'Follow me.' Sunday Reflections, 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year C

The Crucifixion of St Peter

Caravaggio [Web Gallery of Art]

Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go. (John 21:18, today's Gospel).

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,)

Readings (English Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, India, Scotland) 

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel John 21:1-19 [or 21:1-14] (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

^[When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.”  He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”]

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Fr Keith Gorman

(21 January 1920 - 19 December 2016)

Fr Keith Gorman was a Columban priest from Australia who worked for many years in Japan. I met him a number of times and was always struck by his delightful sense of humour and how he had grown old gracefully. In one of the articles he wrote for Columban magazines he said that his idea of heaven was having breakfast with Jesus on the shores of eternity. He clearly had today's gospel in mind. 

This is a gospel I often return to. Imagine being served breakfast by Jesus himself, as the seven apostles were on that blessed morning! And the second part, which will surely and unfortunately be omitted by many priests who will choose the shorter gospel, is for me one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible. Jesus is calling us into a deep intimacy with him. He addresses his question Do you love me? not only to St Peter but to each one of us today.

It is in that context that he tells Peter Feed my lambs . . . Tend my sheep . . . Feed my sheep. Jesus emphasises the relationship of intimacy with him as being fundamental, not the mission on which he sends us. Being sent on mission is a consequence of being invited into a deep, personal and intimate relationship with him.

For me as a priest today's gospel tells me that I must put prayer at the very centre of my life, not only the official prayer of the Church - the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Breviary, the Sacraments - but personal prayer.  The same applies to all who are called by God to the single life as priests, as religious, as lay persons.

Today's gospel is a call to married persons to put their spousal relationship at the centre of their lives. Through the Sacrament of Matrimony Jesus himself is the foundation of that relationship. And it is the bride and groom who confer that sacrament on each other, not the priest. He is a witness on behalf of the Church to their exchange of vows.

The first question Jesus puts to Peter is, Simon son of John, do you love me more than these? I understand this to mean 'Do you love me more than the others love me?' Husbands and wives are called by God to love each other more than anyone else loves them - including their children and their parents. And I take it to mean also that God calls them to love each other more than they love their children and their parents.

This does not mean loving anyone less, but rather drawing their children, especially, into their love for each other, a love that is based on God's love for them as a couple.

I truly believe that when their children become more important for spouses than they do for each other their marriage is heading for trouble. The same applies, I believe, to priests and religious who place their work, no matter how important and good in itself it may be, above their personal relationship with the Lord Jesus.

I once heard a boy of around 11 in the Philippines say, What I love most about my parents is that they are always together. He felt drawn into their love for each other, the same love that led to his being born. 

A teenage girl in the Philippines who had been abused told me how she was drawn to Jesus by a very poor black-and-white copy of Rembrandt's painting below that I showed during a Sunday homily. She said to me, He looks so human. She was basically expressing a desire to be close to Jesus, which is the desire Jesus has for her and for each of us. (I brought her coloured, framed copy the following Sunday).

Young Jew as Christ 

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

For married couples, if God grants them children, Feed my lambs means primarily taking care of their children until they are ready to take on the responsibility of being adults. My mother often reminded me that when I'd be 21 - the then legal age of majority in Ireland, now 18 - I would be responsible for myself. I never took this to be an admonishment but rather as her giving me something valuable to aspire to. This, along with how I saw her and my father carrying out their responsibilities, was also a way in which they carried out the words of Jesus, Feed my lambs. 

Countless single individuals, never married or widowed, with a deep sense of the love of Jesus for them have 'fed the lambs and sheep' because of that relationship. Many of us have been strengthened in our faith or have grown in our awareness of God's love for us through such persons. Often enough I have written here about Blessed Piergiorgio Frassati. St John Paul II, who beatified him, said of him, I, too, in my youth, felt the beneficial influence of his example and, as a student, I was impressed by the force of his Christian testimony.

The First Reading expresses in a different way the centrality of our invitation from Jesus to enter into an intimate relationship with him: But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men'. In other words, as Christians we are meant to live the values of Our Lord Jesus Christ in every aspect of our lives.

As it happens, there are elections  in the Philippines on Monday 12 May. Will those involved in these elections allow the values of the gospel to determine how they vote? How we vote is also a way to Feed my lambs . . . Tend my sheep . . . Feed my sheep. How we vote is meant to be a consequence of the intimate relationship into which Jesus calls us within the Church. And when it comes to legislators making laws that are contrary to God's will, as some laws are, we need to make our own the words of St Peter in the First Reading: We must obey God rather than men.

How do we do this? By accepting the invitation of Jesus: Follow me.

Worthy is the Lamb

from Messiah by Handel

Performed by Academy of Ancient Music with Voces8

Conducted by Barnaby Smith

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by his blood, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

Blessing and honour, glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever (from Apocalypse/Revelation 5:12-13, today’s Second Reading).

[Handel used the King James translation, slightly adapted.]

Collect from the Mass for the Election of a Pope

O God, eternal shepherd, who govern your flock with unfailing care, grant in your boundless fatherly love a pastor for your Church who will please you by his holiness and to us show watchful care. Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The conclave to elect the successor of Pope Francis begins on Wednesday 7 May.

Traditional Latin Mass

Second Sunday After Easter

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 05-04-2025 if necessary).

Epistle: 1Peter 2:21-25. Gospel: John 10:11-16.

A Jutland Shepherd on the Moors

Frederik Vermehren [Web Gallery of Art]

So there shall be one flock, one shepherd (John 10:16; Gospel)..

'How can I offer my life to God?' Sunday Reflections, 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Washing of the Feet

Giovanni Agostino da Lodi [Web Gallery of Art]

The greatest among you shall be your servant (Matthew 23:11; Gospel).

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Matthew 23:1-12 (English Standard Version Anglicised, India)

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practise and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practise. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honour at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the market-places and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

The Kitchen Maid

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

I'm sure I've used this story before about an incident in Metro Manila 15 or 16 years ago. But today's readings, especially the Responsorial Psalm and the Gospel,  remind me of it very strongly. I was visiting a home for girls run by the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family. Most of the girls were there because of the extreme poverty of their families. I had an extraordinary conversation with a girl I'll call Gloria (not her real name). 

Gloria was around 14 and I knew that she suffered from asthma. I learned later from the Sisters that she and her family had been living on the street and that her father was a blind beggar. I was astounded at the question Gloria asked me: How can I offer my life to God? This was from a young girl with nothing in life, rather like the young St Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes when the Blessed Mother appeared to her in 1848 and around the same age. St Bernadette too suffered from asthma. And at one time her family lived in what had once been a prison, in a basement room known as le cachot, 'the dungeon'. 

I remember visiting le cachot in Easter week 1991 with a group of Irish pilgrims, many of whom had physical disabilities. I cried when I recalled families in Smithfield, Dublin, now an up-market place, living in what had once been a prison. This was during my childhood, ten minutes' walk from where I lived.

St Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879)

[Wikipedia] 

I spoke to Gloria about another young French saint who was six when St Bernadette died, St Thérèse of Lisieux, and her Little Way that shows that we can become saints in our ordinary humdrum daily activities such as setting the table, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, when we do these things with love for those around us, in Gloria's case the girls and the Sisters in the home. I told her that God would eventually show her what He desired for the rest of her life.

St Thérèse of Lisieux aged 15 (taken April 1888)

[Wikipedia] 

The greatest among you shall be your servant, Jesus tells us in the Gospel. In the eyes of the world Gloria was far from being the greatest in the world. Indeed, insofar as anyone in the wider world even noticed her she was a nobody. But the desire of her heart was to serve God by offering her life to him. The words of the Responsorial Psalm could speak for her: O Lord, my heart is not too proud nor haughty my eyes. I have not gone after things too great nor marvels beyond me.

The closing words of St Paul in the Second Reading are words that I can pray when I think of Gloria: And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

Gloria didn't receive the word of God from me but from others before me. She had accepted it as what it really is, the word of God. Without being aware of it she was, by her question, inviting me to do the same.

I see such incidents as ongoing graces, in my case graces that continue to form me as a priest. I'm finishing this on Friday 3 November, here the feast of St Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, Ireland, who died on 2 November 1138 while visiting St Bernard in the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux, France. The Entrance Antiphon for his Mass reads: I will raise up for myself a faithful priest; he will do what is in my heart and in my mind, says the Lord (1 Samuel 2:35).

God calls each of us to do what is in his heart and in his mind. Gloria, a young girl with nothing to call her own, called me to do that by her question: How can I offer my life to God?

I never saw Gloria again. The Sisters told me that she had gone to live with relatives in one of the provinces near Manila. She would be around 29 or 30 now. Please remember her in your prayers and, with St Paul, thank God that she accepted the Gospel as what it really is, the word of God.

Laudate Dominum, Psalm 116 [117]

Music by Mozart

Sung by Patricia Janečková (18 June 1998 - 1 October 2023) with The Janáček Chamber Orchestra

Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes: Laudate eum, omnes populi:

Quoniam confirmata est super nos misericordia eius: et veritas Domini manet in aeternum.

O praise the Lord, all you nations, acclaim him all you peoples!

Strong is his love for us; he is faithful for ever.

Traditional Latin Mass

Twenty-third Sunday After Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 11-05-2023 if necessary).

Epistle: Philippians 3:17-21; 4:1-3. Gospel: Matthew 9:18-26.

Forest Landscape with Two of Christ’s Miracles (detail)

David Vinckboons [Web Gallery of Art]

'My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live . . . 'If I only touch his garment, I shall be made well' (Matthew 9:18, 21; Gospel).

Elderly Columban Missionaries Say 'Thanks'!

 

The video above, with yours truly speaking, was posted last week on the website of the Missionary Society of St Columban in Ireland under the title Elderly Columban Missionaries Say 'Thanks'!

Most of us Columban priests living here in St Columban's, Dalgan Park, Navan, are officially retired, though some of us are still active in various kinds of pastoral work. There are more than sixty of us here, most of us in our 70s, 80s and 90s. When I entered what was then our seminary here in 1961 there were more than 190 studying for the priesthood, spread over seven years. 

St Columban's is northwest of Dublin city. We have a very good bus service, with four buses per hour most of the time going to and coming from the city centre, a journey of about 50 minutes. There is also a bus to and from Dublin Airport every hour, 24 hours.

We are very conscious of the support of the people of Ireland, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the USA from our beginnings more than 100 years ago. In more recent years we have been receiving support from the Catholics of Chile, Fiji, Korea, Peru and the Philippines. That support is both financial and spiritual. Indeed those who pray for us are spread far and wide. 

St Paul in his letters uses words of gratitude extensively. Romans 1:8 is an example: First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

Those of us who spent many years in the Philippines, in particular, see the truth of this because many of our former parishioners are now living and working in Ireland. Irish people now associate Filipinos with hospitals because so many of our nurses in Ireland are from 'The Pearl of the Orient'. None of us when we went to the Philippines could have imagined that. And many of the Filipinos here proclaim their faith often without being aware of it, through their care for the sick, through their participation at Sunday Mass, which most Irish Catholics don't do any more. Some parishes have Filipino choirs, the initiative coming from the Filipinos themselves.

And we have a growing number of Filipino-Irish people. Some are immigrants who have become Irish citizens and a growing number are the children of Filipinos born here in Ireland.

The same can be said about Catholics with origins in other place, notably Poland, Nigeria, Kerala in India, but also from many other place. 

We retired Columban missionaries are often bridges between immigrants from the countries we worked in and the people of Ireland who welcome them. We know what it is like to be an immigrant. We know what it is like to learn a new language and to adjust to what we initially experience as 'strange' ways of doing things. But we also identify with immigrants from places where we have worked. They are not strangers to us. Their identity is part of ours.

Above all, we know that our deepest identity comes from our baptism as children of the Father, brothers and sisters of Jesus the Risen Lord and therefore of one another. And we hope and pray that those not yet baptised may one day discover the deepest identity and the eternal life to which they are called.

Stephane Grappelli and Frankie Gavin

The opening music to the Columban video is Oh the Days of the Kerry Dances (or The Kerry Dance), words and music by James Lynam Molloy. One of the recurring lines in the song is Oh for one of those hours of gladness, Gone, alas, like our youth too soon. John McCormack's recording, with which all of us here have been familiar from our childhood, is here. The lyrics resonate with me from time to time.

However, in the joyful version of the tune above - the one used in the Columban video - we have an elderly jazz musician from France, Stephane Grappelli now no longer with us, and a young Irish traditional musician, Frankie Gavin, playing together and blending their different traditions. There is clear respect between the two and their supporting musicians, each taking delight in the playing of the other. Both come from musical traditions where the older pass on their skills to the younger, where the older encourage the younger and take joy in their talent and progress, where the older and the younger listen to and appreciate the other.

This video is a kind of metaphor for me as an older missionary priest and resonates with my experience down the years. The young and the old have a great deal to share together and are a source of inspiration and life to one another. I remember a few years ago one quiet afternoon in St Andrew's Church, Westland Row, Dublin, seeing a grandfather teaching his toddler grandson how to genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament and pointing out different things in the church to the youngster. The old man was passing on the Faith while the child was a source of life and encouragement to his grandfather. 

As I say in the video, Being old is good! And thank God for that.

St Columban’s Cemetery, Dalgan Park, Navan, Ireland

More than 400 Columban missionaries are buried here.

We humbly beseech your mercy, O Lord, for your servants  that, having worked tirelessly for the spread of the Gospel, they may merit to enter the rewards of the Kingdom. 

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

'Jesus is risen from the dead, defeating death by death, and giving life to those in the grave.' Sunday Reflections, Easter Sunday

 

The Resurrection of Christ

El Greco [Web Gallery ofArt]

The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

At the Mass during the Day

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel John 20:1-9  (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going towards the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Salubong

Angono, Rizal, Philippines

Regina Caeli / Queen of Heaven 

V. Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia.

R. For He whom you did merit to bear, alleluia.

V. Has risen, as he said, alleluia.

R. Pray for us to God, alleluia.

V. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.

R. For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

Salubong is a Tagalog word meaning 'Welcome' or 'Greeting'. It is the name of the ceremony that takes place at dawn, or shortly before dawn, on Easter Sunday morning in the Philippines. In Visayan-speaking areas - in the central Philippines and Mindanao - the term Sugat is used. Sometimes the ceremony is known by its Spanish name, Encuentro. Women carry an image of the grieving Blessed Mother wearing a black veil of mourning in one direction while the men carry an image of the Risen Christ in another.  

They meet under an arch erected outside the parish church or sometimes inside the church. An 'angel', usually a young girl dressed in white, is lowered from a height and takes off the mourning veil of Mary and replaces it with a white one. She or another 'angel' intones the Easter Hymn Regina Caeli while dropping flower petals on the Risen Lord and his Blessed Mother. Sometimes a group of 'angels' does the same. There are variations in the ceremony from place to place. After the ceremony the Easter morning Mass begins in the church.

This ceremony for me shows the faith of the people in the words of the Prologue of St John's Gospel: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Jesus, God and Man now risen from the dead, reveals his glory to his Mother and to us.

The ceremony shows the faith of the people in the humanity of Jesus and that of the Blessed Virgin. It shows their faith in the Resurrection of Jesus and the hope that on the Last Day we will be called to share that for all eternity. It shows the faith of the people as expressed in the last words of the Nicene Creed: And I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen; and of the Apostles' Creed: I believe in . . . the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.

If we didn't believe those words the celebration of Easter would be meaningless. As St Paul wrote:  if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain (1 Corinthians 15:4).

At Easter we begin to experience the truth of the promises Jesus gave to the Apostles and, through them, to us in his Last Supper Discourse: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid (John 14:27). A little later he says: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full (John 15:11).

Those words are immediately followed by the central point in the mission that Jesus gives the Apostles and, through baptism and confirmation, to us: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12). Jesus repeats these words almost immediately when he sends the Apostles - and us - forth: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another (John 15:16-17).

May our joy be full this Easter and may we live the peace and joy of Easter, given to us by the Risen Lord Jesus, every day. The reason for our joy is wonderfully expressed in the refrain of the Easter hymn in Arabic below : 

Jesus is Risen

Flashmob, Beirut, Lebanon

This is one of the most joyful proclamations of the Resurrection I have ever come across. It is also a reminder to us that most Christians in the Middle East, including Lebanon, are Arabs whose language is Arabic, the language in which this Easter hymn is sung here by professional singers.

Traditional Latin Mass

Easter Sunday

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 04-09-2023 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 5:7-8. Gospel: Mark 16:1-7.

The Resurrection of Christ

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]