'You are here to make yourself available to God.' Sunday Reflections, 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

St James the Elder

Rembrandt [Wikipedia]

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 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.”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

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Fr Nicholas Murray 

(1936 - 2011)

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).

Epistle: Philippians 1:6-11.  Gospel: Matthew 22:15-21.

Apostle Paul in Prison

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

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).