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).
GospelMatthew 18:21:35 (English Standard Version
Anglicised, India)
Then
Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin
against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”Jesus said to
him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy
times seven.”
“Therefore
the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle
accounts with his servants.When
he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten
thousand talents.And
since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife
and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.So
the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and
I will pay you everything.’And out of pity for
him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.But when that same servant went out, he found
one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and
seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded
with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’He refused and went and put him in prison
until he should pay the debt.When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were
greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had
taken place.Then
his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all
that debt because you pleaded with me.And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as
I had mercy on you?’And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until
he should pay all his debt.So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if
you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Today's gospel brings us in touch with what is perhaps the most difficult demand for Christians: to forgive. El Greco's painting shows us St Peter praying with hope and trust in God's merciful and forgiving love.
An example of forgiveness is found in an extract from a letter of Fr William Doyle SJ, an Irish priest who died in August 1917 in Passchendaele, Belgium, while serving as a chaplain in the British Army in World War I. The extract is taken from a post on the website The Father Willie Doyle Association, the official site for the canonisation cause of the Servant of God Fr Willie Doyle SJ.
Father Doyle wrote to his father in Dublin about events of 5 September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme in France [emphasis added]:
In the bottom of one hole lay a British and a German soldier, locked in a deadly embrace, neither had any weapon, but they had fought on to the bitter end.Another couple seemed to have realised that the horrible struggle was none of their making, and that they were both children of the same God; they had died hand-in-hand praying for and forgiving one another. A third face caught my eye, a tall, strikingly handsome young German, not more, I should say, than eighteen. He lay there calm and peaceful, with a smile of happiness on his face, as if he had had a glimpse of Heaven before he died. Ah, if only his poor mother could have seen her boy it would have soothed the pain of her broken heart.
To Father Doyle no German soldier was an enemy. Indeed, one of the remarkable things in the literature that came out of the Great War, as the First World War was known until the Second World War began, is that soldiers didn't seem to have hatred for the official 'enemy'. It was more often against their own generals and bullying corporals. Photos and videos from the war show prisoners of war, especially wounded ones, being treated with the same kindness and consideration as others.
Father Doyle's description of the British and German soldiers holding hands in death illustrates poignantly and powerfully what Jesus asks of us in this Sunday's Gospel. Pray for the souls of all who died in that terrible conflict.
The
Banks of Green Willow
Composed
by George Butterworth
Played
by the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields
Conducted
by Sir Neville Marriner
George Butterworth, an officer in the British
army, was killed in the Battle of the Somme. 5 August 1916, a month before the
event described by Fr Willie Doyle in his letter to his father. Pray for the souls of all who died in that terrible conflict, The Great War / First World War.
GospelMatthew 18:15:20 (English Standard Version
Anglicised, India)
Jesus
said to his disciples:
“If your
brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him
alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.But if he does not listen,
take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be
established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if
he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a
Gentile and a tax collector.Truly, I say to
you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.Again
I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they
ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I
among them.”
Fr Rufus Halley, from County Waterford in Ireland, was one year behind me in the seminary. We both worked in the Philippines. After working in Luzon for many years, where he had become fluent in Tagalog, he asked to be transferred to the predominantly Muslin Prelature of Marawi in Mindanao where we Columbans had worked for many years. There he became fluent in two more Filipino languages, Cebuano-Visayan, spoken by the Christians in the Prelature, and Maranao, spoken by the majority of Muslims in that area. Over the years he built up great trust with many Muslims. There was a long history of mistrust between the two communities. At times this broke out into warfare.
Because of the trust he had built up he received an extraordinary request: to mediate in a dispute between two Muslim clans that could become violent. This was an extraordinary request at three levels: he was a foreigner, a Christian and a priest. He agreed to the request but sought the advice of a Muslim elder who wasn't involved in the dispute.
There was much going back and forth between the two leaders, and visits to the elder for guidance, but it finally reached the point where the two leaders agreed to meet in the presence of Father Rufus. There was still an air of tension when they came together. However, they agreed to end the dispute. A few days later the Columban priest happened to drop by the house of one of the two leaders. He found the other there, the two of them drinking coffee and laughing together.
This whole event was one of the highlights of Father Rufus's life and his face would light up whenever he would recount it.
For me, Father Rufus was living out today's gospel in a very difficult situation. His goal was, with God's grace, to bring about peace and reconciliation. The leaders of the two clans were also men of faith and the words of Jesus were realised: For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.
On the afternoon of 28 August 2001, the feast of St Augustine, Father Rufus was ambushed while on his way home on his motorcycle from an interfaith meeting with Muslim religious leaders and shot dead.
Where did Father Rufus draw his strength from? His close friend Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Archbishop Emeritus of Manila, wrote in an article for Misyon, the magazine of the Columbans in the Philippines of which I was editor at the time. In the last two paragraphs of his article Cardinal Rosales wrote:
I knew of the intensity with which Father Rufus lived his own Christian faith, how he began each day with an hour of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, the centrality of the Mass in his life. A big influence on him was the life of Blessed Charles de Foucauld, 1858-1916, beatified on 13 November 2005. This Frenchman was also from a privileged background. Unlike Pareng Rufus, he lost his Catholic faith and became a notorious playboy before re-discovering it, partly through the example of Muslims living in North Africa. He spent many years as a priest living among the poorest Muslims in a remote corner of the Sahara, pioneering Christian-Muslim dialogue by discovering himself as the Little Brother of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and as the Little Brother of the Muslims who came knocking at his hermitage door.
(Pope France canonised Charles de Foucauld last year. Pareng is a Tagalog word expressing respect for a male friend.)
On 1 December 1916 Charles de Foucauld died at the hands of a young
gunman outside his hermitage and on 28 August 2001 Pareng Rufus
died at the hands of gunmen who ambushed him as he was riding on his motorcycle
from a meeting of Muslim and Christian leaders in Balabagan to his parish in
Malabang. The local people, both Christian and Muslim, mourned for him deeply.
The grief of the Muslims was all the greater because the men who murdered
my Pareng Rufus happened to be Muslims. The death of this great
missionary priest brought both communities together in their shared grief for a
man of God, a true follower of Jesus Christ.
What a magnificent and worthy setting for the
celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!
I am preparing Sunday Reflections on the Feast of the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Last week I came across the video below on Facebook and shared it. It is a setting of the Hail Mary and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as the Litany of Loreto, by Sam C. Ezugwu, and performed by Trinity Choir, St Luke's Catholic Church, Kubwa, and Amemuso Choir. The full credits are at the end of the video. Kubwa is located in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.
Columban Ordinations
in the Philippines
On Saaaturday 9 September at 4:00PM local time Bishop Honesto F. Ongtioco of Cubao will ordain two Columban seminarians to the diaconate in the chapel of our formation house in Quezon City. One is Iowane Naio from Fiji, the other Nbwi La Aung, Francis Xavier from Myanmar, the first Columban from that country to become a deacon. The Columbans first went to Fiji in 1952 and to Myanmar, then Burma, in 1936.
Please remember our two young deacons in your prayers.
Traditional Latin Mass
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English ishere. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 09-10-2023 if necessary).
Epistle: Galatians 5:25-26; 6:1-10.Gospel: Luke 7:11-16.
GospelMatthew 16:21-27 (English Standard Version
Anglicised, India)
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must
go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests
and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.And
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This
shall never happen to you.”But he turned and said to Peter, “Get
behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not
setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.For whoever
would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses
his life for my sake will find it.For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole
world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his
soul?For the Son of
Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father,
and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
Päivi Räsänen is a member of the Finnish parliament who served as
Minister of the Interior from 2011 to 2015, is married to a Lutheran pastor,
has five children and ten grandchildren and is a physician by profession.
On Thursday 31 August and Friday 1 September she was being tried along with Bishop Juhana Pohjola of an independent Lutheran church before the Helsinki Court of Appeal. As the Catholic Herald (England) reports: Along with Räsänen, a Finnish Lutheran bishop named Juhana Pohjola is also being tried for hate speech for publishing a pamphlet written by Räsänen that advocated for the biblical understanding of sexuality and marriage. Though they were unanimously acquitted by a Finnish District Court in 2022, prosecutors appealed their acquittal to the Helsinki Court of Appeal.
There is a report of the case in the Court of Appeal here. A verdict is expected by 30 November.
The words of Jeremiah in today's First Reading I'm sure resonate with Mrs Räsänen and Bishop Pohjola:Forthe word of theLordhas become for mea reproach and derision all day long. The words of Jesus in the Gospel tell us clearly the price of following hm: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
A Man for All Seasonsis a movie made in 1966, written by Robert Bolt and based on his stage play with the same title. It is based on the life of St Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England during the time of King Henry VIII. His position would be similar to that of Prime Minister today. More refuses to sign a letter asking Pope Clement VII to annul the marriage of the King to Catherine of Aragon who had not borne him a son. Eventually More is found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death.
During his trial Sir Thomas More discovers that Richard Rich, who had given perjured testimony against him, had been made Attorney General for Wales as a reward for this. The laws of England were about to be extended to Wales, a country of 20,779 square kilometres in the west of the island of Britain which also includes England and Scotland. More says to Rich, Why,Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world - but for Wales? [3:30 - 4:20 in the video above]. The saint is referring to today's Gospel: For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?
St Thomas More was beheaded on 6 July 1535. St John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was the only English bishop to refuse to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church in England. He too was executed, on 22 June 1535. The feast day of both is celebrated on 22 June. Both can be seen as martyrs for the sacrament of matrimony, since King Henry set himself up as head of the Church because the Pope would not declare null an void his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
Päivi Maria Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola are being harassed because they say that marriage is between man and woman. That is what our Christian faith demands. Nature itself reinforces this.
King Henry VIII attacked and mocked marriage by his behaviour and brought about a break in the Church in England, followed by bloody persecution. Today there is division in the Catholic Church over the sacredness of marriage, with a majority of bishops in Germany, for example, giving the green light to priests to 'bless' 'unions' between two persons of the same sex, while asserting that such 'blessings' and 'unions' are not the sacrament of marriage. The Pillar reported this week: In the Aug. 21 letter, Archbishop Heiner Koch assures the Berlin archdiocese’s priests, deacons, and lay pastoral workers that he will not take disciplinary action against them if they bless couples 'who cannot or do not want to marry sacramentally.' These couples include those living in adulterous relationships.
We are living in times where it is becoming more and more difficult to proclaim the Gospel, even in countries such as Finland where two-thirds of its population of almost six million are nominally Christian, mostly Lutheran. There are about 16,000 Catholics there. We are living in times, at least in the Western world, where one can be condemned for asserting that males are males and females are females and that the one cannot become the other. Such assertions are not professions of faith but statements of scientific fact.
Yes, our faith asserts this too. In the first account of creation we read: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27). We further read in Genesis 2:24 in the second account of creation: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Jesus quotes this text in the gospels of St Matthew (19:5) and Mark (10:8) as does St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians (5:31).
To reject what science and the Word of God teaches us is a grave affront to God our Creator, a rejection of the teaching of Jesus, God who became Man and of the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
But Jesus reassures us in today's Gospel: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. May we take him at his word, as Finnish Lutherans Päivi Maria Räsänen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola have done,and praise him with hearts full of gratitude and hope.
Psalm 117 [116]
Setting by William Byrd
Sung by Voces8
Praise our Lord all ye Gentiles, praise him all ye peoples,
Because his mercy is confirmed upon us, and his truth remaineth for ever. Amen.
Traditional Latin Mass
Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English ishere. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 09-03-2023 if necessary).
GospelMatthew 16:13-20 (English Standard Version Anglicised)
Now when Jesus came into the
district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”And they said, “Some say John the
Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You
are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has
not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are
Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it.I will give you the keys of
the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”Then he strictly charged the
disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
This week I'm using what I used three years ago, with some slight editing. Again I fall back on Pope Benedict XVI. This is the Angelus talk on today's gospel that he gave on 24 August 2008 in Castel Gandolfo. I have highlighted parts of it, something I found difficult to do as it is so deep and rich - and yet so clear and simple.
Brothers and Sisters, This Sunday's liturgy addresses to us Christians but also at the same time to every man and every woman the double question that one day Jesus put to his disciples. He first asked them: ‘Who do men say that the Son of man is?’ They answered him saying that some of the people said John the Baptist restored to life, others Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. The Lord then directly questioned the Twelve: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter spoke enthusiastically and authoritatively on behalf of them all: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. This solemn profession of faith the Church continues to repeat since then. Today too, we long to proclaim with an innermost conviction: ‘Yes, Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God!’ Let us do so in the awareness that Christ is the true ‘treasure’ for whom it is worth sacrificing everything; he is the friend who never abandons us for he knows the most intimate expectations of our hearts. Jesus is the ‘Son of the living God’, the promised Messiah who came down to earth to offer humanity salvation and to satisfy the thirst for life and love that dwells in every human being. What an advantage humanity would have in welcoming this proclamation which brings with it joy and peace!
‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus answers Peter's inspired profession of faith: ‘You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven’. This is the first time that Jesus speaks of the Church, whose mission is the actuation of God's great design to gather the whole of humanity into a single family in Christ. Peter's mission, and that of his Successors, is precisely to serve this unity of the one Church of God formed of Jews and pagans of all peoples; his indispensable ministry is to ensure that she is never identified with a single nation, with a single culture, but is the Church of all peoples - to make present among men and women, scarred by innumerable divisions and conflicts, God's peace and the renewing power of his love. This, then, is the special mission of the Pope, Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter: to serve the inner unity that comes from God's peace, the unity of those who have become brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.
In the face of the enormous responsibility of this task, I am increasingly aware of the commitment and importance of the service to the Church and the world that the Lord has entrusted to me. I therefore ask you, dear brothers and sisters, to support me with your prayers so that, faithful to Christ, we may proclaim and bear witness together to his presence in our time. May Mary, whom we invoke with trust as Mother of the Church and Star of Evangelization, obtain this grace for us.
Pope Benedict's short reflection touches on so many fundamental things. Our faith as Christians is in the Person of Jesus Christ, God who became Man. Jesus calls us into a personal relationship with him, not in an exclusive 'You and I only' sense but in an intimate 'You, I and all of us' sense as members of the Church with a common mission given by Jesus to the Church.
As members of the Church we share in the mission given us by Jesus Christ. Pope Benedict says, I therefore ask you, dear brothers and sisters, to support me with your prayers so that, faithful to Christ, we may proclaim and bear witness together to his presence in our time.
Our common mission is to proclaim and bear witness together to his presence in our time. That means that Jesus calls each of us to realise that every person we meet is meant to meet Jesus in us - in every aspect of our lives, private and public.
Yet so many politicians, for example, who announce to the world that they are faithful Catholics promote the evils of abortion and the genital mutilation of confused minors who think they want to be the opposite sex. Many voters who see themselves as faithful Catholics support them in this. This, in effect, is saying that Jesus Christ our Saviour promotes the killing of unborn children and the physical/sexual abuse of minors.
Pope Benedict by addressing us as Dear brothers and sisters, reminds us of our deepest identity: we are sons and daughters of God the Father through our baptism. We are brothers and sisters of Jesus through our baptism. As such, we are brothers and sisters of one another through baptism.
Our baptism, through which we have received our Christian faith, is pure gift from God. Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. We are called by baptism to proclaim the presence of Jesus in the world so that others may come to know Him. Pope Benedict doesn't mention baptism specifically but everything he says makes sense only in the context of our having been baptised.
Jesus through his Church does not identify himself with any particular nation or with any particular ethnic group. Yet he speaks to each nation, to each group, to each individual within their own culture. Some years ago in the Philippines when celebrating Sunday Mass in a home for girls most of whom had been abused before going there, I showed during my homily a very poor black-and-white reproduction of Rembrandt's painting above. One girl, aged about 14, asked me if she could have the picture. (I later had a proper copy made and framed for her). I asked her what had attracted her in the painting. He is so human, she said. This painting done in Amsterdam nearly 400 years before spoke to her heart. Rembrandt, through his painting in which he had a Jewish refugee from Spain as a model, was able to proclaim and bear witness to the presence of Jesus in our time to a young girl in the Philippines in the 21st century who had suffered greatly.
These are some random thoughts. Pope Benedict's Angelus message has so much in it and can be a source of prayer and contemplation in trying to answer the question Jesus puts before us today: But who do you say that I am?
Collect from the Mass for the Pope
O God, who in your providential design
willed that your Church be built
upon blessed Peter, whom you set over the other Apostles, look with favour, we pray, on Francis our Pope
and grant that he, whom you have made Peter's successor, may be for your people a visible source and foundation
of unity in faith and of communion.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Tu es Petrus
Setting by Palestrina
Sung by Yonsei University Concert Choir, South Korea
conducted by Hae Ock Eunice Kim Bang
Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam. Et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum.
You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:18-19).
Traditional Latin Mass
Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English ishere. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 08-27-2023 if necessary).
Stretcher Bearers, Passchendaele,
Belgium, 1917
Madonna of Mercy
.jpg)
,%20WGA.jpg)
