First Sunday of Lent; National Migrants' Sunday, Philippines

Above is the cover of Misyon for September-October 2006 featuring Tony McAvoy, lay chaplain of the Apostleship of the Sea in Teesport in the northeast of England, and Vincent, a Filipino seafarer. Vincent was the ‘poster boy’ of the AOS for their annual appeal in the dioceses of England and Wales in July 2005, when I did some appeals for the Columbans in Westminster and Nottingham.

Fr Arsenio Redulla, a Filipino diocesan priest who worked for a while with the Columbans in Ireland, told me a beautiful story of something that happened about twenty years ago. He was doing mission appeals for the Columbans in the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore. Waterford is a port city in the south-east of Ireland. Early on a Sunday morning he was driving from the city to a parish outside when he saw a young Filipino man, the only person on the streets, thumbing a lift. Being the only Filipino priest in Ireland at the time Father Arsenio, of course, stopped.

The young Filipino was a seaman whose ship had just docked and he was hoping that someone would help him find a church where he could attend Mass.

I told that story during my homily in a church in Westminster where I saw the poster with Vincent. After Mass a young member of the Royal Navy, a West Indian, approached me and thanked my.

It is persons such as the young seaman in Waterford that Fr Edwin Corros CS, executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, has in mind in the statement below for National Migrants’ Sunday, observed in the Philippines every year on the first Sunday of Lent.

As the second reading in the Mass for Ash Wednesday reminded us, ‘So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us’ (2 Cor 5:20).

When I go home to Ireland I inevitably hear from friends about the kindness they found in Filipino nurses, either while they were patients or while visiting someone in hospital. One friend, whose wife died after a long stay in hospital, brought me to meet the nurses who had taken such loving care of her. One of the typically Filipino things they had done was to have a little party on what was to be her last birthday, even though she was totally unaware of it.

Politicians here speak of ‘OFWs’ (Overseas Filipino Workers) as our ‘modern-day heroes’. Very few politicians here care about the people so their words are empty. Some people suggest that those who stay at home with less pay are the real heroes.

Some sacrifice family life totally in order to build a better house for their family and send their children to good schools. But is it worth it? Husbands and wives are separated. Children grow up not knowing one or other parent, sometimes not knowing either, as they are left in the care of grandparents or of uncles and aunts.

OFWs are ambassadors for Christ, says CBCP (Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines) official

MANILA, February 27, 2009─Overseas Filipino workers are not only “modern heroes”, as the government would like to cite them for the money they bring, but in the eyes of the Church, they are ambassadors for Christ.

Fr. Edwin Corros, CS, executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) said OFWs are evangelizers in their own right and as such can be regarded as ambassadors for Christ.

“That is a beautiful word to describe the migrants, that they are actually ambassadors for Christ. Imagine, as ambassadors you are carrying with you the values of Jesus,” said Corros, adding:
“Think about the roles of our ambassadors, our diplomatic officials. They carry with them the culture, the values [of their native land]. That is how you are supposed to present yourself to your host. St. Paul as ambassador for Christ, carried with him such responsibility, such value that wherever he goes as a missionary to the gentiles, he presented not himself but Christ,” he explained.

Cited by Pope John Paul II as modern-day missionaries, Filipinos working overseas practiced the Catholic faith in their adoptive country more fervently than in their own native land.
They find solace in their faith in the midst of deprivation, loneliness and exploitation in the workplace.

The 23rd National Migrants Sunday celebration on March 1 has taken the theme “The sacrifices of the Filipino migrants mirror the journey of St. Paul.”

Corros said the chosen theme is very opportune not simply because the Church celebrates Pauline year but that OFWs can relate very well with the Apostle’s own experience of travails and uncertainties.

“Our migrants are sacrificing [a lot] for the sake of their [families’] future. St. Paul always reminded the communities he founded to think of other Christians, other communities who need help,” Corros said.

Despite poverty and difficulties Filipino migrant workers can still think of reaching out to others in need, said Corros

“The Filipinos are very generous; they are always expressing their philanthropic [acts] either in goods or in cash. I remember when a landslide occurred in Quezon in 2004 [and the] province was inundated by flash flood. I called up our chaplain overseas. In a matter of one month I was able to gather I million plus of donation. This is for me a testament to the generosity of our Filipino migrants,” said Corros. (Pinky Barrientos, FSP)

Please pray for all migrants and refugees.

First Sunday of Lent, Jesus in the Wilderness

Christ in the Wilderness, Ivan Kramskoy, 1872

Mark 1: 12-15
The Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel."

Gaeilge/Irish)

Chuir an Spiorad Íosa amach faoin bhfásach é agus bhí sé daichead lá san fhásach á phromhadh ag Sátan. Agus bhí sé in éineacht leis na beithígh allta; agus bhí na haingil ag freastal air. Tar éis Eoin a bheith tugtha ar láimh, tháinig Íosa go dtí an Ghailíl ag fógairt soiscéal Dé agus ag rá: “Tá an tréimhse caite agus tá ríocht Dé in achmaireacht. Déanaigí aithrí agus creidigí sa soiscéal.”

Tagalog (Biblia ng Sambayanang Pilipino)

Kayat itinulak siya ng Espiritu sa disyerto, at apatnapung araw siyang nanatili sa disyerto. Tinukso siya ni Satanas; kasama niya ang mga hayop, at pinaglingkuran siya ng mga anghel.
Pagkadakip kay Juan, pumunta si Jesus sa Galilea. Doon niya ipinahayagang magandang balita ng Diyos sa pagsasabing “Sumapit na ang panahon; magbagong-buhay at maniwala sa magandang balita; lumapit na nga ang Kaharian ng Langit.’

Saturday after Ash Wednesday, The Call of Levi/Matthew

Caravaggio painted The Call of St Matthew in 1599-1600. The account of this event from St Luke 5:27-32, read today at Mass, uses the name ‘Levi’ for the tax-collector.

After this Jesus went out, and saw a tax collector, named Levi, sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he left everything, and rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house; and there was a large company of tax collectors and others sitting at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes murmured against his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

William Russell Maltby was a Protestant clergyman and author who wrote an imaginary letter from Levi/Matthew to Zacchaeus, another tax collector featured in St Luke 19:1-10. (I have found that the story of this little man appeals very much to young people here in the Philippines.) I haven’t been able to find any information about Maltby except that he published a book, Christ and His Cross, in 1936.

I came across this letter in a book called Machnaimh don Charghais (Reflections for Lent) by Fr Caoimhín de Líon of the Archdiocese of Dublin. I’m translating from his Irish (Gaelic) translation of the original.

Dear Zacchaeus

This very day I had Jesus, the prophet from Nazarath, here for dinner. I’m excited about him . . . He was so easy to listen and speak to. I told him how I came to be a tax collector . . . he listened to me and looked at me so kindly as if he understood everything. The more I looked at him the more I wanted to start my life anew. At the end of the meal he left and my gaze fo9llowed him till he was out of sight. It was all I could do not to run after him. I understand that he’s heading for Jericho. Be sure to see him. Don’t let anything get in your way.

PS We’re on the wrong road, Zacchaeus. But, since Jesus was here, I’m thinking that God hasn’t given up on us yet. ‘Do you think that we can both make a fresh start?’


Detail of the face of Christ from Caravaggio's painting

Ash Wednesday and Lent

Yesterday I had two Ash Wednesday Masses, one in the chapel across the road from where I live and where I celebrate Mass from Tuesday to Saturday, the other at Holy Family Home, run by the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family, for girls who come from dangerous or deprived situations. For the first time in years I used the traditional ‘Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you will return’ rather than ‘Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel’ (Mk 1:15).

Each Lent I remember growing up in Dublin in the ‘50s and the packed churches every morning of Lent, workers and students, all going to daily Mass without anyone forcing them to. Now the churches in Ireland are bereft of adolescents and young adults on Sundays.

I don’t know why there has been such a colossal falling away from the faith in the last 40 years. What I do know is that there was much more participatio actuosa, or active participation, in the Mass when I was young than now, when there is often more activity, but less participation. In the 1980s a classmate of mine, the late Fr Desmond Hartford, was appointed apostolic administrator of the Prelature of Marawi in Mindanao, one of very few church jurisdictions in the Philippines with a majority of Muslims – about 95 percent. A group of us went to meet him at the airport in Cagayan de Oro. Father Des had made it clear that he wanted a ‘low-key welcome’. Due to a miscommunication he didn’t arrive at all and one of my companions said ‘You can’t get more low-key than that’.

Well you can’t get lower participation in Mass when nobody attends.

One of my memories from my young days is the ‘acclamation of faith’ after the consecration and elevation. It wasn’t called such nor mentioned in the rubrics but it was a powerful expression of faith – the cough of the whole congregation releasing its tension knowing that something truly awesome had just happened.

Father Desmond replaced Bishop Bienvenido Tudtud, who died in a plane crash in 1987 and who, with the full encouragement and blessing of Pope Paul VI, pioneered what he called ‘Dialogue of Life’ between Christians and Muslims in an area where there had been centuries of hostility and sometimes outright war. He started Duyog Ramadan, ‘Accompanying Ramadan, to heighten the awareness of Christians about the holy season of Muslims and to ask them to pray for them. Since then some attempt has been made, I think, to encourage Muslims to engage in a form of Duyog Cuaresma, or ‘Accompanying Lent’.

But surely there’s an anomaly when, on the one hand, we have become more aware of the religious practices of others and are respectful of them, but, on the other hand, we have ditched our own. The Lenten fast means little now, though I was pleasantly surprised while in Britain from 2000 to 2002 that there was still some awareness of Lent as a Christian observance.

We know that Muslims and Jews don’t eat pork and we would never offer it to them. But in our ‘wisdom’ we have dropped Friday abstinence, a common act of penance throughout the year that was universal except, I think, in the former Spanish Empire, where there had been a dispensation.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput OFMCap, in his homily for last Sunday – you can find the link to the audio here - reminds his people that going out for lobster on Friday during Lent is not quite in the spirit of Lenten abstinence.

However, as this morning’s readings (Thursday) remind us, we can still choose to make Lent a time for personal renewal and for the renewal of the whole Church as we prepare to celebrate the Resurrection.

Death of Cardinal Kim of South Korea

The late Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan of Seoul was highly respected in the Republic of Korea. The Archdiocese of Seoul has more than 1,200,000 Catholics out of a population of more than ten million.

A report on Ucanews shows how people saw him as a true pastor, even when he opposed them. More than 400,000 paid their respects during the Cardinal’s wake. Among them were some former presidents, including the country’s first, and I think only, Catholic president, Thomas More Kim Dae-jung. I didn’t know until now that his baptismal name was ‘Thomas More’. I wonder if his parents imagined that their son, carrying the names of the patron of politicians and lawyers, would one day be president? He too, like his illustrious English namesake, spent time in prison when Cardinal Kim used to visit him. However, unlike the saint, he survived.

The Columbans have been in Korea since 1933 and many of them knew Cardinal Kim well. He was aware of the importance that sport plays in the lives of Irish Columbans. The major Gaelic Football and Hurling competitions are between the 32 counties, ironically divisions created by the English. The Dublin teams in these two sports, along with their followers, and indeed all natives of the city and county, are known as ‘Dubs’. On one occasion when he was going to Ireland one of my confreres, a fellow ‘Dub’, instructed the Cardinal to convey the message ‘Up the Dubs’ when he visited our headquarters in Ireland. He faithfully carried out his mission.

The Ucanews report shows a bishop in touch with the lives of ordinary people and one who gained the respect of politicians to whom he stood up in the matter of human rights.

May this faithful priest rest in peace.

Photos: Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan celebrating Mass for people with leprosy at St Lazarus Village in Anyang on 29 May 2005 and, two weeks earlier, visiting Holy Family Child Adoption Center in Seoul.

The UCANews report has links to related stories about the death of Cardinal Kim.

Benedictine Sister, environmentalists, harassed by Philippine soldiers

Benedictine Sister Stella Matutina (right) in a press conference on Feb. 19 in Davao City, Southern Philippines. She said armed soldiers wearing camouflaged uniforms harrassed her and two environmentalists after they organized a village forum on mining-related issues.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have a miserable record in the area of human rights. Most officers sold their souls to the dictatorship of President Marcos when he declared Martial Law in September 1972, the year after I arrived here. Many thousands died at the hands of soldiers, the excuse being that the victims were ‘Communists’, ‘leftists’ and ‘subversives’. No doubt, some victims were but it was never a capital crime to be such. Some of these too had blood on their hands, especially members of the New People’s Army (NPA).

The military redeemed themselves to some degree after the ‘People Power’ revolt in Metro Manila in 1986 that toppled the Marcos regime after the rigged counting of votes in the election where the people voted for Cory Aquino to be president.

The AFP has far too many generals and quite a few of them get high-paying government jobs for which they’ve no qualifications, eg, ambassadorships, when they retire from the military.

About two years a general linked by a government report with many killings was singled out for praise by President Arroyo in her state-of-the-nation address. In an article about that same general in a widely read newspaper he was quoted as saying ‘I have no conscience’. Just last night in an article on conscience by Fr Vincent Twomey SVD, a former student of Pope Benedict, in the October issue of Inside the Vatican Hermann Goering is quoted as saying ‘I have no conscience, Hitler is my conscience’.

A story from UCANews shows the military, or at least some members of it, in bad light. A quote from the regional military spokesman shows an utterly idiotic understanding of the mission of the Church and of that of Sisters. The Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing – Tutzing is near Munich – aren’t nuns, despite the headline, but religious sisters. Nuns are contemplatives, living in monasteries and aren’t involved in pastoral work. The Tutzing Benedictines, among other things, run schools. They live in community, wear habits and pray the Liturgy of the Hours as part of their daily life. So they do have aspects of the life of nuns.

The AFP spokesman prefers ‘Hollywood nuns’, totally removed from the mission of the Church and from reality.

Many parts of the Philippines have been destroyed by mining companies and by loggers. Members of the military have been involved in illegal logging, as I know from the parish in Mindanao where I served in the early 1990s. Visiting students from Sweden discovered illegally-cut logs in the watershed in the mountains in the area. I met with some soldiers in the house of a parishioner involved with a group trying to protect the forests and to observe the laws of the Philippines. The soldiers wanted the group to take down a banner. The military men were polite with me but they were engaged in a form of harassment against ordinary people trying to have the laws of the land implemented.

On one occasion I celebrated Mass in the military camp where the soldiers, officers and men, lived in fairly primitive conditions. Before the Mass I read a statement condemning the illegal cutting of trees issued by the head of the AFP. The officer whom I knew to be involved in illegal logging in the area was present before I read the statement but not when Mass ended.

In the last couple of weeks the first reading in the weekday Masses was from the Book of Genesis and included both accounts of creation. God’s own Word demands that we respect what He has created and that we take good care of it, including all of God’s creatures, most of all man, made in God’s image and likeness.

Sister Stella and her companions are engaged in a mission of life. God hasn’t called her to be in the convent 24/7 but to engage in active ministry in the Church.

Below is the report.

PHILIPPINES Nun, environmentalists complain of harassment after forum

By Frinston Lim February 20, 2009

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (UCAN) -- A Benedictine nun and two environmental activists said soldiers harassed them after they held a forum on mining and sustainable agriculture in a southern Mindanao village.

"Armed men barged in and roused all of us at gunpoint," Sister Stella Matutina, 40, said in a press conference in the southern Davao City on Feb. 19. "They demanded to see the documents and materials used during the forum."

The group, invited by local officials, had finished an "anti-mining forum" and talk on sustainable agriculture in Taytayan village on Feb. 15. They were sleeping in a village hall when the incident allegedly took place.

The Sisters' Association in Mindanao condemned the incident. "The Armed Forces of the Philippines is sending out the chilling message that no Religious can disrupt their plans of protecting the interests of logging, mining and big businesses," read their statement presented at the press conference.

Sister Matutina, together with Panalipdan, a broad alliance of environmentalists and peoples' organizations, has helped in documenting mining activities in Mindanao's Davao Oriental province, including those of the world's largest mining company BHP Billiton.

Panalipdan's Davao Oriental chairman Wenceslao Mapa and Councilor Maria Fe Matibo from the provincial capital of Mati joined Sister Matutina to conduct the forum.

However, masked gunmen wearing camouflaged military uniforms woke them up before 4 a.m. the next day.

Sister Matutina said the men introduced themselves as soldiers and told her she was not supposed to be there. The nun and the environmentalists were held for hours, until Mati diocese sent Father Edmundo Escobal to negotiate for their release.

Major Randolph Cabangbang, regional military spokesperson contacted by telephone, denied any harassment had taken place and described the incident as propaganda by groups linked to Maoist rebels.

He said soldiers went to the area "to check reports of suspicious-looking and armed men."

"Our soldiers did not know the nun was there," he said. "What was she doing there? She was supposed to stay in the convent. What she did there wasn't related to her Church work." (Comment: What an idiotic statement.)

At the news conference, Mapa told reporters that the gunmen had pointed two rifles at him and he felt "traumatized." Matibo said she felt embarrassed about the way the nun and Mapa were treated.

Sister Matutina said the incident infuriated her, but she was most concerned about how soldiers would treat "ordinary people who cannot defend their rights."

Panalipdan reported it documented more than 100 applications for mining exploration permits submitted to the provincial government as of December 2008.

END

'In sickness and in health . . .'

I said in my previous post that I wouldn’t be posting for some days. But when I came across this story on Life SiteNews.com I couldn’t but post it.

Catholic News Agency also has the story with a video.

This is what love is all about.

Husband of Woman in Coma for 17 Years Visits Wife Three Times Daily, Won't Give UpWill love his wife "until God has the last word"

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

SANTIAGO, February 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a story that stands in stark contrast to the Eluana Englaro and Terri Schiavo cases in Italy and the United States, a Chilean man has been visiting his comatose wife for 17 years, and says he won't give up on her.
Carlos Abarca has always visited his wife regularly, and now that he has retired from the national police force, he is able to come three times a day. He says that caring for her is his whole life.

"My affection will always be focused on her, I have never doubted it," he told the Chilean daily El Mercurio, which broke the story. "I don't seek for more from life than caring for her. There is nothing more to do."

The affection he has for his wife, says Abarca, is "stronger than ever. I want to protect her, care for her, make sure she is well, that she lacks nothing."

Erika Sotelo has been in a coma since 1995, when the anesthesia given to her for a hysterectomy caused her heart to stop beating. By the time doctors revived her, Sotelo's brain had suffered damage due to oxygen deprivation. She has never recovered complete consciousness.
However, her husband has never lost hope in her, and recognizes signs of awareness in his wife, despite doctors' claims that she is in a "vegetative state."

Abarca says that he knows his wife can hear, noting that she stirs when spoken to.
"Sometimes when one speaks to her in her ear she begins to cry, so I have better reason to believe that she can hear. Sure, the doctors always contradict it, but I believe that it is to prevent one from hoping, so that one doesn't delude one's self, but I know better than everyone."

Abarca says he will continue to love his wife, "until God has the last word. In the end, if tomorrow she must go, our conscience will be clear." However, he adds, he is not ready for that yet.

"Many people say, 'you're accustomed to this,' but no, day by day it's different and one can't become accustomed to it. I'm not ready for her to leave."

Latin American news sources reporting on the case have noted the stark difference between Abarca's attitude of patience and commitment, and that of the father of Eluana Englaro, an Italian who recently dehydrated his daughter to death after she fell into a minimally conscious state following a car accident in 1992.

Similarly, Terri Schiavo was starved and dehydrated to death in the United States in 2005 by her husband Michael, who had begun to live with another woman and had obtained a substantial damage award in a malpractice suit related to his wife's case. Schiavo's parents and brother and sister, however, fought to the end for her life, but in the end custody was given over to her husband, who issued the order for the death by dehydration.

In Chile the wife retains her own surname.