Reality Magazine May 2020

THE DETERMINATION OF EDEL QUINN

THE GOOD WORK OF REDEMPTORIST RUSKIN PIEDRA

THE SHY GOD: LOOKING FOR GOD IN THE DARKEST OF TIMES

Informing, Inspiring, Challenging Today’s Catholic

MAY 2020

IS THE POPE STILL INFALLIBLE? AND IS THIS DOGMA STILL RELEVENT?

CORONAVIRUS

LOOKING TO HISTORY FOR ANSWERS TO THE PANDEMIC

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A DOSE OF REALITY

By Fr Peter McVerry SJ

“There is something profoundly wrong when, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we have a record number of people homeless, children going to school hungry, and many, many people struggling to make ends meet and provide even basic necessities for their children.”

For the past 40 years, Fr Peter McVerry SJ has lived and worked with some of the most vulnerable people in Irish society. His experience with those who are homeless, poor and marginalised has given him a unique perspective on the issues facing Irish society, and their underlying political, economic and social roots.

This book contains a selection of articles from Fr McVerry’s monthly column in the Redemptorist magazine, Reality. They offer a reflection on issues from homelessness and drugs to justice and faith, as seen from the perspective of the poor.

Inspired by the Gospel and the Catholic Church’s social teaching, Fr McVerry challenges us all, from politicians to ordinary citizens, to listen with compassion, to examine our attitudes, and to attack the causes of inequality.

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IN THIS MONTH’S ISSUE

SPECIAL

FEATURES �� IS THE POPE STILL INFALLIBLE? This year marks the 150th anniversary of the First Vatican Council’s definition of papal infallibility.

By Shaun Blanchard

�� THINKING ABOUT CORONAVIRUS WITH ALBERT CAMUS French novelist and philosopher Albert Camus wrote a novel called The Plague set in the city of Oran, Algeria in the grip of a deadly plague.

By Eamon Maher

�� THE SHY GOD A pandemic that brings so much pain may make us ask where God is. The truth is that it is somewhere in the heart of the darkness that we find both the God of Israel and the God of Jesus.

By John Scally

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�� SICKNESS AND FAITH Some people believe that sickness or tragedy is part of 'God's will'. With so much sickness and suffering around us, it that really the best attitude?

By Fr Colm Meaney CSsR

�� WE HAVE ALWAYS HONOURED MARY Why is May a special Marian month?

By Maria Hall

�� I WAS A STRANGER AND YOU WELCOMED ME An elderly Redemptorist priest, the son of immigrants from Cuba, spearheads a ministry working with illegal immigrants in Brooklyn.

By Peter Feuerherd

�� THY WILL BE DONE We pray to do God’s will but discovering it can lead us on a long search.

By Mike Daley

�� CLEMENT MEETS THE REDEMPTORISTS Clement sets off once more for Rome with a friend, Thaddeus Hubl, and the two become Redemptorists.

By Fr Brendan McConvery

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OPINION

REGULARS

11 BRENDAN McCONVERY

04 REALITY BITES 07 POPE MONITOR 08 WOMEN SAINTS & MYSTICS 09 REFLECTIONS 42 TRÓCAIRE 45 GOD’S WORD

19 JIM DEEDS 31 CARMEL WYNNE 44 PETER McVERRY SJ

REALITY BITES ONE THIRD OF CHURCHES TO CLOSE CANADA

Toronto

BE PRO-ACTIVE RATHER THAN REACTIVE

A third of Canada’s churches, some 9,000 churches in all, will close within the next ten years, according to the National Trust for Canada. The National Trust is more or less resigned to the fact that a lot of Canada’s buildings with crosses on them are becoming surplus to the needs of society. There are approximately 27,000 places of worship across Canada, so one third of them will be sold, demolished or abandoned over the next decade. In the Archdiocese of Toronto, no closures are anticipated despite the archdiocese having built nearly a church per year since the turn of the 21st century.

“The Archdiocese is blessed to have a large immigrant population engaged in their faith locally, part of the reason we celebrate Mass

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in more than 35 languages each week,” said Neil MacCarthy, archdiocesan spokesman.

By contrast in rural and small-town Nova Scotia, the Diocese of Antigonish has already closed 30 per cent of its churches over the last12 years, and the diocesan spokesman, Fr Don McGillivray, expects more closures are coming. “My philosophy always is, we need to do this in an orderly fashion where we can be pro-active rather than be up against the wall and have to be reactive,” he said. “Do you let a place go to the point where the parishioners just can’t support it anymore?

Or do you try to plan?” Under canon law, final decisions about closing Catholic churches, amalgamating parishes and finding other uses for buildings belongs solely to the

bishop. But Fr MacGillivray always tries to involve the worshipping community, meeting with the parish, laying out their financial obligations and the demographic realities in terms of parish population, then asking for suggestions. Dozens of Catholic and Protestant churches in small towns across Western Canada and in southwestern Ontario have been closing for years.

HOLY WEEK WITHOUT THE PEOPLE VATICAN CITY

STAY APART TO BE TOGETHER

When it became clear that the People of God would be unable to attend the solemn liturgies of Holy Week due to the coronavirus, the Holy See issued instructions in March on how those liturgies were to be celebrated by priests and bishops. The bishop may postpone the ‘chrism Mass’ with the blessing of the holy oils to a more convenient time. All priests may offer Holy Thursday’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper in a suitable place, without the public, but the washing of the feet should be omitted. The procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the place of repose at the end of Mass should also be omitted, and the Blessed Sacrament replaced in the tabernacle. The Passion of the Lord may be celebrated on Good Friday in cathedrals and parish churches.

REALITY MAY 2020

The universal prayers after the Passion should include an intention for the sick, the dead, and those who feel lost and dismayed. The Easter Vigil may only be celebrated in cathedrals and parish churches, “where, and in the measure that there is a real possibility of doing so, established by the one responsible”.

The lighting of the Paschal fire is not performed but the Paschal candle is lit, the procession is omitted, and the Easter Proclamation (Exultet) read or sung, In the 'Baptismal Liturgy', only the renewal of baptismal promises is necessary. Processions and other manifestations of popular piety that take place during Holy Week and the Easter Triduum can be transferred by the diocesan bishop to other days during the year, such as September 14 and 15.

N E WS

BATHS CLOSED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS FRANCE

NO BATHING HERE

As the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus in Europe continues to grow, the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes announced that pilgrims were still welcome, but the baths where the sick bathe in hope for healing would be closed temporarily. “Our first concern will always be the safety and health of the pilgrims and the shrine’s working community,” said a note posted on February 28 on the shrine’s website. “As a precaution, the baths have been closed until further notice.”

The queue for the Lourdes baths

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Oberammergau

OBERAMMERGAU PASSION PLAY POSTPONED GERMANY

ANOTHER CASUALITY OF THE VIRUS

The famous Oberammergau Passion Play, which has, with very few exceptions, been performed every ten years since 1634, has been postponed until 2022. Entitled 'Play of the Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ', the Passion play was first performed at Pentecost 1634 on a stage that was built above the fresh graves of those who had died of the plague. After 84 villagers died of the plague in 1633 and almost every family had lost members, the villagers vowed to perform a Passion play

every ten years should they be freed from the plague. After the vow, no one else died of the plague.

The play has often caused controversy because of its treatment of the Jews but this year’s director, Christian Stückl, is to receive the Abraham-Geiger Award for his efforts to concentrate on inter-Jewish conflicts rather than Christian-Jewish hatred. A Muslim was to have taken the part of Judas this year because he was one of the best actors in the village of Oberammergau: anyone who was

born in Oberammergau and has lived there for the last 20 years is entitled to take part in the play regardless of their religion.

In 1770, Prince Elector Maximilian Joseph III (1745-77) forbade all passion plays in Bavaria as he considered that “the greatest mystery of our holy religion” had no place on the stage.

After the First World War, it was postponed for two years on account of the large number of soldiers who had died at the front, and it was not performed in 1940 because of the Second World War. continued on page 6

REALITY BITES MORE WOMEN WORKING IN VATICAN The number of female employees in the Vatican is on the increase. In 2019, Pope Francis employed 1,016 women, representing 22 per cent of the total workforce. The figures were published by Vatican News on the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 8. The findings also show that the number of women in positions of authority in the Vatican and the Curia has also increased. In 2010, during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, a total of 4,053 people worked for the Pope, 697 of whom were women, or about 17 per cent. In 2019, the Holy See and Vatican City together had a total of 4,618 employees, of which 22 per cent (1,016) were women. The highest level to which women can be appointed in the Curia is that of under-secretary, a position formerly reserved for priests. Pope Francis doubled the

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Pope Francis with Francesca Di Giovanni, under-secretary in the Section for Relations with States.

number of female under-secretaries from two to four, most recently creating a new post for Francesca Di Giovanni as UnderSecretary of State. He also appointed the first female director of the Vatican Museums,

the Italian art historian Barbara Jatta. This was hailed as a first in the international art world as no other museum of the size and importance of the Vatican collection has a woman at the helm.

PRIESTS AND NUNS CATHOLIC SCHOOLS AND VICTIMS OF VIRUS TRANSGENDER

WINE FROM TAPS BUT NO MIRACLE

Some 59 sisters belonging to two convents in Rome tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus. Of the sisters who tested positive, 40 belong to the Daughters of San Camillo convent in Grottaferrata, on the outskirts of Rome, and 19 from a convent in Rome, which has a community of 21 sisters. The sisters were not actively engaged in work with virus victims, but it is an example of how quickly such infections can spread in close-knit communities. On the other hand, more than 40 priests in the north of Italy succumbed to the virus. Most of them picked up the virus as a result of their ministry with victims either at home or in hospital.

When the inhabitants of the small Italian village of Castelvetro di Modena turned on their watertaps on the morning of March 6 last, they wondered if they were the recipients of a repeat of the Cana miracle when red wine, rather than water, flowed from their taps. They recognised it as the red sparkling local Lambrusco. A damaged valve connected to the water supply for cleaning the wine bottles had caused the wine to flow in the opposite direction. The manager of the bottling plant explained: “In an hour everything went back to normal. Some loyal customers from the area called us to notify us and say that they were bottling the wine!!”

REALITY MAY 2020

“The Catholic school is committed to providing a safe environment that allows students to flourish academically, physically, and spiritually.

Catholic schools are obliged to provide an education and resources consistent with Catholic teaching,” state the guidelines presented by the Catholic bishops of Minnesota. They were presented on February 20-21 during a seminar for priests and Catholic educators in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis.. Catholic education, they state, has as its foundation “the God-given irrevocable dignity of every human person”.

The guidelines use the term “sexual identity” in a way that is synonymous with “biological sex”, and they state that Catholic school students will be referred to by names and pronouns that reflect their sexual identity. Students will also be allowed to use only those facilities (such as bathrooms or locker rooms) and participate in single-sex sports and activities that align with their sexual identity, rather than with a chosen gender identity.

“A person’s embrace of his or her God-given sexual identity is an essential part of living a fulfilled relationship with God, with oneself, and with each other,” the document states. “The physical, moral, and spiritual differences between men and women are equal and complementary. The flourishing of family life and society depend in part on how this complementarity and equality are lived out,” it adds.

N E WS

POPE MONITOR KEEPING UP WITH POPE FRANCIS POPE’S DAILY MASS BROADCAST DURING VIRUS EMERGENCY

PRO-LIFE MESSAGE NEEDED MORE NOW THAN EVER

Pope Francis arranged for his daily Mass from Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican to be live-streamed in order to facilitate whose unable to come to daily Mass as a result of the coronavirus. Livestreaming began on March 9. They were made available through the Vatican News portal and Vatican Media.

Pope Francis initiated the daily Mass at 7am in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta at the start of his pontificate. Since then, thousands of the faithful have arranged to come in small groups to assist at the Mass. His homilies are always off the cuff, and are later circulated by Vatican News and by L'Osservatore Romano. Many priests have found inspiration in them for their own homilies. Prior to this, Pope Francis refused to allow the broadcast of the daily Mass. He has agreed to this in the light of the strict measures introduced in Rome, including the prohibition of daily Mass in public churches during the virus emergency.

During his televised address that took the place of the public audience on the feast of the Annunciation (March 25), Pope Francis said that the Church’s pro-life message is more relevant than ever as the world faces the coronavirus pandemic.

“The attacks on the dignity and life of people unfortunately continue even in our era … We are faced with new threats and new slavery, and legislation is not always to protect the weakest and most vulnerable human life.” The day marked the 25th anniversary of the publication of the encyclical, Evangelium Vitae ('The Gospel of Life').

The pope said that the pandemic makes Pope St John Paul’s encyclical's on the defence of all human life more urgent than ever. He quoted the encyclical’s opening sentences: “The Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus' message. Welcomed by the Church every day with love, it must be announced with courageous fidelity as good news to men of all ages and cultures." The life we ​​are called to promote and defend, the Holy Father said, is not an abstract concept, but always manifests itself in a person in flesh and blood: a newly conceived child, a poor marginalised person, a sick person alone and discouraged or in a terminal state, one who has lost his job or is unable to find one, a rejected or ghettoised migrant. The Catholic Church has a particular responsibility to ensure the protection of every individual human life is valued.

IF YOU CANNOT GET TO CONFESSION In the homily of his morning Mass on March 20, Pope Francis spoke about the sacrament of reconciliation and the importance of returning to God, the loving Father. He quoted the words of an old Italian song which had been sung in his emigrant family in Argentina: “Return to your daddy. I will sing a lullaby for you once again.” “ Return: but it is your dad who tells you to return. God is your dad; not a judge, he is your dad: ‘return home, listen, come,’” the pope emphasised. The words of this song remind him of the father in the parable of the prodigal son, who “‘saw the son coming from afar,’ that son who had

gone away with all the money and had wasted it.”

Aware that many who usually go to confession during Lent would not be able to do so this year on account of the pandemic, he gave advice on what to do. “You do what the Catechism says. It is very clear: if you do not find a priest to hear your confession, speak to God, he is your father, and tell him the truth.” Enumerate your sins, ask the Lord for forgiveness with all your heart, and make an act of contrition, the pope explained. “Promise him: ‘Later I will confess but forgive me now.’ And immediately you will return to the grace of God.”

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WOMEN OF THE SPIRIT A SERIES OF WOMEN SAINTS AND MYSTICS EDEL QUINN 1907–1944

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“Miss Quinn, do you not realise that you are dying? Have you made your preparation?”

It was the year 1941 in the region of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi in East Africa. The concern gravely imparted by her fellow missionary was sincere but would not have come as any great surprise to Edel Quinn—she knew that she was dying, had known so for quite some time. It was her terminal illness, advanced tuberculosis, that had first prevented her from entering the Franciscan Poor Clares in 1932. It was this illness that later admitted her to sanatorium after sanatorium, for respite if not cure, throughout the duration of her short adult life. It was her illness that almost derailed her permission to travel as a Legion of Mary Envoy to the plains of Africa. Yet, this tenacious missionary from Kanturk, County Cork had defied all odds and gladly embarked upon her mission to East and Central Africa in 1936, charged with establishing the Legion of Mary across ten expansive dioceses. In just over seven years Edel Quinn established hundreds of praesidia throughout Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, while capturing the hearts of those whom she met and ministered to.

Edel Quinn was born on September 14, 1907, the feast of the Triumph of the Cross.

Her life, as described by those who knew Edel, was one which sublimely lived up to this feast, both in its suffering and success. As Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary and dear friend of Edel, reflected, “Such was the incredible position: she was a dying person, yet going around getting on with her work.” Her work was truly remarkable.

Mgr Riberi, the Internuncio Apostolic to China, claimed that it was inspiration found in Edel Quinn that gave him the strength to establish the Legion of Mary in civil war China; "that her life and work influenced by sheer force of example, changed the course of history.” The late Bishop Morrisroe praised her apostolic activity in Africa as a “service beyond reckoning” and affirmed that “in the building up of this African lay army, Edel Quinn co-operated in an incidental but invaluable way towards the recruiting of priestly vocations.” After her death at Nairobi on May 12, 1944, Pope Pius XII himself would pronounce that Edel had generously and abundantly “spent herself in the planting of the Legion of Mary in the soil of Africa”.

Yet even more than what Edel Quinn did, it was who she was— a woman who spent her entire self in giving without counting the cost. She was a woman who desired, as she writes “to give utterly, in every possible way, without counting the cost, to be spent for Christ”. For every task that God would entrust to her and for all that Our Lady would ask her to do, Edel gave her personal and profound fiat. How these tasks would be accomplished was God’s work, hers the task of saying yes, and never ceasing to do so.

This continuous act of consent to the Divine request, this absolute surrender to the will of God, and this offering of her very self is exactly what Edel achieved in her short life. It is also what fuelled her sublime audacity: her fearless and resolute laying down of her life in the service of God and the world. She gave to the point of exhaustion, she gave until the moment of her death, and, when she had nothing left to give, she gave her very life and final breath with the exhalation of a whispered “Jesus”. Frank Duff described Edel as a woman who was “ready to tackle anything, willing to endure anything”, who “really loved God with her whole heart and soul” and was “never thinking of herself”. She was a woman who lived upon her daily Eucharist and whose life was heroic, if, as according to Suenens “it is judged by the faith that inspired it.

It was heroic, too, if judged by the courage that sprang from that faith. Her courage makes of her a legendary figure.”

Marie Douglas REALITY MAY 2020

Reality Volume 85. No. 4 May 2020 A Redemptorist Publication ISSN 0034-0960 Published by The Irish Redemptorists, St Joseph's Monastery, St Alphonsus Road, Dundalk County Louth A91 F3FC Tel: 00353 (0)1 4922488 Web: www.redcoms.org Email: sales@redcoms.org (With permission of C.Ss.R.)

Editor Brendan McConvery CSsR editor@redcoms.org Design & Layout David Mc Namara CSsR Sales & Marketing Claire Carmichael ccarmichael@redcoms.org Accounts Dearbhla Cooney accounts@redcoms.org Printed by W&G Baird Printers, Belfast Photo Credits Shutterstock, Catholic News Agency, Trócaire,

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REFLECTIONS Take Saint Peter – impetuous, given to rushes of blood to the head, wildly over-estimating his own courage and faith, and yet within it all humbled and weeping, clinging to his Lord.

Holiness for Peter did not mean becoming a different man, a wise, prudent, controlled man.

It meant being the same old silly Peter, but one who progressively clung to Jesus and became His true disciple. Peter loved Jesus, not despite his weaknesses, but in them and through them.

SISTER WENDY BECKETT

You must know that when you ‘hail’ Mary, she immediately returns your greeting! Don’t think that she is one of those rude women of whom there are so many–on the contrary, she is utterly courteous and pleasant. If you greet her, she will answer you right away and converse with you!

SAINT BERNARDINE OF SIENA

The Irish do love telling stories and we are suspicious of people who do not have long complicated conversations.

There used to be a rule in the etiquette books that you invited four talkers and four listeners to a dinner party. That does not work in Ireland because nobody knows four listeners.

MAEVE BINCHY

Original sin–that is to say, the sin of having been born with human nature that contains within it the temptation to evil–will always make a mockery of attempts at perfection based upon manipulation of the environment.

THEODORE DALRYMPLE

A little Madness in the Spring/ Is wholesome even for the King.

EMILY DICKENSON

Like billowing clouds, like the incessant gurgle of the brook, the longing of the spirit can never be stilled.

HILDGARD OF BINGEN

I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If my neighbour needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.

Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil.

HENRY FIELDING

In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

GEORGE ORWELL

A friend of mine told me to shoot first and ask questions later. I was going to ask him why, but I had to shoot him.

JOHN WAYNE

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears.

Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless.

Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

HENRI NOUWEN

Moderation, we find, is an extremely difficult thing to get in this country.

MARTIN LUTHER

MYLES NA GCOPALEEN

ON WHAT TO DO IN TIME OF PLAGUE

(BRIAN O’NOLAN)

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EDI TO R I A L UP FRONT BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

WE DID NOT SEE IT COMING

Around

Decemb er, we watched the news items about a strange infection sweeping through China. There were sad tales of some Europeans caught up in it who were having difficulty getting back home for Christmas.

But China was a long way away. Then it came a bit closer to home. A few cases in Italy, but they had contact with Chinese people probably. Then people fresh back from skiing holidays in Northern Italy brought it back to Ireland and the neighbouring island. We have become used to reports about new kinds of viruses every few years. Some were unpleasant but in the main comparatively harmless: 14 people died in Northern Ireland in the 2009 swine flu epidemic, and most of them had pre-existent medical conditions.

Others, like SARS and Ebola, were more deadly and they did most damage in the poorer countries of equatorial Africa.

I am writing this just before Holy Week.

Since St Patrick’s Day, we have not had a congregation for weekday Mass. The small Redemptorist community where I live on the Antrim Road in Belfast celebrates in the empty church a Mass that goes out on the webcam each morning. How will we celebrate Holy Week and Easter? Probably in a very abbreviated way with just the three of us priests doing our best to sing and proclaim the mysteries of the day.

It has been a strange few weeks – told to leave the house only once a day for exercise or shopping for basic food and medical requirements. A verse of Psalm 74 familiar from Liturgy of the Hours has been churning around in my mind. This psalm laments the destruction of the holy city of Jerusalem and the temple. The destruction continues in the surrounding countryside, but the psalmist laments “we have no one to tell us how long it will last.” At first, we thought it might be over in a month: now it recedes further all

the time, from summer to autumn or even the end of the year, with the possibility of a second or third wave when the present one has subsided. It is the uncertainty that is most perplexing. Within a few weeks, it has gone from being a medical emergency to something that has brought about a global lockdown. International air travel is a shadow of its former self. The bargain airlines have taken most, or even all, of their fleet out of commission. Mass unemployment came suddenly, and without warning. Salaries have been cut to a fraction of what they were, but even then, they cannot be taken for granted.

The unexpected spending of enormous sums of money to update the health service at very short notice to confront this new challenge will have to be paid somehow. Are we plunging into a global economic crisis, far worse than that in which the Celtic Tiger gave up the ghost, or even the Great Depression of the 1930s?

I grew up on tales of how my native city, Belfast, survived the Blitz, wartime austerity and rationing. I wondered what wartime was like and if I could have survived it. A crisis brings to light the good and the bad in people. The instinct to have things that were liable to be in short supply drew out an unpleasant form of selfishness in some people, which did not hesitate to use violence towards older and more fragile people queuing at a checkout or even at the entrance to a store, or the insistence on ‘my right’ to drive to the beach despite pleas of avoid crowds. On the other hand, stories of ordinary goodness were more common – the young hurling team who had to abandon regular practice but volunteered to deliver prescriptions from the local pharmacy each evening, clubs that organised food banks or just the straightforward old-fashioned neighbourliness that ensured that no one living alone was left without a regular

phonecall or meal or groceries on the doorstep with a short chat at the appropriate social distance. It is likely that we shall not be the same after this. We looked into an abyss and discovered just how fragile our lives really are beneath our certainties. Some of us also discovered that that we did in fact miss ‘the missing God’ who has been so absent from our lives in recent times. With the churches locked and silent, we had to discover new ways of praying.

What concerns me more is what the future holds for those more vulnerable than we are.

Most of us have a home with running water for the required regular hand washing, and a peaceful place in which to retreat should we need a period of self-isolation. What of the homeless who sleep in doorways? A news reporter wondered what would happen should a virulent form of COVID-19 get loose in the refugee camp of Lesbos where more than 20,000 people live in conditions of extreme neglect. Or what of the struggling third-world nations where the virus is now appearing who are unable to call into action the resources that even Europe and the United States found difficult enough to muster? Is coronavirus a final call to justice?

If we ignore it, what lies beyond?

Brendan McConvery CSsR Editor

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C OVE R STO RY

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IS THE POPE S INFALLIBLE? REFLECTIONS ON THE ���th ANNIVERSARY OF VATICAN I’S DEFINITION

REALITY MAY 2020

STILL

THE FINAL VOTE ON PAPAL INFALLIBILITY AT THE FIRST VATICAN COUNCIL WAS TAKEN ON JULY 18, 1870, DEFINING AS A DOGMA THAT THE POPE WAS INFALLIBLE WHEN SPEAKING EX CATHEDRA, THAT IS, “WHEN, IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS OFFICE AS SHEPHERD AND TEACHER OF ALL CHRISTIANS”.

BY SHAUN BLANCHARD

I

can think of two plausible answers to the question “is the pope still infallible?” The first is to say: "No – and he never was.” My second answer is: “Yes, more infallible than he’s ever been.” While both answers might sound glib or even flippant, I think either response – although they appear mutually exclusive – is defensible. Furthermore, each answer illuminates something important about the Petrine ministry today.

AN ANNIVERSARY The approaching 150th anniversary of Vatican I, the ecumenical council that defined papal infallibility as a dogma in July 1870, comes

at a time of open polarisation in many quarters of the Catholic Church. As always, the issues Catholics face are complex, and our opinions and approaches are manifold and diverse. Nevertheless, one’s view of the current occupant of St Peter’s Chair serves as the most common ideological litmus test dividing Catholics.

While this might seem obvious and even natural, it should disturb us. Despite Vatican II’s emphasis on local churches and episcopal collegiality, and notwithstanding much current talk of inculturation and synodality, contemporary Catholicism is intensely, sometimes obsessively, focused on the

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C OVE R STO RY

papacy. Perhaps more than ever before, the person of the pope is a central component of Catholic life. How many Catholics (and non-Catholics) diagnose, even dissect, papal tweets and off-the-cuff remarks – “Who am I to judge?” being front and centre – but know little more than the name of their local bishop (even that knowledge, I sometimes suspect, comes mainly from its repetition in the eucharistic prayer)?

The situation we find ourselves in is, needless to say, not the one envisioned by the multitude of influential fathers of the Second Vatican Council who were taken with the ideals of ressourcement (return to the life-giving sources). Their vision of patristic communio – however romanticised and idealised it might have been – carried the day at Vatican II. And yet, a recovery of the ecclesiology of communion associated with the early church never stood much of a chance in the new culture of celebrity popes. Today, with trust in the episcopacy understandably shaken (in some countries, maybe fatally), fixation with the pope seems to reign unchallenged. Whether adulation or disdain or perplexity, interest in the comings and goings of pontiffs (emeritus or reigning) is perhaps at an all-time high.

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WHAT IS INFALLIBILITY ANYWAY? My first answer – that the pope is not and was never infallible – is not a rejection of the First Vatican Council. Nor does such an answer dissent from Vatican II, which, as some are surprised to learn, repeatedly reaffirmed Vatican I in very strong language.

Notwithstanding much current talk of inculturation and synodality, contemporary Catholicism is intensely, sometimes obsessively, focused on the papacy REALITY MAY 2020

On the contrary, my answer arises from a close reading of the text of Vatican I’s Pastor Aeternus. The heading of chapter four, which ends with the famous dogmatic definition, does not read: “On the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff,” but rather: “On the infallible magisterium [teaching office] of the Roman Pontiff.” This language was deliberate, and explicitly discussed by the council fathers.

It was not mere window dressing. For the Council did not, indeed, could not, proclaim a human being to be infallible. The gift of infallibility is, first and foremost, a gift of the Holy Spirit to the whole church. This gift protects specific teaching acts from error. Normally, this occurs in ecumenical councils when the bishops define dogma.

What Vatican I taught was that, under very specific circumstances, papal teaching acts can likewise be protected from error by the Holy Spirit in the same way that solemn definitions of ecumenical councils are protected from error.

The famous dogmatic definition, does not read: “On the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff,” but rather: “On the infallible magisterium [teaching office] of the Roman Pontiff” Indeed, infallibility as such was not at issue at Vatican I. Everyone at the Council believed that the Holy Spirit protected some teaching acts from error. "The Catholic Church teaches infallibly” had been taken for granted for centuries.

The divisive question was whether the Church could teach infallibly through the papal magisterium or only when the pope and the rest of the college of bishops acted in unison either through an ecumenical council or some other process in which – explicitly or tacitly – the “consent of the Church” (consensus Ecclesiae) was attained.

The former position triumphed at Vatican

I. Nevertheless, it is worth reflecting on the somewhat ironic fact that it was not by papal fiat but through the act of an ecumenical council – the ultimate arbiter for resolving theological controversy, according to conciliarists – that papal infallibility was proclaimed. Historically speaking, papal infallibility depended upon conciliar infallibility, which is itself the expression of the universal body of believers.

BEYOND THE ALPS It could be objected that to distinguish between an infallible person and an infallible teaching act is splitting hairs. Doesn’t it all

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John XXIII, on the eve of Vatican II, drove this point home when he famously said that he was only infallible when speaking ex cathedra, but he planned to never do so.

disturbing how close this quasi-idolatrous perspective parallels the stereotypes of Catholic belief that some Protestants and secular folks still have.

Returning to the tense atmosphere at Vatican I is instructive. The insistence of the beleaguered yet resolute Gallican-conciliarist minority bloc of bishops at that Council that the pope was inside the Church and not somehow above it – that whatever papal infallibility was it could not be “personal, separate, and absolute” – were heeded. This was also the position of 'inopportunists' like St John Henry Newman, who believed in papal infallibility but advised against a formal definition. Viewing the pope as a primatial bishop with a unique office and charism is the correct reading of Vatican I, and certainly the reading sanctioned by Vatican II. It was also, we should point out, a conception of the papal office that moderate, sensible ultramontanists were more than willing to endorse.

The doctrinal takeaway, then, is that Pope Pius XII was not infallible, but his teaching act defining Mary’s Assumption in 1950 was.

John XXIII, on the eve of Vatican II, drove this point home when he famously said that he was only infallible when speaking ex cathedra (that is, in the official dogmatic capacity outlined by Vatican I), but he planned to never do so. Vatican I and the definition of papal infallibility are naturally associated with a tremendous increase in the prestige of the papacy, although I think it arguable that Pastor Aeternus was more of a symptom of that increase rather than a cause.

To be continued

come to the same thing? I don’t think so – no more than to distinguish between the infallibility of a conciliar definition while recognising the obvious fallibility of every living bishop. This absolutely critical distinction between person and teaching act underscores Vatican I’s ultimate unwillingness to give sanction to extreme ultramontanism. 'Ultramontane' which literally means ‘beyond the mountains’, was a term applied to extreme supporters of the

pope’s authority in politics as well as religion.

'Papalotry' (‘worship of the pope’) was an obvious problem in their day and, ominously, is still a problem in ours.

Extreme ultramontanists see the pope less as the servant of the servants of God, and more as a prophet on high like Moses; an oracle who communes with the Almighty on the mountain top and then delivers the inspired word of the Lord to his spiritual children who await at the foot of Sinai. It is

Shaun Blanchard is a native of North Carolina. After studies in England, he completed his PhD at Marquette University in Wisconsin and now teaches at Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

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COM M E N T WITH EYES WIDE OPEN JIM DEEDS

A NEW NORMAL?

THESE ARE STRANGE TIMES WE LIVE IN. HOW WILL WE BE WHEN THEY END – WILL WE BE BETTER OR POORER HUMAN BEINGS? THAT DEPENDS ON US. My phone beeped; a text message had arrived from a friend of mine. Texts and other messages have become so important for us to stay connected in the absence of our normal face-to-face interactions.

I read the message. He ended it by writing, “We are living in unprecedented times for modern humanity”.

Seeing the words written on the screen of my phone, they looked stark and felt very real.

It was an unusual thing for him to write and an unusual thing for me to read. At least, it would have been unusual in any other context than the one we are living through now. There is no normal at the minute and that is disconcerting. For many, the routines we had have changed. And even if our own routine has not changed (yet) everywhere we look we see the change others are making. That is clear from the empty roads, the empty offices, the empty pubs and the empty shelves in supermarkets. It is likely that more of our normality will change in the coming weeks and months.

In these times, one piece of scripture has been shouting itself in my head. It comes from the second letter St Paul wrote to the Christian community in Corinth. He had written to them some time before because their community was experiencing problems. His first letter, no doubt, brought solace and challenge to the community.

That said, it didn't solve all the problems because he had to write to them again! In his second letter, he wrote the lines that have been bouncing around inside my head: “We are in difficulties on all sides, but never cornered; we see no answer to our problems, but never despair; we have been persecuted, but never deserted; knocked down, but never killed; always, wherever we may be, we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may always be seen in our body.”

(2 Corinthians 4: 8-10) Read these lines a few times and see how he might have been writing to us in these times of change. We, too, just like the Corinthians, are in difficulties, see no answers to our problems, feel persecuted and knocked down. When we watch too much of the news or believe all we read on social media from the new-found experts (many of whom last week were only experts in posting pics of what they had for lunch!) we may be fooled into seeing only death and destruction ahead.

Now, St Paul was a mystic. He never walked with the human, physical embodiment of Jesus, but he encountered and experienced the risen Christ and therefore he could write from a place of deep wisdom. And so, he told the Corinthians and he tells us:

* we are never cornered * we never despair * we are never deserted * we are never killed because we can carry the reality of the life-giving love of Jesus and his promise of eternal life with us. This is the Good News we hold onto in these times of endless bad news.

I videoed Fr Eugene O'Neill and Fr Tony McAleese of St Patrick's Parish, Belfast, a few weeks ago as they read a message to their parish community. They addressed anyone who was worried during these times. Something Fr Eugene said has stayed with me since and given me cause to think, pray and hope. He said, "We Irish are a great and resilient people. We have survived many blows in our long and noble history.

From each of them we have emerged stronger...

We will emerge from this stronger, humbler, more compassionate and more aware of the fragility and beauty of the gift of life.

We are all in this together.

And we will be together when it is all over."

It strikes me that he captured the hope of St Paul's words to the Corinthians in a compassionate and honest way as he spoke to those in his community to whom he ministered. Indeed, his words minister to us even now as we read them.

There is no doubt my texting friend was right. These are indeed unprecedented times.

There has been and there will be even more change to our normality and that change will bring the pain that St Paul knew we would face. As people of faith we have a way of looking at the world. We try to look as God would have us look. And when we do that we will look through eyes of concern for the poor and the most vulnerable.

We will look through eyes of compassion and mercy for those suffering. We will look through eyes of gratitude for the efforts of those who serve society so well in health and social care and beyond.

Let us make no mistake, this will be all over some day and a new normality will emerge– we will be stronger, humbler, more compassionate and more aware of the fragility of the gift of human life. In that new normality we will be together, as Fr Eugene said.

Peace be with you all.

Belfast man Jim Deeds is a poet, author, pastoral worker and retreat-giver working across Ireland.

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THINKING ABOUT CORONAVIRUS WITH ALBERT CAMUS

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ALBERT CAMUS (1913-1960) WAS A FRENCH NOVELIST AND PHILOSOPHER WHO WON THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE. ONE OF HIS MOST POPULAR NOVELS, THE PLAGUE, IS SET IN THE CITY OF ORAN WHICH IS IN THE GRIP OF A DEADLY PLAGUE.

BY EAMON MAHER

Every

year for the past decade, I have the great privilege of teaching Albert Camus’ allegorical novel The Plague, which deals obliquely with French collaboration with Nazism during the Occupation. Although set in the African coastal city of Oran, The Plague’s main

REALITY MAY 2020

message is that we are defined by how we respond in times of crisis. Many of Camus’ compatriots did not stand up to the German presence on their soil and colluded with an ideology that marked out certain people as being inferior because of race, sexual preference or social standing. In the writer’s

estimation, such cowardice and inertia were beneath disdain. He himself refused to be part of a regime that actively practiced genocide and xenophobia, and joined the ranks of the Resistance. He saw no other option if he wanted to remain true to his beliefs and values.

THE PLAGUE AND THE VIRUS? I believe there are some similarities that might be profitably explored between the coronavirus and the incidents described in Camus’ novel. Plague and disease have been a constant source of disquiet in the history of humankind. One has only to think of the devastation caused by the Black Death, which killed 50 million people in the 14th

21

A depiction of the 'Black Death', 15th century

century alone. It was an epidemic of bubonic plague and its symptoms were clearly used by Camus in his fictional representation of the disease: the painful buboes that break out in various parts of the body, the fever and convulsions, the devastating attack on the victim’s vital organs. Rats were considered to be the original hosts and through them the disease spread to humans. Equally, the flu has also been the most catastrophic cause of death in the world over the past century, a fact that escapes many people’s attention.

Inevitably, one does not like having to face up to the devastation that results from epidemics such as these. The normal reaction tends to be initial insouciance, which gradually turns to concern, and then to panic.

In Oran, that was certainly the case. Like many Western cities, the inhabitants were materialistic: they worked hard with a view to making money. They also liked to relax – the cinema and sea bathing being cited as their preferred pastimes – and to make love, most often at the weekends, as they were usually too busy making money on the other days. When the first rats begin to emerge from their underground lairs to die on the footpaths and various public areas of the city, people begin to wonder what was going on.

From seeing the odd rat lying on the street, with pus oozing from its mouth, there are soon piles of them everywhere. Once the first

human fatality of the plague is announced, the city is closed off from the outside world and its citizens become frightened.

The Plague’s main message is that we are defined by how we respond in times of crisis RELIGION AND SCIENCE Not surprisingly, there is a marked increase in attendance at various church ceremonies once the plague begins to spread – prior to this, the people had demonstrated little enthusiasm for religion. The Jesuit priest Fr Paneloux, a renowned scholar and

Camus’ difficulty with Christianity stemmed from his incomprehension as to how an all-loving God could permit the suffering and death of innocent children

a world from which God is seemingly absent.

Camus’ difficulty with Christianity stemmed from his incomprehension as to how an allloving God could permit the suffering and death of innocent children. In The Plague, it is clear that Camus identifies with Rieux’s position on the occasion when the doctor and Paneloux stand at the bedside of a sick child, who seems to have responded positively to the serum and to be recovering, only for his condition to deteriorate once more, resulting in death. Exasperated and in despair at witnessing such a horrific incident, the doctor angrily confronts the priest with the comment that this child was innocent and still allowed to die by God. The Jesuit responds that sometimes we "should love what we cannot understand", which is the accepted Christian interpretation, but which elicits the following refutation from Rieux: "No Father, I have a different notion of love; and to the day I die I shall refuse to love this creation in which children are tortured."

Subsequently Paneloux will modify his stance in a sermon when he states that faith requires believers to accept that at times patently evil people are spared from afflictions like the plague, whereas good and innocent people are not. He repeats, however, that, difficult though it be, we must love what we cannot comprehend. Eventually the Jesuit himself succumbs to the plague and refuses Rieux’s offer to stay with him, saying: "Thanks. But priests have no friends. They have given their all to God." Shortly afterwards, he dies.

preacher, tells the crowds that the plague is a punishment sent by God to warn them about the error of their ways: "My brethren," he says, "a calamity has befallen you; my brethren, you have deserved it." He offers them the hope that if they trust in God and show genuine repentance, God will not fail them.

Dr Rieux does not see it this way at all. As a man of science, he seeks logical answers to what is happening. His dismisses the idea that blind faith is somehow going to find an antidote to the disease that is killing more and more every day. He keeps on tending to the sick and working with others to perfect

FRIENDSHIP The warm friendship between Tarrou and Rieux shows how fraternity and belief in a common cause can bring about fulfilment.

Here are two people who dedicate themselves completely to bringing an end to suffering and illness, even when it seems that their efforts are futile. Tarrou admits to his friend that what interests him most in life is how to become a saint when one does not believe in God. Rieux reflects on this for a while and says: "I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don’t really appeal to me, I imagine.

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Albert Camus

REALITY MAY 2020

the serum that he hopes will eventually offer a cure.

Considered a type of secular saint by many for his tireless efforts to combat the ravages of the plague, he is asked by his friend Tarrou on one occasion if he believes in God. His response is interesting: "No, but what does that mean? I am in the darkness trying to see the light." In a strong echo of Camus’ own philosophy, Rieux continues that if he believed in an all-powerful God, "he would stop healing people and leave it up to Him".

The dialectic that is developed throughout The Plague revolves around how to survive in

LI T U R GY

What interests me is – being a man." These words provide an excellent summation of Camus’ own philosophy of life. Being a decent human being, feeling empathy for the inhabitants of the earth without any expectation of reward or thanks, that is the key to happiness. Towards the end of the novel, Rieux discovers that his wife, whom he sent to a sanatorium before the outbreak of the plague, has died. Shortly afterwards, just before the gates of the city re-open and Oran is declared to be plague-free, Tarrou becomes infected and dies, lovingly watched over by Rieux and his mother.

Reflecting on what he has learnt from his experiences during this trying period, Rieux remarks that, "there is more in men to admire than to despise". This is quite an optimistic conclusion in a novel which highlights many of the less admirable aspects of the human race. After all, the vast majority of Oran’s citizens display a desire for self-preservation at all costs, and do little or nothing to help

others. Rieux knows that the plague bacillus never completely dies or disappears, that it will bide its time until the moment is ripe for it to re-emerge and strike again.

AND CORONAVIRUS? The spread of the coronavirus is raising many of the same questions as those that confronted the people of Oran. Will business be affected?

What impact will it have on travel? Is there much danger that people will contract the virus and maybe die from it? In Camus’ estimation, this is not the correct way to approach the crisis. Rather, one should be wondering what contribution one can make to easing the suffering of others and to fighting the virus with all the resources at one’s disposal. He felt solidarity with all the victims of oppression (for him, the real plague was the removal of one’s liberty) and aligned himself unambiguously with these people during his acceptance speech at the Nobel Prize for Literature ceremony in 1957, which is well worth reading.

Camus lived through the ravages of two World Wars, the Spanish Civil War and an ugly war of independence in his native Algeria, all of which had revealed the human race’s capacity for cruelty and selfdestruction. There was also the threat of a nuclear holocaust hanging over the world in the 1950s and 60s. The germ of violence is similar to the plague bacillus in that it is never entirely eradicated. People need to combat it with the selflessness of a Rieux, not with the self-absorption of the majority.

Hopefully there are more things to admire than to despise in people when they are faced with a disruption of their lives such as that being caused at present by the coronavirus.

Eamon Maher is director of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies in TU Dublin. His latest book, co-edited with Brian Lucey and Eugene O’Brien, Recalling the Celtic Tiger, is published by Peter Lang, Oxford.

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THE SHY GOD A PANDEMIC THAT BRINGS SO MUCH PAIN IN ITS WAKE MAY MAKE US ASK WHERE GOD IS. THE TRUTH IS THAT IT IS SOMEWHERE IN THE HEART OF THE DARKNESS THAT WE FIND BOTH THE GOD OF ISRAEL AND THE GOD OF JESUS, TAKING ON HUMANKIND'S EVIL, AND SUFFERING WITH THE VICTIMS OF HUMANITY’S INHUMANITY.

BY JOHN SCALLY

It

was the ultimate tale of the unexpected. The coronavirus struck the world with the ferocity of a tsunami. Apart from the global trail of illness, economic devastation and death, it sparked a tidal wave of fear. It struck at something deep inside us and shattered many of our cherished certainties. We thought we were in control, but nature reminded us of our fragility, vulnerability and mortality – not with a gentle whisper but with a primeval scream. It had echoes of a medieval plague, but our 21st century world struggled to find an adequate response to it.

THE VIRTUE OF HOPE The coronavirus has made it difficult to speak about hope. It is an interesting fact that in Spanish, (and also in French and Italian) the verb 'to hope' can be translated into English as three different words. The verb esperar in Spanish can mean to hope, to wait for, or to expect.

That little piece of trivia gives us something to think about when it comes to reflecting on hope. There is a widely-held belief, promoted very effectively by a whole range of marketing executives, that we can have whatever we want whenever we want it.

The Christian story offers a different perspective. It suggests that some things are worth waiting for and that the very act of waiting helps to nourish in us a sense of expectancy and of hope. The waiting that our faith promotes is based on a trust that we will not be disappointed because what we are waiting on, hoping for and expecting is nothing less than God.

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Some things are worth waiting for and the very act of waiting helps to nourish in us a sense of expectancy and of hope

REALITY MAY 2020

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The stories and prayers of Christianity invite us to take the time to reflect on what it is we are waiting for God to do. The people who assist us in this process are characters such as Isaiah, an old prophet; John the Baptist, a young prophet; and Mary, a pregnant teenager. Each in their turn is creative and imaginative, challenging and trusting, and they are all people of prayer. Isaiah dared to dream that deserts might be turned into fertile plains, that the blind might see and the deaf might hear. John the Baptist dared to challenge his contemporaries that they needed to think and behave differently if they wanted a better world, and Mary of Nazareth dared to believe that God could act through her simple 'yes' to bring a light to the people who sat in darkness.

The reason we look to these heroes of hope and expectation is not that we are interested in events of two millennia ago, but that we learn from them what to hope for and expect from God now, at this time in our world.

THE HUMAN FACE OF SUFFERING The coronavirus reintroduced us with startling force to the tragic face of human suffering. The plight of so many people struck down by the pandemic presented problems for some people in their belief in God, particularly a God who apparently sits back and allows people to destroy themselves. For some, it created a series of

God can leave people to wallow in suffering?

Yet such a judgment is totally unfair. The best answer to this charge is provided by Elie Wiesel's book Night. Wiesel was a survivor of the concentration camps and was trying to answer the difficult question of why God allowed the ghastly nightmare of the Holocaust. Walking through the concentration camp he had seen a young boy being hanged and reflected: "Behind me I heard the same man asking, 'Where is God now?' And I heard a voice within me answer him, 'Where is he?

Here he is. He is hanging there on these gallows.' That night the soup tasted of corpses."

It is somewhere in the heart of the darkness that we find both the God of the Jews and the God of Jesus.

It is somewhere there, taking on humankind's evil, suffering with the victims of humankind's inhumanity to people, that our God is to be found.

This is the God who is revealed to us out of the darkness. This is the God who is waiting for us this.

THE MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS This insight is at the heart of the papacy of

It is somewhere in the heart of the darkness that we find both the God of the Jews and the God of Jesus problematic questions. Did the coronavirus present a denial of the God of love, the God of history, the God of creation and power? It raised problems for our view of a loving and powerful God taking care of us. What kind of REALITY MAY 2020

Pope Francis. It was telling that he chose Lampedusa as the destination of his first pastoral visit outside Rome. This tiny Mediterranean island is the prime European entry point for migrants but many die on the way or drown in the high seas. With typical sense of symbolism, he cast a wreath of white and yellow flowers into the waters outside the main port, dignifying the discarded lives and drawing attention to their unmarked deaths.

The first Latin American pope to return to Latin America spoke during the World Youth Day celebrations in Rio de Janerio, where he did the unthinkable and caused many Brazilians to fall in love with an Argentinian, about the centrality of the cross: "On the Cross, Jesus is united with every person who suffers from hunger in a world which, on the other hand, permits itself the luxury of throwing away tons of food every day; on the Cross, Jesus is united to the many mothers and fathers who suffer as they see their children become victims of drug-induced euphoria; on the Cross, Jesus is united with those who are persecuted for their religion, for their beliefs, or simply for the colour of their skin; on the Cross, Jesus is

united with so many young people who have lost faith in the Church, or even in God, because of the counter-witness of Christians and ministers of the Gospel."

However, we cannot simply leave people on the cross. As the risen Christ demonstrated with the glory of the Resurrection, paradise lost is one half of the story: paradise regained the other.

Pope Francis puts it with characteristic eloquence: "Only in Christ crucified and risen can we find salvation and redemption. With him, evil, suffering and death do not have the last word, because he gave us hope and life: he has transformed the Cross from being an instrument of hate, defeat and death to being a sign of love, victory, triumph and life."

PRESENCE IN THE SEEMING ABSENCE "And behold the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, and after the fire a still small voice."

(1Kgs 19:11-12).

These words from the Book of Kings provide an illuminating insight into God's revelatory activity: God came not in a whirlwind but in a still small voice.

A search for an appropriate model of God's action in the natural world concludes with an action that causes the foetus to grow in the womb. Such a model type allows us to see God present in the nature of all things and puts the onus on us to discern this presence. God's actions are hidden, because they are constant and because God acts within everything.

Just as we are never conscious of air, because God's presence is always around us, we never notice it. The journey of faith is a gift of a loving God who takes the first step and waits patiently, silently, almost shyly for the human response.

Life is a vocation, a call to seek this shy God. This shy God did not come into the world with bells and thunder. When I was a young boy I sought God by looking up – trying to see if I could find God through some break

in the sky. Today when I look for God I look down, not up, because I find God in small things. As Pope Francis has said, we find the extraordinary in the ordinary.

The search for God requires us to look down. In doing so, we follow the example of God. This shy God chose to come among us, not in a palace or in a busy street, but small and born in a manger in the form of a helpless baby.

This is a time to remind ourselves of the many contradictions at the heart of our faith.

This most powerful presence chose to be manifest in powerlessness.

Ours is a faith that sincerely accepts the darkness surrounding the search for more light. This shy God reminds us that life is about relationships not about things. The greatest joy comes from good relationships – the greatest sorrow and suffering come not from loss of job or property but from broken and betrayed relationships. All relationships of love are rooted in the love this shy God has for all of us – a love that will prevail over any virus.

The journey of faith is a gift of a loving God who takes the first step and waits patiently, silently, almost shyly for the human response. Life is a vocation, a call to seek this shy God

John Scally teaches theology at Trinity College, Dublin. He has a special interest in the areas of ethics and history.

27

SICKNESS AND FAITH THE BELIEF IS THAT SICKNESS OR TRAGEDY COMES FROM GOD AND THE BEST ATTITUDE IS "WELL, ACCEPT IT, IT'S GOD'S WILL." WITH SO MUCH SICKNESS AND SUFFERING AROUND US THESE DAYS, IS THAT REALLY THE BEST ATTITUDE?

BY COLM MEANEY CSsR

For

28

most of my time in the Philippines I've been involved in conducting parish missions, either as part of a team or alone. Most of the missions were in small-town parishes, consisting in a small town with a few streets, a church, the town hall, a marketplace, a plaza and residences, and then many villages, either along the main road in both directions from the town or up into the hills. The mission team would meet the parish priest and his parish council to discuss the goals of the mission, set targets and plans.

Then we'd begin.

A typical day would be as follows: rise at 6am, take a cold shower either at the well or from water stored in a barrel. Breakfast consists in a cup of coffee and some bread (Filipinos have a fuller breakfast of rice and other dishes; in this respect I stayed stubbornly Irish), then some quiet time to prepare for the day. Most of the day is taken up with visiting people in their homes, in preparation for a gathering later in the evening.

GUIDES AND GUITAR The two essentials for the visits are my guides and a guitar. The guitar is necessary because after chatting with the family and finishing with a short prayer, we sing a few songs (I bring a few copies of my Bahandi mission book, featured in an earlier issue of Reality). The guides are a great help really, especially when I am still new

REALITY MAY 2020

to an area. Filipinos are generally shy, and even more so when the visitor to their house is a foreigner (Amerikano, as we're generically called). So, the guides break the ice and we chat with the family for a while about their lot in life, current news and then I invite them to attend the evening's gathering – either in a chapel or someone's house.

The visits take place from 8.30am until 11am, then we have lunch. We continue from 2.30 until 5pm, and the gathering is usually from 7-8pm. A typical gathering goes like this: we sing together for 20 minutes, using the Bahandi. We start with old familiar hymns, then I teach them some new ones. The atmosphere is prayerful but not stultifying. Then we pray a decade of the Rosary, and then we have our Bible text, usually a gospel passage, sometimes a passage from one of Paul's letters. We ponder the reading and then a few will share, and then I will say my few words.

One of my favourite passages is the healing of the paralytic let down through the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching. The account in the gospel is quite brief, but if we let our imaginations range, we can picture some of the action. As the stalwart stretcher-carriers were hauling the paralytic up onto the roof, there surely were comments from the onlookers: maybe poking fun at them for being so persistent or strange in their action; and surely

the homeowner had some choice words for them when he saw the roof of his house being dismantled!

But what persistence! I'm sure that if I had been carrying the stretcher and found no entrance via the front door, I would have given up, headed home and comforted the paralytic with a weak "next time hopefully".

NO SURRENDER! But these stretcher-bearers were made of sterner stuff: if we can't enter by the door, let's think of Plan B; haul the man up onto the roof! Amazing. And to think that carrying the stretcher to the house was tiring enough in itself, what effort was required to drag and push and cajole the sick man, first up to the roof, then down in front of an amazed Jesus (he says so himself, how he was amazed at their faith in him). And what was the motto of the stretcher-bearers? Even though Filipinos in the rural areas have little enough English, when I pose that question and begin the answer "No retreat..." someone will always finish the quote "...no surrender". Those stretcher-bearers are my heroes: what grit, what determination, what die-hard faith. And they remain completely anonymous. Presumably they walked home together with the newly-healed ex-paralytic, conscious only of having done a good turn for a friend, entirely unaware of the tremendous legacy they have

bequeathed 2,000 years of gospelreaders.

Jesus healed the paralytic and healed every single sick person he met, no exceptions. To quote one of my favourite theologians, David Bentley Hart: "For, after all, if it is from Christ that we are to learn how God relates himself to sin, suffering, evil, and death, it would seem that he provides us little evidence of anything other than a regal, relentless, and miraculous enmity: sin he forgives, suffering he heals, evil he casts out, and death he conquers. And absolutely nowhere does Christ act as if any of these things are part of the eternal work or purposes of God." I really feel the need to highlight this point of the Lord's mission to combat and heal sickness because it's commonplace for many people to see their ailments and diseases as coming from the Lord! How misguided, how hope-sapping.

This belief is very common, at least in popular speech, because in the face of sickness or tragedy, the automatic response is to say "well, accept it, it's God's will." I then give a couple of examples to illustrate how this is not so. That God may permit such tragedies to happen is both a mystery and a source of anguish for people who believe in a good God, but that is very different from saying that God wills or decides that such things happen.

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ARE WE PAYING FOR IT? I relate how a woman in her 30s came to see me one day in a state of distress and anguish. She had just come from the doctor's clinic and he had read the result of her various tests, revealing that she had breast cancer in an advanced stage. This surely was a tragedy. I expressed my sorrow and mentioned that I may be able to seek financial help from some wealthy parishioners to pay for treatment, but she wasn't listening. She said that, when she was younger and later as a married woman, she had her "vices" and that now God was paying her back. Well I could hardly believe my ears. The cancer had come from God

as a punishment for her bad deeds, the exact opposite of Jesus' healing of the sick! Now instead of health and well-being being God's good gift to us, cancer and other diseases were heaven-sent. How tragic. Where had she learnt this belief? I don't know, but it's pretty widespread, and it's a complete betrayal of the Gospel preached and practised by Jesus.

A ship sank in Philippine waters and more than 800 people drowned, a good many of whom were children.

I met a man the next morning in the mission area and he expressed sadness about the tragedy but said we should accept it as "God's will". A few factors could be responsible for

that ship sinking, and some spring pretty nimbly to mind: (1) the captain may have been negligent; (2) were the coastguard authorities paid off to let the ship sail, even though there was a storm raging at the time? (3) was the ship itself in poor shape, due to lack of good maintenance? Who knows?

I don't know.

All I do know is that the good God and father of Jesus had absolutely nothing to do with the sinking and drowning of so many. But that's the typical reaction: "it's God's will". It's just a reaction and maybe many don't really believe it. But any feedback I've received from my talk on the healing of the paralytic has always been

positive: "You mean it's not really 'God's will'?" It's a liberating idea to realise that tragedy and suffering will surely come, but that God is not their source. In fact, according to the Book of Revelation, God will "wipe all tears away" and create "new heaven and new earth". Much more hope-giving than the God of cancer and sickness.

Better the sweaty, health-restoring faith of the stretcher-bearers than the hope-dissolving belief in a distorted Gospel of Bad News.

A native of Limerick city where he went to school in St Clement’s College, Fr Colm Meaney first went to the Philippines as a student and has spent most of his priestly life there.

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COM M E N T FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS CARMEL WYNNE

LIVING IN FEAR

HELPING A PERSON WHO IS ABUSIVE IS NOT EASY IF THEY DO NOT ADMIT TO A PROBLEM. THERE ARE NONE AS BLIND AS THOSE WHO DO NOT WANT TO SEE.

Every day hundreds of people live in fear of the explosive outbursts of temper of a close family member.

Living with anxiety because one never knows what will trigger another eruption of anger is frightening, intimidating and psychological abuse.

The strain of being constantly on the alert takes a toll on a person’s physical and mental wellbeing.

Often family members or friends who are observant recognise that a person is in an abusive relationship long before the person does.

Not many people recognise that the fear of someone is the most telling sign of an abusive relationship. There is a misconception that in order for a relationship to be abusive there must be physical violence. That is not so. Recent legislation has made psychological abuse in a relationship a criminal offence.

Every day hundreds of people suffer abuse in relationships.

‘Abuse’ is an emotive word that conjures up images of domestic violence. There is much misinformation about the victims and perpetrators of violence in the home. It is wrongly believed that women are generally the victims and men the perpetrators of physical abuse. Studies show that both men and women are victims and perpetrators of domestic violence. Only 5 per cent of men report serious physical abuse to the Gardaí. Men tend to be reluctant to lodge a complaint against a woman because they feel that they won’t be believed.

We’re all familiar with the concept of the street angel and house devil. Some of the most socially charming and highly respected men have proved to be so physically abusive that they have murdered the women they vowed to love and cherish. Figures release by Women’s Aid in 2019 suggest that 87 per cent of women who die violently are more likely to be killed by a man who is known to them.

Domestic abuse never happens out of the blue without a warning.

It starts small. For example, Archie liked to watch sport and he fully understood why his wife Aoife complained that he watched too much television. What he couldn’t understand was the yelling and screaming when she was angry.

The slightest thing would set her off. She always apologised, but the outbursts became more frequent and the yelling about her lengthening list of grievances became louder and nastier.

Archie tried to keep Aoife sweet.

He believed that it was Christian to forgive and forget. He knew his wife had a bad temper before

he married her and in the early days of their marriage he blamed himself for upsetting her and setting her off. He defended his wife to family and close friends who asked him why he put up with the way Aoife humiliated him in public. He silenced them by saying he loved his wife and was married for better or worse.

It’s understandable that Archie minimised Aoife’s bad treatment of him and defended any criticism of his wife. He found short-term solutions that only worked for a time. He gave in more and more to Aoife’s demands. He made no attempt to defend himself when she voiced her grievances, hit him and complained and blamed him for everything that was wrong in her life.

The situations we avoid don’t disappear out of our lives.

Problems don’t go away if they are ignored. They grow and over time they become bigger, more threatening, more dangerous and more difficult to manage. In Ireland we have legislation that makes it clear that a person who

constantly belittles you, criticises you, calls you names and uses angry outbursts to control you is abusive.

Hundreds of people deny any suggestion that they are in an abusive relationship, yet they tick every box in a quiz to identify psychological abuse. They will say that yes, it is true that the person humiliates, criticises and treats them so badly that they have often been embarrassed for what their family, friends or colleagues witnessed. The person ignores their requests, demeans their opinions, and refuses to own their own outrageous behaviour, but they cannot be abusive because they are never physically violent.

Perpetrators of abuse blame others for causing their anger.

They complain that nothing their victim does is good enough.

They never appreciate the efforts made to please them but become more and more demanding. Some people find it easier to collude in excusing bad behaviour than to admit that they are being abused.

They will live in denial for years, willing to defend a perpetrator who is abusive against any accusation of misbehaviour.

The problem for the people who fear what the abusive person may do is that one can’t help someone who refuses to see they have a problem. There are none as blind as those who do not want to see.

Carmel Wynne is a life and work skills coach and lives in Dublin. For more information, visit www.carmelwynne.org

31

LI T U RGY

We have always honoured

Mary

32

Above: 'The Virgin with Prophe't, a fresco in the Roman catcomb of Priscilla, 150 AD.

THE JESUIT POET, GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS, ONCE WROTE: “MAY IS MARY’S MONTH AND I/ MUSE AT THAT AND WONDER WHY” SINCE THERE WERE NO GREAT FEASTS OF MARY IN MAY. THIS ARTICLE TELLS HOW MAY BECAME SPECIALLY DEVOTED TO HER.

BY MARIA HALL

The

exact origins of May being devoted to Mary are unsure, but the Christian Church has had a tradition of adapting pre-existing pagan practices. In Ancient Greece and Rome, May was a month REALITY MAY 2020

dedicated to the goddesses of fertility and spring, Artemis and Flora. And so in the Christian calendar, May became the month of Mary. Mary was held in high esteem. ‘The Virgin with Prophet’ is a fresco in the Roman

catcomb of Priscilla dating to 150 AD that shows Mary with Christ sitting on her lap and to the left, the figure of a prophet holding scrolls. A third-century sarcophagus carving depicts the visit of the Magi presenting gifts to the Infant Christ. These images were visual expressions of faith and they were practical forms of catechesis for all, especially those who couldn’t read.

FROM EARLY TIMES When Christianity was legalised by the Emperor Constantine, the Council of Ephesus

(431) adopted the title Theotokos 'Mother of God'. Soon after, a great cathedral was built there, possibly the first church dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Another major place of pilgrimage was the Church of the Seat of Mary, also built in the fifth century and located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It marks the place where, according to tradition, a heavily pregnant Mary sat and rested on her way to Bethlehem.

Its ruins were only discovered in 1992.

There are records of prayers and devotions to Mary even older than these wonderful churches. One of the most ancient is the antiphon Sub Tuum Praesidium; In the shelter of your mercy, we take refuge, Mother of God. Let those who pray to you not yield to temptation.

But rescue us from danger, you who alone are pure, alone blessed.

The oldest copy of it is third-century Egyptian papyrus.

This is from an Anaphora (offering) of Hippolytus, a very early Eucharistic prayer; You sent him from heaven, into the womb of a virgin.

He was conceived and became flesh, he manifested himself as your Son born of the Spirit and of the Virgin.

Ruins of the Church of the Seat of Mary

There are records of apparitions of Mary dating back to the third and fourth centuries.

Gregory the Great (d604) gives an account of the Virgin appearing to a young girl called Musa (Saint Musa of Rome).

One night, Musa had a vision in which Mary appeared to her, surrounded by many girls her own age, all wearing white dresses.

Musa shyly accepted Mary’s invitation to join them. Mary told her that she should leave behind her childish ways because in 30 days she would return, and Musa would be taken into her service. Musa’s parents were astonished at the transformation in her behaviour, but Musa explained that the Mother of God had instructed her and would return for her. Twenty-five days after the apparition, Musa took ill and had another vision just before her death.

Many of our current hymns and prayers to Mary came from the monastic tradition.

The Ave Maris Stella dates from the eighth century. The Alma Redemptorist Mater, Ave Regina Caelorum, Regina Caeli, and Salve Regina all originated in monastic prayer in the Middle Ages.

Many of Europe’s great cathedrals were built at this time and dedicated to Mary.

They were testimony to the growing devotion to Mary; and processions and pilgrimages to these churches were a trend of the age as

too were statues; the first recorded statue of Mary was made in France in 946.

By the Renaissance, Mary had become one of the art world’s favourite subjects. 'The Wilton Dyptych' (14th century) is a beautiful depiction of King Richard II honouring Mary. As early as the reign of St Edward the Confessor (d1066) England was known as ‘Mary’s Cowry.’ There was a special love and devotion to Mary, believing that she was the country’s protector. Her title (which has never been rescinded) was established by a royal act in 1381, and in 2020 Catholics throughout England have taken part in an act of re-dedication. The tradition of including the Hail Mary in Mass dates to that time and it is still recited today after the Prayers of the Faithful.

Pope Clement VIII (d1605) presented crowns, and so did succeeding popes, to the Salus Populi Romani image. But over time they were damaged or lost and needed replacing. In 1837, Pope Gregory XVI ceremonially reinstated them saying: As by our hands we crown you on earth, so may we deserve to be crowned by you with glory and honour in heaven.

Crowning of images remains a popular custom worldwide.

Public May devotions as we know them are a recent development. It wasn’t till the

The Wilton Dyptych

33

LI T U RGY

19th century in Italy, France and Belgium that May devotions were formalised.

For many, this was a whole month of prayer, ending with a solemn procession.

Th e ro l e o f Lo urd e s can’t be underestimated in popularising public processions and devotions.

Th ro u g h o u t th e 2 0 th century, successive popes have written about and encouraged prayer to Our Lady, particularly for peace.

Lumen Gentium (Chapter 8) of Vatican II reaffirmed the Church's special love for Mary: “Joined to Christ the Head and in the unity of fellowship with all His saints, the faithful must in the first place reverence the memory ‘of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.’ “

34

MARY IN THE LITURGY All our prayers to Mary should lead us closer to Christ. We honour her but we worship her Son. Blessed Pope Paul VI reminds us of the role of May devotions to Mary and how she leads us to her Son: We are delighted and consoled by this pious custom associated with the month of May, which pays honour to the Blessed Virgin and brings such rich benefits to the Christian people. Since Mary is rightly to be regarded as the way by which we are led to Christ, the person who encounters Mary cannot help but encounter Christ likewise.

Our prayers, liturgies and devotions will be most efficacious if we understand the roles of Mary as Mother: When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” (John 19:26-27) From this moment, Mary became the Mother of the Church echoed by Vatican II; "The Church honours with special love Mary, the Mother of REALITY MAY 2020

God, who is joined by an inseparable bond to the saving work of her Son." Because of this, we know she will listen!

Mary isn’t resting quietly in heaven. She intercedes for us so that we may join Christ in the heavenly banquet. St John Vianney says, "Only after the Last Judgement will Mary get any rest. From now until then, she is busy with her children." Because of this, we know we can turn to her!

DISCIPLE Mary’s fiat, her ‘yes’, made her the first disciple.

Her complete trust in God, her obedience and spotless life make her the perfect example to follow. The liturgy of the Church invites us to follow her example. Because of this, we can ask her to help us!

A wonderful source of texts which aren’t always used to their fullest is the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There are 46 Masses which span the liturgical year, and though intended primarily for Marian shrines, they are a very rich and useful source for communities, parishes and schools.

The collects, readings and antiphons can also be taken and used separately.

The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (Chapter 5) contains useful guidelines on how our Marian liturgies should, through scripture, lead us to our loving Saviour with the ever-popular Angelus and Regina Coeli,

the Rosary, blessing of beads, litanies, scapulars, medals and Consecration to Mary.

Celebrating the Liturgy of the Hours, particularly Evening Prayer and Night Prayer, are wonderful ways to honour Mary. The Magnificat is a constant feature of Vespers and Compline always end with an antiphon to Mary.

The custom of having a May altar began in European churches in the 19th century.

It soon became traditional in homes and schools. It is a lovely way of involving children. There are no set rules or formats to follow and so it is a wonderful opportunity for creativity and beauty.

The most recent addition to the liturgical calendar has been the Memorial of Mary, the Mother of God, celebrated on the first Monday after Pentecost.

RESOURCES Liturgies, videos and examples of artwork; www.mariahall.org/resources Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: online at www.vatican.va or from CTS Books St Louis Marie de Montfort; True Devotion to Mary (Includes his ‘Ten principal virtues of Mary') www.udayton.edu/imri/mary/c/collectionof-masses-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary.php Free downloadable resources: www.sadlier.com/religion/blog

Maria Hall is music director at St Wilfrid's Church, Preston, England. A qualified teacher, she has a Master’s from the Liturgy Centre, Maynooth and is a consultant on matters liturgical for schools and parishes. www.mariahall.org

F E AT U R E

I WAS A STRANGER

AND YOU WELCOMED ME AN ELDERLY REDEMPTORIST PRIEST, HIMSELF THE SON OF IMMIGRANTS, SPEARHEADS A MINISTRY WORKING WITH ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN BROOKLYN

BY PETER FEUERHERD

35

If

there is glamour in being an immigration rights lawyer, it’s not evident in an eighth-floor waiting room in Lower Manhattan for those seeking authorisation to stay in the United States.

Amid the conversational sounds of Chinese, Russian and Spanish, the television set blares a speech from the president of the United States presented the night before, blaming immigrants for murders, rapes, and drug dealing.

Among this tiny composite of New York immigrants, no one appears to share the outrage, to be insulted or, for that matter, to be paying much attention.

THE LITTLE PRIEST A priest strides in, dressed in full collar, accompanied by a Mexican couple and their college-age daughter. Fr Ruskin Piedra, a Redemptorist, is a wiry, diminutive octogenarian not much more than five feet tall. Fr Piedra knows where to go. At the age of 85, he’s been doing this for decades, navigating the labyrinth of immigration bureaucracy for immigrants in Brooklyn as an officially recognised lawyer in the system.

“He is amazing,” says Eduardo, who has been in Brooklyn for more than 20 years, and is the husband/ father of the family Fr Piedra is accompanying this morning. “He’s working hard for the community.

He is very friendly and responsive.”

Eduardo is a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in the Sunset Park neighbourhood. It is a place spared much of the turmoil of Brooklyn gentrification, which has displaced tenants in favour of wealthy newcomers throughout the borough. It remains largely what it has always been, an immigrant enclave.

Eduardo is trying to regularise his situation.

His daughter Caroline, born in the United States and an American citizen, is a student at Brooklyn College. She is sponsoring her family, which includes Eduardo, her mother, and a younger brother. Eduardo came to the United States when he was 18. He is now 46. Getting legal authorisation would allow

F E AT U R E

him to see his family in Mexico.

He would like to see his mother and father before they die. Time is not a friend.

36

A STALWART OF SUPPORT For 126 years, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish has served them all: Irish, Germans, even Norwegians, and, in the past few decades, a growing group of Chinese. Mass is celebrated in English, Spanish, and Chinese.

Since the 1990s, Fr Piedra, in his tiny office, has been advocating for immigrants.

While not a fully-fledged lawyer, he has credentials, earned via classes on immigration law and the federal system, to advocate Fr Ruskin Piedra, 1975 in court for those seeking legal status. The status of priest may have lost much of its social impact, but Fr immigrant experience. He speaks little about Piedra says the Church connection is a help himself, and much about his immigrant to his cases. clients. But when he talks, he offers hints “They pay a lot of attention to Church- about how this passion developed. related evidence,” he says. “This is a Church His family came to New York from Cuba with a history. We didn’t just put up a sign.” in 1918, to a nation less prosperous but Church documents, such as baptismal and more open to newcomers. His Spanish first marriage certificates, can be used as evidence name is Sabino, and his parents, new to the of an immigrant’s residence in the country. country, picked out Ruskin from a newspaper The US Citizenship and Immigration Service’s article, thinking it sounded authoritatively American, he says. He is one of eight siblings, half, like him, born in the United States, the other half in Cuba.

He speaks fluent Spanish and has an innate awareness of Latino culture. He was an altar boy at St Cecilia Church in Manhattan and was inspired official mission statement once described to enter the seminary when, on a family visit its role as fulfilling the ideal of America’s to Cuba, he observed a large priest leading position as “a nation of immigrants”. It no a congregation in the Rosary, bundled up in longer uses that language – now it’s about wool vestments and sweating in the tropical enforcing the law. heat. “Wow, what a sacrifice,” the future priest thought. He wanted to share in that ROOTED IN SERVICE kind of dedication.

Born in what was then called Spanish Harlem, Fr Piedra’s vocation, therefore, grew out of now East Harlem, Fr Piedra has lived the his personal experience, both growing up

While not a fully-fledged lawyer, he has credentials, earned via classes on immigration law and the federal system, to advocate in court for those seeking legal status

REALITY MAY 2020

in immigrant Spanish Harlem with his Cuban family, and later through his early priesthood work in missions in Puerto Rico and Florida. Since 1962, he has been working with immigrants, first assisting those fleeing Castro’s Cuba, and years later earning his advocate credentials in 1998.

Five years later, he established the St Juan Neumann Center, called after the Redemptorist bishop from Bohemia, John Neumann, who came to the United States in 1833 as a seminarian versed in 11 languages and ready to minister to a burgeoning immigrant Catholic population in the New World. He later became the archbishop of Philadelphia.

ARE IMMIGRANTS STILL WELCOME? Neumann’s immigrant legacy earned him accolades and, eventually, canonisation. But Fr Piedra knows that immigration is a volatile issue, even among those Catholics who count themselves as descendants of the immigrants served by the first US Redemptorists.

“You can’t let everyone in,” Fr Piedra hears from his network nurtured through his years as a retreat master and parish mission director. His response: “How about treating them as children of God?” He remains bound by the charism of his religious community “to work for the poor and the most abandoned”. In today’s United States, he says, it is clear that immigrants are the best fit for the category of poor and abandoned.

That Redemptorist charism follows closely the line articulated by Pope Francis. It is a religious community dedicated to reaching the marginalised and the poor. As the pope has pointed out frequently, few on the periphery are in greater need of the Church’s care and concern than undocumented immigrants, both in Europe and in the United States.

He works from 9am to 3pm on immigration, with Friday his day off. At night, he joins his fellow

The message outside St Juan Neumann Center

Fr Ruskin holds a donated cheque for the centre

Redemptorist priests in ministering to the parish.

“I am not a person who wants to sit here and twiddle his thumbs,” he says about his hectic schedule and his reluctance to retire. There is little time for thumb-twiddling. A few days a week he takes the subway to Lower Manhattan to advocate in court as well as in meetings with immigration workers. To cover all these services, he raises funds via the Redemptorist network.

Almost all his clients live at poverty levels and sometimes a grateful immigrant will provide a donation of gratitude.

Most of his clients are Latinos, but one of his first cases involved an Irishman seeking a work permit.

There are Chinese immigrants seeking assistance and Gypsies from Romania. They were persecuted by the Nazis and other regimes. A judge in the system was inclined to support Gypsy claims.

“She retired, much to my chagrin,” says Fr Piedra, lamenting how slight shifts in the system can have such an impact on people’s lives.

Fr Ruskin meets a client at the center

All in all, the system is getting more callous, in the eyes of Fr Piedra. There are more bureaucratic tangles. A woman who applied for citizenship, thinking it was going to happen, let her green card expire. Now she is in legal limbo. Food stamps for the families of immigrants used to be granted as a way to feed children, who are often American citizens. But that is now being routinely denied.

A Brazilian woman applying for citizenship had her visa stamp scrutinised. It took months to authenticate it.

Immigrants fear the 4am knock on the door from ICE officials more than ever, says Fr Piedra.

A WISDOM FIGURE Through these obstacles, Fr Piedra’s fellow Redemptorist priests at Our Lady of Perpetual Help admire his steadfastness and determination.

Fr James Gilmour, the pastor, has known Fr Piedra for the past two decades in Brooklyn. “He is very loved: he is venerated in the community.”

Fr Piedra’s work flows seamlessly from the mission of the parish. There are about 1,500 registered families, but more than 3,000 attend weekend liturgies. As in many immigrant communities, there is a reluctance to register, for fear that proof of their presence can be held against them. Fr Piedra offers a consoling figure in a frightened community.

Every morning, Fr Piedra finds time for private prayer which replenishes his work with immigrants, a long slog that comes up against insurmountable obstacles.

“He is a very calm, tranquil, compassionate, and understanding person,” says Fr Francis Mulvaney, the rector of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Fr Piedra “is a wisdom figure” in the Sunset Park immigrant community, adds Fr Mulvaney.

Occasionally, Fr Piedra will take to the streets in immigrant demonstrations and he makes no apologies for helping the most peripheral people.

“I haven’t met one single criminal,” he says of the thousands of immigrants who have come to his office. “I’m not saying they don’t exist; I’m not saying they don’t sneak in, I’m saying I’m not aware of them.”

The president of the United States might disagree, but Fr Piedra argues that those who come to him in Brooklyn “are decent, honest, loving family people wanting a better life and fleeing persecution". They are God’s children, and deserve the love and consideration owed to any other person on the planet. It is a radical idea at the heart of Christian dogma – backed up by the gospels and the pope. Fr Piedra, fighting this battle into his 80s, is not giving up, even when it is not glamorous, popular, or even ultimately successful.

Peter Feuerherd is a regular contributor to American religious journals and is the winner of numerous Catholic Press Association and religious press awards.

This article originally appeared in St Anthony’s Messenger and it is reproduced courtesy of www.franciscanmedia.org

37

THE O U R FAT H E R : PART �

THY WILL BE DONE WE PRAY TO DO GOD’S WILL BUT DISCOVERING IT CAN LEAD US ON A LONG SEARCH 38

BY MIKE DALEY

The

acronym WWJD never really appealed to me. I associated its widespread acceptance in the popular and religious culture of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s with my more evangelical, youth group-attending, Protestant neighbours than with my cradle Catholic pewmates.

Furthermore, I found the question –“What would Jesus do?” –too trendy for my personal tastes and too shallow for my theological leanings.

The phrase, when used, appeared to apply to personal moral behaviour and not the larger social justice issues of the day. Also, the level to which it became commercialised, whether on t-shirts, coffee

REALITY MAY 2020

mugs, and, most prominently, every known style and colour of wristband imaginable, turned me off. In the end, the phrase seemed to domesticate Jesus rather than unleash his prophetic vision on society.

Today WWJD continues to find expression in some humorous online memes. One I particularly find amusing reads: "If anyone ever asks you, 'What would Jesus do?” Remind them that flipping over tables and chasing people with a whip is within the realm of possibilities."

Yet, despite my multitude of misgivings, there is value in asking the question: What is Jesus’ (or God’s) will in this or that situation? The challenge is presented to us in the Our Father

in the petition, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is heaven.”

A MOTLEY CREW, OURSELVES INCLUDED As I continue my theological musings, I’ll be the next person in the long list of those who profess skepticism toward those who say they are following the will of God. Unfortunately, history is littered with the tragic consequences of those who uttered, “God wills it.” This group includes mystics and maniacs, popes and pariahs, saints and sinners. Sometimes it is hard to tell one from the other.

Jesus, himself, urges caution in this regard when he says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who

does the will of my Father in heaven" (Mt 7:21).

Knowing Jesus’ name is one thing; acting out God’s will in our lives is another. Seemingly, our motivations always are mixed or conflicted. Yes, we want to do what is best for everyone, but not at the expense of our selfinterest. Admittedly, purity of heart remains elusive. In the end, the rationalising line between God’s will and my will can be awfully thin.

Not that they are mutually exclusive, but to distinguish God’s will from our own desires, prayer is essential. It shouldn’t surprise us then that prayer is at the heart of Jesus’ relationship with God the Father. Ultimately, Jesus sought to bring his will

into union with God’s will and kingdom. In so doing, for Jesus prayer wasn’t so much a thing he did, but the person he was.

Wherever, whenever, and for whatever reason he prayed, Jesus was communicating with God and coming to a greater awareness of God’s will in his life.

THE “HALF YES” To prioritise God’s will in our life can be a very trying experience.

To admit that our vision is narrow and in need of ever-widening perspectives, that our heart is cold and in need of the warmth of inclusive hospitality, and that our ears are closed and in need of the wisdom of diverse voices is humbling, but also, potentially, very humanising.

If we’re not careful and prayerful, Pope Francis warns us that the pace and familiarity of life–“which often privileges the my–can lead to the “half yes”. Speaking on the Our Father, Francis writes: “We are great at pretending that we do not really understand what God wants and what conscience suggests to us. We even get crafty about it, and in order to avoid actually saying ‘no’ to God we say, ‘Excuse me, I can’t,’ ‘Not today, maybe tomorrow,’ ‘Tomorrow I’ll be better, tomorrow I’ll pray, I’ll do good, tomorrow.’ These attitudes and decisions distance us from the ‘yes.’ They distance us from God and lead us to the ‘no,’ to the ‘no’ of sin, to the ‘no’ of mediocrity.”

Franz Jägerstätter

WITNESS TO GOD’S WILL Talk of God’s will can become very abstract and irrelevant very quickly. The apparent impossibility of realising it allows us to settle for the supposed reality that we live in presently. Yet, we do get glimpses

of God’s will actualised “on earth as it is in heaven”, where God’s good and pleasurable design for all eternity breaks into history and shows forth the Kingdom.

One 'solitary witness', who should have been forgotten in the footnotes of history, became a 'saint' because “thy will be done” was at the heart of his life. Franz Jägerstätter is his name and, to put it simply, he said 'no' to Hitler.

This pious farmer’s quiet and unassuming life would have been just that were it not for the rise of the godless militarism of Adolf Hitler. When Austria was annexed

by Germany in 1938, Franz was the only one in his village who voted against it. As public sentiment heightened, family and friends joined the cause. Franz, however, held fast in his refusal to enlist.

When the draft notice finally came in 1943, Franz went to the induction centre and refused to take an oath of obedience to Hitler and serve as a soldier in the German army. For this he was jailed. At the risk of his family’s stability, being seen as a traitor to his country, and placing himself at odds with the advice of his own bishop who counselled duty to one’s country, Franz followed his conscience and, as his beatification (official canonisation still awaits) attests, God’s will. His proclamation of the Gospel, his affirmation of nonviolence, also cost Franz his life.

JESUS: THE MYSTERY OF GOD’S WILL REALISED Franz was only following the example of his saviour Jesus. In a world of violence and hatred, where God’s will for a kingdom of justice was countlessly frustrated by friend and foe alike, Jesus

sought to reflect the loving face of God. As Passionist scripture scholar Father Donald Senior suggests “…Jesus was no fool.

He knew that his enemies were serious, and he was aware of the fate of those before him who had preached with the same sort of Spirit-filled authority that he had. Death seemed certain. Fear was there, but so was trust, an even deeper instinct. And the prayer wrung from his heart was the very prayer that had marked every decision of his life: 'Abba, Father…your will be done.'”

In closing let me offer three words with respect to God’s will: patience, mystery, and vulnerability. Here the words of a noted Franciscan may provide some encouragement :“A s children who have never quite understood everything that our father does nor the full import of his words, so also we, as we pursue our pilgrimage, do not comprehend all the dimensions of history, nor can we understand the total meaning of what is being realised. It is without bitterness that we recognise the finite nature of our own viewpoints and commit ourselves to him who is the beginning and the end, in whose hands rests our entire itinerary.”

Mike Daley is a teacher and writer from Cincinnati, Ohio, where he lives with his wife June and their three children. His latest book, co-edited with Diane Bergant, is Take and Read: Christian Writers Reflect on Life’s Most influential Books.

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I N T H E F O OT ST E PS OF CL EMENT: PART �

CLEMENT MEETS THE REDEMPTORISTS

Clement, as a young Redemptorist

VIENNA WAS A 'COLD HOUSE' FOR TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC THEOLOGY IN CLEMENT’S DAY SO HE SET OFF ONCE MORE FOR ROME WITH A LOYAL FRIEND AND THE TWO BECOME REDEMPTORISTS.

BY BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

When 40

he returned to Vienna, Clement’s intention was to begin study for the priesthood immediately. He was not interested in speculative theology. What he wanted was a traditional seminary, with enough of a theological programme to prepare him to be a good priest, celebrating the sacraments, preaching and being a pastor of God’s people.

What he had not reckoned with was how the Emperor Joseph’s reform of priestly training reduced the seminaries to little more than a student lodging house while the courses were taught in the university faculties.

A STUDENT OF THEOLOGY Clement was naturally intelligent, but he was no intellectual. Trying to get back into the rhythm of study after many years spent in manual work was hard enough. “I had to study every moment,” he wrote. “I even sacrificed the nights. If I were in danger of falling asleep, I would hold the book in one hand and the candle in the other and walk back and forth across my bedroom in order to stay awake.”

Many of the professors Joseph had hired for the university were using traditional Catholic theology as a veneer for ideas borrowed from the Enlightenment. The great book of the Enlightenment which had appeared the previous decade, and was spreading its influence throughout Europe, was the French Encyclopaedia. This was the first attempt

REALITY MAY 2020

at systematic collection of human knowledge under the guidance of atheists and Deists: it would eventually be the trigger of the French Revolution and the end of the ancien regime of both Church and State. Protestant theology in Germany across the border was also beginning to pursue a different path, more critical of authority whether of the Church or of the Bible.

Clement was proud of his ‘Catholic nose’ that could sniff out heresy. His Catholic nose must have twitched frequently during his lectures in Vienna. Matters came to a head one day. Having listened to most of the lecture, he could hardly contain his irritation, and shouted out: “Professor, what you have been teaching is no longer Catholic.” With that he rose and left the lecture hall. Many years later when Clement was back as the apostle of Vienna, his former professor stopped him in the street and thanked him for his intervention and for the opportunity it gave him to assess his teaching.

ROME AGAIN It was unlikely that Vienna would provide Clement with the preparation for priesthood he required. His Catholic nose was once more leading him Rome-wards. This time, it was not as a pilgrim or a would-be hermit, but as a man looking for sound theology.

As usual, Clement found a companion.

Thaddeus Hubl at 23 was a decade younger than Clement. He was also dissatisfied with the quality of the theology on offer in Vienna.

They had become friends, so Clement brought him in on his plan. Thaddeus was interested but there were some problems.

He had been ill, and such a long journey was challenging. In addition, his family was poor, and he could not afford it. Clement said he would take care of the money, and they would let God take care of the rest. In the autumn of 1784, they set off for Rome.

MEETING THE REDEMPTORISTS On arrival in Rome, they found lodgings near St Mary Majors and decided that the following morning, they would go for Mass to the church whose bell they first heard.

The bell led them to a small church called San Giuliano al Esquilino, a few hundred yards from the basilica. They found a small community of religious making their morning meditation and when it was over, one of them said Mass. According to Redemptorist legend, Clement asked the boy

who had served Mass who the religious were.

“Redemptorists,” said the boy, “and you will become one of them.”

Whatever it was that impressed Clement about imposition in Naples of a form of the Rule not this small community, he immediately asked to approved by Rome. The Redemptorists in the Papal meet the superior and declared that Thaddeus States, the group to which Clement and Thaddeus and himself wanted to join! This now belonged, were regarded as the legitimate was news to Thaddeus, and they successors of the congregation founded by spent the rest of the day arguing Alphonsus in 1732 and which had been given papal until Thaddeus threw in the approval in 1749. The founder and his brethren towel. in the Kingdom of Naples were declared as no The superior of the small longer belonging to the Congregation. Grievously community of Redemptorists at San Giuliano was ill, Alphonsus lived for another few years until 1787.

Fr Joseph Landi. Landi had been one of Alphonsus The elderly founder in his monastery near Naples Liguori’s earliest followers and had written the had heard that two foreigners had entered the order history of the congregation. On An 18th century view of St Mary Major’s Basilica, Rome October 24, he gave the two candidates the habit and began their noviciate. It was a short noviciate of barely six months, for on the feast of St Joseph the following year, they were admitted to profession.

Clement asked the boy who had served Mass who the religious were.

“Redemptorists,” said the boy, “and you will become one of them"

More recent research on the life of Clement says it might not be that simple. One of the priests Clement knew in Vienna was Niklaus von Diessbach. He had a complex life story.

Raised a Calvinist in his native Switzerland, he had joined the army and married. When his wife died, he gave up soldiering, become a Catholic and joined the Jesuits. When the Society was suppressed in 1773, he came to Vienna. Diessbach worked against the influence of the Enlightenment on Catholics by establishing small groups of like-minded people. He was also an admirer of the writings of St Alphonsus Liguori, some of which had already been translated into German. He possibly even met Alphonsus. In addition to his works of moral theology and popular spirituality, several of Alphonsus’ later works were devoted to the defence of the Catholic faith against the Enlightenment whose first signs he became aware of in Naples, a passion he shared with Diessbach. Is it likely the former Jesuit would never have mentioned Alphonsus to Clement?

Fr Landi, superior of San Guiliano when Clement and Thaddeus applied to enter the congregation

PRIESTS AT LAST The two newly-professed Redemptorists were sent to Frosinone, the house of studies about 75 kilometres south of Rome, with a view to completing their studies for ordination. The course was shorter than they anticipated, for ten days after their profession, they were sent to join the ordinands in the cathedral of Altari.

The new community did not make much of a fuss of its two newest members, who were still comparative strangers, struggling with Italian.

They went alone to the ordination ceremony in the cathedral some miles away and walked back to the monastery in the rain. When they got home, they found that Thaddeus was marked to read at table and Clement to serve!

The spent the summer months in Frosinone deepening their knowledge of the Redemptorists and their founder from men who had lived with him. In the autumn, Fr de Paola, the superior general, called them back to Rome to discuss the prospects of establishing the congregation north of the Alps. Clement and Thaddeus took to the road again, wearing their religious habits certainly, but with very meagre resources to start a new foundation.

Some four years before this, the Redemptorists had been split into two groups over the state

41

he founded and were now on their way to establish a house north of the Alps. According to Alphonsus’ biographer, Fr Tannoia, the Neapolitans laughed at the hair-brained scheme of sending two ‘Germans’ back to found a house. Alphonsus silenced them.

"God will not fail to spread his glory in that country by their means. The suppression of the Jesuits has caused those populations to be nearly abandoned.

The missions, however, ought not to be like ours; instructions are more useful there than sermons.

These priests will do good, but they will require greater lights than they have. I would write to them, but God does not will that I should have anything to do with it.”

To be continued: Clement in Warsaw

Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR is editor of Reality. He has published The Redemptorists in Ireland (1851 – 2011,) St Gerard Majella: Rediscovering a Saint and historical guides to Redemptorist foundations in Clonard, Limerick and Clapham, London.

NONE OF US

ARE SAFE

Twal Umande (48) and Bahati Imulali (20) accessing Trócaire water points to prevent the spread of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Photo: Garry Walsh

UNTIL ALL OF

US ARE

SAFE POOR COUNTRIES ARE PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE TO THE CORONAVIRUS. SOME DO NOT EVEN HAVE A FUNCTIONING GOVERNMENT TO WARN PEOPLE HOW TO PROTECT THEMSELVES. MOST WILL NOT HAVE AN ADEQUATE HEALTH SERVICE TO RESPOND TO SUCH A MAJOR CHALLENGE. 42 BY CAOIMHE DE BARRA

Today,

as the world joins together to battle the coronavirus, we are reminded how connected we are. We are one human family who share God’s earth together. We have the same hopes. Today, we face the same fear.

But this fear can be overcome by us acting together, in solidarity and in love. In the weeks ahead, as we face the coronavirus in our own communities, Trócaire’s teams will face it in some of the poorest communities in the world. They will face it in conflict zones where people live together in crowded camps. They will face it in communities already ravaged with hunger. These are places with little healthcare and few resources; places sadly illequipped to deal with the challenges that lie ahead.

Trócaire’s Lent activities may be cancelled but we still rely massively on the support of our clergy and parishioners as the needs overseas are greater than ever. The two key battlegrounds against the coronavirus – China and Europe – are wellresourced but even they have been stretched to their limits dealing with its devastating consequences. We are now seeing the virus rapidly spread to countries which lack even the most basic resources to fight this crisis.

REALITY MAY 2020

THE VIRUS IN THE THIRD WORLD COVID-19 is now present in over 40 countries in Africa, including some – Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo – that are amongst the poorest places on Earth. The big fear is that the virus is being under-reported. Some places have no reported cases but that may be because they have no ability to test.

Poor countries are vulnerable at multiple levels – there may not be a functioning state to warn people how to protect themselves; many do not have the systems to detect the virus; most do not have a functioning health service to respond to a mass outbreak of illness.

Poverty also makes individuals more vulnerable.

If you are living through a drought in somewhere like Malawi or Kenya, you may only be eating once a day. You may have HIV or be malnourished. Your immune system is going to be compromised.

We are told how hand-washing is one of the best protections against COVID-19, but three quarters of sub-Saharan Africa’s 645 million people don’t have the facilities at home to wash their hands with soap and water. People have said they are being advised to wash their hands and they ask –"with what?"

The other key protection is social distancing. In conflict-affected countries, people are often living together in very crowded camps where the virus could take hold very easily. A staggering 84 per cent of refugees are living in developing countries.

How do you stop a virus taking hold in a refugee camp? The reality is that refugees are often living in overcrowded camps, that are starved of resources.

So even accessing enough detergent and clean water to keep people healthy in normal times is a huge challenge.

TRÓCAIRE AND THE CORONAVIRUS There are coronavirus cases in many of the countries where Trócaire supports people. Trying to contain the spread of the virus in these countries is going to be a mammoth task for our teams in the weeks and months ahead. Our most affected region so far is the Middle East. The number of cases in Lebanon, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been growing day by day, followed by further recent cases in Gaza and Syria – areas which are already suffering from conflict. Elsewhere, in Central America, Guatemala and Honduras are in lockdown. In Africa, cases have been reported

in countries including Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda, DR Congo, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe, where Trócaire has ongoing programmes.

Trócaire has experience combatting disease outbreaks and we can help to tackle this pandemic.

During the Ebola outbreak in west Africa in 2014-15, our teams in Sierra Leone delivered vital services to affected communities, helping to save thousands of lives. Today, we continue to counter the spread of Ebola in DR Congo, where over 2,200 people have died from the disease in the last 18 months. DRC had its last new case of Ebola a month ago. We are winning the fight against Ebola and we can win this new fight against COVID-19.

THE BATTLEFIELD What makes COVID-19 different to other response work is that it is not isolated to one region or country. When Ebola struck West Africa, the world could mobilise in response. Were coronavirus to spread across the entire African continent – and at a time when Europe and America are struggling to contain their own crises – African countries will

have to rely only on their own scarce resources.

Elders and church leaders have an important role to play. Governments and international organisations are not always trusted. When Ebola struck, rumours spread that governments and international aid agencies were to blame. In some cases, medics were attacked. That is why engaging with community elders and church leaders is so important. They have the trust of the people. Failing to engage them has very serious consequences – if they are not informed of the facts, they can spread the wrong information.

Agencies such as Trócaire will respond to the coronavirus crisis while also trying to maintain other life-saving programmes. The virus also presents challenges to our work in Ireland. Organisations around Ireland are trying to deal with this risk in a sensible and appropriate way. Trócaire is no different.

We have cancelled all staff travel and all faceto-face events here in Ireland planned around our annual Lenten campaign. This will impact our crucial fundraising, but the most important

May Directed Retreat Facilitator: Martina Lehane-Sheehan (€500) May 31 - June 6 Finding God in the 21st Century God is new every day Facilitator: Benedict Hegarty OP (€500) May 31 - June 6

thing today is stopping the spread of this virus and protecting each other.

This crisis has highlighted how interconnected our world and our lives are. The global community is rallying together. The people who are least able to fight the virus are going to be the hardest hit. In the weeks and months ahead, we must be prepared to stand with people who are largely defenceless against the threat they face.

May we, as children of the light, continue to express solidarity with the work Trócaire and others are doing in the developing world at this time of unprecedented crisis. Let us show our love for each other and for mothersand familiesaround the world, who face conflict, poverty and disease. As Dr Mike Ryan of the World Health Organisation recently said, "None of us are safe until all of us are safe."

To make a donation or find out more about Trócaire’s work visit www. trocaire.org Caoimhe de Barra is the chief executive officer of Trócaire

June Wonder of Creation, Miracle of Life Nature is never spent.

Facilitator: Sr Nellie McLoughlin (€500) June 14 - June 20 Centering Prayer Facilitator: Sr Fionnuala Quinn OP (€500) June 28 - 3 July

Ennismore Retreat Centre is set in 30 acres of wood, field and garden overlooking Lough Mahon on the River Lee. It’s the ideal place for some time-out, reflection and prayer.

Ennismore Retreat Centre St Dominic’s

www.ennismore.ie

021–4502520

info@ennismore.ie

CO M M E N T REALITY CHECK PETER McVERRY SJ

WHERE IS GOD TO BE FOUND?

ARE WE LOOKING FOR GOD IN THE RIGHT PLACES? GOD DOES NOT HIDE AWAY IN CHURCHES OR SACRED PLACES.

He

44

lost a €2 coin. He was on his knees in the kitchen searching for it, when a neighbour came in. He explained that he was looking for his coin, but it was nowhere to be found. The neighbour asked him, “Are you sure you lost it in the kitchen?” “No,” he said, “I lost it in the garden.” “Then why are you looking for it in the kitchen?” he was asked. “Because there is more light in the kitchen,” he said.

Sometimes, we might be looking for God in the wrong places. God does not hide away in churches, nor is God confined to sacred places.

Jesus came to tell us where we will find God, not just by his words but especially by his deeds. As he walked the road of Galilee, he saw the poverty, sometimes even the destitution, of many people, and the rejection and marginalisation of others by society. Jesus fed the five thousand who had listened to him all day long, and were hungry. Jesus healed the sick and the disabled. Jesus ate with those who were rejected by their society, the tax collectors and sinners. Jesus revealed a God who is compassion, who cares, not just about the state of our souls, but also about the state of the world.

The God of compassion identifies with the poor, the homeless, the refugee, the sick, the lonely, those in distress. He tells us that the state of our souls is intrinsically linked to the state of our neighbour.

REALITY MAY 2020

“'I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?

When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me'” (Mt 25:35-45).

But we often do not recognise God.

THE NEW PASTOR The pastor had retired. The new pastor was going to be introduced to the congregation the following Sunday. The day arrived and as the congregation streamed into the church, they passed a homeless man begging at the church door. A few said hello, but most of them walked past without looking at him; nobody gave him any change.

Some told him he should be ashamed of himself, begging.

When the church was almost full, the homeless man walked in and went to the front pew and sat down. The ushers politely asked him if he would sit at the back.

When the notices had been read, the ushers announced that their new pastor would n o w i n tro d u c e h i m s el f.

The congregation looked around clapping with joy and anticipation. The homeless man sitting in the back stood up and started walking down the aisle.

The clapping stopped, with all eyes on him. He walked up the altar and took the microphone from the elders (who were in on this) and paused for a moment, then he recited: “I was hungry and you gave me to eat.” After he said this, he looked towards the congregation and told them all what he had experienced that morning. Many heads were bowed in shame.

God always comes to us in disguise. The all-powerful God, who created the universe, was revealed to us as a poor, vulnerable child, totally dependent on his parents, for those who had eyes to see. The all-loving God was revealed to us as a convicted criminal hanging on a cross, for those who had eyes to see.

Are you searching for God? Then stop searching. Feed the hungry, visit the sick and the lonely, have a word with those who are homeless, and you will have found God, if you have eyes to see.

For more information or to support the Peter McVerry Trust: www.pmvtrust.ie info@pmvtrust.ie +353 (0)1 823 0776

GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH In the Gospel of John, there are several long speeches or discourses by Jesus. They contain lengthy teaching about who Jesus is and the purpose of FOURTH SUNDAY his mission. Our gospel readings OF EASTER during the remaining weeks of the Easter season are taken from two of these discourses. The first of them, from which we read today, is known as the Good Shepherd Discourse. It was delivered immediately following the cure of the man born blind (John 9). In it, Jesus defends himself against his opponents by setting forth his claims to be the true shepherd who cares for his sheep.

It begins with a parable based on the Palestinian methods of raising sheep. At evening, the flocks were driven back to the village and placed in a common pen or sheepfold for the night to protect them from sheep-rustlers. One of the villagers acted as a watchman and raised the alarm if robbers came. In the morning, he opened the fold as each of his neighbours arrived to take his sheep to pasture for the day. Each shepherd had names for his sheep,

and when he wanted to gather them in the fold, he called them their names. When he had gathered them outside of the pen, he walked ahead of them to the grazing ground. Jesus uses this to draw the lesson that the people are attracted by his teaching and they recognise him as their real shepherd. They are frightened of sheep-stealers like the religious hierarchy of the temple. The image of the king as shepherd of his people was a very ancient one. The Pharaohs of Egypt are often represented holding a shepherd’s crook. King David was a shepherd before he was king. The Prophet Ezekiel described the restoration of Israel after the exile as the caring work of their true shepherd. John borrows much of Ezekiel’s imagery to describe Jesus as the shepherd (Ezekiel 34).

The religious authorities who have challenged Jesus miss the point of the parable so he begins again. John’s Gospel has seven great ‘I AM’ sayings in which Jesus reveals himself and his mission. He has already revealed himself as the Bread of Life (chapter 6). The Good Shepherd discourse contains two more: "I am the Gate" and later, "I am the Good Shepherd" (10:11).

The gate of the sheepfold had two purposes. It protected the flock from robbers and marauding wolves or wild dogs. It also kept the animals huddled close to one another for warmth. Its second purpose was to provide a way of going in and out.

In the evening, the sheep were brought back to the warmth and security of the fold. In the morning, they went out to where they could find food and water for the day. As the gate, Jesus offers both protection and nourishment to the flock. The final words of this gospel are one of the shortest and most succinct statements of Jesus’ mission: "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full."

The images of protection and freedom here go hand in hand with language that emphasises the freedom the follower of Jesus will find in him. It is through Jesus that we enter into the life of God. We can find fresh pastures in which we are fed and nourished.

Today’s gospel is taken from the last of the great discourses in the MAY Gospel of John (see last Sunday). It is known as the Farewell Discourse and it is the final intimate teaching Jesus delivered to his disciples FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER during their final meal. It is very long: it runs from chapter 13 to 16 and ending with the great final prayer (chapter 17).

Farewell discourses are common in the Bible. Great leaders like Jacob or David delivered a farewell address to those they were leaving behind, looking to the future and advising them how to live when they were gone.

Jacob’s long farewell is delivered to his 12 sons, the Patriarchs (Genesis 49). David’s farewell is addressed to Solomon, his son and heir (2 Kings 2). Jesus offers a message of comfort to those left behind. They are to continue to trust in God as he did. They will be reunited in the Father’s house. In ancient times, when a group of travellers needed accommodation for the night, they sent one of their number ahead to reserve a place in an inn. Jesus comforts them by telling them that he

is going ahead of them and that the accommodation in the Father’s house will be more luxurious than the cramped sleeping area of a rough and ready inn. It has many rooms, so they need not fear they will be refused entry. When the place is prepared, he will return and take them with him.

This is puzzling for some of them. The plain-speaking Thomas is the first to find his voice. If they do not know where Jesus is going, how will they ever be able to find the way? Jesus replies with another of the great ‘I AM’ sayings: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life: no one can come to the Father except through me."

Just as he is the gate that offers protection for his flock and gives them access to the pastures of eternal life, he is also the way to God. To have known Jesus is to know the Father.

This prompts another question, this time from Philip.

For Philip, it would be enough just to see the Father.

The Jews believed that no human could ever see God: the sight was so powerful that they could not endure it, and so God usually made himself present through symbols like fire or a thick cloud. As a special privilege,

Moses was allowed to stand in a cleft of the rock and to see God’s back as he departed from the mountain (Exodus 33:18-23). Seen in this light, Philip’s request that Jesus show them the Father is breath-taking! But Jesus’ reply would be even more breath-taking for a Jewish audience: to have seen Jesus is to have seen the Father, he tells them. This can only be understood in the light of the great opening poem of John’s Gospel (John 1:1-18). Jesus is the word of God who has taken flesh and dwelt among us. He has allowed the glory of God to shine in the world through his presence among them. As John puts it: "And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). That glory has been manifested in the signs Jesus has done. Its final manifestation will be in the sign of the Cross where amid the blood and sweat of human suffering, God’s glory will be fully revealed.

MAY

03

10

Today’s Readings Acts 2:14, 36-41; Ps 22; Pet 2:20-25; Jn 10:1-10

Today’s Readings Acts 6:1-7; Ps 33; 1 Pet 2:4-9; Jn 14:1-12

God’s Word continues on page 46

45

GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH Today’s gospel, like last Sunday’s, is taken from Jesus’ farewell to his disciples. As a farewell between friends who have spent months and years in each other’s SIXTH SUNDAY company, it has an especially OF EASTER intimate tone. Four themes were common in ancient farewell discourses and are present here.

Firstly, the one who is departing usually asks those who will be left behind to guard his legacy. Jesus’ legacy is his teaching, so today’s gospel begins with a plea to keep the commandments. Later in the farewell, the commandments of Jesus will be narrowed down to a single one to love one another, which includes everything else (John 15:12). They are to keep the commandments not through fear but as a way of returning love to the one who first loved them.

The second theme is how the legacy will remain with those who are left behind. We sometimes praise the members of a religious order by saying they have kept 46 their founder’s spirit alive. The spirit Jesus leaves his followers is not just good memories that will inspire them. The Spirit of Jesus will remain with them as a

new form of presence. John calls this form of Jesus’ presence the "Paraclete". This is an unusual word we find in the Bible only in the writings of John – four times in this farewell discourse and once in the first Letter of John (1 John 2:1). It is not so easy to find an exact English equivalent for it. It has been translated as ‘advocate’ or ‘comforter’. The Greek word means literally someone you call to your aid. It was used as a legal term for the lawyer of the accused (‘advocate’ is the Latin equivalent of calling someone to help).

It could also be used for a friend who was prepared to give evidence on the defendant’s behalf, a sort of character witness. It could also be used for someone who brought consolation or comfort to those who were downhearted. John probably intends all these meanings at once. The Spirit that Jesus gives his own will never desert them. We should keep in mind that the first readers of the Gospel lived in a hostile world where their faith might even be put to the ultimate test by arrest, imprisonment and even martyrdom.

For many of them, the ordeal of appearing in the public court to give a defence of their faith must have been a nerve-wracking possibility. What were they going to say, especially if they felt that they were not

used to speaking publicly? Jesus reassures them that they will not be left alone: the Spirit of Truth will be their constant companion. Like the word of Jesus, the Paraclete will abide with them.

The third theme is that though death is a reality and the relationship between the one who departs and those who are left behind will change, it will not die.

Jesus reassures them he will not leave them orphans.

His risen presence will remain with them, more mysterious indeed, but not any the less real for not being visible to the eye. The eye of faith will discern the presence of the risen one, and knows that his departure to the Father is only a temporary arrangement.

The fourth theme is that the revelation of Jesus has not ceased because he is no longer there. The future will bring new challenges but if they continue to remain united with Jesus and through him to the Father, then he will continue to reveal himself to them in many new ways.

Today’s gospel is Matthew’s account of the final meeting of MAY Jesus and his disciples after the Resurrection. Luke is the only gospel writer to describe this final meeting as ‘ascension’ SOLEMNITY OF or a departure to the heavenly ON ASCENSI THE realm. Matthew gives the scene his own very special treatment.

The scene can be divided into two parts – firstly, the meeting of Jesus and his disciples and then a set of sayings by Jesus.

The 11 disciples set out for Galilee. They are one fewer than they were a few weeks ago with the defection of Judas. Matthew does not mention any of the appearances to the disciples in the Jerusalem area that we find in Luke (eg to the two on the way to Emmaus) or in John (eg to the disciples in the upper room, with and without Thomas). By telling us that Jesus had arranged to meet his disciples on a mountain side in Galilee, Matthew seems to be inviting us to go back to the beginning of the story. Two important scenes in his gospel were set on mountains in Galilee: (1) the great

Sermon on the Mount and (2) the transfiguration. It is the final revelation of the earthly Jesus, looking back to both the moment of glory of the transfiguration and to the teaching of the first great sermon. Matthew sketches briefly the disciples’ complex response to Jesus. One might have expected them to be overjoyed: instead, he says that some worshipped him, but some held back, still hesitating. Matthew is aware that the Christian community does not consist only of enthusiastic believers. He seems to have a particular sympathy for them, even going so far as to invent a special Greek word to describe them as ‘people of little faith’ (oligopistoi). He also points out that even some of the church’s heroes like Peter were once among them (Matt 14:31). Matthew does not say outright that they refused to believe, simply that they hesitated or doubted. Nor does he tell us who these doubting members were or how many of them there were.

The words of Jesus can be divided into three distinct sayings. The first is that Jesus has been given by the Father all authority in heaven and on earth. In the next saying, Jesus transmits his authority to the disciples. The verse, "go make disciples of all nations" is sometimes

known as the Great Commission. It is also the source of the Church’s mission to the world. Jesus shared his authority with the disciples – they are to make disciples of all nations, baptise them and teach them to observe the commandments that Jesus first passed on to them.

The third saying, the closing words of this Gospel, are: "I am with you always, even to the close of the age."

When the conception of Jesus was announced to Joseph, it was accompanied by a quotation from the prophet Isaiah: "'Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,' which means, 'God is with us'" (Matt 1:23). Only now at the close of the Book do we hear another echo of that name. Emmanuel is not simply an ancient name or a nickname for Jesus: it sketches out what Jesus will be in the future for those who follow him, an ever- present God of comfort and reassurance.

MAY

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REALITY MAY 2020

Today’s Readings Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; Ps 65; 1 Pet 3:15-18; Jn 14:15-21

Today’s Readings Acts 1:1-11; Ps 46; Eph 1:17-23; Mt 28:16-20

THE REALITY CROSSWORD NUMBER 4 MAY 2020

SOLUTIONS CROSSWORD No. 2 ACROSS: Across: 1. Devout, 5. Atoned, 10. Phantom, 11. Sabbath, 12. Rite, 13. Clare, 15. Omen, 17.

End, 19. Ardour, 21. Beasts, 22. Raphael, 23. Victim, 25. Eldest, 28. Gnu, 30. Loaf, 31. Wayne, 32.

Bier, 35. Uniform, 36. Ignored, 37. Aegean, 38. Dog-ear.

DOWN: 2. Exalted, 3. Oath, 4. Temple, 5. Absurd, 6. Orbs, 7. Erasmus, 8. Sparta, 9. Chants, 14.

Anthony, 16. Curia, 18. Kells, 20. Ram, 21. Bee, 23. Vellum, 24. Chalice, 26. Eritrea, 27. Tirade, 28.

Gammon, 29 .Unwind, 33. Pope, 34. Snug.

Winner of Crossword No. 2 Donald O'Byrne, Ballyneety, County Limerick.

Much of this gospel has already been read on the Second Sunday of Easter. There are two ways in which the giving of the Spirit is described. Our first reading from Acts, is dramatic – full of noise and activity. John’s account is gentler and more restrained: Jesus appears among his frightened disciples, SOLEMNITY OF comforts them with a word of warning, reassures them that PENTECOST it is indeed he by showing his scarred hands and side and gently breathes the Spirit on them.

Luke emphasises the energetic power of the Spirit that even physically shakes the house they are in. John suggests instead the creation of the first human being by having the Lord breathe into the apostles. Luke emphasises the importance of preaching the Word, John the importance of the forgiveness of sins. While both are essential to the mission of Jesus, Luke may be stressing the public role of the Church addressing society, while John emphasises the more personal role of bringing people to know that their sins are forgiven.

Why might the messengers of Jesus want to ‘retain the sins’ of anyone? Jesus does not compel people to follow his way. On the other hand, neither he nor his messengers will be deceived by insincerity. The forgiveness of sins is free, but it is not cheap. When we accept forgiveness, it costs us dearly. To be forgiven, we must to be ready to forgive, to leave behind the destructive patterns of the past.

The Spirit of Pentecost invites us to be free. Jesus calls the Spirit the "Paraclete", the one we can call to our aid when the darkness frightens us or when sin seems to cling too closely to us.

MAY

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Today’s Readings

ACROSS 1. This fabled Greek flew too close to the sun. (6) 5. Common greeting in Arabic-speaking and Muslim countries. (6) 10. Partial or total loss of memory. (7) 11. Choose not to do something, drink alcohol perhaps. (7) 12. A period of warmer weather when snow and ice begin to melt. (4) 13. This Irish poet was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923. (5) 15. The Irish Ireland. (4) 17. Long molecule that contains our unique genetic code. (3) 19. This biblical mountain could be the final resting place of Noah's Ark. (6) 21. Fourth century Latin Christian hymn still widely sung. (2,4) 22. He is the Archangel of War. (7) 23. In the arms of Morpheus. (6) 25. People who live by travelling from place to place. (6) 28. Rascal, rogue, scamp. (3) 30. Colour historically associated with the Virgin Mary. (4) 31. Happen or occur afterwards or as a result. (5) 32. A dishonest scheme, a fraud. (4) 35. A language originally used by Jews in central and eastern Europe. (7) 36. Immortal winged horse of Greek mythology. (7)

37. A sacred song of poem used in worship. (6) 38. Suffer something painful or difficult patiently. (6) DOWN 2. Rodent which does not jump off cliffs. (7) 3. Long white vestment worn by Roman Catholic officiants. (4) 4. Could be an Irish P.I. (6) 5. A length or portion of time. (6) 6. Throws a ball in a high arc. (4) 7. Dante's hellish book. (7) 8. Something that is mysterious or difficult to understand. (6) 9. Bible book comprising a collection of religious verses. (6) 14. Meals at becomes South American snacks wrapped in a corn husk.. (7) 16. The quest for this holy relic kept King Arthur's knights occupied. (5) 18. Popular mode of transport in the time of Jesus. (5) 20. Alphabet starters! (3) 21. A sweet potato by another name. (3) 23. What you can expect from the rich man's table (Luke 16:21) (6) 24. Lacking flavour; weak or tasteless. (7) 26. Giant Eurasian plant which can burn the skin. (7) 27. A person or thing that is not common or usual. (6) 28. Profession of Cain. (6) 29. A soft gentle breeze. (6) 33. Aromatic plant and coin producer. (4) 34. Address God. (4)

Entry Form for Crossword No.4, May 2020 Name: Address: Telephone:

Acts 2:1-11; Ps 103; 1 Cor 12:3-7, 12-13; Jn 20:19-23 All entries must reach us by Friday May 29, 2020 One €35 prize is offered for the first correct solutions opened. The Editor’s decision on all matters concerning this competition will be final. Do not include correspondence on any other subject with your entry which should be addressed to: Reality Crossword No.4, Redemptorist Communications, St Joseph's Monastery, Dundalk, County Louth A91 F3FC