Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Gospel Matthew 21:28:32 (English Standard Version Anglicised, India)
Jesus
said to the chief priests and elders of the people:
“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the
first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’, but afterwards
he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he
answered, ‘I go, sir’, but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the
prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of
righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors
and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not
afterwards change your minds and believe him.
Columban Fr Ray Collier recalls that when he was eight or nine the parish priest of Clogherhead, County Louth, Ireland, came to the school in
October 1950 and announced to the assembled pupils and teachers the death in
Korea of Fr Anthony Collier. Earlier that year the young Ray had been serving
his uncle’s Mass daily. Father Tony was a Columban priest who went to Korea in
1939 and spent the World War II years in Korea under house arrest by the
Japanese who had occupied that country since 1910. Father Ray remembered his
uncle as easy-going and who delighted in making films of his family, unknown to
them, with his cine-camera, something rare at the time. He recalled too that
before he returned to Korea in the early summer of 1950 Father Tony told the
family that North Korea would probably invade the South.
This they did on Sunday morning 25
June, beginning a war that ended on 27 July 1953 with the signing of the Korean
Armistice Agreement.
After Sunday Mass on the morning of the invasion Fr Collier, who was parish priest of Suyangno, Chunchon city, met with Monsignor Thomas Quinlan, the Prelate of the Prefecture Apostolic of Chunchon and Fr Frank Canavan. Father Tony turned down the offer of an American officer to take the priests to safety saying, ‘I want to be with my parishioners’. Two days later North Korean soldiers arrested him and Gabriel Kim, a parish catechist. They tied them together, shot them and left, thinking both were dead. But Gabriel survived and reported Father Tony’s death to the Columbans. The Clogherhead priest was the first foreigner to die in the Korean War.
Six other Columbans were to die within
months as a result of the Korean War. They were Monsignor Patrick Brennan, Frs James Maginn, Patrick Reilly, Thomas
Cusack, John O’Brien Francis Canavan. All seven are included in a list of 84
martyrs of the 20th century, Korean and foreign, proposed for
beatification in a process initiated by the bishops of Korea in 2013.
You can find information about each of the seven here.
Columban Martyrs of KoreaI see something of today's Gospel in the story of Fr Tony Collier. Like the two sons he made a decision. One of those, after telling his father that he would work in the vineyard, decided not to. The other, after telling his father that he wouldn't, decided that he would. The people listening to the story Jesus told understood very clearly which of them was doing their father's will.
Father Tony, who spent much of World War II as a prisoner of the Japanese in Korea, went back after a vacation in Ireland in 1950 knowing that war was probably imminent.
His parish was near the border with North Korea. Despite the danger he was in and despite the fact that he was offered a way of escaping to safety he chose to stay with his people, well aware that his life was in danger.
The alternative Communion Antiphon sums up Father Tony Collier's life: By this we came to know the love of God: that Christ laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for one another (1 John 3:16).
Traditional Latin Mass
Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-01-2023 if necessary).
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:4-8. Gospel: Matthew 9:1-8.
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