great War, the First World War (1914 - 1918), ended at 11 AM. It was the slaughter of so many young men in that war that led Pope Benedict XV to allow priests to celebrate three Masses on All Souls' Day.

Tom Kettle was a devout Catholic, a husband and father, an Irish nationalist and Member of Parliament who died in the Great War. A couple of days before his death he wrote the poem below to his infant daughter explaining why he was prepared to die in that war.

The last line of the poem was the title of a collection of writings by Columban Fr John Henaghan, The Secret Scripture of the Poor, published in 1950. Father John was one of five Irish Columbans who died in February 1945 during the Battle of Manila, four of them, including Fr Henaghan, taken away by Japanese soldiers and never seen again.

To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of God

by Tom Kettle

In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown

To beauty proud as was your Mother’s prime.

In that desired, delayed, incredible time,

You’ll ask why I abandoned you, my own,

And the dear heart that was your baby throne,

To die with death. And oh! they’ll give you rhyme

And reason: some will call the thing sublime,

And some decry it in a knowing tone.

So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,

And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,

Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,

Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,

But for a dream, born in a herdsmen shed,

And for the secret Scripture of the poor.

Communion Antiphon 

First Mass on All Souls' Day

I am the Resurrection and the Life, says the Lord. Whoever believes in me, even though he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will live for ever (John 11:25-26).

Fr John Heneghan

1881 - 10 February 1945

St Columban's Cemetery, Dalgan Park, Ireland

Traditional Latin Mass

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 11-13-2022 if necessary).

Epistle: Philippians 1:17-21; 4:1-3 . Gospel: Matthew 9:18-26.

Forest Landscape with Two of Christ's Miracles (detail)

David Vinckboons [Web Gallery of Art]

This painting shows the two miracles in the Gospel.