Postscript to Sunday Reflections. Do we choose or reject Jesus for all eternity?

 

Christ Cleansing the Temple

Luca Giordano [Web Gallery of Art]

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers" (Luke 19:45-46; Gospel).

I featured the painting above in Sunday Reflections for yesterday in connection with the Gospel for the Traditional Latin Mass for the Eighth Sunday After Pentecost. That Gospel and Luca Giordano's painting show a side of Jesus that is not particularly emphasised these days.

But the longer form of yesterday's Gospel for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, shows something of that side of Jesus: Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

God does not desire that anyone choose that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for all eternity. But God has given each of us free will and the ability to choose evil. The daily news shows us how many do so, often to an utterly depraved degree. And each of us knows only too well how often we choose to do what is wrong in 'smaller' things, what we call venial sins.

However, St Paul tells us: But [the Lord] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

Blessed Rupert Mayer SJ

23 January 1976 – 1 November 1945

[Photo]

Blessed Rupert Mayer SJ was a German Jesuit who lost a leg while serving as a chaplain in the German army during the First World War. He was imprisoned in German before and during the Second World War in a number of places, including a concentration camp, because of his opposition to Nazism. He had a heart attack while celebrating Mass on All Saints' Day 1945 and died shortly afterwards.

Today is the feast of St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and Magnificat has for its Meditation of the Day an extract from Blessed Rupert, written when he was in prison. The last part of the meditation really struck me: The ancients in their time used to say that it is sweet to die, likewise to suffer, for one's native land. I have been granted this latter experience in bounteous measure, and I should not wish to have lacked it in my life. But it is even sweeter to suffer for the holy faith, and also to die for it. It is this that fills me with happiness here in prison, and that in turn is fortifying so many thousands of young people in Germany in their Catholic faith. That too fills me with happiness.

Blessed Rupert could see the goodness in the hearts of so many young people in Nazi Germany, even though the country was immersed in evil at the time. He experienced in his own life the truth of the words of St Paul: For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

May the young people attending World Youth Day in Lisbon this week see and experience what Blessed Rupert did and find true happiness in knowing our Lord Jesus Christ. May they choose to follow him for all eternity.

Prayer of Rupert Mayer

Composed by Manoling Francisco SJ

Performed by Himig Heswita

Jesuit Music Ministry, Philippines

Blessed Carlo Acutis: Web Missionary. Sunday Reflections, 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

 

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Vermeer [Web Gallery of art]

Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Matthew 13:44-52 [Shorter version: 44-46] (English Standard Version Anglicised, India)

Jesus said to his disciples:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

^[“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”]

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

 

World Youth Day Lisbon 2023

1-6 August

 [Wikipedia; photo]

Last weekend I preached at all the Masses in a parish in Dublin, asking for the financial and spiritual support of the people for the work of us Columban missionaries. I told the story of a 14-year-old girl - I'll call her 'Maria' - whom I met in a home for girls run by Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family in Metro Manila about 15 years ago. Maria suffered from asthma and her family had been living on the streets. Her father was a blind beggar. Maria's question to me still reverberates after all the years: How can I offer my life to God?

After one of the Masses a man told me of a seriously ill 11-year-old boy he had visited in a hospital in Dublin who wondered why so many people do not see children as capable of being saints. The boy was offering his suffering for others, uniting it with those of Jesus. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (Colossians 1:24).

Blessed Carlo Acutis

3 May 1991 – 12 October 2006

[Wikipedia; photo]

Blessed Carlo Acutis, an English-born Italian raised in Milan, is one of the patrons of World Youth Day this coming week. From a very young age he found delight in visiting churches, knowing that Jesus was present in the Blessed Sacrament. This led his parents to return to the practice of their faith.

As a teenager Carlo became an expert at the computer and developed a website devoted to Eucharistic miracles. He was also a very sociable being. I don't think he was present at World Youth Day in Rome in 2000 but he surely took to heart these words from the homily of Pope St J0hn Paul II at the closing Mass on 20 August [emphases added]: To celebrate the Eucharist, 'to eat his flesh and drink his blood', means to accept the wisdom of the Cross and the path of service. It means that we signal our willingness to sacrifice ourselves for others, as Christ has done.

Our society desperately needs this sign, and young people need it even more so, tempted as they often are by the illusion of an easy and comfortable life, by drugs and pleasure-seeking, only to find themselves in a spiral of despair, meaninglessness and violence. It is urgent to change direction and to turn to Christ. This is the way of justice, solidarity and commitment to building a society and a future worthy of the human person.

This is our Eucharist, this is the answer that Christ wants from us, from you young people at the closing of your Jubilee. Jesus is no lover of half measures, and he does not hesitate to pursue us with the question: 'Will you also go away?' In the presence of Christ, the Bread of Life, we too want to say today with Peter: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life' (Jn 6:68).

Dear friends, when you go back home, set the Eucharist at the centre of your personal life and community life: love the Eucharist, adore the Eucharist and celebrate it, especially on Sundays, the Lord’s Day. Live the Eucharist by testifying to God’s love for every person.

In today's Gospel Jesus tells us: The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Young Carlo while still a child found the one pearl of great value: his Catholic Christian faith received as a gift from God through baptism within which he found Jesus present in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Blessed Sacrament.

One of the extraordinary things about Carlo, who in so many ways was ordinary in the best sense, was his influence on adults, bringing his parents back to the faith and bringing a young man from India, Rajesh Mohur, a Hindu employed by his family, to the Catholic faith. Rajesh talks about this in the video below. Flavio Bergamo, an adult who learned through the internet about Carlo some years after the teenager's death, was a middle-aged man who had fallen away from the faith for many years. He tells in the video below how the young teenager brought him back to the faith. 

Carlo died within a week of being diagnosed with leukaemia. Most of the people who attended his funeral Mass were people his parents didn't know, some of them immigrants working as caretakers in buildings whom Carlo got to know by name while walking to school.

The video below is just over 30 minutes in length but I urge you to take the time during the next few days to watch it. I have just done so, not for the first time. It is really time with the Lord Jesus. Among other things, it shows us that as followers of Jesus we are called to be persons of joy, not with silly 'smileys' on our faces but with the joy in our hearts that only Jesus can give, He who said to the Apostles at the Last Supper: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full (John 15:11).

May the young people gathering in Lisbon this week draw closer to the Lord Jesus and may they be inspired by the life of Blessed Carlo Acutis who is not just a patron of youth but the patron of computer programmers.

Traditional Latin Mass

Eighth Sunday After Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 07-30-2023 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 10:6-13. Gospel: Luke 19:41-47.

Christ Cleansing the Temple

Luca Giordano [Web Gallery of Art]

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers" (Luke 19:45-46; Gospel).

'We are called to show forth the face of the Good Shepherd.' Sunday Reflections, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

 

Sheaves of Wheat

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Matthew 13:24-43 [Shorter version: 24-30] (English Standard Version Anglicised, India)

Jesus put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

[He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable. This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet:

“I will open my mouth in parables;
    I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.]

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Reaper from Behind

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

At harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn (Matthew 13:30; today’s Gospel). 

In 1997 while on a visit to Toronto I read in a newspaper about a woman from the Philippines  who had been found guilty of embezzling about Can$250,000 over a period of time from the company for which she worked. The judge had no alternative but to send her to prison. However he was a very compassionate man. 

The judge was aware that the woman was no Al Capone. She had spent the money on surgery for her father in the Philippines, on improving her family's house there and on other family needs.

 She was also pregnant.

 The judge delayed the woman's imprisonment until six months after the birth of her child. She was also to serve her time in a women's prison near where she lived so that her family and friends could visit her easily.

 The First Reading gives context to the parable of the good seed and the weeds: Through such works you have taught your people that the righteous must be kind, and you have filled your children with good hope, because you give repentance for sins (Wisdom 12:19; First Reading). 

The judge in this case was both righteous and kind. As one implementing justice on behalf of the state he had to punish the person before him because she had committed a serious crime. But he also filled her with good hope and, I've no doubt, gave her an opportunity to repent of her sins.

The parable shows once again God's mercy, God's desire to be merciful. He doesn't want to destroy what is good. He wants what is good to grow. He wants to cultivate the virtues in our lives by nourishing them through his grace and with our cooperation. 

But the parable also acknowledges the reality of evil. Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, the householder instructs his workers. We can choose to be 'weeds', to spurn God's mercy. The consequences are the result of our choice, not of God's. The author of the Book of Wisdom says to God, you give repentance for sins. God himself offers the grace of sorrow for our sins, the grace to ask God for forgiveness, won for us by Jesus on the Cross. Then Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing' (Luke 23:34).

The greatest expression of the God's mercy, given as a gift to the Church, is the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which we often call confession or penance. In his Letter to Priests for Holy Thursday 2001 Pope St John Paul II wrote: Dear priests, let us make regular use of this Sacrament, that the Lord may constantly purify our hearts and make us less unworthy of the mysteries which we celebrate. Since we are called to show forth the face of the Good Shepherd, and therefore to have the heart of Christ himself, we more than others must make our own the Psalmist's ardent cry: 'A pure heart create for me, O God, put a steadfast spirit within me' (Ps 51:12). The Sacrament of Reconciliation, essential for every Christian life, is especially a source of support, guidance and healing for the priestly life.

Three Columban priests whom I knew in Mindanao, Fr Frank Chapman from Australia, Fr John Meaney from Ireland and Fr Jim Moynihan from New Zealand, lived this very fully in their latter years in Cagayan de Oro. They used to spend hours in the confessional in the Cathedral every weekday and people came from all over to avail of the sacrament of reconciliation. Fr Chapman was still hearing confessions a few weeks before his death in 2004 at the age of 91. He spent the years of World War II in the mountains of Mindanao where he shared all the hardships of the people. 

The judge in Canada, though he had to be primarily a judge, also showed the charity of God, as many judges do. He showed compassion, which was expressed not only in the respect he showed the woman from the Philippines, but also in the respect he showed to her unborn child.

And St John Paul II shows how priests are called to show forth the face of the Good Shepherd, and therefore to have the heart of Christ himself so that all of us will meet the Good Shepherd and experience in the merciful heart of Christ himself in confession.

An Phaidir

The Lord’s Prayer in Irish

Setting composed by Seán Ó Riada

Maith dúinn ár bhfiacha . . . Forgive us our trespasses . . .

Traditional Latin Mass

Eighth Sunday After Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 07-23-2023 if necessary).

Epistle: Romans 8:12-17. Gospel: Luke 16:1-9.

St Paul

Jusepe de Ribera [Web Gallery of Art]

When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:15-16; today's Epistle).

'The valleys . . . shout and sing together for joy.' Sunday Reflections, 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

 

The Sower, June 1888, Arles

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

A sower went out to sow . . .

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Matthew 13:1-23 [Shorter version: 1-9] (English Standard Version Anglicised, India)

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.”

[Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:

“‘You will indeed hear but never understand,
    and you will indeed see but never perceive.
For this people's heart has grown dull,
    and with their ears they can barely hear,
    and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
    and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
    and turn, and I would heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

“Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”]

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Green Wheat Fields

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

Other seeds fell on good soil

Wheatfield with Reaper at Sunrise

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

and produced grain

Harvest at La Crau (The Blue Cart)

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty

Wheat Field with a Lark

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

He who has ears, let him hear

In the spring of 1982 I made the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius at Loyola House, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. We spent 40 days there, a few days of preparation for the Thirty-Day Retreat proper and five days of reflection on the experience afterwards. One of the spiritual directors, though not my own, was an American Jesuit priest named George. He was probably in his 60s at the time. He had worked for some years in South America and he was a recovering alcoholic.

One evening I saw Father George come out of the Jesuit residence dressed very nattily, wearing a rather nice sports jacket and hat, his pipe in one hand - and his rosary beads in the other. I said to myself, 'That man has it all together!'

Head of a Young Peasant with Pipe

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

He gave unusual homilies, laced with a delightfully dry and ironic humour. One was simply about a tiny bird - I think it was a species of hummingbird - that migrates each year in both directions between Alaska and Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America, without stopping. All of us listening were filled with awe at God's creation, at the power and endurance of one of God's creatures, one that didn't have the power of reasoning but that knew how to get from one end of the landmass of the Americas to the other and to know where to go.

The First Reading and its Responsorial Psalm along with the Gospel invite us to reflect on how God's word takes root in our hearts. But they also invite us to reflect on God's bounty as revealed in nature itself. Isaiah tells us in the First Reading that it is impossible for the rain and snow that God sends not to bear fruit: For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it (Isaiah 55:10-11).

Sunny Lawn in a Public Park

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

Psalm 64 [65], the Responsorial Psalm, echoes this:

You crown the year with your bounty

 your wagon tracks overflow with richness.

The pastures of the wilderness overflow,

the hills gird themselves with joy,

the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,

the valleys deck themselves with grain,

they shout and sing together for joy.

Jesus takes something simple in nature as an example of how God's word, God's very life, takes root in our lives. But we can see God's loving power, presence and bounty in the seed itself, without drawing any analogies or other meanings from it. Those of us who aren't from a farming background can take for granted the food that lands on our table. All the nourishment that we find in a loaf of bread or in a bowl of rice is there already in the grains the farmer sows. The seed of a husband fertilized by the egg of his wife becomes a new human being containing already in its microscopic size all that will be evident when that person is born and grows to maturity.

There is great emphasis today on the urgency of respecting nature and of not abusing it, in order to avoid possible disastrous consequences.

But the basic reason we should respect all of nature is that it is an expression of God's infinite bounty 'singing' in its own way: the valleys . . . shout and sing together for joy.

Father George conveyed something of that to all of us on retreat in Guelph 41 years ago. Another Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, captured that in some of his poems, including Pied Beauty, published 29 years after his death and 41 years after he wrote it, rather like the seed being buried in the ground in spring and bearing fruit at harvest-time.

+++

In your charity pray for the soul of Vincent van Gogh who, through his paintings, revealed so much of the beauty of God in nature and in people and yet suffered greatly in his own life. Pray for all who are walking in darkness.

Pied Beauty

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Read by Carolyn Rose García

Traditional Latin Mass

Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 07-16-2023 if necessary).

Epistle: Romans 6:19-23. Gospel: Matthew 7:15-21.

Peach Tree in Blossom

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit (Matthew 7:18; Gospel).