'But faith in what? In the love of God.' Sunday Reflections, 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

St Roch Asking the Virgin Mary to Heal Victims of the Plague

Jacques-Louis David [Web Gallery of Art]

The notes about this painting on the WGA website have a contemporary ring about them: David’s first independent commission was for an altarpiece for the chapel of the Lazaret (or quarantine centre) in Marseille, France’s major Mediterranean port, and a place that lived in continual fear of contagion brought by travellers from the East.

St Roch is one of the most popular saints in the Philippines where he is known as San Roque.

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 1:29-39 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

And immediately Jesus left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening at sunset they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is what I came for.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Pope Benedict with children [Source]

The whole world is now acutely aware of the reality of sickness and of our fragility as a species in a way that it never was before, certainly in modern times. All of us are affected directly by the Covid-19 pandemic in having to accept restrictions in the way we live. Many of us have lost persons close to us through the virus and more and more have had family members who have been sick from it, though we know that the vast majority of those with the virus have recovered or will do so.

This week I will simply copy Pope Benedict's words on today's gospel during his Angelus talk on this same Sunday in 2012. I will highlight what particularly strikes me. 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This Sunday’s Gospel presents to us Jesus who heals the sick: first Simon Peter’s mother-in-law who was in bed with a fever and Jesus, taking her by the hand, healed her and helped her to her feet; then all the sick in Capernaum, tested in body, mind and spirit, and he 'healed many… and cast out many demons' (Mk 1:34). The four Evangelists agree in testifying that this liberation from illness and infirmity of every kind was — together with preaching — Jesus’ main activity in his public ministry.

Illness is in fact a sign of the action of Evil in the world and in people, whereas healing shows that the Kingdom of God, God himself, is at hand. Jesus Christ came to defeat Evil at the root and instances of healing are an anticipation of his triumph, obtained with his death and Resurrection.

Jesus said one day: 'those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick' (Mk 2:17). On that occasion he was referring to sinners, whom he came to call and to save. It is nonetheless true that illness is a typically human condition in which we feel strongly that we are not self-sufficient but need others. In this regard we might say paradoxically that illness can be a salutary moment in which to experience the attention of others and to pay attention to others!

However illness is also always a trial that can even become long and difficult. When healing does not happen and suffering is prolonged, we can be as it were overwhelmed, isolated, and then our life is depressed and dehumanized. How should we react to this attack of Evil? With the appropriate treatment, certainly — medicine in these decades has taken giant strides and we are grateful for it — but the Word of God teaches us that there is a crucial basic attitude with which to face illness and it is that of faith in God, in his goodness. Jesus always repeats this to the people he heals: your faith has made you well (cf. Mk 5:34, 36).

Even in the face of death, faith can make possible what is humanly impossible. But faith in what? In the love of God. This is the real answer which radically defeats Evil. Just as Jesus confronted the Evil One with the power of the love that came to him from the Father, so we too can confront and live through the trial of illness, keeping our heart immersed in God’s love.

Blessed Chiara Luce Badano [Source]

(29 October 1971 - 7 October 1990) 

We all know people who were able to bear terrible suffering because God gave them profound serenity. I am thinking of the recent example of Blessed Chiara Badano, cut off in the flower of her youth by a disease from which there was no escape: all those who went to visit her received light and confidence from her! Nonetheless, in sickness we all need human warmth: to comfort a sick person what counts more than words is serene and sincere closeness.

Dear friends, next Saturday, 11 February, the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, is the World Day of the Sick. Let us too do as people did in Jesus’ day: let us present to him spiritually all the sick, confident that he wants to and can heal them. And let us invoke the intercession of Our Lady, especially for the situations of greater suffering and neglect. Mary, Health of the Sick, pray for us!

[Thursday, 11 February, is this year's World Day of the Sick.]

Blessed Chiara [Source]

On a pastoral visit to Palermo, Italy, on 3 October 2010 Pope Benedict had this to say about Blessed Chiara [emphases added]: I do not want to start with a discussion but with a testimonial, a true and very timely life story. I believe you know that last Saturday, 25 September, a young Italian girl, called Chiara, Chiara Badano, was declared Blessed in Rome. I invite you to become acquainted with her. Her life was a short one but it is a wonderful message. Chiara was born in 1971 and died in 1990 from an incurable disease. Nineteen years full of life, love and faith. Her last two years were also full of pain, yet always of love and light, a light that shone around her, that came from within: from her heart filled with God! How was this possible? How could a 17- or 18-year-old girl live her suffering in this way, humanly without hope, spreading love, serenity, peace and faith? This was obviously a grace of God, but this grace was prepared and accompanied by human collaboration as well: the collaboration of Chiara herself, of course, but also of her parents and friends.

 You may read more about Blessed Chiara Luce Badano in The Saint Who Failed Math by Richelle Verdeprado  published in the September-October 2010 issue of MISYONonline.com, the magazine of the Columbans in the Philippines of which I used to be editor. 

The whole of Pope Benedict's address to the young people and families of Sicily is well worth reading and reflecting on. 

Extraordinary Form of the Mass

Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) 

Sexagesima Sunday 

The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 2-7-2021 if necessary).

Epistle: 2 Cor. 11:19-33; 12:1-9.  Gospel: Luke 8:4-15.

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.

Pope Benedict XVI meeting with artists in the Sistine Chapel, 21 November 2009.

Sea Fever

by John Masefield (1878 - 1967)

Recited by Iain Batchelor

I learned this poem in secondary school and it has always appealed to me, though I don't particularly enjoy travelling by sea unless it is very calm. One of my great-grandfathers, Joseph Hoare from Rush, a coastal town north of the city of Dublin, was a ship's captain. My grandfather from the same place, Nicholas Coyle, grew up overlooking the sea. So I have the sea 'in my blood' to some extent.

Maybe I was still at school when I heard John Ireland's setting of Masefield's poem. It's haunting quality stayed with me for decades before I heard it again. Here it is sung by Korean baritone Jusung Gabriel Park.

Sea Fever

Poem by John Masefield, music by John Ireland

Sung by Jusung Gabriel Park

'God seems so distant, so forgetful, so absent.' Sunday Reflections, Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, Year A

Christ's Entry inot Jerusalem

Melozzo da Forli [Web Gallery of Art]

The Commemoration of the Lord’s Entrance into Jerusalem

Matthew 21:1-11.

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, “The Lord needs them.” And he will send them immediately.’ This took place to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,

‘Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
    humble, and mounted on a donkey,
        and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

‘Hosanna to the Son of David!
    Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’

Readings at Mass

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel [Full version] Matthew 26:14—27:66 (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition, Canada)

Gospel [Shorter version] Matthew 27:11-54 (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition, Canada)

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Matthew 26:14—27:66 in Filipino Sign Language

Responsorial Psalm (New American Bible Lectionary)

This is used in Years A, B and C.

A few nights ago on the news on TV here in Ireland a woman spoke about the death of her 78-year-old father fromCovid-19. Emily and her mother were present when he died but could not go near him to say goodbye. Her mother wanted to lie beside her dying husband but could not. (What a beautiful image of marriage!) And when he died his daughter could not hug her mother.

Death notices in Ireland online and in newspapers, such as that for Columban Fr Seamus O'Connor who died last Sunday, carry statements like this: Respecting current national health guidelines, Fr Seamus's funeral will be private. Your personal prayers for Fr Seamus are deeply appreciated. Those who would have liked to have attended the funeral but cannot due to current restrictions, please feel free to leave a message for the family in the Condolences section below. 

Father Seamus died from natural causes at the age of 94, the oldest Columban in Ireland. He had been ill for some years. He was one of the pioneering group of Columbans to go to Fiji in 1951 and later worked in Australia and Peru. May he rest in peace.

The experience of the wife and daughter of the man who died from Covid-19 and that of all bereaved families at this time when normal funerals cannot take place is, I think, a sharing in the abandonment that Jesus experienced on the Cross.

The response for today's Responsorial Psalm is My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? ('forsaken me' in the Jerusalem Bible Lectionary), the last words of Jesus according to St Matthew, whose version of the Passion is read today. The readings carry that theme, explicitly or implicitly. The Prophet Isaiah says in the First Reading, I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The church applies these words to the sufferings of Jesus. Yet there isn't total abandonment: The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.

Psalm 21 (22) is fulfilled in the Passion and Death of Jesus. St Paul in the reading from his Letter to the Philippians speaks of the self-emptying of Jesus who: though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.

The Agony in the Garden

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

An tAthair Pádraig Ó Croiligh (Fr Patrick Crilly) of the Diocese of Derry, Ireland, reflects on this in his poem in Irish, An Crióst Tréigthe (The Abandoned Christ). I have added my own English translation.

An raibh sé ina aonar ar feadh a shaoil,

Was he alone throughout his life,

An Críost seo scartha ón Trionóid naofa?

This Christ separated from the holy Trinity?

Ar chrothnaigh sé an dá phearsa eile,

Did he miss the two other persons,

Nó an raibh sé in aineolas orthu?

Or was he unaware of them?

Agus i ndiaidh fhás na spioradáltachta ann,

And after the growth of spirituality in him,

I ndiaidh greim a fháil ar a cheangal le Dia,

After he grasped his connection with God,

Ar fágadh in aonar arís é ar an chrois

Was he left alone again on the cross

Gan a fhios aige cén fáth ar tréigeadh é?

Not knowing why he had been abandoned?

Nuair a fhuair sé bás ar an chrois,

When he died on the cross

Ar ócáid cheiliúrtha é filleadh abhaile?

Was his going home an occasion of celebration?

Nó ar bhraith sé tréigean a dhaonnachta

Or did he feel the abandonment of his humanity

I gcumha a shaoil abhus mar dhuine?

In the loneliness of his life here as a human being?

Ag leanúint Chríost dúinn i mbeocht an tsaoil

In following Christ in the living of life

An mbuailfimid lena thréigean siúd?

Will we encounter his abandonment?

An féidir linn a bheith Críostaí

Can we be Christian

Gan casadh sa saol leis an Chríost tréigthe?

Without coming across the abandoned Christ in life?

Poem taken from Brúitíní Creidimh, published by Foilseacháin Ábhar Spioradálta (FS), Dublin, 2005. The title could be translated as 'Mashed Potatoes of Faith'. Potatoes are the main staple in Ireland.

Christ in Agony on the Cross

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

El Greco shows the city of Toledo in the background. It is only 80 kms from Madrid, both in the general area that has had the highest incidence of Covid-19 in Spain. El Greco, who died on 7 April 1614, shows the Crucified Lord in the midst of us. Perhaps we can remember this great painter in our prayers.

Father Ó Croiligh, I think, is teasing out some of the meaning of St Paul's words in today's Second Reading: Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus wasn't acting or engaging in any kind of 'drama-drama' (play-acting), as they say in the Philippines. He truly suffered a sense of being forsaken, of being abandoned, in the very depths of his being. He did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. We see that in the Garden of Gethsemane when the three Apostles closest to him fell asleep during his hour of greatest need. His cry from the Cross, Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? comes from the innermost recesses of his heart, from a sense of even his Father having abandoned him.

This touches on the mystery of what the Church calls the 'Hypostatic Union.' Jesus Christ is fully God and fully Man, one person with two natures, divine and human. Fr Thomas Joseph White OP speaks about it on this video. (If you are confined to your home at this time you might spend some time watching the video and reflecting on this mystery.)

At this time many people are experiencing a form of being abandoned. Emily on Irish TV spoke about her family not being able to grieve properly because she and her mother are in isolation together, while two of her five brothers are overseas, one in Australia and one in the USA. Many other families are in a similar position. I remember a few years ago flying from Toronto to Dublin and the man beside me was 'in bits', as we say in Ireland. His mother had just died but he was too late for the funeral because his Irish passport had expired and he had to get a new one.

At the funeral of Fr Seamus O'Connor here on Tuesday none of his relatives could come. And only two priests were allowed to attend the burial in our own cemetery. We could not pray a decade of the Rosary at the graveside after the final prayers of commendation nor sing the Salve Regina there as is our custom.

Many others are sharing the pain of separation by not being able to meet their close relatives and friends in person, grandparents and grandchildren, for example. Young children don't know what this is all about. Neither do many older people with dementia.

Pope Benedict reflected on Psalm 21 (22), used in today's Responsorial Psalm, in his Wednesday Audience on 14 September 2011. In his talk the Pope said:

God is silent and this silence pierces the soul of the person praying, who ceaselessly calls but receives no answer. Day and night succeed one another in an unflagging quest for a word, for help that does not come, God seems so distant, so forgetful, so absent. The prayer asks to be heard, to be answered, it begs for contact, seeks a relationship that can give comfort and salvation. But if God fails to respond, the cry of help is lost in the void and loneliness becomes unbearable.

Yet, in his cry, the praying man of our Psalm calls the Lord ‘my’ God at least three times, in an extreme act of trust and faith. In spite of all appearances, the Psalmist cannot believe that his link with the Lord is totally broken and while he asks the reason for a presumed incomprehensible abandonment, he says that ‘his’ God cannot forsake him.

Two images I have seen on the news recently symbolised for me the sense of desolation that many experience at this time, but also the sense of hope, both reflected in the psalm. One was of a fleet of Italian army trucks taking coffins to crematoriums. The other was of a fleet of Irish army trucks earlier this week carrying consignments of protective clothing for medical workers in different parts of the country that had just arrived at Dublin Airport from China.

Salve, Regína, mater misericórdiae

vita, dulcédo et spes nostra, salve

Ad te clamámus, éxules fílii Evae.

Ad te suspirámus, geméntes et flentes

in hac lacrimárum valle.

Eia ergo, advocáta nostra,

illos tuos misericórdes óculos

ad nos convérte.

Et Jesum, benedíctum fructum ventris tui,

nobis post hoc exsílium osténde

O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo María.

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy,

hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope.

To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve:

to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping

in this valley of tears.

Turn then, most gracious Advocate,

thine eyes of mercy toward us,

and after this our exile, show unto us

the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus,

O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary! 

St Roch Asking the Virgin Mary to Heal Victims of the Plague

Jacques-Louis David [Web Gallery of Art]

There is great devotion to St Roch in the central and southern Philippines where he is known as San Roque. (In Italy he is known as San Rocco).

The notes on this painting on Web Gallery of Arts say: David's first independent commission was for an altarpiece for the chapel of the Lazaret (or quarantine centre) in Marseille, France's major Mediterranean port, and a place that lived in continual fear of contagion brought by travellers from the East. The picture was to commemorate a miraculous episode from the 1720 outbreak of the disease in the city when the fourteenth-century saint, who had suffered from the plague himself, reappeared and came to the aid of the sick.

St Roch among the Plague Victims and the Madonna in Glory

Jacopo Bassano [Web Gallery of Art]

Health of the Sick, Pray for us.
St Roch/San Roque/San Rocco, Pray for us.

San Roque, intercede for the poor and despised 'suspects' of the Philippines!

San Roque's tomb, Venice [Wikipedia]

Today, 16 August, is the feast of San Roque in the Philippines where there is great devotion to him. He was a French layman born around 1348 and who died 16/17 August 1376/79. (Some date his life from c.1295 – 16 August 1327). He is invoked against the plague. He is known in France as St Roch, in Italy as San Rocco and in Spain, Portugal and the Philippines as San Roque. He is no so well known in the English-speaking world and in English is referred to as St Rock.

According to Wikipedia: Ministering at Piacenza he himself finally fell ill. He was expelled from the town; and withdrew into the forest, where he made himself a hut of boughs and leaves, which was miraculously supplied with water by a spring that arose in the place; he would have perished had not a dog belonging to a nobleman named Gothard Palastrelli supplied him with bread and licked his wounds, healing them. Count Gothard, following his hunting dog that carried the bread, discovered  Saint Roch and became his acolyte.

Among other things, he is a patron saint of persons falsely accused because when he arrived back in his native Montpellier, France, after a pilgrimage to Rome during which he took care of strangers he met on the way who were suffering from the plague, he was arrested as a spy and put in jail by his uncle who didn’t recognize him. He died in jail after five years and it was only then that the people recognized who he was.

San Roque Cathedral, Caloocan, Philippines [Wikipedia]

As of 15 August, yesterday, the Philippine Daily Inquirer notes in its Kill List that since 30 June, when the current president took his oath of office, 646 have been killed. Since his election on 10 May, 693 deaths have been listed by the Inquirer. Most of these are vigilante murders against ‘suspects’ connected with illegal drugs. Others have been of persons in police custody killed while ‘trying to escape’ and such things. Many are unidentified.

All of these people were poor and not a single one was brought to court. Politicians  and other prominent persons who have ‘surrendered’ have been treated with kid gloves, one even staying for a few days at the official residence of the Chief of Police, a crony of the President who served under the latter as Police Chief in Davao City while the current President was Mayor/Dictator there, a city where there are more than 1,400 unsolved murders. This allegedly peaceful city has, according to the Philippine National Police, one of the worst crime records in the country.

But the escalation of killings is not going unnoticed in the Philippines itself nor in the international media, for example, here.

May San Roque, unjustly jailed, and venerated as a healer, intercede for the poor of the Philippines, so many of whom have been brutally murdered, their bodies left in gutters, under the brutal regime now in power.

Statue of San Roque, Prague [Wikipedia]

'If you choose, you can make me clean.' Sunday Reflections, 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Christ as Saviour, El Greco, c.1600

National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh [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 1:40-45 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.  After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Dr Carlo Urbani with his wife Giuliana Chiorrini and their children

Towards the end of February 2003 Dr Carlo Urbani, an Italian, went to Vietnam, representing the World Health Organisation, to investigate an American businessman who was showing unusual symptoms. It turned out to be severe respiratory syndrome (SARS), a highly contagious virus. The man who discovered this new disease died from it himself about a month later on 29 March. In a conscious moment, while in the ICU in a hospital in Bangkok, he asked for a priest to give him the Last Rites.

Vladimir Redzioch of Inside the Vatican interviewed Giuliana Chiorrini, the widow of Dr Urbani. MISYON, the Columban magazine in the Philippines, published the interview, with permission, in its March-April 2004 issue. Here are extracts from the interview.

ITV: Your husband chose to work with the sick and poor around the world. Why?

Giuliana Chiorrini: Carlo was always involved in volunteer work and since his youth was attracted by the poor. He cultivated the desire to discover new horizons. To do this he left for Africa with the missionaries. Since his days as a young student with a backpack full of medicines, he had traveled in Africa (Mali, Niger, and Benin). Afterwards he work in solidarity camps run by the Xaverian Fathers, Catholic Action and Open Hands. He was always in contact with missionaries. As a doctor he wrote for the missionary magazine Missioni Consolata. Carlo also fulfilled his desire to help he poor during his 10 years working at the hospital in Macerata. This confirmed him in his work with Médecins Sans Frontières, of which he was the president, and in this capacity he received the Nobel Peace Prize when it was conferred on the organization in 1999.

ITV: What role did his faith play in his choice of life?

Chiorrini: Faith had an extremely important role in my husband’s life. Everything he did enriched the spiritual lives of the people who were in contact with him. He was also very sensitive to the beauty of creation - he even used to go hang-gliding to admire nature.

That year St John Paul II invited the family of Dr Urbani to carry the Cross during the Via Crucis on Good Friday, 18 April, in the Colosseum.

ITV: This year, during the Via Crucis at the Colosseum, you and your son carried the cross. How did you react when you heard you had been chosen by the Holy Father, and what significance did it have for your family to participate in this Good Friday liturgy?

Chiorrini: I am a believer, as was my husband, and knowing I was to carry the cross during the Via Crucis touched me a great deal, as well as giving me an enormous joy. It was a very intense moment of the interior spirituality and in all honesty it was also very moving, with the evocative atmosphere which was created that evening.

+++

If you choose, you can make me clean. Like Jesus, Dr Carlo Urbani chose and made many clean, sacrificing his own life in doing so.

San Roque/San Rocco/St Roch [Wikipedia, P. Lameiro]

Healing the sick was central to the mission of Jesus. And he often did things that others wouldn't do or might even condemn: Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” The First Reading shows us how strict were what we would now call 'quarantine laws' with regard to lepers. We can understand why they were so strict. We have seen something similar with the ongoing outbreak of Ebola. We saw it in 2003 when SARS was seen as a threat to the world.

Yet there have always been individuals, motivated by their faith in Jesus Christ, who have been prepared to take great risks in taking care of the sick, persons who say, like Jesus, I do choose, and who 'stretch out their hands and touch the sick'. Pope Francis uses striking images, one especially for priests: that they should be shepherds living with 'the smell of the sheep', shepherds in the midst of their flock . . . Another is that he sees the Church as a field hospital where wounds are healed.

The Church has always had those characteristics. One of the most popular saints in the Philippines, especially in the Visayas and Mindanao, is San Roque, a layman, who took care of persons with the plague. Like Jesus, he chose to put his life in danger and caught the disease, though he recovered, partly with the help of a neighbour's dog. 

+++

If you choose, you can make me clean. Like Jesus, San Roque chose and made many clean, suffering from the plague himself in doing so.

I learned about Father Damien of Molokai (1840 - 1889) from Sister Stanislaus in Stanhope Street, Dublin, nearly 70 years ago when I was in kindergarten, how he chose to live among the lepers of Molokai, Hawaii, despite the risks. Pope Beneidct XVI canonised him in 2009. Mahatma Gandhi found in Father Damien a source of inspiration and said: The political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Father Damien of Molokai. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, counts by the thousands those who after the example of Fr Damien have devoted themselves to the victims of leprosy. It is worthwhile to look for the sources of such heroism.

+++

If you choose, you can make me clean. Like Jesus, Father Damien chose and made many clean, becoming 'one of us', as one woman said in the video above, bringing hope to many, not only during his lifetime but more than 130 years later, and giving his life in doing so.

Vinicio Riva: I feel I can move ahead because the Lord is protecting me.

Let us thank God for the many people throughout the world, not all of them Christians, who knowingly put their lives in danger in serving others and for those who welcome persons not accepted by others.

Responsorial Psalm (Philippines, USA)