'God has created me to do Him some definite service.' Sunday Reflections, 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

 

Moses

Michelangelo [Web Gallery of Art]

(First Reading, Exodus 17:8-13)

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 18:1-8 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterwards he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge 

St John Henry Cardinal Newman

Sir John Everett Millais [Wikipedia]

The Opening Prayer in today’s Mass starts with these words: Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart . . .

This prayer is a synopsis, a summary of what the Christian life is: following Jesus and, with him, submitting our own will to the will of the Father., as Jesus himself did. In John 6:38 Jesus tells us: For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

We receive the gift of faith through baptism and God nourishes that faith through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the sacraments. We cooperate with God when we pray.

The First Reading and the Gospel today are specifically about prayer. Moses prays for the Hebrew soldiers as they battle with the Amalekites. He holds his arms outstretched as he prays, Aaron and Hur supporting them. Jesus in the gospel invites us to continually pray for our needs and assures us that God will hear us and respond: And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? (Luke 18:7).

St John Henry Cardinal Newman's Coat-of-arms

[Wikipedia; photo]

Our baptism and our prayer bring us into relationship with a loving God. Pope Francis canonised St John Henry Newman on 13 October 2019. The saint's motto as a cardinal was Cor ad cor loquitur – Heart speaks to heart. This goes right to the heart of the Christian life in every sense. Pope Benedict spoke beautifully about this at the Mass during which Cardinal Newman was beatified in Birmingham on 19 September 2010: 

Cardinal Newman’s motto, Cor ad cor loquitur, or ‘Heart speaks unto heart’, gives us an insight into his understanding of the Christian life as a call to holiness, experienced as the profound desire of the human heart to enter into intimate communion with the Heart of God. He reminds us that faithfulness to prayer gradually transforms us into the divine likeness. As he wrote in one of his many fine sermons, ‘a habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God and the unseen world in every season, in every place, in every emergency – prayer, I say, has what may be called a natural effect in spiritualizing and elevating the soul. A man is no longer what he was before; gradually … he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and become imbued with fresh principles’.

St Paul puts it this way: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). While Moses didn’t know Jesus Christ, he tried all his life as leader of the Hebrews, the position to which God called him, to have this mind in him that was in God, with whom he spoke heart to heart. And he persisted in praying to God on behalf of his people, most especially when they sinned. While scolding his people he never ceased to pray for them. Like the widow in the parable ‘pestering’, ‘bothering’, ‘wearing out’ - different English translations - the unjust judge, Moses did the same to God in his prayer.

St John Henry Newman was a great theologian, a great preacher and, above all, a great priest. Pope Benedict in his homily focused on how Newman lived the priesthood, a pastor of souls: visiting the sick and the poor, comforting the bereaved, caring for those in prison. No wonder that on his death so many thousands of people lined the local streets as his body was taken to its place of burial.

The Pope made reference to the beautiful description of the Christian life that Newman wrote and that recognises the specific, unique call or vocation each of us has: God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.

These words of the English saint expand on our Opening Prayer: Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart . . .

Praise to the Holiest in the Height

Words by St John Henry Newman, music by RR Terry

Sung by The Symphonials, Ghana, conducted by Emmanuel Ayi

Traditional Latin Mass

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-16-2022 if necessary).

Epistle: Ephesians 4:23-28. Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14.

Wedding Banquet

Jan Brueghel the Elder [Web Gallery of Art]

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son (Matthew 22:1; today's Gospel).

‘I feel called to make my life a little simpler. This comes from trying to be a follower of a poor man.’ Sunday Reflections, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

Mocking of Christ

Titian [Web Gallery of Art]

I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. (Isaiah 50:6. First Reading).

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 8:27-35 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Fr Michael Anthony 'Rufus' Halley

(25 January 1944 - 28 August 2001)

On 28 August 2001 my Columban confrere and friend Fr Rufus Halley, was ambushed while on his motorcycle from Balabagan to nearby Malabang, his parish in Lanao del Sur, Philippines, and murdered. This was in the the Prelature of Marawi, sometimes called the Prelature of St Mary's in Marawi, in a predominantly Muslim are of Mindanao, the southern island that is larger than Ireland.

After spending ten years or so in a rural parish near Manila he felt called by God to go to the Prelature of Marawi around 1980 where he learned Cebuano, the language of the Christians there, and Maranao, the language of the Muslims. He became fluent in both, as was in Tagalog, now the basis of the national language, Filipino.

Father Rufus chose to live in a situation where for centuries there had been tension and, at times, violence. Ten years before he went to Marawi there had been civil war in the area.

At the heart of his life each day was the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and an hour's adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Both Christians and Muslims saw him as a man of God. He was deeply influenced by the spirituality of Blessed Charles de Foucauld, a French priest who spent most of his priestly life living among Muslims in the Sahara, spending much time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and welcoming the Muslims who knocked on his door looking for help.

Father Rufus was an active member of the Jesus Caritas Fraternity of Priests, an international movement inspired by the spirituality of Blessed Charles. (Many of the members in Ireland will be on retreat together in Star of the Sea Centre, Mullaghmore, County Sligo, from 12 to 15 September after a gap of more than two years due to the pandemic. Prayers appreciated!) Blessed Charles was murdered in the Sahara in 1916.

He was very aware of the possible danger he lived with daily but was deeply respected and loved by those who knew him, Christian and Muslim. On one occasion he was invited to mediate between two warring Maranao clans, a truly extraordinary situation. With God's help he succeeded.

This heroic priest, who came from a wealthy background in County Waterford, Ireland, chose to live very frugally. In a letter to his father he explained, My needs are few and one of the things I feel called to do is to make my life a little simpler. This vision, if that's what you'd call it, comes from trying to be a follower of a poor man, and also, from the poverty on a grand scale which I've seen in the Philippines.

St George Maronite Cathedral and Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque, side by side in Beirut 

[Wikipedia; photo by Lebnen 18]

Pope Benedict XVI visited Lebanon from 14-16 September 2012. Lebanon is a country that has seen much conflict down the centuries. Roughly 60 percent of the people are Muslims and 40 percent Christians. In his homily on the last day of his visit, which used the readings of today's Mass some of his words might have been about Father Rufus: Following Jesus means taking up one’s cross and walking in his footsteps, along a difficult path which leads not to earthly power or glory but, if necessary, to self-abandonment, to losing one’s life for Christ and the Gospel in order to save it. We are assured that this is the way to the resurrection, to true and definitive life with God. 

Choosing to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, who made himself the Servant of all, requires drawing ever closer to him, attentively listening to his word and drawing from it the inspiration for all that we do.  

Prayer of Abandonment of Blessed Charles de Foucauld

Introduced and read by Bishop Fintan Monahan of Killaloe, Ireland

Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) 

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost 

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 9-12-2021 if necessary).

Epistle: Ephesians 3:13-21 .  Gospel: Luke 14:1-11.

Wedding Banquet

Jan Brueghel the Elder [Web Gallery of Art]

Authentic Beauty

Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.

Laudate Dominum

Music by Mozart

Sung by soprano Patricia Janečková 

The Janáček Chamber Orchestrs, directed by Jakub Černohorský 

This is Mozart's setting of Psalm 116 in the Latin. Most modern translations number it as Psalm 117.

Psalm 116 [117]

Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes; laudate eum, omnes populi. Quoniam confirmata est super nos misericordia eius, et veritas Domini manet in æternum. [Amen, Amen].

O praise the LORD, all you nations; acclaim him, all you peoples!

For his merciful love has prevailed over us; and the LORD’s faithfulness endures forever. [Amen, Amen].