Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
Flooding in Peru. In wake of the unprecedented flooding in
Peru, Columban Fr Kevin McDonagh in his parish in Samanco near Chimbote [420 kms north of Lima], has
been cut off from the outside world. He is managing ok, but the situation is
getting precarious for the people.
The worst is not quite yet over as rain is still expected
over the next few weeks, with some of it moving south. The challenges ahead are
enormous in terms of reconstruction, etc. There is little bottled water
available, but fortunately there is water flowing again in Lima though with low
pressure. It is worrying to think of so many people without clean water
especially in the provincial areas.
So far there are 75 known deaths and over 100,000 people who
are homeless. That figure will be multiplied when help reaches all the areas
that have been incommunicado since the flooding began. It is mind boggling. We
had bad flooding in 1982, and we all thought it was terrible. But that was
child’s play in comparison to now. The question is how much more can the people
take. Their response and solidarity so far has been nothing short of heroic.
Even in the midst of all the suffering, we are seeing Peru and Peruvians at
their very best. It is inspiring and heartbreaking all at once. These people are
really heroic.
Please, we are asking for prayers and positive thoughts in
solidarity with the people of Peru in these times of suffering, especially
those most directly affected.
Jesus came to a Samaritan
city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son
Joseph.Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by
his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus
said to her, ‘Give me a drink’.(His disciples had gone to the city to buy
food.)The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that
you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things
in common with Samaritans.)Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of
God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have
asked him, and he would have given you living water.’The woman
said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get
that living water?Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who
gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be
thirsty again,but those who drink of the water that I will
give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them
a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’The woman
said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have
to keep coming here to draw water.’
[Jesus said to
her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’The woman answered him,
‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no
husband”;for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your
husband. What you have said is true!’The woman said to him,]‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet.Our
ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but yousay that the place where people must
worship is in Jerusalem.’Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour
is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem.You worship what you do not know; we worship
what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.But the hour
is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father
in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.God is
spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’The woman
said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he
comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’Jesus said
to her, ‘I am he,the one who is speaking to you.’
[Just then his
disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no
one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’Then the woman left her
water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people,‘Come and see a man who
told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah,can he?’They left the city and
were on their way to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’But he said to them, ‘I
have food to eat that you do not know about.’So the disciples said to
one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’Jesus said to them, ‘My
food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.Do you not say, “Four
months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see
how the fields are ripe for harvesting.The reaper is
already receivingwages and is
gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice
together.For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.”I sent you to reap that
for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into
their labour.’]
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him [because of
the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’]So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked
him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days.And many
more believed because of his word.They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said
that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is
truly the Saviour of the world.’
I remember reading a story about Pope John Paul I when he was still known as Albino Luciani, Patriarch of Venice. One of his priests in a rural parish was known more for being absent from his parish than for being present. Cardinal Luciani went to visit the parish - and the priest was away. So the Cardinal covered for him until the priest returned some days later. The wayward parish priest got the shock of his life when his archbishop asked him to hear his confession.
Cardinal Luciani, who later became known as 'The Smiling Pope' and was with us for only 33 days in 1978 as Bishop of Rome, didn't scold the priest. He simply asked him to do for him what only a priest can do - forgive sins in God's name in the sacrament of confession.
Pope John Paul I, 26 August 1978
In the gospel Jesus asks the woman at the well directly, Give me a drink. As she was to point out to Jesus he didn't have the wherewithal to draw water himself from the well. She did.
About twenty-five years ago I was at a sports-fest for children and young people with mental disabilities in the campus of a Catholic high school here in the Philippines. As I was leaving I saw a group of teenage boys, who hadn't been involved in the sports activity, lounging in the lobby. Behind my back they called Hey, Joe! a greeting that goes back to the last days of World War II when American soldiers, 'GI Joes', helped Filipinos to defeat the Japanese. The greeting lingered on for many years and you still hear it occasionally. Often it is well meant but sometimes there's a barb, or at least a lack of respect.
When I heard the Hey, Joe I got mad. Then I saw that my car, an old VW, had a flat tyre. I immediately turned to the boys with whom I was mad and asked, Can you help me change the tyre? Immediately they came to my aid and I didn't have to do anything. (Someone once asked me when I told this story if the boys had had anything to do with the flat tyre. They hadn't. It was just one of those things.) When I was leaving we were all smiling at each other and I was full of gratitude.
In the gospel Jesus gently leads the woman to acknowledge her sinful life, but not by humiliating her. He draws her into an expression of faith, a recognition that he might be the Messiah. Not only that, he leads her to being a missionary. She goes into town to tell others about Jesus.
In a commentary I once read the writer pointed out that the gospel doesn't tell us if the woman actually gave Jesus the drink he had asked for! But his physical thirst, which was real, was secondary to his thirst for the welfare of the woman and the people of Sychar. Jesus wasn't the only one to break the taboo of Jews and Samaritans not speaking to one another. So did the people who asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Presumably the disciples were included in the invitation. All were drawn into something higher than ancient divisions by the presence of Jesus. All were drawn into a relationship with Jesus and in that to a new way of relating to one another.
The teenage boys who said Hey, Joe behind my back were being teenage boys. While perhaps there was some lack of respect there was no real malice and it was more of adolescent bravado. But once I let them know my need they didn't see me anymore as some anonymous foreigner but as a person they could help. A personal relationship, even if fleeting, had been established, one that called on their generosity. When I left we were all smiling at one another and my heart was filled with gratitude.
Cardinal Luciani might well have berated the parish priest for having neglected his parishioners. Instead, he called him to be a priest in the deepest sense, hearing in his archbishop's request for confession the voice of Jesus asking the Samaritan woman, Give me a drink.
I am a woman of no distinction of little importance. I am a women of no reputation save that which is bad.
You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances, Though you don’t really take the time to look at me, Or even get to know me.
For to be known is to be loved, And to be loved is to be known. Otherwise what’s the point in doing either one of them in the first place?
I WANT TO BE KNOWN.
I want someone to look at my face And not just see two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears; But to see all that I am, and could be all my hopes, loves and fears.
But that’s too much to hope for, to wish for, or pray for So I don’t, not anymore.
Now I keep to myself And by that I mean the pain that keeps me in my own private jail The pain that’s brought me here at midday to this well.
To ask for a drink is no big request but to ask it of me? A woman unclean, ashamed, Used and abused An outcast, a failure a disappointment, a sinner.
No drink passing from these hands to your lips could ever be refreshing Only condemning, as I’m sure you condemn me now But you don't.
You’re a man of no distinction; Though of the utmost importance. A man with little reputation, at least so far.
You whisper and tell me to my face what all those glances have been about, and You take the time to really look at me. But don’t need to get to know me.
For to be known is to be loved and To be loved is to be known.
And you know me. You actually know me; all of me and everything about me. Every thought inside and hair on top of my head; Every hurt stored up, every hope, every dread.
My past and my future, all I am and could be. You tell me everything, you tell me about me!
And that which is spoken by another would bring hate and condemnation. Coming from you brings love, grace, mercy, hope and salvation.
I’ve heard of one to come who could save a wretch like me And here in my presence, you say I AM He.
To be known is to be loved; And to be loved is to be known.
And I just met you. But I love you. I don’t know you, but I want to get to.
Let me run back to town this is way to much for just me. There are others: brothers, sisters, lovers, haters.
The good and the bad, sinners and saints who should hear what you’ve told me; who should see what you’ve shown me; who should taste what you gave me; who should feel how you forgave me.
For to be known is to be loved; And to be loved is to be known. And they all need this, too. We all do Need it for our own.
Father Charlie was born on 15 September 1934 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA,
where his parents Charles Henry Duster ['DOOster'] and Cleo Catherine Handley Duster owned
and operated a supermarket. He has an older brother William C. Duster (Audrey)
of Littleton, Colorado, a sister Mrs Robert Enns (Katie) of Fort Pierce, Florida, and
eleven nieces and nephews and their families. His older sister, Margaret Jeanne
Duster, died in 1972.
Fr. Charlie attended Immaculate Conception Grade and High School
in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, (1952). After high school he attended Regis University,
Denver, Colorado (1952-53) and Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1953-1954).
After briefly considering medical school he instead decided to
enter the seminary to become a Columban missionary priest in 1955. He studied at St Columban’s Seminary, Milton, Massachusetts. As an exchange student, he studied theology at St Columban’s, Dalgan Park, Navan, Ireland (1958 – ’61). He did his fourth year of theology at St Columban's, Milton, where he was ordained a priest of the Missionary Society of St Columban on 21 December 1961. He celebrated
his first Solemn High Mass at Immaculate Conception Church in Cedar Rapids on 31 December.
Immaculate Conception Church, Cedar Rapids[Parish website]
In 1962 Father Charlie was assigned to Japan
where he spent the next six years. The first two of these were spent studying
Japanese language in Tokyo, the third one as Acting Regional Bursar, and the
last three years as Associate Pastor at Shingu Catholic Church, Wakayama
Prefecture, in the Diocese of Osaka.
In Japan
In July 1967 Father Charlie visited the Philippines, accompanied
by a Columban confrere. After spending some days with Columban colleagues on
the island of Negros, they narrowly missed their flight from Bacolod City to Cebu on 6 July because the plane departed a few minutes ahead of schedule, due to
severe weather conditions. The next morning they learned that the plane, a Fokker F27 Friendship, had
crashed into a mountain and all 17 passengers and four crew members perished. Father Charlie wrote about this in A Close Shave in the May-June 2016 issue of MISYONonline.com.
From 1969 – 1972, Father Charlie was the Columban Vocation
Director for the Midwest Region of the USA based in Omaha. Afterwards, he
continued a similar ministry while residing at the Columban house in Chicago.
He then served a year in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis as chaplain at Hennepin
County General Hospital in Minneapolis accompanied by studies in Clinical
Pastoral Education.
With the late Archbishop Petero Mataca of Suva
In November 1974, Father Charlie was assigned to Fiji, Archdiocese of Suva. After initial language studies, he was
appointed as Associate Pastor in Holy Family Parish, Nabala, Macuata, and a
year later as Pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Solevu, Bua, where he served
for six years. Following home leave in 1980 he did renewal studies at Notre
Dame University. On his return to Fiji he became the Regional Vice-Director. He
returned to the USA to undergo by-pass surgery in Houston, Texas, in 1982. Upon
returning to Fiji later that year, Father Charlie was appointed Vicar General
of the Archdiocese of Suva, and served in this position for four years.
In September 1986, he was appointed Rector of Collegio San
Colombano in Rome where he was Superior of the sixteen-member community. During
his eight years in Rome, he also earned a licentiate and doctorate in Canon Law
at the Angelicum University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. Before being
reassigned to the Fijian Region, he worked for six months in the Marriage Tribunal
in the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, in order to gain experience in matrimonial law.
Father Charlie returned to Fiji in November 1994 and served for
six years as the Coordinator of the Columban Lay Mission Program, while
teaching Canon Law at the Pacific Regional Seminary. In
December 1998 he returned to the USA to undergo by-pass surgery for the second
time, but returned to Fiji seven months later to continue his ministry to
Columban Lay Missionaries. In December, 2003 he was appointed Associate Pastor at Holy
Family Parish, Labasa, where he served until returning to the USA in September
2005. This was prompted by the recommendation of his doctors that he
should reside in a place where he could receive monitored medical attention,
which was unavailable in Fiji.
With old friends in Fiji
He was assigned to the Columban Magnolia house in Chicago where
he worked on Mission Promotion and Vocations (2005 – 2011) and served as house
Superior (2008 -2011). In 2011 he began work at the Omaha office in Planned
Giving and Development, and later combined this ministry with Superior of the
Omaha community (2012 – 2016).
Father Charlie’s warm and outgoing personality, many talents, and
deep commitment to his vocation as a Columban missionary priest, drew many
people to God in the various places where he ministered. Wherever he was sent,
his ability to recognize and celebrate all that was good in the world around
him made him a truly joyful messenger of the Good News.
There is one thing I ask of the Lord,
for this I long,
to live in the house
of the Lord,
all the
days of my life,
to savour the sweetness of the Lord,
to behold his temple (Psalm 27:4).
Some Personal Memories
With Fijian Columban Lay Missionary Serafina Vuda in Peru
Serafina died unexpectedly on 31 May 2014
I met Father Charlie at long intervals over the years. My abiding memory of him is that he was a joyful person, as the photos of him above indicate. I visited Rome for the first time in April 1988. My first full day there happened to be my birthday and he insisted on taking those of us in the house at the time to a restaurant to celebrate the occasion.
In 2007, if my memory serves me right, he gave a retreat to Columban priests in the Philippines at St Scholastica's Center of Spirituality in Tagaytay City, south of Manila and much cooler than the latter because of its elevation. The retreat was truly a fraternal one, exemplifying what the psalmist wrote:
How good and how pleasant it is,
when brothers live in unity (Psalm 133[132]:1).
My first time to meet him was in St Columban's, Dalgan Park, Ireland, during Easter Week 1961 when I went there to be interviewed and to have a medical examination before entering the seminary the following September. I went back to Dublin, where I lived, with a group of the seminarians going to the city for the afternoon. I remember him singing a parody on a popular song from 1911, I Want A Girl (Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad). I never heard Father Charlie's version again until today when I found it on YouTube.
In
my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that
I go to prepare a place for you?And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again
and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:2-3).
May Fr Charles
Duster enter the place prepared for him by Jesus and may he add to the joy of
the saints in heaven.
Six days
later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up
a high mountain, by themselves.And he was transfigured before them, and his
face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.Suddenly
there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.Then Peter
said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, Iwill make three dwellingshere, one for you, one for Moses,
and one for Elijah.’While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright
cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the
Beloved;with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’When the
disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.But Jesus
came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’And when
they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
As they were coming down the
mountain, Jesus ordered them, ‘Tell no one about the vision until after the Son
of Man has been raised from the dead.’
Like Peter, James and John, I caught a glimpse of something of the Purity of God on a hill. Tradition tells us that Jesus was transfigured on Mount Tabor, Israel. My 'Mount Tabor' was a hotel at the top of a hill in Lourdes, France.
During Holy Week 2001 I took part in the international pilgrimage ofFaith and Lightto Lourdes which takes place every ten years. Faith and Lightwas born of a desireto help people with an intellectual disability and their families find their place within the Church and society. This was the main purpose of the organized pilgrimage to Lourdes at Easter of 1971. The founders of the movement were Jean Vanier and Marie-Hélène Mathieu. Jean Vanier is also the founder of L'Arche. In the video below he speaks about the beginnings of that, not as a project or movement but as a covenant with two individuals with learning disabilities and their own dreams, Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux.
Jean Vanier speaks about the early days of L'Arche and finding God in others
I was based in Britain at the time and travelled with a group from the north of England. However, before I left the Philippines for Britain in 2000 I had been invited to be chaplain to the small contingent from the Philippines, as I had been on the fringes of Faith and Light in the Philippines between 1992 and 2000.
The Filipinos were staying in a hotel at a distance from the shrine and at the top of a hill. There was also a group of Faith and Light pilgrims from Hong Kong, including Fr Giosue Bonzi PIME, an Italian, in the same hotel. (I was with the English pilgrims in a hotel close to the shrine.)
One of those from Hong Kong was Dorothy, a girl of about eleven with Down Syndrome(Trisomy 21). Her father died suddenly when she was very young. Dorothy's face had the delicate beauty of Chinese ceramics. But she had an extraordinary inner beauty, a purity that could have come only from God. Though I had no Cantonese and she had no English, we were able to communicate simply by looking at one another. She showed complete trust in me. She had a vulnerability that called forth the deepest respect.
Fr Giosue Bonzi PIME with Dorothy, now an adult, in Hong Kong
In Irish there's an expression used for a person with a severe mental or learning disability, duine le Dia, 'a person with God'. Dorothy was such for me, in a very full sense of that phrase: she was a clear expression of the beauty and of the purity of God for me. The Opening Prayer of today's Mass reads: O God, who have commanded us to listen to your beloved Son, be pleased, we pray, to nourish us inwardly by your word, that, with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory. Through . . . When Peter, James and John went up Mount Tabor with Jesus they had no idea that would see the divinity of Jesus there. They had no idea they would hear God the Father say This is my Son, the Beloved;with him I am well pleased; listen to him!The Entrance Antiphon [below], taken from Psalm 26 [27], prays, It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face from me. I have no doubt that I saw the face of the Lord in that young girl with Down Syndrome from Hong Kong whom I met in Lourdes in Holy Week 2001. Jesus may speak to us at any time, unexpectedly, as he revealed his presence to me in that hotel at the top of a hill in Lourdes. May we make the Opening Prayer our own so that, with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory.
Antiphona ad introitum Cf. Ps 26[27]:8-9; [1]
Tibi dixit cor meum: quæsívi vultum tuum, vultum tuum, Dómine, requíram: ne avértas fáciem tuam a me.
[Dóminus illuminátio mea, et salus mea: quem timébo?
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper,
et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Tibi dixit cor meum: quæsívi vultum tuum, vultum tuum, Dómine, requíram: ne avértas fáciem tuam a me.]
Entrance Antiphon
Of you my heart has spoken:
Seek his face.
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek;
hide not your face from me.
[The Lord is my light,
and my salvation. Whom should I fear?
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy spirit.
As it was, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Of you my heart has spoken:
Seek his face.
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek;
hide not your face from me.]
The text in bold is used in the Ordinary Form of the Mass and the longer text in the Extraordinary Form, though it may also be used in the Ordinary Form if chanted.
