'In our own lives there will come a time when we must make a choice . . .' Sunday Reflections, 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary

Joachim Beuckelaer [Web Gallery of Art]

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined (Isaiah 25:6, First Reading).

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son,  and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast . . . (Matthew 22:2-3 Gospel).

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Matthew 22:1-14 or 22:1-10 (English Standard Version Anglicised)

Again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.’ But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.  The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.

[“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”]

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Blessed Clemens August Graf von Galen

16 March 1878 – 22 March 1946 [Wikipedia]

These last few Sundays Jesus has been speaking to us in parables that show both the overwhelming generosity of God and the possibility that we can reject that generosity. In today's parable of the wedding feast the response to God's invitation to his banquet runs from apathy to outright hostility where the servants bringing the king's invitation are murdered.

And in the second part of the Gospel, which many priests will no doubt omit, we have the insolence of the guest who turns up clearly showing disrespect to all around him, including the king. (I wonder if the committee in the Vatican who drew up the Lectionary we have been using since 1969 thought that some of the words of Jesus might be 'dangerous' for us since they have given us the option today of leaving out the last four verses of the Gospel).

On 9 October 2005 Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen ('Graf' is the German for the title 'Count' or 'Earl') Bishop of Münster, Germany, was beatified in Rome. In July and August 1941 he gave three sermons in his cathedral that were highly critical of the Nazi regime. These were printed and distributed widely, though illegally, in Germany. These sermons led to the nickname by which he became known: 'The Lion of Münster'. Among the aspects of Nazi practices that the bishop condemned was its euthanasia programme, begun on 1 September 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland, starting a new world war. Between then and August 1941 around 70,000 had been murdered, mostly persons with learning disabilities and mental illnesses. More than 200,000 of these persons were murdered before World War II ended in 1945.

Some of the countries that Germany invaded in that war have since legalised euthanasia, including the Netherlands and Belgium. The number of such killings in Belgium has grown from 235 in 2002 to 2,357 in 2018. This country which was staunchly Catholic Christian less than 100 years ago has allowed the euthanasia of children since 2014. Last Wednesday the Irish Parliament approved of the first stage of a bill to legalise euthanasia. The second stage will take place a year from now. The bill is known as the Dying with Dignity Bill. As with all anti-life, pro-killing legislation it is given a nice-sounding name to cover up the reality that it would turn compliant medical personnel into executioners of the old and sick, as they are already executioners of children in the womb.

In his Angelus address on the day of the beatification of Blessed Clemens August, Pope Benedict said: The three famous homilies that this intrepid Pastor gave in 1941 are remarkable. Pope Pius XII created him Cardinal in February 1946 and he died barely a month later, surrounded by the veneration of the faithful who recognized him as a model of Christian courage.

For this very reason, the message of Blessed von Galen is ever timely:  faith cannot be reduced to a private sentiment or indeed, be hidden when it is inconvenient; it also implies consistency and a witness even in the public arena for the sake of human beings, justice and truth.

Voters, especially in Western countries, are now faced with a moral dilemma. In the parliamentary constituency in which I live here in Ireland we elect three representatives to the Dáil (Parliament), known as Teachtaí Dála (TDs). The then three TDs voted in November 2018 to legalise abortion, on demand up to 12 weeks and in limited circumstances after that. I could not in conscience vote for any of them in the general election last February. Most TDs are baptised and confirmed Catholics and few, if any, are openly hostile to the Christian faith or to the Catholic church. But for so many of us Catholics and other Christians, including regular churchgoers, faith has been reduced to a private sentiment and hidden when it is inconvenient. One direct consequence of this is that last year 6,666 unborn children were legally denied entry to the Republic of Ireland by being aborted, by virtue of a law that came into effect on New Year's Day 2019, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. I wonder how many Catholics in Ireland are conscious of the perversity of this.

Fr Emil Kapaun

20 April 1916 - 23 May 1951 [Wikipedia]

I have written about Fr Emil Kapaun, a priest of the Dioceseof Wichita, Kansasn, now being proposed for beatification, a number of times. He served as a chaplain in the US Army in both World War II and the Korea War where he died in captivity after serving his fellow POWs heroically, living his vocation as a priest to the fullest. 

In a broadcast in Japan on 21 April 1950 Fr Kapaun said: We can be sure to expect that in our own lives there will come a time when we must make a choice between being loyal to the true faith or of giving allegiance to something else which is either opposed to or not in alliance with our faith. He spoke these words just a little over two months before the Korean War began and 13 months before his own death.

In the parable today Jesus extends God's invitation to all of us to the heavenly banquet, which begins here on earth. As in the parable, it is possible for us to reject that invitation.

The choice is ours.

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Extraordinary Form of the Mass

Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) 

This Sunday, 11 September, is the Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost in the calendar that uses the TLM. The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-11-2020, if necessary).

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The Month of the Rosary

Virgin and Child with a Rosary

Murillo [Web Gallery of Art]

Last May I updated a series of posts on The Rosary with the Great Artists. Here are The Mysteries of Light.

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Authentic Beauty

Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.

Pope Benedict XVI meeting with artists in the Sistine Chapel, 21 November 2009.

Ave verbum corpus

Setting by William Byrd, sung by Ensemble ZENE

Ave verum corpus, natum de Maria Virgine,

vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine

cuius latus perforatum fluxit aqua et sanguine:

esto nobis praegustatum in mortis examine.

O Iesu dulcis, O Iesu pie, O Iesu, fili Mariae. Miserere mei. Amen.

Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary,

having truly suffered, sacrificed on the cross for mankind,

from whose pierced side water and blood flowed:

Be for us a foretaste [of the Heavenly banquet] in the trial of death!

O sweet Jesus, O holy Jesus, O Jesus, son of Mary, have mercy on me. Amen.

'The Church, the People of the New Covenant, is built only in him, for him and with him.' Sunday Reflections, 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants

Abel Grimmer [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Matthew 21:33-43 (English Standard Version Anglicised)

Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people:

 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence round it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than at first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord's doing,
    and it is marvellous in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

  

First Reading, Isaiah 5:1-7 

[English Standard Version Anglicised]

The young Fr Edward Galvin in China

Just over a century ago the young Fr Edward Galvin of the Diocese of Cork, Ireland, was sent by his bishop to work for some years in the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, because he had no place to put him. This was common at the time and many young Irish diocesan priests spent their early years on loan to English-speaking dioceses in other countries. While in Brooklyn Father Galvin found himself answering God's call to go to China. This was to lead eventually to the formal founding of the Missionary Society of St Columban, to which I belong, in 1918 with Fr Galvin and Fr John Blowick, another young Irish diocesan priest, as the co-founders. Later Fr Galvin became Bishop of Hanyang, China, and was expelled by the Communist authorities.

When I was growing up in Ireland people who were critical of the Church, sometimes with good reason, often used the term 'priest-ridden' to describe the country. Today there are parishes without priests and the average age of priests is, according to reports, is now around 70. In twenty years or so it could well happen that priests will be a relative rarity in the country.

When I was young almost every Catholic in Ireland went to Sunday Mass and the seminaries were full. Today only a minority take part in Sunday Mass, the seminaries have nearly all closed and only a handful of young men are preparing for ordination in the only that still remain open. More and more young people are choosing not to get married and not to have their children baptised.

In 1961, the year I entered the seminary, Ireland celebrated the 1,500th anniversary of the death of St Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland. Very few could have foreseen the falling away, not only from the Church, but from the Christian faith, within two generations.

St Paul tells us in the Second Reading today: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 

I sometimes get disheartened at the situation of the Church in my native land and in other Western countries. The First Reading and the Gospel remind us that many have rejected God's love, God's gift, especially the gift of faith. Through the Prophet Isaiah God poignantly asks,What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

St Andrew Kim Tae-gon

Myeongdong Cathedral, Seoul [Wikipedia]

But in the readings the Lord is really asking us to see what he has given us, to treasure it and to pass it on. In his homily at the beatification of 124 martyrs in Korea on 16 August 2014 Pope Francis said: The victory of the martyrs, their witness to the power of God’s love, continues to bear fruit today in Korea, in the Church which received growth from their sacrifice. Our celebration of Blessed Paul and Companions provides us with the opportunity to return to the first moments, the infancy as it were, of the Church in Korea. It invites you, the Catholics of Korea, to remember the great things which God has wrought in this land and to treasure the legacy of faith and charity entrusted to you by your forebears.

The following day in the opening sentence in his homily at the concluding Mass of Asian Youth Day Pope Francis said, The glory of the martyrs shines upon you! These words – a part of the theme of the Sixth Asian Youth Day – console and strengthen us all. Young people of Asia: you are the heirs of a great testimony, a precious witness to Christ. 

The Pope was reminding the young people, and all of us, of the legacy of the Christian faith that we have received.

Beatifications, Seoul [Wikipedia]

Pope Francis touched on this again on 21 September 2014 when he celebrated Mass in Mother Teresa Square, Tirana, very conscious of the persecution that had ended almost 30 years ago. He concluded his homily with these stirring words: To the Church which is alive in this land of Albania, I say 'thank you' for the example of fidelity to the Gospel. Do not forget the nest, your long history, or your trials. Do not forget the wounds, but also do not be vengeful. Go forward to work with hope for a great future. So many of the sons and daughters of Albania have suffered, even to the point of sacrificing their lives. May their witness sustain your steps today and tomorrow as you journey along the way of love, of freedom, of justice and, above all, of peace. So may it be.

(The words do not forget the nest refer to the Pope's mentioning earlier in the homily the eagle on Albania's flag and his saying, The eagle does not forget its nest, but flies into the heights.)

The Lord is calling each of us today to look back with gratitude for the gift of faith we have received individually and as community so that we can live that faith fully in the present as we move in hope and love into the future.

But the readings also remind us of the reality that the precious gift of the Christian faith has been lost, not only by individuals but in large areas of the world such as North Africa not that long after the time of such giants as St Augustine.

However, there are signs of a living Church, of a missionary Church, here in Ireland. After I came back to Ireland from the Philippines in 2017 I came to know a group of actively Catholic families with young children in one of the local parishes. From time to time on Sunday afternoons they held a family Holy Hour in one of the parish churches. The families included parents from India, France, China, Australia and other places. The children were mostly Irish-born. Sometimes the priest who led the Holy Hour was a Nigerian. And on one occasion when I was there, before the Holy Hour there was a period for the children to learn about our faith. The one leading the class was a husband/father from Kerala, India, where St Thomas the Apostle is believed to have brought the faith to the people. These are families focused on Jesus Christ. The spouses/parents in these families know that our Catholic Christian faith is the 'vineyard' that God has given us, and which He wants each generation to cultivate and to pass on to the next.

St Paul expresse this in the closing words of the Second Reading: What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practise these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Pope Benedict in his Angelus talk on this Sunday in 2011 said, Firmly anchored in faith to the cornerstone which is Christ, let us abide in him, like the branch that can bear no fruit unless it remains attached to the vine. The Church, the People of the New Covenant, is built only in him, for him and with him.

The Month of the Rosary

The Virgin Mary

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

Last May I updated a series of posts on The Rosary with the Great Artists. Here are The Joyful Mysteries.

Authentic Beauty

Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond. Pope Benedict XVI meeting with artists in the Sistine Chapel, 21 November 2009.

Autumn 2020, Margaree, Nova Scotia, Canada

Photo by Shaun Bennett

In March last year I gave missions in a number of parishes in the Diocese of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Margaree was one of them and that is where I met Shaun.

In those parts of the Northern Hemisphere that have four seasons we are now well into autumn

Les feuilles mortes (Autumn Leaves)

Music by Joseph Kosma, lyrics by Jacques Prévert

Ben Creighton Griffiths (harp), Adrien Chevalier (violin), Tatiana Eva-Marie (vocals)

Ode to Autumn

by John Keats

'He answered, "I will not"; but afterwards he changed his mind and went.' Sunday Reflections, 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

The Red Vineyard

Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

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

Gospel Matthew 21:28-32 (English Standard Version Anglicised)

Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people:

“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’, but afterwards he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir’, but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterwards change your minds and believe him.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

The Little Fruit Seller

Murillo [Web Gallery of Art]

Fruit of the vine and work of human hands, it will become our spiritual drink.

The above scene, at the Coliseum in Rome, comes shortly before the end of the 1983 made-for-TV move, The Scarlet and the Black, which tells the true World War II story of Vatican-based Irish priest Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, known as 'The Vatican Pimpernel' and played here by Gregory Peck, and Colonel Herbert Kappler, head of the Gestapo in Rome during the Nazi occupation from September 1943 till June 1944, played by Christopher Plummer. The priest has managed to save the lives of many Allied soldiers and others, getting under the skin of Kappler.

When the German knows that the Allies are about to liberate Rome he sends for the Irishman at night, guaranteeing his safety. The Wikipedia article on the movie tells us what happens after their exchange of 'pleasantries' above. 

[Wikipedia]

Colonel Kappler worries for his family's safety from vengeful partisans, and, in a one-to-one meeting with O'Flaherty, asks him to save his family, appealing to the same values that motivated O'Flaherty to save so many others. The Monsignor, however, refuses, disbelieving that after all the Colonel has done and all the atrocities he is responsible for, he could expect mercy and forgiveness automatically, simply because he asked for it, and walks away in disgust . . .

Kappler is captured in 1945 and questioned by the Allies. In the course of his interrogation, he is informed that his wife and children were smuggled out of Italy and escaped unharmed into Switzerland. Upon being asked who helped them, Kappler realizes who it must have been, but responds simply that he does not know.

At the very end we read on the screen: After the liberation Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty was honored by Italy, Canada and Australia, given the U.S. Medal of Freedom and made a Commander of the British Empire.

Herbert Kappler was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes. In the long years that followed in his Italian prison, Kappler had only one visitor. Every month, year in and year out, O'Flaherty came to see him.

In 1959 the former head of the dreaded Gestapo in Rome was [received] into the Catholic faith at the hand of the Irish priest.

Hugh O'Flaherty Memorial, Killarney, Ireland

[Wikipedia]

[You can view the whole scene between the Colonel Kappler and Monsignor O'Flaherty on Gloria TV here, starting at 06.10. The whole movie is available on Gloria TV here.]

St Paul tells us in the Second Reading, Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. The priest has been putting his life at risk time and again to save the lives of others, while the soldier has been taking the lives of others. But now Kappler looks beyond himself and wants to save the lives of his wife and two children.

St Paul tells us that Christ Jesus made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. Kappler in a real sense can be said to have made himself nothing when he compares himself to a beggar and lame dog as he requests the priest to help his wife and children get to safety. Saving others is all part of your faith, he says to the priest. Brotherly love and forgiveness - that's the other half of what you believe.

When the priest storms off with I'll see you in hell first! Kappler says to himself, You're no different from anyone else. Your talk means nothing. Charity, forgiveness, mercy - it's all lies.

But when Kappler is being interrogated by officials of the Allies [here from 1:30 to 3:06]  we discover that the Irish priest too had emptied himself by overcoming his anger at the request to help his enemy's family to escape, and by enabling them to get to Switzerland. 

Very few of us will have to face the kind of danger that Monsignor O'Flaherty faced. But every day we have to make choices, often between good and bad. The choice to forgive his enemy that the Irish priest made is the kind of choice that faces all of us, even if the perceived crime or 'crime' of our enemy or 'enemy' is rarely on the scale of those of Colonel Kappler. But the latter, in his need, felt the stirrings of hope in his heart, the stirrings of faith in a merciful God, when he approached his nemesis with his plea. 

Those stirrings were dashed by the priest's angry refusal. Charity, forgiveness, mercy - it's all lies. But those stirrings were raised again when he learned that his wife and children were safe and knew that only one person could have seen to that. Then he knew he was wrong when he said, Charity, forgiveness, mercy - it's all lies. Now he knew it was all true.

I don't know if the Irish priest was familiar with these words of St Caesarius of Arles (c.470 - 27 August 542): Whenever you love brothers or sisters you love friends, for they are already with you, joined to you in Catholic unity. If they live virtuously you love them as people who have been changed from enemies into brothers and sisters. But suppose you love people who do not yet believe in Christ, or if they do, yet believe as the devil believes - they believe in Christ but still do not love him. You must love just the same, you must love even people like that, you must love them as brothers and sisters. They are not such yet, but you must love them so that they become such through your kindness. All our love, then, must be fraternal.

'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but afterwards he changed his mind and went.

[You can read a fine article by William Doino Jr published in First Things, November 2013: Hugh O'Flaherty, Ireland's Shining Priest.]

Memento Verbi Tui by Mark Emerson Donnelly 

(In Memoriam Marie Donnelly, 1926-2020)

Antiphona ad Communionem    Communion Antiphon

Cf Psalm 118 [119]:49-50

Memento verbi tui servo tui, Domine:

Remember your word to your servant, O Lord,

in quo mihi spem dedisti;

by which you have given me hope.

haec me consolata est in humilitate meum.

This is my comfort when I am brought low.

On the Sundays in Ordinary Time one of two Communion Antiphons may be used. The first is a text from the Old Testament, as above, the second from the New Testament.

Extraordinary Form of the Mass

Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) 

This Sunday, 27 September, is the Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost in the calendar that uses the TLM. The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 9-27-2020, if necessary).

Happy Birthday, dear Louella 'Lala' Vicente!

Lala with Jordan

Lala's story is here.

I have posted about my friend Lala a number of times, with variations. I first met her in Cebu City in 1992 or 1993 when she was a child. For me, Lala's story is one that should be told over and over again. This Sunday, 27 September, normally the feast of St Vincent de Paul, she is celebrating her birthday. No doubt, the occasion is being marked at Punla, Ang Arko, where Lala lives, the only L'Arche community in the Philippines, in Cainta, Rizal, part of the metropolitan sprawl of Manila. 

In some Western countries fewer and fewer persons like Lala are being born, condemned to death before birth because they have an extra an extra chromosome (Trisomy 21 / Down Syndrome / Down's Syndrome).

You may send a birthday greeting to Lala here.

Lala and Hachiko, each looking more content than the other!

Sadly, this beautiful dog died not long after the photo was taken, choking on a chicken bone.