'You are witnesses of these things.' Sunday Reflections, The Ascension of the Lord, Year C

The Ascension of Christ, Rembrandt, 1636

Alte Pinakothek, Munich [Web Gallery of Art]

The Solemnity of the Ascension

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Luke 24:46-53 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Where the Ascension is observed on Ascension Thursday

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Responsorial Psalm for the Ascension

(New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

World Communications Day

The Sunday on which the Ascension is now celebrated in many countries is also the Church's World Communications Day. The first was in 1967. Jesus tells the disciples in today's Gospel - and through them tell us - You are witnesses of these things. Jesus is asking us to use all modern means of communication so that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

When I went home to Ireland on vacation from the Philippines in 1994 before beginning six years as vocation director I took a short course for missionaries in the use of computers given by a religious sister who had worked in an African country for many years. She wasn't the best teacher I've ever had in teaching the 'mechanical' basics of her subject but she was a wonderful motivator. Although the internet was still in its infancy she told us stories of how it had helped save lives in the country where she worked.

Some years ago when checking my email in the Philippines I found myself 'chatting' with a friend, a Filipina married to a Westerner and living in her husband's country. I'll call her Maria. It was clear to me very quickly that she was going through a crisis and thinking of doing the worst to herself. At the time she 'hated' everyone except me and 'didn't believe' in God anymore.

I was able to help Maria see that the issue wasn't any of the things she mentioned but was within herself. I also got her to agree to meet a priest in her own area, someone I had never met and still haven't. But I was able to contact him through email, having got his address from someone else whom I have never met in person. 

I learned later that that meeting with the priest was to be a turning point for my Maria. She was able to face the world again with hope and hasn't looked back since.

At the time this happened I had come to know a 16-year-old girl in the Philippines who had been made pregnant by her boyfriend. I'll call her Ana. I'm not sure to what degree she had consented to the activity that led to her carrying a baby. She was from another part of the country but was welcomed by religious sisters who run a home for girls, most of whom have had pretty bad experiences. Ana was was very angry and part of that anger was directed at the baby she was carrying.

I told Maria about Ana. One of the ironies was that Maria couldn't have a child, a great sorrow to her and her husband. Despite her 'not believing' in God I asked her to pray for Ana, something she readily agreed to do, and told her that I would ask Ana to pray for her. When I met Ana a day or two later she too readily accepted her mission of prayer.

Visitation, Luca della Robbia, c.1445

San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia, Italy [Web Gallery of Art]

Shortly after that we celebrated the feast of the Visitation. After Mass I asked Ana if she would like me to bless her and the baby in her womb. She was happy with this and later told me that she had felt the baby moving for the first time. More importantly, her anger had disappeared. Some time later she was able to go home to her own family and delivered her baby there.

This incident opened my eyes to the truth of what the Sister who gave us classes on the use of computers and the internet had told us. Here was I at my computer in the Philippines when 'by chance', the 'chance' being undoubtedly the Holy Spirit, giving crisis counselling to a friend on another continent and helping her to meet someone I had never met who could listen to her in person.

Pope Francis, Palo, Leyte, Philippines

17 January 2015 [Wikipedia]

Ascension Sunday this year is the Church's 50th World Communications Day. The theme of the message of Pope Francis is Communication and Mercy: A Fruitful Encounter.

I've added my own emphasis to this paragraph from the
message: Emails, text messages, social networks and chats can also be fully human forms of communication. It is not technology which determines whether or not communication is authentic, but rather the human heart and our capacity to use wisely the means at our disposal. Social networks can facilitate relationships and promote the good of society, but they can also lead to further polarization and division between individuals and groups. The digital world is a public square, a meeting-place where we can either encourage or demean one another, engage in a meaningful discussion or unfair attacks. I pray that this Jubilee Year, lived in mercy, 'may open us to even more fervent dialogue so that we might know and understand one another better; and that it may eliminate every form of closed-mindedness and disrespect, and drive out every form of violence and discrimination' (Misericordiae Vultus, 23). The internet can help us to be better citizens. Access to digital networks entails a responsibility for our neighbour whom we do not see but who is nonetheless real and has a dignity which must be respected. The internet can be used wisely to build a society which is healthy and open to sharing.

My online communication with 'Maria' was fully human and charged with the grandeur of God (Gerard Manley Hopkins). So was my communication with 'Ana' and her unborn child when I blessed them both after Mass on the Feast of the Visitation.

Pope Francis concludes his message with these words (emphasis added): Communication, wherever and however it takes place, has opened up broader horizons for many people. This is a gift of God which involves a great responsibility. I like to refer to this power of communication as 'closeness'. The encounter between communication and mercy will be fruitful to the degree that it generates a closeness which cares, comforts, heals, accompanies and celebrates. In a broken, fragmented and polarized world, to communicate with mercy means to help create a healthy, free and fraternal closeness between the children of God and all our brothers and sisters in the one human family.

Both Maria and Ana experienced the encounter between communication and mercy, one through the internet the other face-to-face. God communicated his merciful love to each.

May all of us accept and use the internet as a gift of God which involves a great responsibility.

Last week I included Portia's speech from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Pope Francis quotes from this in his message for today. Above is the speech from a 2004 film production of the play.

Pope Francis: For this reason, I would like to invite all people of good will to rediscover the power of mercy to heal wounded relationships and to restore peace and harmony to families and communities. All of us know how many ways ancient wounds and lingering resentments can entrap individuals and stand in the way of communication and reconciliation. The same holds true for relationships between peoples. In every case, mercy is able to create a new kind of speech and dialogue. Shakespeare put it eloquently when he said: ‘The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes’ (The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I).

Who is involved in 'active participation' in 'Gabriel's Oboe'?

Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.

So states Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Liturgy, in No 14. This was the first document of Vatican II to be promulgated, by Blessed Pope Paul VI on 4 December 1963.

Where is that fully conscious, and active participation to be seen in the video above? Clearly Henrik Goldschmidt, the oboist, is. Clearly too the members of The Faroe Islands Philharmonic Orchestra.

But so is the audience. And not just by clapping at the end. Their fully conscious listening to the music is true active participation, just as much as that of the musicians.

Both musicians and audience showed deep respect for the music of Ennio Morricone. The musicians played exactly what he had composed, though not mechanically. The audience listened in silence until the end, totally involved.

This was a performance but there are parallels with the liturgy, especially that of the Holy Mass. The musicians weren't casually dressed. The men all wore ties, the conductor a bow tie. Rituals were followed - the soloist bowing to the audience and the orchestra at the end of the performance, a young girl giving him a bouquet of flowers, the audience applauding.

First Holy Communion

No 34 of Sacrosanctum Concilium reads: The rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity; they should be short, clear, and unencumbered by useless repetitions; they should be within the people's powers of comprehension, and normally should not require much explanation.

Some time ago I was at a parish fiesta Mass here in the Philippines. After the priest's greeting at the beginning, a commentator read out a not too short but prepared introduction. When she was finished the main celebrant gave another. Before each reading the commentator gave a brief, prepared introduction, which is allowed. 

Four different readers lined up to read the petitions of the Prayer of the Faithful. This is not uncommon on big occasions.

Where was the noble simplicity? I should add that the Mass was celebrated reverently. There was nothing 'wild' or untoward.

Like many a priest - and bishop - I have been guilty on occasion of preaching far too long, and of sometimes not being prepared. But I find so many celebrations of Mass 'deadening' with all the words, all the unnecessary 'explanations' and introductions, the 'wall-to-wall' sound, even though the Missal itself directs us to have periods of silence. I find most concelebrated Masses I take part in to be burdensome.

My sentiments on these occasions are often those of Eliza Doolittle/Julie Andrews: Words, words, words! I'm so sick of words!

'We will come to them and make our home with them.' Sunday Reflections, 6th Sunday of Easter, Year C

The Trinity, El Greco, 1577

Museo del Prado, Madrid [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 John 14:23-29 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate,  the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.

Responsorial Psalm

New American Bible Lectionary (Philippines, USA)

Bishop Bienvenido Tudtud of Marawi

(1931 - 1987)

The late Bishop Bienvenido 'Benny' S. Tudtud of Marawi, Philippines, visited my Dad (below) in Dublin some time in the early 1980s. As it happened, Dad was about to leave for the wedding of a cousin of mine but he was able to entertain his unexpected guest for a while. Later on he told my brother, 'The bishop made me feel at home'. My brother laughed and said to him, 'You were the one supposed to make him feel at home!' But my Dad was always himself no matter whose company he was in and so was Bishop Tudtud, whose Christian name is the Spanish for 'Welcome'. They were both to die suddenly in 1987, Bishop Tudtod in a plane crash in the Philippines on 26 June and Dad at home on 11 August from a heart attack. He had been at Mass that morning, as he had been every day of his adult life. The photo below was taken the week before his death.

My father hadn't expected Bishop Tudtud. But he made him feel welcome. The bishop felt free to just turn up because I had worked with him and had asked him to drop by my Dad if he had time. I have found over the years that there are friends' homes to which I need no invitation. These are friends with whom I truly feel at home and who feel at home with me.

Sometimes we feel fully at home with someone whom we have just met. Sometimes that being at ease with each other comes after being together many times, maybe through working together.

In the gospel of this Sunday's Mass Jesus makes the extraordinary statement, Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

The Father and Jesus are not only coming for a visit but to make their home with us. And the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Counselor/Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will come and will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

Fr Anselm Moynihan OP, an Irish Dominican friar who died in 1998, wrote a short book in 1948 about the Blessed Trinity living in our hearts, The Presence of God. Here is an extract: Awareness of God, whether it come to us thus by a dazzling rending of the heavens or through the gentle whisper of his voice in our conscience, is at the beginning and end of our spiritual life, at the beginning and end of all religion.  It is the root of what is truly the most radical division of mankind, one to which Holy Scripture constantly reverts, that between the 'wise' who keep God before their eyes and the 'fools' who ignore him.  The first awakening of the soul to God's reality brings with it that fear of the Lord which is the 'beginning of wisdom'; the end of life should bring with it the 'wisdom of the perfect,' the fruit of charity, whereby a man will experience God's living presence within himself and be filled with longing for that full awareness of God which is the vision of his face in heaven.

Supper at Emmaus, Caravaggio, 1606

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan [Web Gallery of Art]

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus invited Jesus to join them and they pressed him to have supper with them at the inn, as it was getting dark. It was through their welcoming him that they discovered who their unknown companion was, the Risen Lord. And in the intimacy of the breaking of the bread when they recognised him and he disappeared from their sight, they felt his presence even more strongly, even more intimately. He was now dwelling in their hearts, just as he dwells in ours, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Communion Antiphon John 14:15-16

Composed by Thomas Tallis (1505 - 1585)

English text used by Tallis: If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth. (John 14:15-17a, King James Version).

Text in the Roman Missal: If you love me, keep my commandments, says the Lord, and I will ask the Father and he will send you another Paraclete, to abide with you for ever, alleluia.

The Jubilee of Mercy and Shakespeare

The Church is currently observing the Jubilee of Mercy. 23 April this year was the 400th death anniversary of William Shakespeare, who was baptized on 26 April 1564.

Portia's speech from The Merchant of Venice, which I studied in school in Ireland almost 60 years ago, is very much in tune with the Jubilee.

'By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.' Sunday Reflections, 5th Sunday of Easter, Year C

Father (later Bishop) Edward Galvin  

Co-founder of the Columbans (1882-1956)

Photo taken in China between 1912 and early 1916

Fr John Blowick

Co-founder of the Columbans (1888-1972)

Photo taken around 1913, the year of his ordination

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

               

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

Gospel John 13:31-33a, 34-35 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Frs Owen McPolin, John Blowick, Edward Galvin 
China 1920

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.

Fr John Blowick emphasised the centrality of the words of Jesus in this Sunday's gospel, I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone 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.

To this particular Columban these words of Jesus from the Gospel of St John are 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.

Fr Michael Sinnott in Manila on the day of his release

With his sisters, Mrs Aine Kenny, left, and Mrs Kathleen O'Neill, right, at Dublin Airport, 3 December 2009

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 Joseph Monaghan 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 Lalor, Kelly, Francis Vernon Douglas, Fallon, Monaghan and Heneghan

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

The words By this everyone 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.

First group of Columban priests [Names]

Fr John Blowick accompanied the first group of Columbans to China in 1920 but didn't stay there as he was needed in Ireland as Superior General and as a teacher in the seminary. 

Earthquake in Ecuador, 16 April 2017

In Memory of Sister Clare

Sr Clare Crockett, from Derry, Northern Ireland, died in the 7.8 earthquake that hit Ecuador last Saturday, 16 April at 7pm local time. She was 33. The death toll as I write this on 21 April is at least 570. Five postulants - young women preparing to be religious sisters - died along with Sister Clare. The video above is from the website of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother Congregation to which Sister Clare belonged.

The young Clare Crockett was no angel. Her own words: 'I liked to party a lot. My weekends, since I was 16-17, consisted in getting drunk with my friends. I wasted all my money on alcohol and cigarettes.'

Before the age of 18 when she pledged to a life of servitude, Sister Clare has aspirations to be an actress. She joined an agency, presented television shows and even had a small part in a movie.

A self-confessed party animal she signed up for what she thought was a free trip to Spain only for her to later realise it was for a pilgrimage during Holy Week. It was during this trip that she realised the Grace of God and realised she had to change her ways. [Belfast Telegraph]

I thank God for the patience that He has had with me, and still has!!!! I do not ask Him why He has chosen me, I just accept it. I depend totally on Him and Our Blessed Mother and I ask them to give me the grace to be whatever they want me to be. [Sister Clare, quoted in Belfast Telegraph]

The Five postulants who died

[Source of photos]

When I entered as a sister in the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother I did so to dedicate my life to God and I knew that by entering into a religious community I was putting my life totally in his hands. And therefore I had to be open to whatever the Lord asked of me. So when I was told that I was going to go to Ecuador to do missionary work, then I put my life in God's hands and I totally accepted it. [Sister Clare, video 2:07 - 2:32]

Our life is completely safe in the hands of Jesus and the Father, Who are one, one love, one mercy, revealed once and for all in the sacrifice of the Cross. To save the lost sheep that is all of us, the Pastor became Lamb and let Himself be sacrificed to take upon Himself, and take away, the sin of the world. [Pope Francis, 17 April 2016]

Pope Francis arriving in Ecuador on 5 July 2015

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.