'Her last two years were also full of pain, yet always of love and light . . .' Sunday Reflections, 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

 A Sick Woman

Jan Josef Horemans II [Web Gallery of Art]

Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her (Mark 1:30; Gospel}.

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 1:29-39 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

And immediately Jesus left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening at sunset they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is what I came for.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Pope Benedict with children [Source]

One of the striking features of the Gospels is the number of times Jesus healed sick people, usually an individual, such as Simon Peter's mother-in-law in in this Sunday's gospel, sometimes all who were sick or oppressed by demons in the same gospel reading. 

This week I will simply copy Pope Benedict's words on Sunday's gospel during his Angelus talk on this same Sunday in 2012. I will highlight what particularly strikes me. 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This Sunday’s Gospel presents to us Jesus who heals the sick: first Simon Peter’s mother-in-law who was in bed with a fever and Jesus, taking her by the hand, healed her and helped her to her feet; then all the sick in Capernaum, tested in body, mind and spirit, and he 'healed many… and cast out many demons' (Mk 1:34). The four Evangelists agree in testifying that this liberation from illness and infirmity of every kind was — together with preaching — Jesus’ main activity in his public ministry.

Illness is in fact a sign of the action of Evil in the world and in people, whereas healing shows that the Kingdom of God, God himself, is at hand. Jesus Christ came to defeat Evil at the root and instances of healing are an anticipation of his triumph, obtained with his death and Resurrection.

Jesus said one day: 'those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick' (Mk 2:17). On that occasion he was referring to sinners, whom he came to call and to save. It is nonetheless true that illness is a typically human condition in which we feel strongly that we are not self-sufficient but need others. In this regard we might say paradoxically that illness can be a salutary moment in which to experience the attention of others and to pay attention to others!

However illness is also always a trial that can even become long and difficult. When healing does not happen and suffering is prolonged, we can be as it were overwhelmed, isolated, and then our life is depressed and dehumanized. How should we react to this attack of Evil? With the appropriate treatment, certainly — medicine in these decades has taken giant strides and we are grateful for it — but the Word of God teaches us that there is a crucial basic attitude with which to face illness and it is that of faith in God, in his goodness. Jesus always repeats this to the people he heals: your faith has made you well (cf. Mk 5:34, 36).

Even in the face of death, faith can make possible what is humanly impossible. But faith in what? In the love of God. This is the real answer which radically defeats Evil. Just as Jesus confronted the Evil One with the power of the love that came to him from the Father, so we too can confront and live through the trial of illness, keeping our heart immersed in God’s love.

Blessed Chiara Luce Badano [Source]

(29 October 1971 - 7 October 1990) 

We all know people who were able to bear terrible suffering because God gave them profound serenity. I am thinking of the recent example of Blessed Chiara Badano, cut off in the flower of her youth by a disease from which there was no escape: all those who went to visit her received light and confidence from her! Nonetheless, in sickness we all need human warmth: to comfort a sick person what counts more than words is serene and sincere closeness.

Dear friends, next Saturday, 11 February, the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, is the World Day of the Sick. Let us too do as people did in Jesus’ day: let us present to him spiritually all the sick, confident that he wants to and can heal them. And let us invoke the intercession of Our Lady, especially for the situations of greater suffering and neglect. Mary, Health of the Sick, pray for us!

[Sunday, 11 February, is this year's World Day of the Sick, which takes place each year on the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, not observed this year because Sunday takes precedence.]

Blessed Chiara [Source]

On a pastoral visit to Palermo, Italy, on 3 October 2010 Pope Benedict had this to say about Blessed Chiara [emphases added]: I do not want to start with a discussion but with a testimonial, a true and very timely life story. I believe you know that last Saturday, 25 September, a young Italian girl, called Chiara, Chiara Badano, was declared Blessed in Rome. I invite you to become acquainted with her. Her life was a short one but it is a wonderful message. Chiara was born in 1971 and died in 1990 from an incurable disease. Nineteen years full of life, love and faith. Her last two years were also full of pain, yet always of love and light, a light that shone around her, that came from within: from her heart filled with God! How was this possible? How could a 17- or 18-year-old girl live her suffering in this way, humanly without hope, spreading love, serenity, peace and faith? This was obviously a grace of God, but this grace was prepared and accompanied by human collaboration as well: the collaboration of Chiara herself, of course, but also of her parents and friends.

 You may read more about Blessed Chiara Luce Badano in The Saint Who Failed Math by Richelle Verdeprado  published in the September-October 2010 issue of MISYONonline.com, the magazine of the Columbans in the Philippines of which I used to be editor. 

The whole of Pope Benedict's address to the young people and families of Sicily is well worth reading and reflecting on. 

St Paul on Preaching

Ruins with St Paul Preaching

Giovanni Paolo Pannini [Web Gallery of Art]

St Paul begins the Second Reading with these words: For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (1 Corinthians 9:16). 

n my 80 years I never remember such confusion in the teaching Church. We need to pray earnestly that all who are called to preach and teach the Gospel will be faithful to what the Church has handed down since the time of the Apostles, the teaching that they received from Jesus Christ. 

The Ten Commandments apply to every person. No one is exempted from any of them, though none of us lives fully up to them. But Jesus has given the Church the great gift of the Sacrament of Penance/Confession/Reconciliation to forgive us and get us up on our feet again.

The first recorded words of Jesus are in the Gospel of St Mark, the first of the Four Gospels to be written: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel (Mark 1:15). 

Traditional Latin Mass

Sexagesima Sunday

The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 2-04-2024 if necessary).

Epistle: 2 Cor 11:19-33; 12:1-9. Gospel: Luke 8:4-15. 

 Shipwrecked Sailors Coming Ashore

Jean-Baptiste Pillement [Web Gallery of Art]

Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea. (2 Corinthians 11:24; Epistle).

'He taught them as one who had authority'. Sunday Reflections, 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

Christ as Teacher (Cristo Docente)

Fourth Century Roman Sculptor [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 1:21-28 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

[Jesus and his disciples] went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

O'Connell Primary School, Dublin [Source]

The stadium in the background is Croke Park, the renovation of which was completed in 2005. One of the main events of the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland in 2018 took place there.

In September 1953 the school building above was opened. O'Connell Schools - there is both a primary and secondary school - were founded in 1828 and named after Daniel O'Connell, the outstanding figure in Irish history in the first half of the 19th century, known as 'The Liberator'. He was a major benefactor in the building of the original school. He was also largely responsible for the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 in Westminster which abolished most of the Penal Laws against Catholics in the United Kingdom, of which the whole of Ireland was part at the time.

I was in Fourth Class (Grade Four) in 1953-54 and was blessed to have a wonderful teacher named John Galligan. I didn't realise until about twelve years later when I was in the seminary what a wonderful teacher and mentor he was. He was around the same age as my father at the time, 40 or thereabouts. All my other teachers in the primary school, both Irish Christian Brothers and laymen, were in their 20s.

John gave us a great grounding in the grammar of both Irish and English. He encouraged us to read the newspapers - and not just the sports pages. He stimulated my interest in writing and in reading, though I was already an avid reader at that stage, borrowing books from Dublin's public libraries. And he taught with a delightful sense of humour.

He was forever talking about his wife Mary. Their son Bernard was in our class and John treated us all with the same respect. One day he brought in Mary so that we could meet her.

At that time in Ireland children made their confirmation once they reached the age of ten. John prepared us for the sacrament which we celebrated in March 1954 in St Agatha's, North William Street, the parish in which our school was located. He was also sponsor or godfather to all of us when we were confirmed.

Mr Galligan, as he was known to us boys (the school was only for boys), also taught us how to use the hand missal in Latin and English that many had so that we could participate fully in the Mass, which in those days, as it had been for centuries, was what is now often referred to as the Traditional Latin Mass.

During my seminary years it dawned on me that not only had John Galligan been a first-class teacher, but a first-class mentor of the faith. The way he prepared us for confirmation and the way he taught us how to use the missal were not 'mechanical' acts but expressions of his living faith. His love for his wife Mary was a living out of the Sacrament of Matrimony that they had conferred on one another on their wedding day.

Whenever I read or hear these words in today's gospel, And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes . . . What is this? A new teaching with authority!, I think of John Galligan and others like him. He spoke to us youngsters in Fourth Class not only with the authority of his being our teacher but, much more importantly, with the authority of the integrity of the way he lived his Catholic Christian faith. He was quite probably unaware of that.

I have used this Reflection before but while preparing it this time it struck me that John Galligan's inner authority was in full harmony with that of my father, also John, who spent all his working life on construction sites where he was a general foreman for many years. I worked with him during the summer of 1967, a few months before my ordination to the priesthood. Though there was much swearing, which didn't surprise or shock me, none of it came from my Dad. The workers respected him because he respected them. And like John Galligan he was a great mentor to young workers and to young architects. And he often spoke of two particular foremen under whom he had worked as a young carpenter. The qualities he saw in them were the qualities I and others saw in him. 

John Galligan and John Coyle were men of deep Catholic Christian faith.

What the people in Capernaum saw in Jesus was his inner authority. That was the only authority he had, which came from the reality that he was God who became Man, doing the will of the Father. Each of us through baptism and confirmation is called to share in that authority of Jesus in the way we live our daily lives.

One of my regrets is that I did not invite John Galligan to attend my First Mass. However, in the 1980s I was invited to write a weekly column for The Freeman, a daily newspaper in Cebu City. My second column was an appreciation of John Galligan. I sent a copy of it to him through the school, though he he had retired by then. This led to my visiting him and Mary a number of times while home from the Philippines, a delightful experience.

I am grateful to God for John Galligan - and for many others, especially my Dad -  who taught me the faith as one who had authority, the authority of Jesus himself.

O Salutaris Hostia

Latin text by St Thomas Aquinas

This Eucharistic hymn is often sung when Benediction is celebrated.

O salutaris Hostia,
Quae caeli pandis ostium: 
Bella premunt hostilia,
Da robur, fer auxilium.
Uni trinoque Domino 
Sit sempiterna gloria,
Qui vitam sine termino 
Nobis donet in patria.
Amen.

O saving Victim, opening wide,
The gate of heaven to man below!
Our foes press on from every side;
Thine aid supply, thy strength bestow.

To Thy great name by endless praise,
Immortal Godhead, one in Three;
Oh, grant us endless length of days,
In our true native land with Thee. Amen.

St Thomas Aquinas

Blessed Fra Angelico [Web Gallery of Art]

The Feast of St Thomas Aquinas is observed on 28 January. However, as that falls on Sunday this year it will not be celebrated by the Universal Church. The painting above is by his fellow Dominican friar, Blessed Fra Angelico.

Traditional Latin Mass

Septuagesima Sunday

The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 1-28-2024 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 10:1-5. Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16.  

The Grape-Picker

Bernhard Keil [Web Gallery of Art]

For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard (Matthew 20:1; Gospel).

Isn't that a marvellously alive portrait of the grape-picker?

St Francis de Sales, Patron Saint of the Deaf.

St Francis de Sales

The feast of St Francis de Sales is celebrated on 24 January. He was an outstanding bishop, theologian, a Doctor of the Church, that is, someone recognised as having brought us to a deeper understanding of the teaching that Christ gave to St Peter and the Apostles to be passed on to each generation. This great saint is a patron saint of journalists and writers - and of the Deaf and hearing impaired. Below is something I posted originally on 24 January 2009 and again four years later. This time I've added [some comments].

I originally posted the following on 24 January 2009.

Today is the feast of St Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Bishop and Doctor of the Church, patron of journalists and of the Deaf. So he is my patron on both counts, since I edit Misyon [phased out in 2018] and have been working with the Deaf on a part-time basis since 1992 and frequently celebrate Mass in Sign Language. Above all, he was a man who lived the fulness of the priesthood as a bishop faithfully. Maybe he would be a blogger if he were around today. [My Sign Language was never fluent.]

The following information, which I found here, is from the National Catholic Office for the Deaf, located in Washington, DC.

St Francis De Sales: Patron of the Deaf and Hearing-impaired

In 1605, an indigent young man named Martin, a deaf-mute from birth, came almost daily to a house in Roche, France, where Bishop de Sales was staying, to ask for alms. He was a strong young man fit for all kinds of work, and the Bishop's housekeeper often allowed him to help her in payment for the Bishop's generosity. One day a servant introduced Martin to the Bishop.

As a result of his handicap, Martin, who was about 25 years old, had never received any kind of education -- or instruction in the Catholic faith. (It was presumed by all of the educated people of that age, the 17th century, that a deaf-mute was a mentally handicapped person and that trying to educate or trying to communicate religious truths to such a person would be a waste of time.)

At the time of their meeting, St Francis de Sales was visibly disturbed and touched with pity for the unfortunate Martin. St Francis realized that the poor man would remain forever ignorant of God and the rich mysteries of the Faith and that his lack of instruction would forever keep him from receiving the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist.

After considering young Martin's deprived condition for a time, St Francis determined that he would undertake the instruction of the young man.

By using signs that he formed with his hands and fingers, St Francis personally began to teach Martin about the Catholic Faith. Martin, as was soon clear, was highly intelligent and a very good pupil. After a period of time, through his gentle patience and persistence and with the signs and gestures he had invented for the purpose, St Francis succeeded in instructing Martin about God and His love for all men. All went so well that eventually Martin was able to receive the Holy Eucharist for the first time in 1606. Two years later, Martin was confirmed.

St Francis eventually hired Martin as his gardener and brought him along with him when he returned to his episcopal household in Annecy, France.

Martin's devotion to the Bishop of Geneva was second only to his devotion to God. Martin prayed fervently, examining his conscience every evening before retiring, regularly confessed his sins to the Bishop, and assisted devoutly at the Bishop's Mass whenever he could.

Sixteen years later, no one would be more affected by the death of St Francis de Sales than his faithful servant Martin, who would visit his master's last resting place almost every day until the day he himself died.

The above account uses a term that is not used anymore: 'deaf-mute'. As a literal matter of fact, people who are deaf aren't mute, since they have voices and many can learn to speak.

Neither is the word 'handicap' used much now but rather 'disability'. I don't like the term 'differently-abled'. It cannot hide the reality that a person who is deaf or blind, for example, does have a disability that creates difficulties for that person in some situations. Deaf people prefer the word 'Deaf', with a capital 'D' to describe themselves as a group. Being profoundly deaf from birth is different from becoming hearing-impaired from old age, for example. [I now fit into that category and use hearing aids, as do many of my companions here where I now live in Ireland.]

Those of us who can see and hear tend to think that blindness is a greater disability than deafness. But deafness, whether from birth or coming with old age, is a disability that isolates in a way that blindness doesn't. Most deaf people here in the Philippines don't share a language even with their own family. And the only 'native signers' I know here are the hearing children of deaf parents.

St Francis saw how isolated Martin was and broke through that isolation.

+++

I added this on 24 January 2013. Here is the only deaf-blind priest, Fr Cyril Axelrod CSsR, speaking to seminarians and priests.

Fr Cyril Axelrod CSsR CBE

You can read Father Cyril's extraordinary story here. He was born profoundly deaf and began to go blind when he was already a priest due to Usher syndrome.

The needs of those who are profoundly deaf are widely recognised now in many countries. Here in Ireland, for example, Irish Sign Language became an official language of the State in 2017. However, I think that the Catholic Church needs to respond much more to the needs of the profoundly deaf as did St Francis de Sales to Martin.

Part of a Tutorial on Celebrating Mass in American Sign Language. 

(Archdiocese of Washington)

'Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.' Sunday Reflections, 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B; Feast of the Santo Niño in the Philippines

Calling of Sts Peter and Andrew

Cigoli [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 1:14-20 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Willie Bermingham 

(29 March 1942 - 23 April 1990)

[Source: ALONE]

During the cold winter of 1976, Willie Bermingham and his colleagues found the bodies of a number of older people in tenements throughout the city. They had died in appalling conditions. Willie was so shocked by this that he, and a small group of friends and colleagues began distributing food, fuel and blankets to those older people who were most in need. They also started a campaign to raise awareness of these ‘forgotten old’ in the media and to the government. Today ALONE continues its work providing direct services to thousands of older people as well as campaigning for the rights of older people in our society.

Willie Bermingham himself recalled one of those incidents: Like many old men and women he had been cast away on the scrap heap. He was left to face loneliness, cold, hunger and depression behind the closed doors of a capital city. He had been sentenced to death, alone and in misery. It shocked me so much that I set up a society called ALONE.

This particular aspect of poverty, living and dying alone, is almost unimaginable in the Philippines, where I spent most of my adult life.

Willie Bermingham, a Dubliner, worked in the ambulance service of Dublin Fire Brigade. Like Simon (Peter) and Andrew, James and John in today's Gospel, he experienced a turning point in his life. For him this was through those experiences of finding elderly persons who had died alone in poverty. He felt in a very real way the words of Jesus, Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.

In Willie's case, with the full support of his wife Marie and their five children, along with colleagues, he was to be a 'fisher' of elderly men and women living alone in dire conditions in his native city. And he has been followed  by many, not only in Dublin, but in other Irish cities in doing this work. 

This work is a living out of the words of Jesus: For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me (Matthew 25:35-40).

The call of Peter, Andrew, James and John in today's gospel comes just after a call to repent and believe in the gospel. This is not only a call to turn away from sin but a call to see things as Jesus Christ sees them. This is reinforced by the response to the responsorial psalm: Lord, make me know your ways (JB Lectionary), Teach me your ways, O Lord (NAB Lectionary).

Willie Bermingham responded to a need he saw so clearly through his work with the ambulance service of Dublin Fire Brigade, while living out his basic vocation as a husband and father. In the early years of ALONE the office was the living room in his own home.

Another aspect of Willie's life was his ecumenism. At this time, 18-25 January, we are observing the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Historian Donal Fallon writes: An inspiring friendship blossomed between Bermingham and Dean Victor Griffin of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral [the National Cathedral of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland]. Griffin, much like the earlier Dean Swift, had a distaste for injustice and a strong belief in social duty. In a remarkable life, Griffin protested to save Viking Dublin from demolition, demonstrated against Apartheid [in South Africa] and was denounced as a ‘Fenian’ during his time serving the Church of Ireland in Derry.

Griffin and Bermingham came from different religious traditions – Willie came from a Catholic family – yet Griffin opened Saint Patrick’s Cathedral to provide services, complete with choirs, to the homeless and elderly of the city. It was a beautiful act not forgotten, and Bermingham’s own funeral service took place at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

Willie Bermingham didn't try to 'save the world'. He responded from his Christian faith to the needs of individuals whose situations he knew of through his work, needs that he and others could respond to. Jesus began his mission, now the mission of the Church, by calling four individuals, two sets of brothers: Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John, to follow me. 

Repent and believe in the gospel . . . follow me.

Santo Niño (Philippines)

Santo Niño de Cebú

[Wikipedia]

First Reading Isaiah 9:1-6

Second Reading  Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18

Gospel Mark 1o:13-16

And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child  will not enter it.” Then he embraced them and blessed them, placing his hands on them.

You will find a reflection for the Feast of the Santo Niño in the Philippines here. The First and Second Readings are the same but the Gospel this year - Year B - is the one above.

Traditional Latin Mass

Third Sunday after Epiphany

The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 01-21-2024 if necessary).

Epistle: Romans 12:16-21. Gospel: Matthew 6:1-13. 

The Martyrdom of St Maurice and his Legions (detail)

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art] 

St Maurice, an Egyptian, became a senior officer in the Roman army and was martyred along with many of his companions in the third century.

As [Jesus] entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress (Matthew 8:5-6; Gospel).