Check out this story which first appeared in National Post, a national newspaper in Canada, on 19 February. H/T Fr Tim Finigan.
FATHER RAYMOND DE SOUZA
Here with an item from last week’s news that you might not have heard about: Unidentified gunmen blew up the YMCA library in the Gaza Strip on Friday morning. While no one was hurt, two guards were temporarily kidnapped while the offices were looted, a vehicle stolen and all 8,000 books destroyed. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, although Fatah accused Hamas of being behind it. Hamas, for its part, strongly denied any responsibility and condemned the attack. Meanwhile, confidential sources in Gaza told the Jerusalem Post that the attack was in response to the reprinting of the Muhammad cartoons in Danish newspapers last week. The supposed motivation for the attack, and the fact that it was not big news, illustrates the dire situation faced by many Christians living in the Palestinian territories.
There are only some 3,500 Christians, mostly Greek Orthodox, in Gaza. Over the past two years, al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have claimed responsibility for attacks against Christian figures and institutions with the stated goal of driving Christians out of Gaza. Full story . . .
21 February 2008
'The Relevance of Lourdes at 150'
Interview With Bishop Jacques Perrier
By Isabelle Cousturié
LOURDES, France, 20 February 2008 (http://www.zenit.org/ ). The bishop of Lourdes says the pilgrimage site in his diocese is like a promise that never betrays.
That's how Bishop Jacques Perrier of Tarbes and Lourdes described the spot on 10 February, eve of the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, during his homily at Mass celebrated in the grotto. 'The apparitions in Lourdes,' the bishop said, 'like Lent, propose to us the same question, that of hope, to which our Pope has dedicated his second encyclical. In what do we place our hope? What are we ready to do to enter into the great hope?'
Read the full interview with Bishop Perrier in today's bulletin from Zenit. (My naughty mind is asking that since water is so central to the whole Lourdes story is that why Bishop Perrier was appointed there?!)
You can also find my article on Lourdes in the current issue of Misyon with photos by Fr Tim Finigan.
By Isabelle Cousturié
LOURDES, France, 20 February 2008 (http://www.zenit.org/ ). The bishop of Lourdes says the pilgrimage site in his diocese is like a promise that never betrays.
That's how Bishop Jacques Perrier of Tarbes and Lourdes described the spot on 10 February, eve of the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, during his homily at Mass celebrated in the grotto. 'The apparitions in Lourdes,' the bishop said, 'like Lent, propose to us the same question, that of hope, to which our Pope has dedicated his second encyclical. In what do we place our hope? What are we ready to do to enter into the great hope?'
Read the full interview with Bishop Perrier in today's bulletin from Zenit. (My naughty mind is asking that since water is so central to the whole Lourdes story is that why Bishop Perrier was appointed there?!)
You can also find my article on Lourdes in the current issue of Misyon with photos by Fr Tim Finigan.
20 February 2008
'Hitting the road'
In my second post I quoted a poem by Father Pádraig Ó Croiligh of the Diocese of Derry, Ireland, Tóg leat do bhata is cuir chun bóthair, 'Take your stick and hit the road'.
Maybe 'staff' would be a better translation, which means I'll have two staffs with me in Luzon next week, my metaphorical walking-staff and my editorial staff.
So, like a good peregrinus or pilgrim, following St Columban, my missionary patron, I'll be hitting the road tomorrow and won't be back here in Bacolod till late on Sunday 9 March, God willing. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post during that period. But then I'm not sure if anyone is reading my posts!
Maybe 'staff' would be a better translation, which means I'll have two staffs with me in Luzon next week, my metaphorical walking-staff and my editorial staff.
So, like a good peregrinus or pilgrim, following St Columban, my missionary patron, I'll be hitting the road tomorrow and won't be back here in Bacolod till late on Sunday 9 March, God willing. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post during that period. But then I'm not sure if anyone is reading my posts!
A Prayer by St Columban
I beg you, most loving Saviour,
to reveal yourself to us who beseech you,
so that knowing you, we may love you only,
love you alone, desire you alone,
contemplate you alone by day and night,
and ever hold you in our thoughts.
May your charity possess all our inward parts,
and your love own us all,
and may your affection fill our senses.
More important to be a spouse than a parent
I'm off to Manila again tomorrow, this time to attend the National Board Meeting of Worldwide Marriage Encounter (WWME). I'll be visiting different parts of Luzon after that with my editorial staff. The following week I'll be in Ozamiz City, Mindanao, giving a directed retreat to four deacons from the Diocese of Dipolog.
An aside: very few Filipinos live on 'cartoon islands', the ones you see with a shipwrecked individual standing under the solitary coconut tree helplessly waving his tattered shirt at a ship on the horizon. Luzon, the main island in the north, is nearly as big as Britain and Mindanao, the main island in the south is bigger than Ireland, around the same size as Iceland. The Visayas, the group of islands in the centre of the country, are all large. Bacolod City, where I live, is on the island of Negros and it would probably take me two days to drive around the island if I were so inclined, which I'm not. I guess that people from the mainland of Britain and the mainland of Ireland have a different perception of what an island is from a mainland Canadian or American, for example, or a mainland European.
I made my WWME Weekend in Toronto in October 1982 while on a sabbatical year there and have been a team priest since then, with some inactive periods. You can find some testimonies by priest on an emagazine of WWME in the USA in the Priest's Corner. (The editor in me is thinking, 'Shouldn't that be Priests' Corner, with the apostrophe after the "s"?')
I have found my involvement over the years with WWME very helpful in living my life as a priest. The weekend emphasises the importance of the two sacraments: Matrimony and Holy Orders and how those called to live each support one another in being faithful to God's call. One thing I have become convinced of is that the most intimate and the most important of all human relationships is that between husband and wife. I sometimes think that the Church in speaking about the importance of the family doesn't stress enough the foundation of the family that is marriage.
In other words, it is more important to be a husband or wife than a father or mother. If a couple put their spousal relationship before everything else as God's will for them they cannot be but good parents if God grants them children. The Church honours St Joseph on his solemnity on 19 March (this year 15 March in most countries because of such an early Holy Week) as the Husband of Mary.
For the priest it means putting his relationship with Jesus the Risen Lord before everything else: When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep (Jn 21:15-17).
An aside: very few Filipinos live on 'cartoon islands', the ones you see with a shipwrecked individual standing under the solitary coconut tree helplessly waving his tattered shirt at a ship on the horizon. Luzon, the main island in the north, is nearly as big as Britain and Mindanao, the main island in the south is bigger than Ireland, around the same size as Iceland. The Visayas, the group of islands in the centre of the country, are all large. Bacolod City, where I live, is on the island of Negros and it would probably take me two days to drive around the island if I were so inclined, which I'm not. I guess that people from the mainland of Britain and the mainland of Ireland have a different perception of what an island is from a mainland Canadian or American, for example, or a mainland European.
I made my WWME Weekend in Toronto in October 1982 while on a sabbatical year there and have been a team priest since then, with some inactive periods. You can find some testimonies by priest on an emagazine of WWME in the USA in the Priest's Corner. (The editor in me is thinking, 'Shouldn't that be Priests' Corner, with the apostrophe after the "s"?')
I have found my involvement over the years with WWME very helpful in living my life as a priest. The weekend emphasises the importance of the two sacraments: Matrimony and Holy Orders and how those called to live each support one another in being faithful to God's call. One thing I have become convinced of is that the most intimate and the most important of all human relationships is that between husband and wife. I sometimes think that the Church in speaking about the importance of the family doesn't stress enough the foundation of the family that is marriage.
In other words, it is more important to be a husband or wife than a father or mother. If a couple put their spousal relationship before everything else as God's will for them they cannot be but good parents if God grants them children. The Church honours St Joseph on his solemnity on 19 March (this year 15 March in most countries because of such an early Holy Week) as the Husband of Mary.
For the priest it means putting his relationship with Jesus the Risen Lord before everything else: When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep (Jn 21:15-17).
19 February 2008
'Good night, Mrs Murray, wherever you are'.
When I was reading today’s gospel at Mass (Mt 23:1-12) I thought of Mrs Murray when I came to the last two verses: 'He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; ‘whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.’
When I was in the Boys’ Kindergarten at Stanhope Street School, Dublin, run by the Irish Sisters of Charity, from 1947 to 1951, there was a woman working there whom we knew simply as ‘Mrs Murray’. She was a cleaning-lady, probably in her 40s or 50s. But a young child has no real idea of age! She was always cheerful and smiling.
Though it never happened to me, there were occasions when boys had very embarrassing ‘accidents’ and soiled themselves. Mrs Murray always cheerfully took care of them, cleaned them up as best she could, comforted them and, as far as I can recall, took them home. I never knew anything about her family or where she lived. But I often think of her cheerful, constant presence.
Six years ago when I was based in Glasgow for a few months I went to the men’s room in one of the shopping malls. It was the cleanest I had ever seen in such a place. The janitor happened to be there and I thanked him for his work. His face lit up with joy.
In my brief homily I mentioned these two persons as the kind Jesus had in mind when he spoke the words above. And we prayed for them.
To paraphrase a well-loved entertainer, Jimmy Durante, who wasn’t ashamed of his Catholic faith, ‘Good night, Mrs Murray, wherever you are!’
When I was in the Boys’ Kindergarten at Stanhope Street School, Dublin, run by the Irish Sisters of Charity, from 1947 to 1951, there was a woman working there whom we knew simply as ‘Mrs Murray’. She was a cleaning-lady, probably in her 40s or 50s. But a young child has no real idea of age! She was always cheerful and smiling.
Though it never happened to me, there were occasions when boys had very embarrassing ‘accidents’ and soiled themselves. Mrs Murray always cheerfully took care of them, cleaned them up as best she could, comforted them and, as far as I can recall, took them home. I never knew anything about her family or where she lived. But I often think of her cheerful, constant presence.
Six years ago when I was based in Glasgow for a few months I went to the men’s room in one of the shopping malls. It was the cleanest I had ever seen in such a place. The janitor happened to be there and I thanked him for his work. His face lit up with joy.
In my brief homily I mentioned these two persons as the kind Jesus had in mind when he spoke the words above. And we prayed for them.
To paraphrase a well-loved entertainer, Jimmy Durante, who wasn’t ashamed of his Catholic faith, ‘Good night, Mrs Murray, wherever you are!’
18 February 2008
Misuse of the Mass in a good cause?
‘Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? (Ez 18:23)’ is the scripture reading for Midday Prayer in the Breviary for the first four Mondays of Lent and also the antiphon before and after the psalms of Midday Prayer each day during Lent.
These words were reflected in the main running story in the Philippines media at the moment. Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr, known as ‘Jun’ is being grilled by the Philippine Senate at the moment because he has spilled the beans about financial corruption at a very high level of government.
Recently on arriving from Hong Kong at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) he was whisked away by men he didn’t know in a manner that suggested he was being kidnapped. He turned up a few hours later at the De La Salle school in Greenhills in Metro Manila that his four children attend. They are staying there at the moment for safety and Mr Lozada held a press conference at around 2am after his arrival, surrounded by religious sisters who were protecting him.
The government denies that he was kidnapped. But ‘if it looks like a duck . . .’ And NAIA, formerly Manila International Airport, was renamed after Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino who was shot dead on 21 August 1983 just after his flight landed there, allegedly by a lone gunman, a petty criminal named Rolando ‘Rolly’ Galman who, like Aquino, ended up lifeless on the tarmac. The joke going around at the time was that Ninoy was surprised to see Rolly Galman at the Pearly Gates before him. There’s no doubt that Aquino was murdered by one of the soldiers escorting him, not by poor Galman. But who was behind the murder still isn’t clear.
So, naturally, Jun Lozada thought he was going to be murdered like Ninoy Aquino. 25 years ago there were no mobile phones, no internet.
Former President Corazon Aquino, Ninoy’s widow, arranged for a special Mass to be celebrated yesterday, Sunday, at the school in Greenhills. The Philippine Daily Inquirer headlines this as ‘EDSA spirit at Mass for Lozada’. ‘EDSA’ is Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Metro Manila where the ‘People Power Revolution’ that toppled the Marcos Dictatorship in 1986 too place. It was also the place where ‘EDSA II’ helped then Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo replace President Jose Ejercito, known by his movie name Joseph Estrada, in 2001.
Ejercito was recently found guilty of plunder and sentenced to life in jail. During the case, which lasted for years, he was under ‘house arrest’ in one of his mansions and even allowed to go to Hong Kong for treatment. President Arroyo pardoned him ‘for the sake of national unity’. Meanwhile, in Davao City, where one of the president’s ‘security advisers’ , Rodrigo Duterte, who thinks he’s ‘Dirty Harry’, is mayor. He just laughs at the hundreds of unsolved murders of petty criminals and even children in his city. He’s a firm believer in ‘Law and Order’.
This is part of the background of the appalling corruption in the Philippines.
Jun Lozada said yesterday at Greenhills ‘I did it because I wanted to save my soul’. Maybe he had read the words of Ezekiel. When asked after the Mass if she would demand the resignation of President Arroyo, Mrs Aquino said ‘I’m praying for her. I’m praying for her’. Maybe she too has read the verses from Ezekiel and wants the president to read them too.
But I am very unhappy at the way the Holy Mass is used here in the Philippines as a form of demonstration, no matter how just the cause may be. The widespread and shameless corruption affects everyone, not just Catholics. It is as citizens that Catholics should be living out their faith. The priest says at the end of Mass, ‘Go, the Mass is ended’. That means ‘Go now and live your life as a Christian to the full’.
That’s precisely the problem: for so many the Sacrifice of the Mass ends at the church door as they leave. I’d be prepared to bet that a far higher percentage of politicians attend Sunday Mass in the Philippines than members of any other profession or way of life (except priests and religious!). Like the third staircase in Reb Tevye’s ‘If I were a rich man’, in terms of their journey towards eternal life, they’re ‘going nowhere just for show’.
But Jun Lozada at least, who’s a bureaucrat, not a politician, sees his personal situation from the perspective of eternal life.
But I am very unhappy at what I see as the misuse of the Sacrifice of the Mass, the central act of worship of Catholics.
These words were reflected in the main running story in the Philippines media at the moment. Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr, known as ‘Jun’ is being grilled by the Philippine Senate at the moment because he has spilled the beans about financial corruption at a very high level of government.
Recently on arriving from Hong Kong at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) he was whisked away by men he didn’t know in a manner that suggested he was being kidnapped. He turned up a few hours later at the De La Salle school in Greenhills in Metro Manila that his four children attend. They are staying there at the moment for safety and Mr Lozada held a press conference at around 2am after his arrival, surrounded by religious sisters who were protecting him.
The government denies that he was kidnapped. But ‘if it looks like a duck . . .’ And NAIA, formerly Manila International Airport, was renamed after Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino who was shot dead on 21 August 1983 just after his flight landed there, allegedly by a lone gunman, a petty criminal named Rolando ‘Rolly’ Galman who, like Aquino, ended up lifeless on the tarmac. The joke going around at the time was that Ninoy was surprised to see Rolly Galman at the Pearly Gates before him. There’s no doubt that Aquino was murdered by one of the soldiers escorting him, not by poor Galman. But who was behind the murder still isn’t clear.
So, naturally, Jun Lozada thought he was going to be murdered like Ninoy Aquino. 25 years ago there were no mobile phones, no internet.
Former President Corazon Aquino, Ninoy’s widow, arranged for a special Mass to be celebrated yesterday, Sunday, at the school in Greenhills. The Philippine Daily Inquirer headlines this as ‘EDSA spirit at Mass for Lozada’. ‘EDSA’ is Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Metro Manila where the ‘People Power Revolution’ that toppled the Marcos Dictatorship in 1986 too place. It was also the place where ‘EDSA II’ helped then Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo replace President Jose Ejercito, known by his movie name Joseph Estrada, in 2001.
Ejercito was recently found guilty of plunder and sentenced to life in jail. During the case, which lasted for years, he was under ‘house arrest’ in one of his mansions and even allowed to go to Hong Kong for treatment. President Arroyo pardoned him ‘for the sake of national unity’. Meanwhile, in Davao City, where one of the president’s ‘security advisers’ , Rodrigo Duterte, who thinks he’s ‘Dirty Harry’, is mayor. He just laughs at the hundreds of unsolved murders of petty criminals and even children in his city. He’s a firm believer in ‘Law and Order’.
This is part of the background of the appalling corruption in the Philippines.
Jun Lozada said yesterday at Greenhills ‘I did it because I wanted to save my soul’. Maybe he had read the words of Ezekiel. When asked after the Mass if she would demand the resignation of President Arroyo, Mrs Aquino said ‘I’m praying for her. I’m praying for her’. Maybe she too has read the verses from Ezekiel and wants the president to read them too.
But I am very unhappy at the way the Holy Mass is used here in the Philippines as a form of demonstration, no matter how just the cause may be. The widespread and shameless corruption affects everyone, not just Catholics. It is as citizens that Catholics should be living out their faith. The priest says at the end of Mass, ‘Go, the Mass is ended’. That means ‘Go now and live your life as a Christian to the full’.
That’s precisely the problem: for so many the Sacrifice of the Mass ends at the church door as they leave. I’d be prepared to bet that a far higher percentage of politicians attend Sunday Mass in the Philippines than members of any other profession or way of life (except priests and religious!). Like the third staircase in Reb Tevye’s ‘If I were a rich man’, in terms of their journey towards eternal life, they’re ‘going nowhere just for show’.
But Jun Lozada at least, who’s a bureaucrat, not a politician, sees his personal situation from the perspective of eternal life.
But I am very unhappy at what I see as the misuse of the Sacrifice of the Mass, the central act of worship of Catholics.
17 February 2008
'Bring back the clip around the ear'
My late Dad's favourite threat to my brother and me was 'I'll give you a good clip in the ear'. He never carried out the threat because he led by example. When we grew up we used to kid him about it.
I thought of this when reading the item below from Jenny McCartney's column in today's Sunday Telegraph. I've emphasised Jenny's point about children learning from observing adults.
Fire crews are regularly facing violence and abuse when they turn up to extinguish a fire, it emerged last week. Youths are even making hoax calls in order to lure firemen into a situation in which they can be attacked.
The situation for undertakers is only marginally better. John Harris, a funeral director in London's East End, said that drivers are regularly overtaking and cutting in on horse-drawn funeral processions, and that on one occasion children threw stones at the horses.
This represents not only the disintegration of ordinary respect, but that of the force that promotes it: the invisible web of social taboo, which children sense by observing adults. When I was growing up in Northern Ireland, many such taboos revolved around drink and generosity: I perceived, for example, that among adults it was bad form to drink noticeably more alcohol when the drink was free than you generally would if you were paying for it. It was also mildly shameful to exclude anyone from the offer of a cup of tea.
My father grew up in a tough working-class area of West Belfast, in which it would have been unthinkable for children to attack firemen or stone a funeral procession - not least because they would have been punished by any adult in sight, and later by their own parents. The right of any adult to discipline within reason any badly behaved child was not questioned. Now that such confident interference is the one thing that is considered taboo, it appears that all the others are melting away.
I thought of this when reading the item below from Jenny McCartney's column in today's Sunday Telegraph. I've emphasised Jenny's point about children learning from observing adults.
Fire crews are regularly facing violence and abuse when they turn up to extinguish a fire, it emerged last week. Youths are even making hoax calls in order to lure firemen into a situation in which they can be attacked.
The situation for undertakers is only marginally better. John Harris, a funeral director in London's East End, said that drivers are regularly overtaking and cutting in on horse-drawn funeral processions, and that on one occasion children threw stones at the horses.
This represents not only the disintegration of ordinary respect, but that of the force that promotes it: the invisible web of social taboo, which children sense by observing adults. When I was growing up in Northern Ireland, many such taboos revolved around drink and generosity: I perceived, for example, that among adults it was bad form to drink noticeably more alcohol when the drink was free than you generally would if you were paying for it. It was also mildly shameful to exclude anyone from the offer of a cup of tea.
My father grew up in a tough working-class area of West Belfast, in which it would have been unthinkable for children to attack firemen or stone a funeral procession - not least because they would have been punished by any adult in sight, and later by their own parents. The right of any adult to discipline within reason any badly behaved child was not questioned. Now that such confident interference is the one thing that is considered taboo, it appears that all the others are melting away.
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