'When you give a banquet, invite the poor . . . and you will be blessed.' Sunday Reflections, 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy Communion at Holy Family Home for Girls, Bacolod City

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Luke 14:1, 7-14 (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition, Canada)  

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’

He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Luke 14: 1, 7-14 in Filipino Sign Language

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed . . . 

Three years ago I experienced this in a strikig way after Mass at Holy FamilyHome for Girls (HFH) in Bacolod City, Philippines, where I was based from 2002 until 2017. Kathy wished to share her birthday joy with the girls at Holy Family Home along with her family and co-workers. Most of the girls living in Holy Family Home - there are usually more than 30 there - have had traumatic experiences in their lives and the majority are from poor families.

Kathy and her husband Hernan had been celebrating their birthdays with the girls at HFH and the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family who run it for some years. There are other families who have been doing the same, some in HFH, some in orphanages or homes for the aged in Bacolod City.

And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you . . .

Kathy, whose father died suddenly when she was only three months old, spoke briefly at the end of the programme after the catered lunch but asked Hernan to take over. (The programme included a magician, some games and dances by the girls.) He told us how blessed his whole family was simply by the joy they saw in the faces of the girls. That was my own experience over the more than 14 years I was involved with HFH. That involvement has been one of the greatest blessings of my life, an ongoing one that I carry with me now in Ireland, and all the greater because it was something I had never expected when I returned to the Philippines in 2002 after a two-year stint in Britain that was supposed to be a four-year one.

Most of these girls have had experiences that no child or young person should ever have. But in HFH they get the best of truly caring professional help that enables them to feel the healing power of God's love. Much of that healing comes form their interaction with each other and from their shared responsibilities. For example, each cubicle for personal hygiene is used by three girls, who also have to maintain it. And something that touched me when I first began to go to HFH and given the 'grand tour' was to learn that each new girl, whether still a child or already an adolescent, is given a cuddly toy which she keeps on her bed. There are two large dormitories, again maintained by the girls. And they make their bed first thing in the morning, have an early breakfast, gather for prayers and then go off to the local elementary and high schools, both within walking distance.

Columban Fr Michael Sinnott visits HFH

The girls had been praying their hearts out for Fr Sinnott, then 79, after he was kidnapped in October 2009. (He is now retired in the Columban community in Ireland where I am living.) He came to visit them later. This was their reaction when I told them of his release:

Hernan reminded us in his 'few words' of Jesus and children: Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs (Matthew 19:14).

The First Reading and the Gospel remind me of a line in theHandbook of the Legion of Mary: Always will the legionary bear in mind that he is visiting not as a superior to an inferior, not as one equal to another, but as an inferior to his superior, as the servant to the Lord. This is the opposite of what I have heard many well-meaning people say: We must go down to the level of the poor (or whoever). Jesus identifies himself with the 'outsider', with the 'other', whoever the 'other' may be. And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me' (Matthew 25:40). 

Children's Games, Pieter Bruegel the Elder [Web Gallery of Art]

Alleluia' by Ronald Raz

Hail Mary the Queen Children's Choir

Quezon City, Philippines 

Columban Fr Shay Cullen wins 2016 Hugh O’Flaherty Humanitarian Award

Fr Shay Cullen

Sarah Mac Donald, 26 August 2016. CatholicIreland.net 

Columban missionary has uncovered and exposed widespread child sexual abuse and human trafficking involving children as young as 9 years abused by US personnel and sex tourists including local men.

Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty (1898 - 1963) 

from the website of the Hugh O'Flaherty Memorial Society.

Well known Irish Columban missionary Fr Shay Cullen has been selected as this year’s winner of the Hugh O’Flaherty Humanitarian Award. Fr Cullen has worked tirelessly over his lifetime in the Philippines battling for the rights of children to be respected and trying to stem the depredations of child traffickers, paedophiles and the sex industry.

The award was set up in honour of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, an Irish prelate, who was based in the Vatican from 1938 until 1960, and who courageously helped save the lives of 6,500 Jews and Allied soldiers from the Nazis via the Rome Escape Line.

In 1974, Fr Cullen set up the PREDA Foundation to help child victims and trafficked women who were being exploited in the sex trade that flourished alongside the huge United States Naval Base on Subic Bay in Olongapo City and at the US Clarke airbase in Angeles City. He uncovered and exposed widespread child sexual abuse and human trafficking involving children as young as 9 years abused by US personnel and sex tourists including local men. Believing that poverty, violence and child abuse are barriers to peace and give rise to extremism, he strives to eliminate child abuse and promote respect for children’s rights.

He works for peace by working to change the unjust economic political and social structures and attitudes that allow such abuse. His mission for justice and peace is ecumenical; open to people of all faiths. It is based on taking a stand for human rights and protecting the dignity of every person, in particular exploited women and children.

Announcing the Hugh O’Flaherty Memorial Committee’s decision, chairperson Jerry O’Grady said, “Fr Shay has given his life to protecting the human rights of oppressed and exploited children and has fearlessly challenged those who were not prepared to shoulder their responsibilities, including local vested interests, local and national government in the Philippines and the USA Government.”

Fr Cullen said the award was a recognition of the children PREDA has rescued and “those human rights workers who, like Monsignor Hugh [O’Flaherty], continue to work for the unjustly imprisoned, the refugees trying to escape from Isis and war and those risking their lives to help them escape.”

This year’s award will be presented to Fr Shay Cullen by Cllr Brendan Cronin, Mayor of Killarney on Saturday evening November 5th 2016 at a ceremony in the Killarney Avenue Hotel.

Preda Handicrafts

Fr Shay and Preda has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. He has received the Ireland Meteor Award, Irish Personality of the year award, German City of Weimar and Italian city of Ferreira Human Rights awards and is an internationally recognised human rights and child rights advocacy organisation for social justice, peace, dialogue and human dignity.

The People’s Recovery Empowerment and Development Assistance (PREDA) Foundation is an active social development organisation today with 54 professional Filipino paid employees implementing projects that save children from sexual abusers, human traffickers and from life in the brothels and sex bars frequented by Filipino men and foreigners of all nationalities. It provides residential care with therapy education, empowerment and legal action for the children in two centres one for abused girls in Subic, Zambales and one for the boys rescued from jails and detention centres situated in Nagbayan, Castelljos, Zambales.

Preda social workers save children from jails and detention centres and give them a new life of dignity and self-esteem. The Preda boy’s home offers protection and therapeutic homes and services for the child victims and operates a therapeutic community for boys saved from jails, ages 7 to 15 years of age. They are victims of abuse and neglect in government jails and detention centres called Bahay Pagasa.

The Preda boy’s home in Catellijos, Zambales is an open home community and family in a farm setting without fences or walls. Children are free to choose to stay or leave. Most choose to stay. They receive full support, therapy and education at the Bukang Liwayway home. There is an average of 35 children there with a full staff of 15 therapists and social workers and qualified male nurses.

Hundreds of children have been rescued from sex bars and clubs and sex abusers of all kinds: paedophiles, child rapists, cybersex bars, abusive parents and relatives. There are as many an average of 44 girls victims’ of sexual abuse and commercial exploitation 8 to 17 years-old in the Girls home in Subic, Zambales.

The Preda Girls Home in Subic provides a therapeutic home in a natural environment for children raped, sexually and physically exploited and the therapeutic life style gives full therapy, recovery, healing and educational support and family reconciliation and reintegration with supportive relatives when possible.

An Awareness and Reporting System has been activated. A hot phone line alerts Preda to a child in need and Preda rescue team is sent to rescue the child with the help of the government social worker and police if needed.

For more information see: www.preda.org and predainfo@preda.org

Fr Michael Sinnott

The first Hugh O'Flaherty International Humanitarian Award was given in 2009. The second recipient, in 2010, was Columban Fr Michael Sinnott. On 11 October 2009 he was kidnapped just outside the gate of the Columban house in Pagadian City in western Mindanao. He was released, unharmed, on 12 November that year. He was 79 at the time. He is now retired and in good health at St Columban's, Dalgan Park, Navan, County Meath, Ireland.

'By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.' Sunday Reflections, 5th Sunday of Easter, Year C

Father (later Bishop) Edward Galvin  

Co-founder of the Columbans (1882-1956)

Photo taken in China between 1912 and early 1916

Fr John Blowick

Co-founder of the Columbans (1888-1972)

Photo taken around 1913, the year of his ordination

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

               

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

Gospel John 13:31-33a, 34-35 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Frs Owen McPolin, John Blowick, Edward Galvin 
China 1920

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.

Fr John Blowick emphasised the centrality of the words of Jesus in this Sunday's gospel, I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone 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.

To this particular Columban these words of Jesus from the Gospel of St John are 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. 

And not only men, but women too, as Columban Sisters and as Columban Lay Missionaries. 

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.

Fr Michael Sinnott in Manila on the day of his release

With his sisters, Mrs Aine Kenny, left, and Mrs Kathleen O'Neill, right, at Dublin Airport, 3 December 2009

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 Joseph Monaghan 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 Lalor, Kelly, Francis Vernon Douglas, Fallon, Monaghan and Heneghan

Fr Douglas died, most probably on 27 July 1943,  after being tortured  by the Japanese in Paete, Laguna.

The words By this everyone 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.

First group of Columban priests [Names]

Fr John Blowick accompanied the first group of Columbans to China in 1920 but didn't stay there as he was needed in Ireland as Superior General and as a teacher in the seminary. 

Earthquake in Ecuador, 16 April 2017

In Memory of Sister Clare

Sr Clare Crockett, from Derry, Northern Ireland, died in the 7.8 earthquake that hit Ecuador last Saturday, 16 April at 7pm local time. She was 33. The death toll as I write this on 21 April is at least 570. Five postulants - young women preparing to be religious sisters - died along with Sister Clare. The video above is from the website of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother Congregation to which Sister Clare belonged.

The young Clare Crockett was no angel. Her own words: 'I liked to party a lot. My weekends, since I was 16-17, consisted in getting drunk with my friends. I wasted all my money on alcohol and cigarettes.'

Before the age of 18 when she pledged to a life of servitude, Sister Clare has aspirations to be an actress. She joined an agency, presented television shows and even had a small part in a movie.

A self-confessed party animal she signed up for what she thought was a free trip to Spain only for her to later realise it was for a pilgrimage during Holy Week. It was during this trip that she realised the Grace of God and realised she had to change her ways. [Belfast Telegraph]

I thank God for the patience that He has had with me, and still has!!!! I do not ask Him why He has chosen me, I just accept it. I depend totally on Him and Our Blessed Mother and I ask them to give me the grace to be whatever they want me to be. [Sister Clare, quoted in Belfast Telegraph]

The Five postulants who died

[Source of photos]

When I entered as a sister in the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother I did so to dedicate my life to God and I knew that by entering into a religious community I was putting my life totally in his hands. And therefore I had to be open to whatever the Lord asked of me. So when I was told that I was going to go to Ecuador to do missionary work, then I put my life in God's hands and I totally accepted it. [Sister Clare, video 2:07 - 2:32]

Our life is completely safe in the hands of Jesus and the Father, Who are one, one love, one mercy, revealed once and for all in the sacrifice of the Cross. To save the lost sheep that is all of us, the Pastor became Lamb and let Himself be sacrificed to take upon Himself, and take away, the sin of the world. [Pope Francis, 17 April 2016]

Pope Francis arriving in Ecuador on 5 July 2015

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Columban Fr Desmond Quinn RIP

Fr Desmond Quinn

(1931 - 2015)

Fr Desmond Quinn was born at Quignashee, Ballina, County Mayo on 14 December 1931. He was educated at Behymór National School, and St Muredach’s College, Ballina. He came to St Columban’s, Dalgan Park, Navan in September 1948 and was ordained priest on 21 December 1954.

St Muredach's Cathedral, Ballina [Wikipedia]

After two years of post-graduate study at Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Louisiana, USA, he was appointed to the Philippines and to the island of Negros. From 1957 to 1962 he served in Cauayan, La Castellana and Binalbagan.

Cauayan Municipal Hall [Wikipedia] 

After his first home vacation he was assigned to promotion work in Britain where he would spend the following ten years.  In 1969 he was appointed Rector of the new London House at Hampstead, London.

In October 1973, Father Des was reassigned to the Philippines. During the years that followed, he served in Isabela, Himamaylan and Binalbagan. all in Negros Occidental. There followed a two-year assignment to Vocations Ministry in the USA, working from Quincy MA.  From 1981-1987 he was pastor of Hinoba-an, and became District Superior of Negros from 1987 to 1991, residing at Batang, Himamaylan. 

Part of Isabela [Wikipedia]

In September 1991 he was assigned to Manila on Mission Awareness and Promotion. From 1993 to 1999 he served two terms as Vice-Director of the Philippine Region. After a year as assistant in Malate Parish, he was appointed Regional Bursar of the Region of Ireland where he served until 2008.

Coat of arms of County Mayo. [Wikipedia]

The motto is the Irish for 'God and Mary with us'.

Father Des will be remembered as a man of integrity and efficiency. Cheerful, good-humoured, unfailingly friendly, courteous and obliging, he was a familiar figure on his daily walks in the Dalgan grounds. He had suffered a couple of minor strokes in recent years, yet the suddenness of his final illness took us by surprise. He died in Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan, on 20 September 2015. We mourn the death of this great-hearted and loyal Columban colleague.

May he rest in peace.

Fr Des Quinn in Manila with his classmate Fr Michael Sinnott on 12 November 2009 after the latter was released by those who had kidnapped him in Mindanao.

Father Des is survived by four siblings, Sr Josephine FMM, Father Peter, Pat and Jerry. Father Peter was ordained as a Columban priest in December 1950. He too was assigned to Negros Occidental and left Ireland for the Philippines after helping Mayo win the All-Ireland Football Final on 23 September 1951, the last time that the county has won the championship. He later became a priest in the Diocese of Orlando, Florida, and is now retired.

Fr Peter Quinn

Columban Fr Michael Sinnott, kidnapped in the Philippines in 2009, retiring to Ireland

Fr Michael Sinnott arriving in Dublin in December 2009 after his release

The website of the Catholic Bishops's Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) carried this story yesterday. 

MANILA, July 18, 2012— An Irish missionary kidnapped and freed by gunmen in 2009 in Mindanao is leaving the Philippines for good.

Father Michael Sinnott of the Society of St. Columban is leaving for Ireland Friday and will retire there after many years of serving the Catholic Church and various communities in Mindanao.

In a send-off party held at the Malate Church on Tuesday night, Sinnott admitted how difficult it was for him to decide whether to retire in the Philippines or in his native land.

Greeted by President Gloria M. Arroyo the day of his release, 12 November 2009

“It really was a very difficult decision to make. I realized that I’m going home and not going back but I still think I made the right decision that there is really nothing more I can do here in Manila that there’s more I can do at home,” Sinnott said.

“I will live a big part of my heart here in the Philippines and I will always remember the people that I met and helped me,” he said.

At a press conference after being released.

His 58 years as a missionary has given Sinnott a unique window into the heart of a people that have lived through poverty, armed conflicts, and the daily struggles of too little food and too little hope for the future.

When he arrived in Mindanao in the 1950s, he was a young priest only few years out of the seminary.

“After ordination two of us were sent to Rome and we know that time that one of us would be going to Japan and one to the Philippines but we don’t know who…,” he said.

“I was delighted when I got my appointment to the Philippines and I’ve never been sorry ever since,” said Sinnott.

Working in one of the country’s poorest regions was hard, he said but it was all worth it.

In Manila a few days after his release

On October 11, 2009, heavily armed men abducted Sinnott from his house in Pagadian City and was forced to walk into the mountains despite having a serious heart condition.

Al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants and insurgents from the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front have a presence in the vast Zamboanga peninsula.

He was released in a coastal village in Zamboanga City after a month in captivity and without carrying his medication.

Since then, Sinnott was brought to the Columban’s regional house in Manila and was never assigned again in Mindanao.

“For the long time that I’ve been here… it’s been a privileged for me to serve the people of the Philippines and I learned a lot more from them more than I gave, especially from the ordinary people for their goodness and their faith,” he said.

“I also would like to thank the Columbans for their support. We sometimes have an arguments but I have to say that everytime I was in trouble they were always there to help me,” said Sinnott. [RL/CBCPNews]

Misyononline has a dossier on Father Sinnott's kidnapping and release here.