'Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant.' Sunday Reflections, 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. First Columban Centenarian.

Call of the Sons of Zebedee, Marco Basaiti, 1510
Galleria dell'Accademia, Venice [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Mark 10:35-45 (New Revised Standard Version, CatholicEdition, Canada) 

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward 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 is it 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.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then 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.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Christ in the Carpenter's Shop, Georges de la Tour, 1645

Musée du Louvre, Paris [Web Gallery of Art] 

In May 2008 I unexpectedly received an
email from Michael in Australia whom I hadn't met or heard from since the
summer of 1967 when we were working together on a building (construction) site
in Dublin. I had just been ordained subdeacon and was to be ordained priest in
December of that year. The general foreman on the site was my father.







In a later
email Michael said, Your father was a great role model for me to try
and emulate. I remember the first job that I met your father on, as he was
the general foreman. It was the first job for me as a journeyman
carpenter and it was a pleasant experience coming to work with such a
pleasant gentleman giving the instructions.







My father, a week before his
sudden death in 1987







I wasn't at all surprised at
Michael's words as I had heard others who had worked with my father, John, say
similar things. And when I worked under him myself that summer I could see what
I had known before: he led by example. He never swore, never shouted at anyone
and was most helpful to young workers and to young architects. He sometimes
would laugh at home at the lack of experience of the latter in practical
matter. But he also knew that you can only learn through experience - and with
the help of mentors. And he was a real mentor to the same young architects.



Many times before I took an
important examination or was about to do something for the first time Dad would
say, The experience will be good for you. There was never the hint
of a demanding expectation. And I have found his words to have been true.



But I often heard him speak
with gratitude, respect and affection of general foremen under whom he had
worked as an apprentice and as a young carpenter. One was Mr Grace, whom I
never met. Two of his sons became Capuchin priests and two of his daughters
religious sisters. Another was Mr Boyle, whom I did know and who with his wife
in their old age were a handsome couple.



Dad was the same at home as he
was on the construction site. He never raised his voice to his two sons or to
our mother. He was courteous with everyone he met and was just himself in every
situation.

























His authority came from within.
He was responsible and loving in everything he did. Every morning, after
returning from a very early Mass, he prepared my mother's breakfast before
heading for work. He started work on time and ended on time. But he wasn't a
slave to the clock.






















Jean
Vanier, right, with John Smeltzer

L'Arche Daybreak Community,
Toronto, 2008 [Wikipedia]





The men who have most
influenced me and whom I have most admired are men who are gentle but strong,
firm and responsible. One example is Jean
Vanier, under whom I have twice made retreats here in the Philippines, in
Cebu City in 1991 and in Quezon City in 1996. Now 87, he is the founder of L'Arche and,
with Marie-Hélène Mathieu, co-founder of Faith and
Light. Jean gave up a career as a university professor of philosophy to
devote his life to persons with learning disabilities. He leads by example,
showing the deepest respect to those considered unimportant, gentle but firm.

















When I was 16 and still at school I spent nearly a
year as a member of Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil (Local Defence
Force), known as the FCA and now called the Irish Army Reserve. We used to
train on Sundays. There was one particular corporal, just a few years older
than us, who used to roar at us continually with a wide range of unoriginal
swear words. Nobody respected him. We had a sergeant whose strongest expression
was 'damn', which is considered a very mild expletive in English. He got both
our respect and our cooperation. He had a sense of rightful pride in what he
and we were doing.
















Men like my father, Jean Vanier and my sergeant in
the FCA are men in whose lives I have seen the words of Jesus in today's gospel
lived out: You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize
as their rulers lord it over them . . . but whoever wishes to become great
among you must be your servant. . .












First Columban Centenarian








Fr Bernard Toal, born 17 October 1915














Fr Bernard Toal, the first Columban to reach
the age of 100, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, on 17 October 1915
but grew up in nearby Gloucester, New Jersey. He was ordained in Buffalo, New
York, on 18 December 1943. Because of World War II he spent the early years of
his priesthood in the USA.








From 1947 to 1951 he was based in Ozamiz City,
Misamis Occidental, Philippines where he taught in Immaculate Conception
College, now La Salle University Ozamiz. From 1951 until 1969 he was in St
Columban's, Bristol, Rhode Island, USA, most of that time as Director of
Probationers, Columban seminarians on a year of intense spiritual formation.








Fr Toal worked in Peru from 1968 till 1979
when he was reassigned to the USA where he worked in parishes in New Mexico,
Texas and California, the last being St Mary's, Fontana, California, where he
worked from 2001 until he retired to St Columban's,Bristol, RI, in 2011.






We thank God for Father Bernard's long life
and for his faithful service as a Columban missionary priest. Ad multos
annos!







Fr Toal, right, on 26 September 2015

'This is my Son, the Beloved . . . listen to him!' Sunday Reflections, 2nd Sunday of Lent Year A

Transfiguration of Christ

Paolo Veronese, 1555-56 [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)  à                             

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

Gospel Matthew 17:1-9 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Lourdes [Wikipedia]

Like Peter, James and John, I caught a glimpse of something of the Purity of God on a hill. Tradition tells us that Jesus was transfigured on Mount Tabor, Israel. My 'Mount Tabor' was a hotel at the top of a hill in Lourdes, France.

During Holy Week 2001 I took part in the international pilgrimage of Faith and Light to Lourdes which takes place every ten years. Faith and Light was born of a desire to help people with an intellectual disability and their families find their place within the Church and society. This was the main purpose of the organized pilgrimage to Lourdes at Easter of 1971. The founders of the movement were Jean Vanier and Marie-Hélène Mathieu.

A message from Jean Vanier to an international meeting of Faith and Light, 2013

I was based in Britain at the time and travelled with a group from the north of England. However, I had been invited to be chaplain to the small contingent from the Philippines, as I had been on the fringes of Faith and Light in the Philippines between 1992 and 2000.

The Filipinos were staying in a hotel at a distance from the shrine and at the top of a hill. There was also a group of Faith and Light pilgrims from Hong Kong in the same hotel. (I was with the English pilgrims in a hotel close to the shrine.)

A Chinese ceramic plate, c. 1680 [Wikipedia]

One of those from Hong Kong was a girl of about eleven with Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21). Her face had the delicate beauty of Chinese ceramics. But she had an extraordinary inner beauty, a purity that could have come only from God. Though I had no Cantonese and she had no English, we were able to communicate simply by looking at one another. She showed complete trust in me. She had a vulnerability that called forth the deepest respect.

In Irish there's an expression used for a person with a severe mental or learning disability, duine le Dia, 'a person with God'. This young girl was such for me, in a very full sense of that phrase: she was a clear expression of the beauty and of the purity of God for me.

The Opening Prayer of today's Mass reads:

O God, who have commanded us
to listen to your beloved Son,
be pleased, we pray,
to nourish us inwardly by your word,
that, with spiritual sight made pure,
we may rejoice to behold your glory.
Through . . .

When Peter, James and John went up Mount Tabor with Jesus they had no idea that would see the divinity of Jesus there. They had no idea they would hear God the Father say This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him! The Entrance Antiphon [below], taken from Psalm 26 [27], prays, It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face from me. I have no doubt that I saw the face of the Lord in that young girl with Down Syndrome from Hong Kong whom I met in Lourdes in Holy Week 2001.

Jesus may speak to us at any time, unexpectedly, as he revealed his presence to me in that hotel in Lourdes. May we make the Opening Prayer our own so that, with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory.

)

Antiphona ad introitum  Cf. Ps 26[27]:8-9; [1]

Tibi dixit cor meum:
quæsívi vultum tuum, 
vultum tuum, Dómine, requíram:
ne avértas fáciem tuam a me.

[Dóminus illuminátio mea, 
et salus mea: quem timébo?

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, 

et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Tibi dixit cor meum:
quæsívi vultum tuum, 
vultum tuum, Dómine, requíram:
ne avértas fáciem tuam a me.]

Entrance Antiphon

Of you my heart has spoken:

Seek his face.

It is your face, O Lord, that I seek;

hide not your face from me.

[The Lord is my light,

and my salvation. Whom should I fear?

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy spirit.

As it was, is now, and will be for ever.Amen.

Of you my heart has spoken:

Seek his face.

It is your face, O Lord, that I seek;

hide not your face from me.]

A younger Jean Vanier speaking about the early days of L'Arche

L'Arche and Faith & Light are sister movements where the VIPs are persons with learning disabilities.

Responsorial Psalm [New American Bible Lectionary]