'Were not our hearts burning within us . . .' Third Sunday of Easter

Landscape with Christ and his Disciples on the Road to Emmaus, Jan Wildens, 1640s

Readings (New American Bible, used in the Philippines and USA)

Gospel Luke 24: 13-35 (NAB)

That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.

He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast.

One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.”

And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures.

As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.

With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.

Supper at Emmaus, Hendrick Terbrugghen, c.1621

In Terbrugghen’s painting the disciple on the right grips his chair as he rises, recognizing Jesus. His companion is looking across at him as if asking ‘Is it really the Lord?’ Jesus is looking beyond the two, perhaps looking out at all whom he died for and to whom he wants the Good News of his Resurrection preached. Is he asking each of us as he looks straight at us, ‘Do you too recognize me? Will you “go to Jerusalem” and further afield to share this recognition with others?’ His face too carries the wrinkles that come with age and suffering, though they’re not the wrinkles of old age. A friend commented on last Sunday’s Reflections, ‘Let wrinkles be written on your face but not in your heart’.

When Jesus disappeared from their sight the two disciples didn’t feel the slightest distress. Rather, they recognized what had been happening as they walked along with Jesus earlier: ‘Were not our hearts burning within us . . .’ They immediately set out for Jerusalem, even though it was night, because they could not contain their excitement and joy.


These two were among the very first missionaries. When I entered the Columbans in 1961 our Constitutions were in Latin. I remember one phrase vividly, ‘sine more proficiscar’, to ‘set out without delay’ to whatever mission you were given. This is exactly what the two did.


There is no sense of missing Jesus, of nostalgia, rather a conviction of his living presence even though he had disappeared from their sight. It is this same conviction that drives our Christina lives, that enables us when we come through a painful experience to see its life-giving meaning.


The experience of the two disciples reminds me to some extent of how I discovered God was calling me to be a Columban priest. It wasn’t a sudden event, such as what happened at the supper in Emmaus. But it was a conviction that one day I recognized and realized had been growing quietly for some time. ‘Were not our hearts . . .’ And while at one level what happened at the supper was sudden, it was a moment of revelation showing the meaning of all that had gone before, not only on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus but everything since Creation itself.


The two disciples invited Jesus to join them on the road and prevailed on him to stay with them in the inn. When Jesus was about to be born there was no room for him in the inn. This time there was, because these two honest men welcomed him and in doing so made it possible for Jesus to reveal himself to them.


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The Entrance Antiphon or Introit for this Sunday is from Ps 65:1-2 (Ps 66 in most versions of the Bible). The Latin text is: Jubilate Deo, omnis terra, alleluia: psalmum dicite nomini eius, alleluia: date gloriam laudi eius, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia - Let all the earth cry out to God with joy; praise the glory of his name; proclaim his glorious praise, allelulia. Here is a setting in Gregorian chant sung by the Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis, Milan. It uses ‘universa terra’ instead of ‘omnis terra’.



Here is a Taizé chant using the words Jubilate Deo, omnis terra, servite Domino in laetitia. Alleluia, Let all the earth cry out to God with joy; serve him with delight.





'When you learn, teach; when you get, give'

The May-June issue of Misyon, which I edit for the Columbans in the Philippines is now online, though with a few glitches to be fixed. That's one of the advantages of being online. You can make corrections after you've published.

Fr Nicholas Murray with some of his students at Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China, who knew him as 'Mr Nick'

There are many ways of being a missionary priest. The late Fr Nicholas Murray found that his vast experience as a former Columban Superior General who visited many countries was a great help to him when, at the age of 65, he went to teach English at a university in China, the original mission of the Columbans. He died on Holy Thursday, a most appropriate day for a dedicated priest. His classmate Fr Neil Collins said in his funeral homily, Nick supported the men and women who worked for justice, or to protect the environment, or in Muslim-Christian dialogue. But I think he was afraid that we’d forget people like the Greeks in the Gospel. They came to Philip and said, ‘We want to see Jesus’. Nick emphasised mission ad gentes - to the people who don’t believe in Jesus.

Fr Brian Gore of the Negros Nine after his release in 1984 with Fr Nicholas Murray, then Director of the Columbans in the Philippines, and Bishop Antonio Y. Fortich of Bacolod

The article below, which first appeard in Misyon in May-June 2004 when it was still a printed magazine, shows how Father Murray saw himself as a missionary in a totally new venture when he went to China. We've included it again in our latest issue. I've highlighted some parts.





‘WHEN YOU LEARN, TEACH; WHEN YOU GET, GIVE’

By Fr Nicholas Murray

Fr Nicholas Murray died in his native Ireland on 21 April, Holy Thursday, ten days after his 73rd birthday. We first published this article in May-June 2004. The late Father Murray went to China after serving for 12 years as Superior General of the Missionary Society of St Columban. Though he made ‘it very clear that I am a practicing Catholic, to enhance the witness value of my presence’ he found himself in China being a missionary in a very different way from his years in the Philippines where everyone called him ‘Father’. His Chinese students knew him as ‘Mr Nick’.

I’ve been teaching English in a university in Chongging in southwest China since September 2002. I chose to work in this part of China because it is somewhat less developed than the east and the government is now making efforts to develop the west. Chongging is at the center of that effort. I teach Oral English and a course in Western Culture for AB students majoring in English. The latter course in particular affords great scope for communicating values, with topics such as the Bible and Christianity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance and Reformation, to name but a few.


Not everybody sees the teaching of English in China as valid missionary work. Some believe I could be more profitably employed elsewhere. My own experience, limited though it still may be, convinces me that it is still eminently worthwhile and truly valid. It’s a new type of mission where all the familiar trappings which we have become accustomed to elsewhere have been stripped away and one is exposed to weakness and vulnerability. In such a situation one has to rely on the witness of one’s life and values, sustained by one’s personal prayer life and the private offering of the Eucharist, sometimes with a few foreign companions. It is fully in line with the Church’s teaching on mission, for the missionary task implies a respectful dialogue with those who do not yet accept the Gospel.

One gradually comes to work out one’s own modus operandi based on experience. I find it profitable to use my opening class to share about myself, my country, my family, my life, my work, my beliefs and values. I use this as a framework around which I build the oral exercises. They like this and it is amazing the amount they can remember about one and what one tells them. I make it very clear that I am a practicing Catholic, to enhance the witness value of my presence. I also lay particular emphasis on my having worked with university students in the Philippines in the area of leadership training.

The witness of presence can be particularly effective. As I have come to realize from personal experience. Some Chinese teachers of English, who employ journal writing as part of their course to the same students I teach, inform me that their students are deeply impressed by my life, work and values and have recorded such admiration in their journaling. One of those same students, actually the brightest in my own classes, one day shared the following reflection in my class. I was so deeply impressed that I asked her to write it out for me. Here is her sharing: ‘Never have I so seriously reflected on the power of religion (it is far from and alien to us Chinese). By sharing life’s journey with us, our Oral English teacher, Mr Nick, aroused my reflection on religion. Now I realize it’s not only a relief from anxiety, distress and grief, but also a motive for one who believes in it to strive to do good deeds; a way to have a noble heart and a remedy for spiritual barrenness. I feel that it is his beliefs that inspire Mr Nick to do what he has done. Now I’m thinking of converting to Christianity, though I’m quite at a loss about how to do it.’

My travels and lifestyle did not escape her attention and reflection either. She went on to say, ‘I could see Mr Nick’s eyes shining and face glowing when he referred to the places where he traveled: the Philippines, Brazil, Japan, Pakistan . . . to name just a few, and now China . . . When his privacy was intruded by a question about his own family he smiled and said, “No one will marry a man who never has enough time for his wife and children.” Now Mr Nick is 65-years-old and forty years have passed since he embarked on his road of serving and helping people. He sticks to the life-long pursuit, the calling, at the price of hardship, marriage and his precious youth (I know how difficult it is to travel around and help people). I was deeply moved when I heard Mr Nick’s answer to the question, “Is there one day when you will stop doing all these things?” “Yes,” he said, “when my health won’t allow it.” I was seized by this simple answer and began to realize how profound the saying is, “When you learn, teach; when you get, give.”’

I find enough inspiration in that simple, honest sharing to keep me going for another few years. It’s but one of the better among many others that help to make my ministry here in China inspiring and worthwhile. In this regard, I’m also encouraged by the advice of one of our co-founders (Bishop Edward Galvin), back in the 1920s, ‘You are not here to convert the people of China, you are here rather to make yourself available to God.’ I believe that helping young people to be more aware and responsible in today’s world is one response in that availability. Maybe you would like to join us for a stint.

I have commented on Father Nick and on his article in Pulong ng Editor (Editor's Word) in the new issue of Misyon:

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer, c.1665

One of the advantages of the internet is that you can listen to good radio from stations around the world. The Philippines is a wasteland as far as radio is concerned. The FM stations play bland, often tuneless music aimed at people under 35. The AM stations broadcast a diet of 'soaps' in the regional languages and local politicians and their spokesmen holding forth, shouting into the microphone as if they were addressing a crowd in the plaza.

Another advantage is that you can usually listen to programmes anytime during the week after they are broadcast or, in some cases, long after that. One of my favourites is Alan Titchmarsh with Melodies for You,  broadcast on Sunday nights on BBC Radio 2.

Last night he played a piece called Griet's Theme from Girl with the Pearl Earring. I've long been familiar with Vermeer's beautiful painting but didn't know until today that a movie had been made in 2003 with that title, based on a novel by Tracy Chevalier that was inspired by the painting. The music in the film is by Alexandre Desplat.



I took the painting from Web Gallery of Art. This is a quite amazing website that 'is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture from 11th to mid-19th centuries. It was started in 1996 as a topical site of the Renaissance art, originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century and spread to other countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. Intending to present Renaissance art as comprehensively as possible, the scope of the collection was later extended to show its Medieval roots as well as its evolution to Baroque and Rococo via Mannerism. More recently the periods of Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism were also included'. It's where I get most of the paintings I use in Sunday Reflections.

The site has recordingd of music from the 12th to the 20th centuries, much of which you can include if you email any of the paintings in the form of a greeting.

Isn't Vermeer's painting utterly beautiful and alive?

Blessed John Paul II, 'inter-species dialogue', and mangos

Karol Józef Cardinal Wojtyła on a visit to Australia

I came across this delightful photo of Blessed John Paul II this afternoon. I presume it was taken in Australia and not in a zoo. He travelled widely long before he became Pope John Paul II. I think it's a kangaroo he's feeding and not a wallaby. He and the marsupial seem to be enthusiastically engaged in this 'inter-species dialogue'!

As someone living in the Philippines, where mangos are plentiful, I was interested in this little item from Fides, the Vatican-based news agency:

AMERICA / MEXICO - John Paul II an admirer of mango

Mexico City (Agenzia Fides) - Mango, tropical fruit that grows in Latin America, was without doubt one of the favourite fruit of Pope John Paul II, who tasted it for the first time during his trip to Mexico. Considering how much he liked it, in each of his following pastoral visits, those in charge of hospitality always prepared for the Pope fresh and different dishes using this fruit. Fr. Daniel Villalobos, who was one of the people closest to Cardinal Corripio Ahumada, Archbishop Primate of Mexico, witnessed not only how much the Holy Father John Paul II enjoyed this tropical fruit, but the concern of the Archbishop, who periodically sent to Rome, some boxes of mangos so there were always some on the Pope`s table

"Even when the Holy Father was already very sick - Fr. Villalobos said in a statement sent to Fides by the Archdiocese of Mexico on the occasion of the forthcoming beatification of John Paul II - Cardinal Corripio, through a friend, sent him mangos. To check that His Holiness had received them, he asked the present Cardinal Leonardo Sandri for information, who had been nuncio in Mexico, and at that time was Deputy Secretary of State. "In Mexico there are some popular sayings that connect Pope John Paul II with two states of Mexico: Oaxaca and Veracruz, and the mangos produced in their own land were sent to the Pope at the Vatican. (EC) (Agenzia Fides 28/04/2011)

Mangos from Sind, Pakistan, where Columbans work

Filipinos have a great love for Blessed John Paul II. I wonder why they let the Mexicans supply him with this delicious fruit?!  The mango is indigenous to the Indian sub-continent and I presume it reached the Philippines before it did Mexico.

The Church in the Philippines was initially part of the Diocese/Archdiocese of Mexico.



'My Lord and my God!' Second Sunday of Easter. Blessed John Paul

Doubting Thomas, Guercino

Readings (New American Bible, used in Philippines and USA)

Gospel, John 20:19-31 (NAB)

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

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Today is the Second Sunday of Easter, the last day of the Octave of Easter. In 2000 Pope John Paul named this day ‘Divine Mercy Sunday’. However, there are no changes whatever in the liturgical texts as a result of this. I must confess that I’m not too enthused about what is essentially a private, though worthy, devotion, that observes a novena from Good Friday to the Second Sunday of Easter, in a sense cutting across the central celebration of the Church’s year. No feasts may be celebrated during Holy Week or the Easter Octave.


However, I discovered that ‘The Three O’Clock Prayer’ is very ancient and is used in the liturgies of the Eastern Churches, both Catholic and Orthodox. I have heard it over the sound-systems of department stores here in the Philippines where the Divine Mercy devotion is strong.

Here is the prayer: Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, Have mercy on us and on the whole world (repeat thrice). Jesus, King of mercy, I trust in you!

St Thomas’s profession of faith, ‘My Lord and my God!’ is the most explicit in all the Scriptures. He has always got a ‘bad press’, not having a ‘spin-doctor’, as ‘Doubting Thomas’. But there’s no greater act of faith than his. And it is in the scars on the body of Jesus that he recognises the Risen Lord.

How many people we know who carry similar scars that are the marks of a life spent loving others. The wrinkles on the face of Blessed Mother Teresa and on the brows of many others, signs of love that call forth trust in the young. Wounds sustained through saving the lives of others, like a blind man I knew at home in Dublin who had been a soldier in the Irish army. During training exercises a grenade went off and he threw himself on it to save others. He survived, though ready to give up his life, but without his sight for the rest of his life. Filipino Jesuit seminarian Richie Fernando did the same in Cambodia to save the lives of the young persons with disabilities, victims of war, with whom he was working. One of them threw a grenade, in October 1996, and Richie, only 26, gave up his life and saved everyone else.

Pope John Paul II will be beatified today. When elected in 1978 he was a vigorous and athletic person, though a little stooped as a result of an accident in a quarry when he was a student. He spoke with a vigorous voice. But the whole world saw the scars of old age and illness, perhaps exacerbated by the shooting he survived in 1981, gradually taking their toll. The most poignant scene of all was his last appearance at his window on Easter Sunday 2005 when he couldn’t utter a word, this man who had spoken so powerfully on so many occasions. But his voicelessness, just days before his death, had an eloquence beyond words.

This production by saltandlight.org, Thank You, John Paul II, shows the scars of love, the love of Jesus the Risen Lord himself, shared with the whole world by the man we will now call ‘Blessed John Paul’.

After posting this I came across an article by Nicole Winfield in today's Irish Independent about Pope John Paul's personal photographer, Arturo Mari, The day 'a living saint' kissed 800 lepers one by one

One extract:

IT was May 4, 1984 and Pope John Paul II was visiting Sorok Island off South Korea, a leper colony where several hundred people with the disfiguring disease were receiving care.

Arturo Mari was there, as he was on all the Pontiff's trips, a silent witness to almost every papal audience, Mass, vacation and dinner party, public or private.

As the Pope's personal photographer, Mari had nearly unrestricted access to John Paul's 27-year papacy, and his verdict as the Pontiff's beatification approaches is unwavering: he was a living saint.

The protocol that day in 1984 called for John Paul to enter the Sarok pavilion, where the patients were gathered, give a brief speech on the meaning of suffering, then leave. But after surveying the scene, John Paul brushed aside a cardinal who tried to speed him along, and set to work.

"He touched them with his hands, caressed them, kissed each one," Mari said. "Eight hundred lepers, one by one. One by one! For me he was a man of God," the 71-year-old photographer said.

"I can guarantee you he was a living saint, because everything I could see with my eyes, hear with my ears, you cannot believe that this man could do so much."

Musical memories of my mother on her 41st death anniversary

My parents, John and Mary with my Auntie Nan, a younger sister of my mother, and her husband (or husband-to-be at the time) Joe Kiernan, all of them now gone to their reward, at Powerscourt, County Wicklow, south of Dublin, around 1940. My parents were married on 6 July 1942, Auntie Nan and Uncle Joe in 1941, I think.

My mother died quietly in her sleep at home in Dublin, early in the morning of 29 April 1970, exactly four hears after the death of her own mother, whom I knew as Granny Collins. I'm not sure how old I was when I learned that Granny Collins had been born Annie Dowd.

Mam had a lovely singing voice and appeared in a number or amateur productions in her single days. Her favourite singer was Deanna Durbin, born in Winnipeg, Canada, of Englihs parents but raised in southern California, who left the Hollywood scene after her last movie in 1948 and went to live in Paris where she is now in her 90th year. A song she sang at the end of a 1939 movie, Three Smart Girls Grow Up, that has been recorded by many opera singers, mostly tenors, was my mother's party piece, Because. It is sung in the context of a wedding and, as it happens, there's a big wedding today in London, that of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Clearly, there's some twist in the plot at the end of the movie but it's a happy one!

The last song I heard my mother singing, I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen, has always been a great favourite in Ireland. As far as I can recall, she sang it at a farewell party for me before I left to study in the USA in September 1968, nine months or so after my ordination. 'Kathleen' is an anglicised form of 'Caitlín', a Gaelic form of 'Catherine', as is 'Caitríona'. The song was written in 1875 by a German-American, Thomas P. Westendorf. Deanna Durbin sang it in her last movie, For the Love of Mary, made in 1948.

My own favourite song by Deanna Durbin is Beneath the Lights of Home. It brings out clearly the purity of her voice. Deanna is playing a character named Jane Dana in the 1941 movie Nice Girl? who sings the song at a benefit concert for  the Red Cross. Jane is having a somewhat complicated love-life at the time. Not surprisingly, this song became a great favourite with soldiers overseas during World War II.

There were great songs during the 1930s and 1940s but sometimes the toll on those who sang them in Hollywood movies was enormous. Deanna Durbin's very first movie, Every Sunday, a short one made in 1936, featured Judy Garland when they were both 14. Poor Judy's subsequent life was a mess, while Deanna simply left the artificial Hollywood 'lifestyle'.However, by the time she did so she had been divorced twice.

One of the blessings of my childhood was plenty of tuneful music.

Please remember in your prayers my mother, born Mary Collins, dying suddenly at the age of 55, and her mother, born Annie Dowd, dying from cancer at the age of 84, sharing the same death anniversary. May they rest in peace.





Newly re-elected Irish Senator and the poorest of the poor in Argentina

Senator Rónán Mullen



I recently asked that if you were a graduate of the National University of Ireland to give your No 1 preference to Senator Rónán Mullen in the election for the Irish Senate or, if you didn't have a vote, to pray that he would be re-elected. In 2007 he was the last of the three NUI senators to make it. The Irish Times reports today that this time he headed the poll.

I am delighted. Seanad Éireann, the Senate of Ireland, has little power and is basically a talking-shop. But it has always had some truly independent voices who can say things not heard in the Dáil, the parliament, or elsewhere. Rónán Mullen  has been one of those voices for the last four years and, God willing, will be so for nearly five years, as the new government has such a strong majority that it is unlikely to be defeated on any major issue. If that were to happen, the government would resign and there would be an election. When the Dáil is dissolved the Seanad is also.

Senator Mullen has been involved in a project in Argentina of Irish missionary Fr Liam Hayes SVD among the poorest and most abandoned, St Teresa's Foundation. In a column in The Irish Examiner some years ago Rónán Mullen  described Father Liam thus: He combines traditional faith with social action. You can read the full article below. From what I know of Senator Mullen, you could describe him in the same words.

Here is a video about St Teresa's that I came across through a link on Senator Mullen's website.

How Prayer and Practicality Mean So Much To The Poor of Argentina.

- The Irish Examiner, 7th July, 2004.

Rónán Mullen.

President McAleese smiled down as our neighbour lifted the tarantula. He did it so effortlessly.

Two fingers thrust forward surgically, squeezing the spider just enough to grab him but not so tight as to kill. Transferring the creature to a piece of paper. Followed by a graceful removal to the priest´s garden.

It´s great the way the locals are so casual. When my fellow volunteer announced, “er, there´s a rather large spider in here”, the missionary was all reassurance. But when Fr. Liam Hayes put his head around the door, spotting this furry creature about the size of a digestive biscuit, the diagnosis changed somewhat. “Oh, that one could bite you all right. Hold on. I´ll get a neighbour. Don´t kill it. They do a lot of good, you know.”

Fr. Hayes´s idea of “good” is that tarantulas can kill snakes and mosquitoes. Our idea of “good” would involve them leaving the room. Any time now would be good.

During all this drama, President McAleese and her husband Martin radiated benevolence from the photo on the mantlepiece, safe from all danger and discomfort.. I have no doubt that they would have taken that spider in their stride. The President would probably have known that tarantulas are not fatal to humans. I know it too, now.

President McAleese visiting St Teresa's, Hogar Santa Teresita, with Fr Hayes in the background



We are in Oberá, a fairly desolate town in the remote province of Misiones in northern Argentina. There is only one Irishman in this place - Liam Hayes, the Divine Word Missionary priest. He´s been here for 19 years. We´ve come here for a few weeks, to do some voluntary work and to learn a little about life here.

At the human level, there is plenty to notice. Like the priest´s strong east Limerick burr. “Hola Flipper”, he says, as he greets one of the many dogs which inhabit the mission. Flipper is unfortunately troublesome – a beast full of affection but inclined to attack the local hens. He did 17 of them in one week a while back. Fortunately the neighbours are supportive and they mind Flipper while the priest is on his rounds.

Just before the tarantula incident, Fr. Liam took us to evening Mass in one of the parish´s outlying chapels. The earth is red here, and we bumped over about 10 miles of it (these roads are like ice when it rains) before reaching our destination – a red – brick chapel with no windows and doors, a few wooden benches, and a group of families from the barrio.

The parishioners are friendly but poorly dressed. Fr. Liam says a simple Mass and thanks to that Cappamore accent, his Spanish is easier to understand than the local version. He likes to conduct a discussion as part of his homily – getting people´s thoughts and opinions as he analyses that day´s scripture readings. After Mass, we are moved by the middle – aged man who asks if we could help by donating a window or a door to the church. It transpires that Fr. Liam started this brick chapel (a wooden shack – where he once spotted snakes in the roof as he said Mass – stands next door). It seems the fixtures could be got for a few thousand pesos (about 1,000 euro) and the locals could fit them. It is not the first time we are surprised by how much could be done with so little cash.

Last weekend, Fr. Hayes said Mass five times, in some cases in remote chapels miles from the town of Oberá, and baptised a couple of dozen children. He combines traditional faith with social action. There is spiritual reading, reflection in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and simple prayers at the beginning and end of journeys. Since 1993, Fr. Hayes has been running homes for abandoned people in Oberá. He is in charge of the health pastorate for the local diocese of Posadas. He acts as chaplain to the local hospital, where 120 beds are all that caters for a town and hinderland of 60,000 people.

The missionary estqablished the homes after coming face -to-face with disabled people abandoned by their families.

“I began to have sleepless nights thinking about some of the things I saw. Poor people who could not move their hands, unable to shield themselves from swarms of flies and mosquitoes and people left by the roadside”.

One such person was Miguel, affectionately known as Miguelito. He was discovered in sub-human conditions, having been abandoned by his father.

Since all births are registered in Argentina, it was possible in time to discover more. Miguel was 22 and was born with perfect health. His mother died when he was two. After that, he suffered various illnesses and didn´t get proper medical help. Years later, his father returned to plead forgiveness for abandoning him.

“He told me he had walked long distances on mud roads with MIguel on his shoulders only to arrive at the public hospital and receive no medical attention”, says Fr. Hayes. “Sadly this is how the majority of the poorest people are treated”.

Next door to Miguel sleeps Clorinda, who neither speaks, sees or hears and who had been violated by the time she was found. Clorinda is one of the reasons Fr. Hayes wants to put air-conditioning in the homes. “She cries out at night sometimes. We think it is with discomfort at the terrible heat of summertime”.

Most of the residents are utterly helpless, although it is hard to be sure about the extent of their disability. Lorena, who was assisted by an Irish volunteer one night, seems completely unaware, has no movement, and occasionally gives vent to long wails. Yet at the end of the meal she croaked “thank you” in English.

You might think it is impossible to find happiness in such a place but there is laughter from the home´s youngest resident, Joni, who has cerebral palsy, and Maria Inez, a saintly, soft – spoken person with a smile for everyone. There was happiness, too, when President McAleese came to visit Hogar Santa Teresa (the Home of St. Teresa) last March. It was the first visit by a foreign head of state to Oberá and a moment of confirmation for the Irish missionary that his work was appreciated in Ireland. Other visits are memorable for other reasons. Last week, as one of the home´s newer residents, Marcello, was on the brink of death, his mother – quiet by chance – came to see him for the first time in 20 years.

I don´t know what news story is breaking at home as you read this, but the big news here this week is that people continue to suffer, and there don´t seem to be enough Hogar Santa Teresas to go round. But I am glad there are some.

When I started on this post here in Bacolod City, central Philippines, to congratulate Senator Mullen on his re-election to the Senate in Ireland I didn't expect to end up in Argentina! Comhghairdeachas, a Rónáin, agus go soirbhí Dia duit! Heartiest congratulations, Rónán, and Godspeed!