Sunday Reflections, Christ the King, Year C, 23 November 2025

 

A Taizé chant by Jacques Barthier (1923 - 1994) 

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom (Luke 23:42; Gospel)

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

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 23:35-43 (English Standard Version, Anglicised) 

Brothers and Sisters: Let us give thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the Church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross..

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

           

Jacques Fesch - A Murderer's Conversion

Jacques Fesch (6 April 1930 - 1 October 1957)

Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) is one of the top soccer teams in Europe. It gets its name from the suburb of Paris where it is located, Saint-Germain-en-Laye. It is also the birthplace on 6 April 1930 of Jacques Fesch. He was executed by guillotine on 1 October 1957 in Paris. In 1987 Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris, opened a diocesan inquiry into the life of Jacques and in 1993 formally opened the process for his beatification. 

Police Officer Jean-Baptiste Vergne

Murdered on 25 February 1954

Widower and father of a four-year-old daughter

This caused considerable controversy in France because Jacques Fesch had been executed by guillotine for the murder of Jean-Baptiste Vergne, 35, a widowed policeman and father of a daughter aged 4, on 25 February 1954. There was no doubt whatever of Jacques Fesch's guilt nor did he show any remorse at his trial or after being sentenced.

How did this man come to be proposed for beatification by a French cardinal who was born Jewish and whose mother was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz in 1943?

During the more than three years that he was in prison, in solitary confinement, Jacques Fesch experienced a profound religious conversion. We know this from the letters he wrote and from the diary he kept during the last months before his execution. 

Jacques Fesch's conversion - he had been baptised a Catholic as an infant - was a gradual one, beginning with reading a book about Our Lady in October 1954 and coming to fruition by the following March, Around that time he wrote: At the end of my first year in prison, a powerful wave of emotion swept over me, causing deep and brutal suffering. Within the space of a few hours, I came into possession of faith, with absolute certainty. I believed … Grace came to me. A great joy flooded my soul, and above all a deep peace. [That quotation is from a comprehensive article: The Final Hours of Jacques Fesch].

In the context of this Sunday's Gospel, Jacques Fesch is both the criminal who mocked Jesus and the criminal who said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Two persons in particular were channels of God's mercy in Jacques' conversion, Fr Devoyod, the prison chaplain, and his lawyer, a devout Catholic whose surname was Baudet and who expressed his concern for the immortal soul of Jacques.

Two months before his execution Jacques wrote in a letter to his mother-in-law: Here is where the cross and its mystery of suffering make their appearance. The whole of life has this piece of wood as its center. …We can have no genuine hope of peace and salvation apart from Christ crucified! Happy the man who understands this.

The last words he wrote in his journal were, In five hours I shall look upon Jesus.

From Commentary on St Luke's Gospel by St Ambrose: The Lord always grants us more than what we ask for. The thief merely asked to be remembered, but the Lord said: 'Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise'. The essence of life is to live with Jesus Christ. And where Jesus Christ is, there is his Reign to be found. 

You can read more about Jacques Fesch, Servant of God, here, here, here and here and by googling.

Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

Traditional Latin Mass

Twenty-fourth and Last Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 11-23-202f if necessary).

Epistle: Colossians 1:9-14. Gospel: Matthew 24:15-35.

The Martyrdom of St Paul

Tintoretto [Web Gallery of Art]

We have not ceased to pray for you (Colossians 1:9; Epistle).

                             

 

'The Church's universal mission is born of faith in Jesus Christ.' Sunday Reflections, 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

 

Tribute Money

Vecellio Tiziano (Titian) [Web Gallery of Art]

"Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” (Matthew 22:19-20; Gospel).

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Matthew 22:15-21 (English Standard Version Anglicised, India)

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” 

They said, “Caesar's.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

 World Mission Day 2023

This Sunday is World Mission Day (or Mission Sunday). It happens that the readings for the Mass of the day have a strong missionary dimension. They include the sense of God calling us by name and of our receiving the mission to make Jesus Christ known to the world: I call you by your name . . . I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other (First Reading).

Psalm 95 (96) used for the Responsorial Psalm adds to the missionary dimension: Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! Declare his glory among the nations, his marvellous works among all the peoples! . . . Worship the Lord in the splendour of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth! Say among the nations, 'The Lord reigns! . . .  he will judge the peoples with equity.'

Though in the Sunday in Ordinary Time the Second Reading is not linked thematically with the First Reading and the Gospel, today's Second Reading is very much in harmony with the other two. In writing to the people of Thessalonica St Paul thanks God for their work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

The Gospel too calls us to be missionaries. Jesus tells the Pharisees trying to trap him: Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.

Often enough these words, I think, are interpreted as if rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's and rendering to God what is God's were in opposition. That is not so. Our involvement in the world of Caesar is meant to be in harmony with God's will. Two things that struck me very clearly during and after the Second Vatican Council, which occurred when I was in the seminary in the 1960s, was that it reminded us that God calls every single one of us to be a saint, not only priests and religious. The second was that lay people by virtue of their baptism  were called to be fully involved in what we may call the world of Caesar, working for the good of all.

This includes the world of politics, whether we are elected officials or voters. Our faith has a bearing on what we do. I remember in the autumn of 1982, when I was on a three-month intensive pastoral programme in Minneapolis, going to a bank there. When the official I was dealing with discovered I was based in the Philippines he told me that in the previous election in the USA he considered, among other things, how his vote would affect the Philippines, which was under martial law at the time.

We weren't talking party politics and I don't think the man was a Catholic. He was probably a Lutheran, since most of the people in Minneapolis have roots in Norway and Sweden, where the vast majority are Lutherans. (The other Twin City, St Paul, has a large Catholic population, the majority of those having Irish and German roots.) I saw in that man who took his vote so seriously an example of what the Vatican Council had in mind for us Catholics as citizens.

Most issues that politicians and voters deal with are matters of prudential judgements on what is best for the common good. People may take different positions on what they consider best for the good of all. Whether to build a road here or there, for example, isn't a matter of right or wrong but of what legislators think is best for the common good. They may have different views on this.

But there are political issues where as followers of Jesus Christ we can make only one choice because the choice is between what is right and what is wrong. No Catholic may vote or legislate in favour of abortion, for example, promote 'marriage' between two persons of the same sex, push for the 'right' to change from one sex to another, a biological impossibility, that has led to the scourge of minors in some countries being genitally mutilated, this being allowed by the law.

Yet there are heads of government and other politicians who claim to be practising Catholics who promote these things and many Catholic voters who vote in favour of these policies. This is a form of rendering to Caesar what is in clear opposition to God's will. It is a form of rendering to Caesar that is extremely harmful to Caesar, not to mention to the souls of those who take these positions.

It is a rejection of the teaching of the Church that the Second Vatican Council re-emphasised and can lead, if we do not repent, to an eternity where Caesar will no longer exist and where it will be impossible to render anything to God.

+++

St John Paul II, 1984

[Wikipedia; photo]

The optional memorial of Pope St John Paul II is observed on 22 October, but Sunday takes precedence over it this year.

This extract from his encyclical Redemptoris Mission [1990] is most appropriate for World Mission Day [emphases added]. 

In my first encyclical, in which I set forth the program of my Pontificate, I said that 'the Church's fundamental function in every age, and particularly in ours, is to direct man's gaze, to point the awareness and experience of the whole of humanity toward the mystery of Christ.'

The Church's universal mission is born of faith in Jesus Christ, as is stated in our Trinitarian profession of faith: 'I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father.... For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.' The redemption event brings salvation to all, 'for each one is included in the mystery of the redemption and with each one Christ has united himself forever through this mystery.' It is only in faith that the Church's mission can be understood and only in faith that it finds its basis.

Laudate Dominum

Composed by Jacques Berthier

Sung by Bethlehem Choir, Catholic Church of the Nativity,

Festac Town, Lagos, Nigeria

Laudete Dominum (Praise the Lord)

Omnes Gentes (All the People) Alleluia!

Composer Jacques Berthier composed hymns for the ecumenical  Taizé Community where Scripture verses are repeated, the refrain in Latin and the verses and sometimes the refrain in a contemporary language, as in the video above. Latin/French here. Latin/Malayalam here; Malayalam is spoken in Kerala, India, where most of the Christians are members of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, in full communion with Rome.

6 that people may know, from th rising o the sunand from the west, that there is none besides me;I  is no other.

Traditional Latin Mass

Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-22-2023 if necessary).

Epistle: Ephesians 6:10-17. Gospel: Matthew 18:23-35.

The Preaching of St Paul in Ephesus

Eustache Le Sueur [Web Gallery of Art]

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might (Ephesians 6:10; Epistle).

'In five hours I shall look upon Jesus.' Sunday Reflections, Christ the King, Year C

 

A Taizé chant by Jacques Barthier (1923 - 1994) 

Luke 23:42 (today's Gospel)

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

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 23:35-43 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

The people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him,^[a] “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge 

Jacques Fesch - A Murderer's Conversion

Jacques Fesch (6 April 1930 - 1 October 1957)

Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) is one of the top soccer teams in Europe. It gets its name from the suburb of Paris where it is located, Saint-Germain-en-Laye. It is also the birthplace on 6 April 1930 of Jacques Fesch. He died on 1 October 1957 in Paris. In 1987 Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris, opened a diocesan inquiry into the life of Jacques and in 1993 formally opened the process for his beatification. 

Police Officer Jean-Baptiste Vergne

Murdered on 25 February 1954

Widower and father of a four-year-old daughter

This caused considerable controversy in France because Jacques Fesch had been executed by guillotine for the murder of Jean-Baptiste Vergne, 35, a widowed policeman and father of a daughter aged 4, on 25 February 1954. There was no doubt whatever of Jacques Fesch's guilt nor did he show any remorse at his trial or after being sentenced.

How did this man come to be proposed for beatification by a French cardinal who was born Jewish and whose mother was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz in 1943?

During the more than three years that he was in prison, in solitary confinement, Jacques Fesch experienced a profound religious conversion. We know this from the letters he wrote and from the diary he kept during the last months before his execution. 

Jacques Fesch's conversion - he had been baptised a Catholic as an infant - was a gradual one, beginning with reading a book about Our Lady in October 1954 and coming to fruition by the following March, Around that time he wrote: At the end of my first year in prison, a powerful wave of emotion swept over me, causing deep and brutal suffering. Within the space of a few hours, I came into possession of faith, with absolute certainty. I believed … Grace came to me. A great joy flooded my soul, and above all a deep peace. [That quotation is from a comprehensive article: The Final Hours of Jacques Fesch].

In the context of this Sunday's Gospel, Jacques Fesch is both the criminal who mocked Jesus and the criminal who said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Two persons in particular were channels of God's mercy in Jacques' conversion, Fr Devoyod, the prison chaplain, and his lawyer, a devout Catholic whose surname was Baudet and who expressed his concern for the immortal soul of Jacques.

Two months before his execution Jacques wrote in a letter to his mother-in-law: Here is where the cross and its mystery of suffering make their appearance. The whole of life has this piece of wood as its center. …We can have no genuine hope of peace and salvation apart from Christ crucified! Happy the man who understands this.

The last words he wrote in his journal were, In five hours I shall look upon Jesus.

You can read more about Jacques Fesch, Servant of God, here, here, here and here and by googling.

Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

Traditional Latin Mass

Twenty-fourth and Last Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 11-20-2022 if necessary).

Epistle: Colossians 1:9-14. Gospel: Matthew 24:15-35.

The Martyrdom of St Paul

Tintoretto [Web Gallery of Art]

We have not ceased to pray for you (Colossians 1:9; Epistle).

'If you have love for one another' - the hallmark of every Christian. Sunday Reflections, 5th Sunday of Easter, Year C

 

The Last Supper

El Greco  [Web Gallery of Art]

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

Readings, (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel, John 13:31-33a, 34-35 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)  

When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

John 13: 31-33a, 34-35 in Filipino Sign Language

A familiar sight four years ago here in St Columban's, Dalgan Park, Ireland, where we have a community of more than 60 Columban priests, mostly retired and many in our nursing home, was that of Fr Jim Gavigan, then in his late 80s, pushing the wheelchair of Fr Paddy Hurley, then over 90. When I came home from the Philippines in 2017 Father Jim was using a wheelchair himself for a while after a hip operation.

Father Paddy went to his reward on 15 April 2019. He had spent more than 60 years in the Philippines on the large island of Negros. His two Columban brothers, the late Fathers Dermot and Gerry, had spent many years in Fiji. That's where Fr Jim Gavigan had worked all his active years, being a member of the pioneering Columban group that went there in 1952, as was Fr Gerry Hurley.

I sometimes saw Father Jim 'driving' another priest's wheelchair. (We have professional staff here who do this work very efficiently and with great care but sometimes others chip in.)

Father Jim died on 23 June 2020 a few months before another classmate of his, Fr Terry Bennett, who had spent most of his life in the Philippines. When Father Terry began to fail, Father Jim always sat opposite him in our dining room. Someone asked him why. He replied, 'To keep Terry company'.

In all of this I see today's gospel being lived out. It is a gospel that is central to the Missionary Society of St Columban to which I belong.

Frs Owen McPolin, John Blowick, Edward Galvin 
China 1920

Frs John Blowick and Edward Galvin were the co-founders of the Columbans. Fr Blowick, the first superior general, accompanied the first group to China but was based in Ireland.

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, like Mariupol in Ukraine today.

Intramuros (Walled City), Manila, February 1945

[Wikipedia; photo]

Mariupol Hospital airstrike, 9 March 2022

[Wikipedia; photo]

Fr John Blowick emphasised the centrality of the words of Jesus in this Sunday's gospel, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people 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.

These words of Jesus from the Gospel of St John are for me 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. He died here in Dalgan Park on St Columban's Day, 23 November, 2019.

Fr Michael Sinnott in Manila on the day of his release

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 John Lalor 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 John Lalor, Patrick Kelly, Francis Vernon Douglas, Peter Fallon, Joseph Monaghan and John Heneghan

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

The words By this all people 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.

Canonisations on 15 May

Pope Francis will canonise ten saints in the Vatican on Sunday. Among them will be Blessed Titus Brandsma OCarm, from the Netherlands, who was killed by lethal injection in Dachau Concentration Camp, Germany, on 26 July 1942.

Blessed Titus Brandsma OCarm

23 February 1881 - 26 July 1942

Another priest who will be canonised is Blessed Charles de Foucauld. I have often written about him on Sunday Reflections.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld

15 September 1858 - 1 December 1916

Cantate Domino 

Taizé Chant

 Cantate Domino canticum novum (alleluia)

O sing a new song to the Lord (alleluia)

These words from Psalm 97[98]:1 are the opening words of today's Entrance Antiphon.

Traditional Latin Mass

Fourth Sunday after Easter

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 05-15-2022 if necessary).

Epistle: James 1:17-21. Gospel: John 16: 5-14.

The Last Supper

Abraham Bloemaert [Web Gallery of Art]