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).
Feast Day 14 December (24 November in the Old Calendar)
Crisis Magazine today (13 December) carries an interesting article about South African poet Roy Campbell (1901-1957) written by Joseph Pearce, under the intriguing title A Convert Among Communists and Carmelites. I have used translations by Roy Campbell of poems by St John of the Cross (1542-1591) on this blog but never knew until I read Pearce's article of the intimate connection between the poet and the archives of the saint given to him by the Carmelite friars in Toledo, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) for safekeeping.
Two of Campbell's translations of the saint's poems are in the English-language Breviary approved for use by the hierarchies of Australia, England & Wales and Ireland in 1973. Below is one of them in the Spanish of St John of the Cross and the English of Roy Campbell. The English subtitles in the video are different from the latter.
Del Verbo Divino
San Juan de la Cruz
Translated by Roy Campbell
Del Verbo divino la Virgen preñada viene de camino : ¡ si les dais posada !
El Greco's landscape of Toledo depicts the Priory in which John was held captive, just below the old Muslim Alcazar and perched on the banks of the Tajo on high cliffs. (From Wikipedia).
From the Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross
(Office of Readings, Feast of St John of the Cross, 14 December)
There are depths to be fathomed in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many recesses containing treasures, and no matter how men try to fathom them the end is never reached. Rather, in each recess, men keep on finding here and there new veins of new riches.
St Johnwrote much of the Spiritual Canticle while he was imprisoned by other Carmelite friars.
From The Ascent of Mount Carmel by St John of the Cross
(Office of Readings, Advent Week 2, Monday)
When [God] gave us, as he did, his Son, who is his one Word, he spoke everything to us, once and for all in that one Word. There is nothing further for him to say.
I've highlighted these two texts because so often we can get caught in what are claimed to be revelations from God but that are not in harmony with the teaching of the Church. Such 'revelations' can lead us away from God.
Patroness of the Americas, of Mexico, of Unborn Children and Secondary Patroness of the Philippines
The Story of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Opening Prayer of the Mass of Our Lady of Guadalupe
12 December
O God, Father of mercies, who placed your people under the singular protection of your Son’s most holy Mother, grant that all who invoke the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe, may seek with ever more lively faith the progress of people in the way of justice and of peace. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
Gospel for the Mass of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Luke 1:39-47)
During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit
rejoices in God my Savior.
I never fail to be moved, delighted and inspired by this 'Dance of Life' between St Elizabeth pregnant with John the Baptist and Mary pregnant with Jesus.
The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is most appropriate for Advent as we prepare to celebrate the birth of our Saviour. As the video above tells us, Mary is pregnant in the image. The sacrifice of humans was practised by the Aztecs in Mexico out of sense of indebtedness to their gods. Today in most Western countries it has become a 'human right' to kill children in the womb. This has led to millions of deaths each year. There has been a catastrophic fall in birth rates in many countries in Europe and east Asia. Be fertile and multiply (Genesis 1:28) is ignored.
Advent is a preparation to celebrate the gift of life. The apparitions in Guadalupe were a celebration of life, symbolised by the roses that our Lady gave to St Juan Diego in the middle of winter.
It is noteworthy that in all the apparitions that the Church has recognised, such as Lourdes, Fatima, Knock, Beauraing, Banneux and Guadalupe, Our Blessed Mother appeared to persons considered unimportant in society., just as Mary and Joseph were when they arrived in Bethlehem, captured in the painting below where one can hardly notice St Joseph leading the donkey with Mary on it.
Virgin of Guadalupe, Patroness of unborn children, we implore your intercession for every child at risk of abortion. Help expectant parents to welcome from God the priceless gift of their child’s life.
Console parents who have lost that gift through abortion, and lead them to forgiveness and healing through the Divine Mercy of your Son.
Teach us to cherish and to care for family and friends until God calls them home. Help us never to see others as burdens.
Guide our public officials to defend each and every human life through just laws. Inspire us all to bring our faith into public life, to speak for those who have no voice.
We ask this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who is Love and Mercy itself. Amen.
Gospel Mark 1:1-8 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send mymessenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness:‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”
John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt round his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Charles Kuralt was a reporter with CBS TV in the USA whose On the Road stories were a regular part of the Evening News for 25 years. These were offbeat but positive stories about real persons and were often uplifting. I remember one in particular from about 1970 when I, then a young priest, was studying in the USA. It featured an elderly man in a small town in one of the Midwestern states. His town was about 10 kms from the next town but in order to go from one to the other you had to travel 20 or 30 kms. The authorities in both towns were unwilling to build a road to connect them.
So this man started to build a road himself, using logs as a foundation, as I recall.
In 1982 Charles Kuralt gave a lunchtime talk in an auditorium in Minneapolis where I was on a pastoral programme in a hospital for three months, working as a chaplain. I went to hear the broadcaster. Someone in the audience asked him what had become of the road that the old man had begun to build. It turned out that the man had since died. But after his death the authorities completed the road.
This man was engaged in a form of what the Legion of Mary Handbook calls 'Symbolic Action', described in these terms: Observe the stress is set on action. No matter what may be the degree of the difficulty, a step must be taken. Of course, the step should be as effective as it can be. But if an effective step is not in view, then we must take a less effective one. And if the latter be not available, then some active gesture (that is, not merely a prayer) must be made which, though of no apparent practical value, at least tends towards or has some relation to the objective. This final challenging gesture is what the Legion has been calling 'Symbolic Action'. Recourse to it will explode the impossibility which is of our own imagining. And, on the other hand, it enters in the spirit of faith into dramatic conflict with the genuine impossibility.
The sequel may be the collapse of the walls of that Jericho.
The old man featured on TV wasn't thinking of himself but of those coming after him. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
St Mark is repeating the words of Isaiah used in today's First Reading: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Isaiah 40: 3).
Fr Alfred Delp SJ, hanged by the Nazis in Berlin on 2 February 1945, is in many ways an Advent figure. Advent of the Heart is a collection of 'Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings - 1941-1944'. The People of Advent is one of his prison meditations, written exactly 79 years ago, two months before his death. I have highlighted some parts.
The herald angel
Never have I entered on Advent so vitally and intensely alert as I am now. When I pace my cell, up and down, three paces one way and three the other, my hands manacled, an unknown fate in front of me, then the tidings of our Lord's coming to redeem the world and deliver it have a different and much more vivid meaning.
And my mind keeps going back to the angel someone gave me as a present during Advent two or three years ago. It bore the inscription: Be of good cheer. The Lord is near. A bomb destroyed it. The same bomb killed the donor and I often have the feeling that he is rendering me some heavenly aid.
Promises given and fulfilled
It would be impossible to endure the horror of these times - like the horror of life itself, could we only see it clearly enough - if there were not this other knowledge which constantly buoys us up and gives us strength: the knowledge of the promises that have been given and fulfilled. And the awareness of the angels of good tidings, uttering their blessed messages in the midst of all this trouble and sowing seed of blessing where it will sprout in the middle of the night.
Then angels of Advent are not the bright jubilant beings who trumpet the tidings of fulfillment to a waiting world. Quiet and unseen they enter our shabby rooms and our hearts as they did of old. In the silence of the night they pose God's questions and proclaim the wonders of him with whom all things are possible.
Footsteps of the herald angel
Advent, even when things are going wrong, is a period from which a message can be drawn. May the time never come when men forget about the good tidings and promises, when, so immured within the four walls of their prison that their very eyes are dimmed, they see nothing but grey days through barred windows placed too high to see out of.
May the time never come when mankind no longer hears the soft footsteps of the herald angel, or his cheering words that penetrate the soul. Should such a time come all will be lost. Then indeed we shall be living in bankruptcy and hope will die in our hearts.
Golden seeds waiting to be sowed
For the first thing man must do if he wants to raise himself out of this sterile life is to open his heart to the golden seed which God's angels are waiting to sow in it.
And one other thing; he must himself throughout these grey days go forth as a bringer of good tidings. There is so much despair that cries out for comfort; there is so much faint courage that needs to be reinforced; there is so much perplexity that yearns for reasons and meanings.
Reaping the fruits of divine seeds
God's messengers, who have themselves reaped the fruits of divine seeds sown even in the darkest hours, know how to wait for the fullness of harvest. Patience and faith are needed, not because we believe in the earth, or in our stars, or our temperament or our good disposition, but because we have received the message of God's herald angel and have ourselves encountered him.
Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another? (Mt 11:2-3; Gospel).
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
GospelMark 13:33-37 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India).
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when
the time will come.It is
like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his
servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the
doorkeeper to stay awake.Therefore
stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in
the evening, or at midnight, or when the cock crows, or in
the morning—lest he come suddenly
and find you asleep.And what I say to you I
say to all: Stay awake.”
These were the last words of Liam Whelan who died in a plane crash at Munich Airport on 6 February 1958 along with other members of the Manchester United football (soccer) team as they were returning from a match in Belgrade. About ten years ago I learned from a friend named Brendan whom I have known for more than 60 years that, when they were both aged 14 or so, Liam rescued him when he got into difficulties in a swimming pool in their area. And about four years ago I discovered that another friend, who was a classmate of for five years in secondary school and for two years in the seminary, also named Liam, that this talented young footballer had been a neighbour of his and that even when he had achieved fame as a professional footballer he would still play knockabout football on the street with the local boys whenever he would come home.
The average age of Manchester United's players at the time of the accident was only 22. These young men were earning only £15-per-week, about 25 percent more than a tradesman. Unlike tradesmen, their careers lasted only a few years and could be cut short by injuries. (The current top earners on Manchester United's team earn around £18,000.000 per year (roughly in the $20,000,000 or €20,000,000 range). Endorsements could bring in a little more income for a few talented players whose career would end for most at 35, if not earlier.
There was snow on the ground at Munich Airport and the plane made three attempts to take off. Harry Gregg, the goalkeeper for Manchester United and who also played in that position for Northern Ireland's international team, was sitting near Liam Whelan. He survived uninjured and helped save a number of people from death. He has often told the story of Liam Whelan's last words: If this is the end, then I'm ready for it.
Clearly young Liam had his life focused on what was most important. He was ready to meet death. I have often spoken about him at Mass and in giving retreats.
Those who knew him describe Liam Whelan as 'a devout Catholic’. I know that he sent his mother some money for her to go to Lourdes. 11 February 1958 was the centennial of the first apparition of our Blessed Mother to St Bernadette. Mrs Whelan, a widow since 1943 when Liam was 8, used the money instead towards a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Lourdes over the grave of her son. I pass it each time I visit my parents’ grave.
Liam Whelan's grave (right)
I vividly remember the dark, late afternoon I heard about the crash from a street-singer whom I knew by sight and who was running around agitatedly telling people of the crash. I didn't know whether to believe him or not but the news on the radio confirmed that it really had happened. It was the first time in my life to experience what has been called a 'public-private moment', a public happening, usually a tragedy, that becomes a very personal one for those who learn of it, one that is seared in the memory and often in the heart.
Liam Whelan grew up in the next parish to my own and I remember going to Christ the King Church the evening his remains were brought there. I was outside the church with countless others. An article by John Scally in the February 2008 issue of The Word, the magazine of the Divine Word Missionaries in Ireland that is no longer published, described what many experienced: Their funerals were like no other. Most funerals are a burial of someone or something already gone. These young deaths pointed in exactly the opposite direction and were therefore the more poignant. Normally we bury the past but in burying Liam Whelan and his colleagues, in some deep and gnawing way we buried the future.
I still feel some pain at the deaths of Liam Whelan and his colleagues nearly 66 years after they died but the story of Liam's preparedness for his sudden death is one that continues to inspire me.
Liam's last words, If this is the end, then I'm ready for it, are a perfect response to today's gospel. Jesus is not trying to frighten us but he is telling us starkly to be prepared always for the moment of our death, to do everything with that in mind. Advent is a time when we prepare not only to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas, but to become much more aware of his daily coming into our lives, and to prepare, as individuals and as a Christian community to welcome him when he returns at the end of time in a way that we won't be ashamed.
What would we say if he asked in the Philippines, where I spent most of my life, for example, Have children who have been abused had their court cases finished quickly? I have heard that young Maria, who has gone to the court five or six times for a hearing, something that is quite upsetting for her, has been told on each occasion that the defence lawyer isn't yet ready.
What would we say if Jesus said, I have been told that many forests have been cut down for profit and that this has resulted in many deaths in Leyte, for example, in 1991 and 2003. Is this true?
More than 5,000 died in a flash flood in Ormoc City, Leyte, on 5 November 1991. Deforestation was blamed as a primary cause of the devastation.
The gospel this Sunday is, literally, a 'wake up call'. Be on guard, keep awake . . . Therefore stay awake . . . And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.
May the response of Liam Whelan, a young professional footballer who took these words to heart, inspire us and give us a desire to be always prepared to meet the Lord, in this life and in the next: If this is the end, then I'm ready for it.
Setting by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Sung by The Sixteen - Harry Christophers
Antiphona ad introitum Entrance Antiphon Cf Ps 24 [25]:1-3
Ad te levavi animam meam, Deus meus,
To you, I lift up my soul, O my God.
in te confido, non erubescam.
In you, I have trusted, let me not be put to shame.
Neque irrideant me inimici mei,
Nor let my enemies exult over me;
etenim universi qui te exspectant non confundentur.
and let none who hope in you be put to shame.
Traditional Latin Mass
First Sunday of Advent
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-03-2023 if necessary).
And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken (Luke 21:25-26; Gospel).
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The Annunciation (1442-43)
