WELCOMING THE CHILD CHILDREN AT MASS
OCTOBER 2018
CALL TO HOLINESS “ONLY TRAGEDY NOT TO BE A SAINT”
FOURTH MYSTERY OF LIGHT TRANSFIGURATION
Informing, Inspiring, Challenging Today’s Catholic
PADRE PIO
WOUNDED HEALER
OSCAR ROMERO
INSPIRATION FOR ALL SEASONS
BROTHER GERARD AND PADRE PIO SOUL BROTHERS? www.redcoms.org Redemptorist-Communications @RedComsIreland
€2.50 £2.00
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Walk took place between
JULY 10TH TO AUGUST 6TH 2018
HOPE
#walkwithtony
DONATE ON
WALK WHILE SUPPORT RESEARCH YOU AND CARE CAN FIGHTING FR. TONY COOTE
LETTERKENNY TO BALLYDEHOB
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MOTOR NEURONE DISEASE
WWYC.ie Walk While You Can is all about bringing people and communities across Ireland together to raise vital awareness and support for Motor Neurone Disease. We walked the length of Ireland this July and August to generate funds and help highlight the need for more funding in this area – and it would mean so much if you could be there with us. By supporting our walk, you are not only lending your voice to our call for better supports and services for people living with the condition but making those supports possible.
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IN THIS MONTH’S ISSUE FEATURES 12 PADRE PIO: A WOUNDED HEALER
This year marks the centenary of the imprinting of the wounds of Christ on the body of a young Italian friar. By Fr Michael Cusack CSsR
18 CONFRATERNITY MEN TO THE FIGHT: PART 2
Continuing the story of the Limerick confraternity and its place in the history of the city. By Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR
22 BROTHER GERARD AND PADRE PIO: SOUL BROTHERS?
St Gerard Majella and St Pio were born less than a hundred miles from one another. They are united by a spiritual kinship.
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By Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR
25 THE CALL TO HOLINESS IN TODAY’S WORLD
According to a French Catholic writer, the only great tragedy in life is not to become a saint. By Michael Daley
28 AN INSPIRATION FOR ALL SEASONS
This month will see the canonisation of Blessed Oscar Romero who was assassinated while celebrating Mass in a hospital chapel. By John Scally
31 PRAYING WITH THE ROSARY: THE TRANSFIGURATION Peter, awaiting execution, tells the story of praying on a mountain with Jesus By Fr George Wadding CSsR
34 WELCOMING THE CHILD
Are children always welcome in your church, or do members of the congregation show by a look or gesture that they consider them a nuisance? By Sarah Adams
41 EIGHTH CENTURY LITANY TO THE VIRGIN MARY An ancient Irish prayer from the Leabhar Breac
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25 OPINION
11 EDITORIAL: BRENDAN MCCONVERY CSsR 37 CARMEL WYNNE 42 PETER MCVERRY SJ 44 JIM DEEDS
38 REGULARS
4 REALITY BITES 5 POPE MONITOR 8 SAINT OF THE MONTH 9 REFLECTIONS 38 TRÓCAIRE 40 UNDER THE MICROSCOPE 45 GOD’S WORD 47 CROSSWORD
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REALITY BITES REDEMPTORISTS AND KERALA FLOOD DISASTER INDIA
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AID APPEAL
The State of Kerala in India has been struck by the worst flooding following the monsoons in almost a century. From late July, more than 300 people have died, and a million have been forced to leave their homes. Kerala is the most Christian state in India, home to the St Thomas Christians, who claim their origin from the mission of St Thomas the Apostle.The Catholic Church in Kerala has opened many relief camps along with parishes and other institutions.Two Redemptorist communities are operating as relief camps: the provincial house of Liguori Province at Mattoor and the community of the Bangalore province at Maloth.There are almost 600 people in the provincial house and another 50 in Maloth. Although the water will eventually subside, long-term aid is needed to help families affected by the floods and landslides, with
FLYING THE FLAG FOR CHINA CHINA
FORCED PATRIOTISM?
The Sixth Joint Conference of China’s Religious Groups, a government-controlled assembly of all state-recognised religious groups, has proposed that all churches and religious buildings fly the flag on stated days to reflect their patriotism and Chinese identity. Many Catholics claim the initiative is an attempt to force religious people to be patriotic in a state-sponsored way.“Is it necessary to train believers to hold the ritual of raising the national flag and to play the national anthem before they can hold religious activities?” one priest asked. Another church source said that the national flag at churches began after crosses were removed from church buildings in Zhejiang province and is now being promoted nationwide.
houses to be rebuilt or repaired, and longterm medical aid is required for many as well as counselling for the people affected by the terrible trauma.The Redemptorists of India, who were founded from Ireland, will continue to help in the work, and are
SOLVING THE VOCATIONS PROBLEM? THAILAND
YOUNG NOVICES
Two of the boys who were rescued from the cave
inviting their friends worldwide to help. The Irish development and volunteering organisation SERVE is working with the Redemptorists in Kerala. Donations may be made through the SERVE website http:// www.serve.ie/donate/
All but one of the 12 boys rescued from the cave in Thailand have spent a period of nine days as novices in a Buddhist monastery.The remaining boy is a Christian.The boys were also joined by their coach who had spent the time with them in the dark cave. It was once common in strongly Buddhist countries like Thailand for boys as young as seven to spend some time in a monastery, and monastic life is still very much respected.Their heads were shaved and they received the red and yellow robes of monks. In one of the daily rituals, the monks and novices walk silently through the streets, holding out their food-bowls to receive an offering of rice and other food from the people, who considered it an act of piety to support the monks.
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NEWS
POPE MONITOR WORLD MEETING OF FAMILIES
POPE FRANCIS IN IRELAND The World Meeting of Families ran from Wednesday until Friday, August 22-24, in the RDS. It drew people from all over the world – parents with young children were especially noticeable. Apart from many presentations and workshops in different languages, there were stands representing a wide spectrum of Catholic groups from religious communities to lay movements. Catering was provided at many outlets offering coffee and snacks as well as the usual burger and chips menu, but also Mexican, Chinese and wood-baked pizzas. Striking was the number of young people
acting as guides or stewards as well as directing youth catechesis. The prayer tent was busy all day with people dropping in to pray before the Blessed Sacrament or the icon of the Holy Family. The Redemptorist stand included a shrine to St Gerard Majella, patron saint of families, and many came to pray and venerate his relic. An international team of young Redemptorists were on duty as translators and helpers.
Redemptorist stand at WMOF
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Two young Redemptorists taking their place at a presentation at WMOF
A time of prayer at the St Gerard Shrine at WMOF Redemptorists sponsored a balloon to support the Global Catholic Climate Movement
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Redemptoristine Sisters enjoying lunch at WMOF
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NEWS
POPE MONITOR WORLD MEETING OF FAMILIES
PAPAL MASS IN PHOENIX PARK • Yesterday I met with eight persons who are survivors of the abuse of power, the abuse of conscience and sexual abuse. In reflecting on what they told me, I wish to implore the Lord’s mercy for these crimes and to ask forgiveness for them.
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• We ask forgiveness for the cases of abuse in Ireland, the abuse of power, the abuse of conscience and sexual abuse on the par t of representatives of the church. In a special way, we ask forgiveness for all those abuses that took place in different kinds of institutions directed by men and women religious and other members of the church. We also ask forgiveness for cases in which many minors were exploited for their labour. • We ask forgiveness for all those times when, as a church, we did not offer to the survivors of any type of abuse compassion and the pursuit of justice and truth by concrete actions. We ask forgiveness.
• We ask forgiveness for some members of the hierarchy who took no responsibility for these painful situations and kept silent. We ask forgiveness. • We ask forgiveness for those children who were taken away from their mothers and for all those times when so many single mothers who tried to find their children that had been taken away, or those children who tried to
Many people found the Penitential Rite at the opening of the Papal Mass in the Phoenix Park the most moving of all the discourses of the pope. It was clearly written as a result of his meeting with survivors of abuse, and reflected their painful conversation. Where did he find the time to write it during that packed Saturday? Probably either late on Saturday night or early on the Sunday morning, a time Pope Francis normally reserves for personal prayer.
find their mothers, were told that this was a mortal sin. It is not a mortal sin; it is the fourth commandment! We ask forgiveness.
• May the Lord preserve and
increase this sense of shame and repentance, and grant us the strength to ensure that it never happens again and that justice is done. Amen.
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NEWS
POPE MONITOR WORLD MEETING OF FAMILIES REDEMPTORIST DAY
Friday was a special Redemptorist Day which gathered people from Redemptorist churches in Limerick, Cork, Belfast, Dundalk, Dublin and Esker. The morning was spent at the RDS where they were free to attend the presentations and to soak up the atmosphere. In the afternoon, everyone gathered for Mass and a meal with the community of the Redemptorist Parish in Ballyfermot.
Redemptorist Mass in Ballyfermot Church
Part of the Redemptorist group at the Papal Mass
TWO BLUE SKODAS
During Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland, two blue Skoda ‘Rapid’ cars were used at various times to transfer the Holy Father during his intensive two-day programme in Dublin and Knock. Skoda was the official car partner to the World Meeting of Families 2018 and donated the cars to charity. One was given by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to Crosscare, the social care agency of the Archdiocese of Dublin, for use by staff in their Mater Dei homeless hub.The second was given to the Derrybased volunteer charity, Foyle Search and Rescue, on the recommendation of Archbishop Eamonn Martin of Armagh.
AUTUMN
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Saturday 6th October 10:30am-4:30pm Walking with Mary of the Scriptures Fr. Stephen Cummins
Cost €60
Saturday 13th October 10am-1pm Wellness morning Health, Stress Release, Awareness & Mindful Living Patrick Sheehan €25.00 Saturday 27th October 10:30am-4:30pm ‘Keep to yourself God!’ – having our house ransacked and laid bare. Fr. Joe Kavanagh Cost €60
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Saturday 3rd November 10:30am-4:30pm Healing our grief, transforming our loss and rising more strongly! Pat Sheehan Cost €60 Friday 30th November to Sunday December 2nd Waiting in mindful Hope (Advent weekend Retreat) Martina Lehane Sheehan Cost Res- €175 – Non/ Res €100
Wednesday 5th December 7:30pm-9pm Advent Evening of Reflection Sr. Peggy Cronin Cost €10/ Donation
For ongoing programmes please contact the Secretary or visit our website Tel: 021-4502520 Fax: 021-4502712 E-mail: ennismore@eircom.net www.ennismore.ie
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REDEMPTORIST SAINT OF THE MONTH BLESSED FRANCIS XAVIER SEELOS OCTOBER 5TH
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Francis Xavier Seelos was born in Fussen, in what was then the Kingdom of Bavaria, on January 11, 1819. He was always interested in becoming a priest and entered the diocesan seminary in Munich in September 1842, having recently graduated from the University of Munich. His stay in the seminary was short-lived, as in November he joined the Redemptorists. His interest in the Redemptorists was sparked by letters from Redemptorists, published in a local Catholic newspaper, describing their work in the United States.The Redemptorists accepted him on the understanding that he would join the Redemptorist mission in North America. Seelos travelled to the United States in 1843 – sailing from Le Havre to New York – and was ordained in Baltimore on December 22, 1844. He was to have a varied career as a Redemptorist. His first assignment was to St Philomena’s in Pittsburgh, where he stayed for nine years. He worked here with St John Neumann who introduced the young Fr Seelos to pastoral work and served as his confessor and spiritual director. Francis’ reputation as a confessor and preacher began to develop while he was at St Philomena’s. He was extraordinarily kind, and had a remarkable ability to empathise with people and understand the difficult circumstances of their lives. He ministered in German, English and French, chiefly to emigrant Catholics just arrived in America. He was appointed novice master while serving as pastor of St Philomena’s. He was transferred to Baltimore in 1854, where he combined the roles of pastor and prefect of students. The house of studies was in Cumberland in Maryland. Seelos was there when the American Civil War broke out and some battles were fought very close to Cumberland.The students were conscripted into the Union Army in 1863, and Fr Seelos went to Washington to seek an exemption for them, even arguing the case with President Abraham Lincoln.The president granted an exemption for the students. Seelos’ efforts at Americanising and softening the formation programme met with considerable resistance from his German brethren, and he was eventually removed from formation. It was said that he was too kind to have young Redemptorists entrusted to his care. The Bishop of Pittsburgh, Michael O’Connor, resigned in 1860 to enter the Jesuits, and proposed Fr Seelos as his successor. Fr Seelos wrote to Pope Pius IX asking not to be considered, and was relieved when somebody else was appointed. He spent the next six years as a member of an itinerant mission band, preaching parish missions all over the United States. His reputation as a preacher and a confessor grew during these years, and he continued his efforts to reach out to the poor and the marginalised. After a short period serving in a parish in Detroit, Fr Seelos was appointed pastor of St Mary of the Assumption Parish in New Orleans.The Redemptorists had three neighbouring parishes in New Orleans – one each for French, English and German speakers. Assumption was the German church. Fr Seelos’ ability to speak all three languages fitted him for this new assignment. He was only in New Orleans a short period when an epidemic of yellow fever broke out. Exhausted by their care of the sick and the dying, several Redemptorists, including Fr Seelos, contracted the fever. He died, after three weeks of intense suffering, on October 4, 1867, at the age of 48. He was beatified by St John Paul II in 2000. Seamus Enright CSsR. Fr Enright is the Rector of Mount St Alphonsus, Limerick.
Reality Volume 83. No. 8 October 2018 A Redemptorist Publication ISSN 0034-0960 Published by The Irish Redemptorists, Unit A6, Santry Business Park, Swords Road, Dublin 09 X651 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 Louise Hilton louise@atticadesign.co.uk General Manager Paul Copeland pcopeland@redcoms.org Sales & Marketing Claire Carmichael ccarmichael@redcoms.org Administration & Accounts Michelle McKeon mmckeon@redcoms.org Printed by Nicholson & Bass, Belfast Photo Credits Shutterstock REALITY SUBSCRIPTIONS Through a promoter (Ireland only) €20 or £18 Annual Subscription by post: Ireland €25 or £20 UK £30 Europe €40 Rest of the world €50 Please send all payments to: Redemptorist Communications, Unit A6, Santry Business Park, Swords Road, Dublin D09 X651 ADVERTISING
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NEWS
REFLECTIONS Christianity taught that men ought to be as chaste as pagans thought honest women ought to be; the contraceptive morality teaches that women need to be as little chaste as pagans thought men need be. ELIZABETH ANSCOMBE
You can’t marry an ungenerous man; there’s no joy in his soul. MAEVE BINCHY
All battles are fought by scared men who’d rather be someplace else. JOHN WAYNE
For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. I, like so many of you, have drawn great comfort in difficult times from Christ’s words and example.
There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind. FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Never be too hard on the man who can’t give up drink. It’s as hard to give up the drink as it is to raise the dead to life again. But both are possible and even easy for Our Lord. We have only to depend on him. VENERABLE MATT TALBOT
It is possible to argue that the true business of faith is not to produce emotional conviction in us, but to teach us to do without it. RONALD KNOX
Humour is the truth; wit is an exaggeration of the truth. STAN LAUREL
I prefer that homosexuals come to confession, that they stay close to the Lord, and that we pray all together.You can advise them to pray, show goodwill, show them the way, and accompany them along it.
Humility is absolutely necessary if man is to avoid acting like a baby all his life.To grow up means, in fact, to become humble, to throw away the illusion that I am at the centre of everything and that other people only exist to provide me with comfort and pleasure.
POPE FRANCIS
THOMAS MERTON
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
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Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world. ANTONIN SCALIA
Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts. CHARLES DICKENS
We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.
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DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
It is Christ himself, and not the Bible, who is the true word of God.The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to him.We must not use the Bible as a sort of encyclopaedia, out of which texts can be taken for use as weapons. CS LEWIS
Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. FLANNERY O’CONNOR
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NEW TITLE FROM REDEMPTORIST COMMUNICATIONS Redemptorist Communications and Veritas are very pleased to collaborate on Pope Francis: Follow His Call. Divided into four sections, this full-colour copublication examines a number of key topics – family; social justice; the environment; and the centrality of Mary to the Christian prayer tradition – that have all been particularly close to Pope Francis’ heart since he became pontiff. In language that is both engaging and accessible, Pope Francis: Follow His Call provides a clear-sighted account of Francis’ teachings. This inspiring resource also invites Christians to take up Pope Francis’ invitation to embrace their faith, to proclaim the Good News of the Gospels and to stand in solidarity with all those who feel hurt, lost or abandoned in the world today. A perfect resource to help prepare for Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland and 2018 World Meeting of Families. Also, an excellent book for personal reflection and as a parish resource for community prayer.
TO ORDER: Call: 00353 (0)1 4922 488 Email: sales@redcoms.org Website: www.redcoms.org
POPE FRANCIS: FOLLOW HIS CALL €8.95 (plus p&p)
TOGETHER WE PRAY
Prayer resource for family, school and community prayer Prayers to encourage and inspire. Prayers for life events. Prayers for children and adults.
Includes two candles. Light a candle, pray and reflect.
€9.95 (plus p&p) To order, contact Redemptorist Communications Telephone: 00353 (0)1 4922 488 Email: sales@redcoms.org www.redcoms.org REALITY OCTOBER 2018.indd 10
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L
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E D I TO R I A L UP FRONT BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR
REMEMBERING DERRY
1968
was a memorable year. It seemed as though a common vision for a more just and peaceful world had spread across the globe, but it was not without its opponents. In April, Martin Luther King Jr., the man with the dream, was assassinated. Opposition to the Vietnam War reached a crescendo in the United States when the Democratic Par ty candidate, Eugene McCarthy, mobilised the youth and student vote with the slogan ‘Keep Clean for Gene’, and persuaded them to abandon the unkempt look of their ‘Flower Power’ contemporaries. Robert Kennedy entered the campaign, and, although he appeared likely to emerge as victor, he was assassinated in June.The previous month, many European countries were rocked by student protest movements critical of the existing society. In France, for a time, it even looked set to bring down the government of General de Gaulle. For a young professor of theology called Joseph Ratzinger teaching in the German university of Tubingen, the student revolution seemed to have opened a Pandora’s box. He later wrote that “Marxist revolution kindled the whole university with its fervour, shaking it to its very foundations", and threatened a return to a totalitarian regime akin to the one against which his youth had been lived. The most memorable picture from Ireland of that eventful year is of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Northern Ireland’s armed police force, preventing a civil rights march from proceeding through the centre of Derry City on October 5. One of the marchers was a young teacher and credit union organiser called John Hume. When the marchers insisted on their right to march, the police retaliated violently, beating many of the marchers with batons. This was the first act of violence in what would become Northern Ireland’s Troubles, but it would not be the last. The Civil Rights movement had grown out
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of the Campaign for Social Justice, founded by a husband and wife, Conn and Patricia McCluskey. One of the things that prompted them was discrimination in the allocation of public authority housing which entailed discrimination in many Unionist-controlled councils against Catholic families, already suffering from long-term unemployment. A 24-year-old Stormont MP called Austin Currie, along with some others, occupied a house in Dungannon that had been allocated to the unmarried secretary of a Unionist politician ahead of families who had been on the housing list for years. It is not my intention here to trace in detail the history of the Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland, or to even attempt to explain how a nonviolent movement unintentionally created a vacuum in which Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries of various hues, sometimes with the connivance of the State and ill-judged political attempts to avoid essential social change, left 3,532 people dead and close on 50,000 injured in the 30 years between the Derry march and the Good Friday Agreement. The Golden Jubilee of the Derry March invites us to remember with sadness and horror the many who lost life or limb, often just by being innocent bystanders.The cliché ‘collateral damage’ drains it of the pain and horror that has been endured by the survivors and by the widows, orphans and other family members of the deceased. It is also a time to recall those who might justly be called the saints of the Troubles.There are many of them, of all faiths and none, of all ages and conditions of humanity. Gordon Wilson who lost his 20-year-old daughter Marie, a trainee nurse, when a bomb exploded during the 1987 Remembrance Day service in Enniskillen, expressed what lies deep in the heart of many of them. In a television interview, he said: “I bear no ill will. I bear
no grudge. Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life. She was a great wee lassie. She loved her profession. She was a pet. She's dead. She's in heaven and we shall meet again. I will pray for these men tonight and every night.” Finally we remember the ‘artisans of peace’ – those who persisted in keeping alive their dream of a society transformed by true justice. I think particularly of our Redemptorist brother, the late Fr Al Reid, kneeling in prayer over the bodies of two murdered British soldiers and whose blood stained the envelope containing the seeds of what would become the Good Friday Agreement he was bringing to John Hume. He was not alone in his quest for peace, but there were times when it seemed a solitary walk in a very dark night. One of his companions on the journey, the Reverend Harold Good, has recently written to the leaders of the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein. “I plead with you once more,” he writes, “listen not to predictable and tired old voices like mine, but to those from Omagh and to so many others from across our community who, out of their unspeakable suffering, have shown us in their own incontrovertible way how to face the challenges of the present and the future with dispassionate courage.” I am sure it is a sentiment Al would have been happy to add his name to. Let us hope that the 50th birthday present of the Derry March will be the recall of the Northern Assembly.
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Brendan McConvery CSsR
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C OV E R S TO R Y
PADRE PIO: A WOUNDED HEALER
THIS YEAR MARKS THE CENTENARY OF ONE OF THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY SPIRITUAL EVENTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY, THE IMPRINTING OF THE WOUNDS OF CHRIST ON THE BODY OF A YOUNG CAPUCHIN FRIAR IN A REMOTE MONASTERY IN THE SOUTH OF ITALY. THAT MONASTERY HAS BECOME ONE OF THE BIGGEST CENTRES OF PILGRIMAGE IN WESTERN EUROPE AS PEOPLE COME SEEKING SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL HEALING THROUGH THE PRAYERS OF THE HOLY MAN. FR MICHAEL CUSACK CSsR
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My
father passed to his eternal reward earlier this year on Wednesday, February 7. A few days before my dad died I asked him who his favourite saints were. Without any hesitation he said Saint Padre Pio. This 20th century saint inspired my father in his life’s faith journey and was invoked by him on his death bed. THE BOY FROM PIETRELCINA Who then is Padre Pio? On May 25, 1887 in the small Italian farming village of Pietrelcina, a son was born to Maria Giuseppa di Nunzio and Grazio Mario Forgione. The very next day, May 26, the baby was baptised in the church of St Mary of the Angels by the parish priest Don Nicolantonio Orlando, and given the name Francesco honouring the great St Francis of Assisi. Francesco would grow up to become one of the most widely known and loved priests of the 20thcentury. From very early on in his life the young Francesco showed great religious devotion and piety. He was different from the other children
Padre Pio as a young priest: the stigmata is clearly visible on his hands
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13 The wounds on his hands were normally covered by fingerless mittens. These were removed when he said Mass and the wounds in the hands were clearly visible
In order to pay for his education, his father Grazio joined the thousands of Italian emigrants to the United States in search of work. of the village. According to one of his spiritual directors, Fr Agostino, already at the age of five the young Francesco was experiencing ecstasies and apparitions and was wanting to consecrate himself to the Lord. In order to pay for his education, his father Grazio joined the thousands of Italian emigrants to the United States in search of work. It came as no surprise to family and
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neighbours when in January 1903 Francesco entered the novitiate of the friars of the Capuchin province of Foggia in Morcone, near the city of Benevento, about 50 kilometres north of Naples. One year later, gathered with his family and religious community, Francesco took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the Capuchin Franciscan community, and received the name of Brother Pio. Italian Capuchins at that time did not use their family name, but identified themselves by adding the town of their birth joined to their religious name by the Italian word da (from). Young Francesco would henceforth be known as Fra (Brother) Pio da Pietrelcina. When he was ordained priest on August 10, 1910 the Fra was changed to Padre (Father). The young priest had to battle with very
fragile health during his student years and in the years after ordination. For a time, he was unable to live the austere regime of a Capuchin friary, and spent some months in his family home at Pietrelcina. Italy entered the First World War against Germany and Austria. Young priests and seminarians were liable for military service. Pio was called up for military service in March 1915, and was assigned to a medical unit in Naples. This did nothing to improve his health. His frequent bouts of ill health meant that he was finally discharged in March 1918. THE MYSTIC For mere mortals like you and me it may be difficult to understand the deep and intense spiritual life of Saint Pio. Much has been written documenting various
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C OV E R S TO R Y
aspects of his life.These accounts of his life are truly amazing and speak of bilocation, of the aroma of sanctity, of the ability to see into the hearts and minds of penitents, of the mystical intensity of his prayer, of the transforming confessional encounters. Padre Pio happily and joyously united himself with Christ through the sufferings and torments of his own body and soul. Many of the features of Padre Pio’s life are beyond explanation in a rational or scientific sense and fall completely within the realm of faith.You either believe or you don’t.
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THE STIGMATA On Friday September 20, 1918, the life of the young priest was to change forever. He had said Mass early in the morning, and looking for a quiet place to make his prayers of thanksgiving, he went to the choir in the gallery overlooking the church where the community celebrated the Divine Office. In the quiet of the choir, Padre Pio knelt before the large crucifix and began to pray. Writing to his spiritual director later, he tried to describe what had happened to him that morning. It all happened in a flash. While all this was taking place, I saw before me a mysterious Person, similar to the one I had seen on August 5th, differing only because His hands, feet and side were dripping blood. The sight of Him frightened me: what I felt at that moment is indescribable. I thought I would die, and would have died if the Lord hadn’t intervened and strengthened my heart which was about to burst out of my chest. The Person disappeared and I became aware that my hands, feet and side were pierced and were dripping with blood. This was not the first time he had experienced the pain of these wounds while meditating on the Passion. This time, however, the wounds became visible and they dripped fresh blood, making
"I became aware that my hands, feet and side were pierced and were dripping with blood."
An old picture of the friary of San Giovanni as it would have appeared when Padre Pio first went to live there
Among the most popular relics of Padre Pio are the gloves that covered his hands.
it impossible to conceal them in the community where he lived with six or seven other friars, or as he went about the small friary church, saying Mass and hearing confessions. Word spread quickly about the stigmata, and soon thousands of pilgrims were seeking out the holy man of San Giovanni Rotondo.
TIMES OF TESTING The local bishop, Pasquale Gagliardi, did not believe Padre Pio’s alleged miracles, and he suggested that the Capuchins were making a display of him to gain financial advantage. An Italian priest psychologist, Agostino Gemelli, even described him as “an ignorant and self-mutilating psychopath who exploited people’s credulity”. When Pius XI was made pope in 1922, the Vatican became extremely doubtful. Padre Pio was forbidden to exercise his priesthood by saying Mass or hearing confessions in the monastery church for more than a year. At one stage, the Holy See issued statements denying that the events in Padre Pio’s life were due to any divine causes. He was subject to numerous investigations, with independent tests carried out on the wounds by medical experts Dr Luigi Romanelli, Professor Amico Bignami and Dr Giorgio Festa. All
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three doctors verified what they found and wrote clear accounts documenting this extraordinary phenomenon. In the 1930s, the tide began to turn. Pope Pius XI ordered the ban on Padre Pio’s public celebration of Mass to be lifted, saying, “I have not been badly disposed toward Padre Pio, but I have been badly informed.” In view of the number of sick pilgrims coming to San Giovanni Rotondo, Padre Pio proposed opening a hospital, to be named the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza or ‘Home to Relieve Suffering’. It was opened in 1956. In order that Padre Pio could directly oversee the project, Pope Pius XII in 1957 granted him a most extraordinary dispensation from his vow of poverty. Yet even still his critics were not content, and the hospital was another weapon to use against him as he was accused now of misappropriation of funds. THE GOOD WORK CONTINUES For most of his life, Padre Pio lived the daily life of a Capuchin friar. He followed the regular prayer life of the community, joined his brothers for meals and recreation, and by all accounts, was a pleasant companion who loved to hear news and who laughed easily. The little
Statue of Padre Pio in Southern Italy
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church was invariably packed for his daily Mass which took a long time to celebrate. At stated hours, he was available for confession, but so great were the crowds that tickets were issued for those who would be heard by Padre Pio himself, and the rest had to be content with another member of the community. The wounds were to remain on Padre Pio’s body for 50 years and only left his body in the days leading up to his death on Monday, September 23, 1968. Padre Pio is the only ordained priest in history to have received the stigmata. The first stigmatist, St Francis, was a deacon, not a priest. Devotion to St Pio is widespread throughout the world and particularly here in Ireland. Belief in the intercession
"an ignorant and selfmutilating psychopath who exploited people's credulity” of this good and holy man has restored faith to many. Demand for the relics of the saint is constant, and accounts of healing and blessings are widespread. Only last week I met a member of the Presbyterian Church who shared a wonderful story of the healing of his daughter following the blessing with the relics of St Pio. Every day that passes I hear another story about the powerful intercession of this great saint and indeed see the deep faith of the people of God especially in times of greatest need and crisis. Faith is all that is needed and this man certainly spoke with great conviction and belief in the powerful intercession of Saint Padre Pio. On this 100th anniversary of the gift of the stigmata in the body of Padre Pio it might be good for each of us to read a little about the life and spirituality of this great 20th century Capuchin priest and see the impact that one human being can have in our world. I would
TEN SAYINGS OF ST PIO 1. Jesus is with you even when you don’t feel His presence. He is never so close to you as He is during your spiritual battles. He is always there, close to you, encouraging you to fight your battle courageously. He is there to ward off the enemy’s blows so that you may not be hurt. 2. The storms that are raging around you will turn out to be for God’s glory, your own merit, and the good of many souls. 3. Every sacrifice which your soul makes, every good it does is directed to God for the sanctification of all. 4. Don’t be daunted by the cross. The surest test of love consists in suffering for the loved one, and if God suffered so much for love, the pain we suffer for Him becomes as lovable as love itself. 5. True and substantial devotion consists in serving God without experiencing any sensible consolation. This means serving and loving God for His own sake. 6. The greater your sufferings, the greater God’s love for you. 7. Pray, hope, and don’t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer. 8. My past, O Lord, to Your mercy; my present, to Your love; my future to Your providence. 9. Joy, with peace, is the sister of charity. Serve the Lord with laughter. 10. Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God’s heart. You must speak to Jesus not only with your lips, but with your heart. In fact on certain occasions you should only speak to Him with your heart
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C OV E R S TO R Y
Demand for the relics of the saint is constant, and accounts of healing and blessings are widespread. recommend Padre Pio – A Personal Portrait by Fr Francesco Napolitano. St Pio of Pietrelcina, pray for us. Father Michael Cusack CSsR is the Rector of St Joseph’s Redemptorist Monastery, Dundalk. He is a wellknown preacher and novena giver. He inherited a lively devotion to St Pio from his late father.
The House for the Relief of Suffering. Hospital founded by St Pio
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F E AT U R E
CONFRATERNITY MEN TO THE FIGHT! PART 2 WE CONTINUE THE STORY OF THE LIMERICK HOLY FAMILY CONFRATERNITY AND ITS PLACE IN THE LIFE OF THE CITY. BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR
By
the time of the celebration of the golden jubilee of their arrival in Limerick in 1903, the Redemptorists occupied an important place in the public life of the city. This high profile was due mainly to the influence of the Archconfraternity of the Holy Family. The number of men attending the weekly meetings was impressive. There were more than 5,000 men on the books of the confraternity in 1903, with an average attendance at the weekly meetings of 3,992. Membership was solidly working and lower middle classes. The weekly meetings on Monday and Tuesday evenings were predictable in format. The Rosary was followed by an instructional sermon of about half an hour in length, followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The Bona Mors (Happy Death) sodality of the Jesuit church in the Crescent catered for the spiritual needs of the professional classes, many of whom were their former pupils.
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The monthly Communion Mass: one Sunday of the month, the members received communion together at a special Mass. The sections were designated by coloured shields at the end of the seats. Also visible are the banners used in processions.
TAKING TO THE STREETS Special occasions were marked by public processions through the decorated streets of the city. The first of these was held to mark the jubilee of Pius
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The Confraternity Credit Union is now Sarsfield Credit Union. It can trace its origins to the Confraternity Bank established by Fr Creagh
IX’s consecration as bishop in 1877. In addition to the traditional banners, at the end of the procession came the figure of Pope Pius carried, as in Rome, on his chair of state, clad in his robes and wearing his triple crown. Around it were grouped flags and banners and close by walked the survivors of those who had gone in former years to fight for the temporal power of the Pope in the ranks of the Papal Zouaves (an international volunteer army that fought for the Pope against the forces of Italian unification from 1860-1870). The processional route included much of the city, and lasted several hours.The men said the Rosary and sang hymns, accompanied by local bands. Sometimes, the route went as far as the ruins of Mungret Abbey, about four miles from the city). Religious statues and other ornaments were included in the procession. Notable processions were held for the diamond
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jubilee of the Confraternity in 1928 and its centenary in 1968. THE ROLE OF THE DIRECTOR The director of the Limerick archconfraternity was, after the bishop, arguably the most prominent Catholic religious figure in the city. Individual parish priests may have been figures of significance, but their influence was confined to their own parishes. Each week, the director addressed two large meetings of the confraternity. No director could survive long without a gift for direct and colourful language that appealed to his members. Sermons, especially when they touched on controversial themes, were discussed in the pub on the way home from the meeting, or in the workplace the following day, ensuring that the director’s message reached more than his members alone. He visited the men when they were sick, or failed to show up for meetings; he attended their funerals, instructed them week after week on the duties of Catholic men towards God, their wives, their
Special occasions were marked by public processions through the decorated streets of the city.
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families and employers. Some directors tried to do more. Thomas Bridgett, founder and first director, founded a lending library in 1868 that continued in existence until 1882. The Belgian, Henri Bergmann, organised the first Irish pilgrimage to Knock less than a year after the apparition. His sermons were predominantly of an informative and educational nature. It was remembered that he only spoke about drunkenness (a common topic in Irish preaching) at the meetings before St Patrick’s Day and the Limerick Races. He was also the organiser of the first public procession described above. The ‘muscular’ Christianity they preached led some directors to assume the role of champions of the faith. Fr Daniel Tierney,
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for example, embarked on a public controversy in 1901with Dr J. J. Long, an Evangelical medical missionary working among the Limerick poor. Meeting the doctor in the street, Fr Tierney shouted to him to “go off to England and strive to convert some of its heathen inhabitants”. Dr Long replied with a dignified letter of protest, but Tierney’s antipathy to the medical mission smouldered on. Later that year, the annual regatta clashed with the meetings of the confraternity. Tierney denounced it the week before it was due to begin, and called on confraternity members to assemble the following Monday for a protest demonstration. He asked one group of men to assemble in the church and the other in the church yard to march to the regatta. The organisers, in an attempt at conciliation, wrote to the bishop of Limerick, Dr Edward O’Dwyer, apologising for mistiming the event. The bishop directed Tierney to call off his protest. Realising his error, Fr Tierney cancelled both the demonstration and the following night’s confraternity meeting, giving the men the chance to attend the regatta. He remained a popular figure. When he left Limerick the following year, he was presented with an address by the mayor, and the confraternity men took turns to draw the carriage carrying him to the station, accompanied by five bands.
To celebrate the centenary of the Confraternity in 1968, the Coliseum theatre was acquired as the Confraternity Theatre. It later became the Belltable Arts Centre. The name commemorates the Belgian founder of the Confraternity, Captain Henri Belletable
FR CREAGH AND THE JEWS The most notorious incident associated with the confraternity came two years later. Fr Tierney’s successor, John Creagh (1870–1945), preached a series of sermons in January 1904 denouncing the Jews of Limerick for money-lending and extortion. It resulted in a boycott of Jewish businesses in the city that lasted for several months. There were several isolated outbreaks of violence, and a number of Jewish families were forced to leave the city.
Confraternity Procession through the streets of Limerick
Fr John Creagh called for a boycott of Jewish businesses on the claim of excessive money lending
The director of the Limerick archconfraternity was, after the bishop, arguably the most prominent Catholic religious figure in the city. Fr Creagh has often been presented as a racist demagogue whipping up antiSemitic hatred. He was a relatively young and inexperienced priest when he was appointed. A native of Limerick, he had a gift for fiery language, youthful energy and genuine feeling for the lot of the poor. He first came to public prominence through a campaign against intemperance that he preached shortly after his appointment. He branded the publicans of the city as Judases: “Judas sold his master for thirty pieces of silver, and these publicans will sell souls, that Jesus Christ died to redeem, for the sake even of a pint of stout or a half-glass of whiskey.” He did not confine his campaign to the pulpit, but appeared before a committee investigating the problem of public drunkenness where he
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Fr Daniel Tierney denounced the Limerick Regatta in 1901 on the grounds that it clashed with a Confraternity meeting gave eloquent and detailed testimony from his experience of the effects of alcoholism on the lives of the poor. That there was a social problem of money-lending at high interest rates is not in doubt. Creagh’s error, and it is an appalling one, was to make a small immigrant community the scapegoat for it, and to feed his audience with the worst dross of anti-Semitic legend. This kind of anti-Semitic speech was undergoing something of a revival in parts of Europe, especially France, where Jews and Freemasons, often wrongly lumped together, were blamed for antiCatholic laws that saw the disbanding of religious congregations. Fr Creagh’s sense of social justice was not confined to pulpit denunciations; he also sought ways of addressing the social scourge of money-lending. He opened a shop that sold goods at low profit margins, and established a ‘confraternity bank’, a forerunner of the credit union movement. Social action of this kind was not normally associated with the role of the director. The campaign assumed national proportions.The Church of Ireland debated it at its synod. Public figures, like Michael Davitt and John Redmond, defended the Jewish community, while others, like Arthur Griffith, took Creagh’s part. Griffith, in his role as editor of the United Irishman newspaper, raised the spectre of an influx of Jews at the cost of emigration of the
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native Irish. Questions were asked in the House of Commons, with calls for Creagh’s prosecution. The affair petered out by the summer of 1904, but the Jewish community in the city had been dealt a blow from which it never recovered. ANOTHER ROLE It would be a mistake to imagine that all directors of the confraternity were cut from the same cloth as Tierney and Creagh. Their standing with the men of the city often gave them a role as mediators and peacemakers in industrial disputes. One director compiled a short directory in 1942 with a view to helping his successors. It included a list of people who held influential positions in the city, a large number of whom were in fact confraternity members. In the case of labour disputes, the president of the trades council was the best man to contact as he could provide an entry into the trade union and employer network. The local Garda sergeant and the superintendent were confraternity men, as were the local TDs from the three main political parties and the commandant of the army barracks. The confraternity bank that Fr Creagh founded in 1904 was the predecessor of the Confraternity Credit Union, founded in 1962. It soon became one of the largest in the country. With the growing decline of the confraternity, it changed
“Judas sold his master for thirty pieces of silver, and these publicans will sell souls, that Jesus Christ died to redeem, for the sake even of a pint of stout or a half-glass of whiskey.”
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its name and its common bond in 1979: membership no longer depended on confraternity membership and it was renamed as Sarsfield Credit Union Ltd. To commemorate the centenary of the confraternity, a former cinema/ theatre, the Coliseum, was acquired as the Confraternity Theatre. After a few years, it was purchased as the Belltable Arts Centre. Few who know it will realise that it owes its name to Captain Henri Belletable, a Belgian army engineer who founded the original branch of the confraternity in Liege in 1844. Brendan McConvery CSsR is editor of Reality. He is author of The Redemptorists in Ireland and of a guide book to Mount St Alphonsus Church, Limerick.
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BROTHER GERARD AND PADRE PIO – SOUL BROTHERS?
THISYEAR MARKS THE CENTENARY OF THE STIGMATA OF THE HUMBLE FRIAR, FRANCESCO FORGIONE, BETTER KNOWN AS PADRE PIO. GERARD MAJELLA WAS BORN MORE THAN 160 YEARS BEFORE PADRE PIO. THERE IS A SPIRITUAL KINSHIP THAT UNITES THEM, NOT LEAST THE WAY OF LIFE OF SIMPLE PEOPLE FROM THE SOUTH OF ITALY. BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR 22
It is a little
over a hundred kilometres (60 miles) from the birthplace of St Gerard Majella in Muro Lucano to that of Saint ‘Padre’ Pio in Pietrelcina. It is not much more (about 140 kilometres) between the sanctuaries of Materdomini and San Giovanni Rotondo where these holy men died, and which today hold their earthly remains. Not alone were they sons of the same patch of earth, they were also bound by a network of spiritual ties. SONS OF THE SAME SOIL Padre Pio’s birthplace, Pietrelcina, is in the province of Campania; Gerard’s in Muro Lucano is in the northern part of the province of Basilicata, where it joins Campania.The soil is fertile in both regions. It is, however, mountainous, as they are situated along the Appenine mountain range, the backbone of Italy.There are few large cities here; most of these lie along the coasts on either side.The two that figure most in the lives of Gerard and Pio are Naples and Foggia. Foggia is about 40 kilometres from San Giovanni. It
The birthplaces of Padre Pio and Brother Gerard is the same distance from the monastery of Diliceto where Gerard spent the largest part of his Redemptorist life. He used often go there on the community’s business. There was little industry in either town. Small tradesmen plied their crafts as builders, carpenters, blacksmiths, potters and the like. Gerard’s father was a tailor. Otherwise, the most common occupation of the people, like Pio’s family, was agriculture. Where the ground was relatively flat, crops of grain were planted; on the hillsides, vines and fruit-trees, especially figs and olives, grew. Work in the fields began before dawn and continued until the afternoon
heat forced the workers home for a meal and an afternoon nap or siesta. They had been up since 4 or 5am, and had already done eight hours or more of heavy work. If the summers were hot, winter in the hill country of the Appenines can be intensely cold, with frequent heavy falls of snow. In Gerard’s day, the harsh winters were often made worse by famine. This part of Italy stands on one of the most unstable parts of the earth’s crust, and earthquakes are common. THE CAPUCHIN CONNECTION The Capuchins began as a reform
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F E AT U R E
movement among the Franciscans around 1525, seeking to recover a more authentic lifestyle based on the literal interpretation of the poverty and asceticism of the original rule of St Francis. As well as living a penitential life, the friars preached missions with the accent on the simple communication of the Gospel. By Gerard’s time, there were more than 32,000 friars living in 1,715 monasteries. They were strong in central and southern Italy.The number of friars in each community was small –12 would have been the maximum, except in houses of formation. The buildings were simple, and usually some distance outside the town or village to encourage the contemplative life of the community. Padre Pio came to know the Capuchin way of life from the community in his native village of Pietralcina. The house of San Giovanni, where he spent most of his life until his death, was one of the earliest foundations of the Capuchin reform. It is a typical Capuchin friary – small and unpretentious, just outside the town, but close enough for people to come to the friars for confession and other spiritual help. Gerard’s hometown of Muro had its own Capuchin friary. He had a maternal uncle in the order, Father Bonaventure, who belonged to a community a little further away in the village of Santomenna. As a teenager, Gerard felt the call to religious life as a Capuchin and went to visit him, hoping to win support for his plans to enter the order. One look at the skinny boy convinced
St Gerard’s hometown: Muro Lucano
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St Pio
St Gerard Majella
The most common occupation of the people, like Pio’s family, was agriculture Bonaventure he would never survive the tough life of a Capuchin. “No, son, that is not God’s plan for you,” he told him, “but stay here for a couple of days and rest.” Then he brought him up to the monastery store room, and picked out a fine brown overcoat as a consolation prize. A day or two later, Gerard met a beggar. Having nothing to give him, he took off the overcoat and handed it to him. Fr Bonaventure was rather annoyed at how Gerard had treated
his gift. “Well, uncle,” replied Gerard, “I met a poor man who needed it more than I did. What was I supposed to do?” The Redemptorists are forever grateful that Padre Bonaventura left Gerard free to join the recently-founded Redemptorist congregation, even though the Redemptorist who accepted him sent a covering note to the superior that he was sending him “a useless brother”!
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POPULAR PIETY AND THE PASSION One of the hallmarks of Franciscan spirituality from its earliest days was its emphasis on the incarnate Christ, the Word become flesh. St Francis produced the first crib at Greccio in 1223. So intense was his contemplation of the Passion of Christ that his body was imprinted with the marks of the five wounds, the stigmata, at the hermitage of La Verna in 1224. This year we celebrate the centenary of the stigmata of Padre Pio. He received the wounds of Christ on his body on September 20, 1918, while
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making his thanksgiving after Mass. He was the first priest to be granted the stigmata (St Francis was a deacon). Devotion to the Passion remains a staple in the popular piety of southern Italy, and it was a formative influence on both Padre Pio and Gerard. One of the major celebrations of the year is the ‘Procession of the Dead Christ’ on the evening of Good Friday. A statue of the dead body of Jesus is borne through the streets, accompanied by a statue of his mother, clothed in a precious black robe with her
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Ecce Homo in papier-mâché made by Gerard
heart pierced by the sword of sorrow. Gerard volunteered to take the part of Jesus in a Passion play in Muro one year. So life-like was his performance that his mother fainted at the thought of it! Italian pictures and carvings of the Cross in the 18th century were often very realistic in depicting the sufferings of Christ, and devotion to the Passion gave a strongly penitential flavour to popular devotion. One could draw closer to Christ by imitating his sufferings. A feature of the Passion processions was ‘the discipline’, when some participants would whip their bodies with knotted cords in memory of the scourging of Christ. This penitential aspect had a strong attraction for Gerard, and it found expression in fasting, and the use of the discipline and other instruments of penance. Gerard spent the summer months of 1754 in the small Redemptorist house in Naples. He had little to do apart from keep house for himself and the one father in the community. There was a district in the city where craftsmen made popular religious images for sale. The cheapest kind were done in the material known as cartapesta or papier-mâché, made from paper soaked in water and stiffened with glue, moulded into an image, and when dry, painted with bright colours. One of the craftsmen was willing to teach Gerard the art. A few of his efforts have survived,
Crucifix in papier-mâché made by Gerard
This year we celebrate the centenary of the stigmata of Padre Pio. He received the wounds of Christ on his body on September 20, 1918 mostly of Passion images such as a crucifix or a bust of the suffering Christ, crowned with thorns, the Ecce Homo. MIRACLE WORKERS This region of Italy has a great respect for holy people and saints. Many, like Gerard and Padre Pio, were regarded as miracle workers even during their lifetime, a belief that often gained greater currency after their death. They were rooted in their world, and it was among simple people that their story was passed on in the first place. It was almost 150 years after his death before Gerard was canonised. In the intervening time, his story spread to other parts of the world as his Redemptorist congregation spread. Padre Pio was canonised just 34 years after his death. Thanks to modern communications, his story had spread worldwide in his lifetime. One unlikely source carried his story. American servicemen who had taken part in the liberation of Italy had attended his Mass. They were so overcome by the experience that they passed on the word to others; they became the first pilgrims to San Giovanni and spoke of the holy priest when they returned home. No matter how humble or hidden the saint tries to be, the witness of his life will be plain for all to see. Brendan McConvery CSsR is editor of Reality and author of St Gerard Majella: Rediscovering a Saint (Redemptorist Communications).
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THE CALL TO HOLINESS IN TODAY’S WORLD POPE FRANCIS REMINDS US OF THE SAYING BY A GREAT FRENCH CATHOLIC WRITER, LEON BLOY, THAT “THE ONLY GREAT TRAGEDY IN LIFE, IS NOT TO BECOME A SAINT”. CONTINUING OUR SERIES ON POPE FRANCIS’ GAUDETE ET EXSULTATE. MICHAEL DALEY
You
can learn a lot about someone by paying attention to who they quote in their speeches and writings. Pope Francis is no exception. In his first homily as pope, Francis quoted the French Catholic convert Leon Bloy. Echoing Bloy, who some have called the “gadfly of complacent Christian consciences”, Francis said: “If we do not confess Jesus Christ, nothing will avail. We will become a pitiful NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of Christ. When one does not walk, one stalls. When one does not build on solid rocks, what happens? What happens is what happens to children on the beach when they make sandcastles: everything collapses, it is without consistency. When one does not profess Jesus Christ – I recall the phrase of Leon Bloy – ‘Whoever does not pray to God, prays to the devil.’ When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil.” At first glance, Leon Bloy is an unlikely person to find papal affirmation. Following the example of his anticlerical, Voltairean freethinking father, during his youth Bloy developed a hatred for the Catholic Church and its teachings. However, a move to Paris in 1868 found him under the mentorship of the aged Catholic writer Barbey d’Aurevilly. There
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Leon Bloy: French Catholic Writer 1846-1917
"Saints are not without their flaws or questionable pasts" Bloy would discover his own vocation as a poet and novelist which would later lead to the revival of French Catholic literature at the beginning of the 20th century. There, also, after an obscure
mystical experience, he surprisingly and dramatically converted to Catholicism becoming in the process “a pilgrim of the Absolute”. This conversion was not met with worldly acclaim and financial success, but poverty and reliance upon the charity of others, even his so-called enemies, earning him the nickname “the ungrateful beggar”. Though he brought such significant converts as the philosophers Jacques and Raissa Maritain into the church, according to Douglas V. Steere, even the church “feared and mistrusted” him, “for he spared neither hammer or chisel on its infidelities”. Whether it be the church, himself, or those around him, Bloy had a great fear of mediocrity.
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LIFE’S TRAGEDY In his most recent apostolic letter Gaudete et Exsultate, Pope Francis again quotes Bloy, perhaps most famously, with the words, “The only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.” Francis goes on to say that “Each saint is a mission, planned by the Father to reflect and embody, at a specific moment in history, a certain aspect of the Gospel.” The key to this successful saintly mission is one’s union with Christ and the mysteries of his life. Here Pope Francis asks us to
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GA U D E T E E T E X S U LTAT E
According to Leon Bloy, “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.”
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consider how we can reproduce “in our own lives aspects of Jesus’ earthly life: his hidden life, his life in community, his closeness to the outcast, his poverty and other ways he showed his self-sacrificing love.” This seems to be a tall, if not impossible, order – to reproduce Christ in our lives. We may be tempted to say, figuratively and literally, “Lord, I’m not worthy. I’m not a saint, but a sinner.” Someone else who knows and admits his sinfulness is Pope Francis. In one of his first interviews as pope, Francis was asked to describe himself. His reply: “I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” In saying this, we open ourselves up to the person and ministry of Jesus through the church. As Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come not to call the righteous but sinners” (Mk 2:17). Saints are not without their flaws or questionable pasts. It is reassuring to see that the church doesn’t hide the faults and flaws of our role models in the faith. St Peter denied Jesus. St Augustine was a sex-crazed young man. Dorothy Day, someone on the way to sainthood, had an abortion when she was younger. Saints
not need to get caught up in details, for there we might also encounter mistakes and failures. Not everything a saint says is completely faithful to the Gospel; not everything he or she does is authentic or perfect. What we need to contemplate is the totality of their life, their entire journey of growth in holiness, the reflection of Jesus Christ that emerges when we grasp their overall meaning as a person.”
Dorothy Day (1897-1980) founded the Catholic Worker Movement. She wrote: "Those who cannot see Christ in the poor are atheists indeed."
were, first and foremost, human. Yet at some point in their lives, they were consumed with the desire to follow Christ more fully. In this regard, as Pope Francis has said before, “God is greater than sin.” With this in mind, Pope Francis offers these instructive words: “To recognise the word that the Lord wishes to speak to us through one of his saints, we do
BUILDING THE KINGDOM WITH CHRIST To say that life has a way of distracting us is rather redundant. Technology has not helped in this regard. The ‘rat race’ of life can easily have us lose our focus, forgetting, as Pope Francis reminds us, “that every moment can be an expression of self-sacrificing love in the Lord’s eyes. In this way, every minute of our lives can be a step along the path to growth in holiness.” A story may help in this regard. A man was walking in the countryside, far outside the city, in 12th-century France. Approaching him was a workman pushing a cart full of heavy of stones. When asked “What is this work that you are doing?” the workman complained bitterly. “I work from sunup to sundown. My family
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"Our identification with Christ and his will involves a commitment to build with him that kingdom of love, justice and universal peace." doesn’t appreciate what I do. And life’s a burden I can barely carry.” Later, a second workman approached, pushing a similar load of stones. When asked what he was doing, the workman replied, “I’m just working for the money, waiting for a better job to come along.” Somewhat deflated, the man saw a third workman approach. Hesitantly, he asked, “What are you working on?” With sweat glistening off his face, the workman smiled, gazed skyward toward the city, and proudly proclaimed, “I’m building the Cathedral of Chartres.” Purpose is everything. It can trans-
form not only our work, but its quality as well. With this in mind Pope Francis encourages us, stressing that our “identification with Christ and his will involves a commitment to build with him that kingdom of love, justice and universal peace. Christ himself wants to experience this with you, in all the effor ts and sacrifices that it entails, but also in all the joy and enrichment it brings. You cannot grow in holiness without committing yourself, body and soul, to giving your best to this endeavor.” In embracing the call to holiness through the building up of the kingdom
of God, the fullness of our humanity will emerge. Along with the communion of saints, Pope Francis declares, “Do not be afraid of holiness. It will take away none of your energy, vitality or joy. On the contrary, you will become what the Father had in mind when he created you, and you will be faithful to your deepest self.”
Mike Daley is a teacher and writer from Cincinnati, OH where he lives with his wife June and their three children. His books include Vatican II: Fifty Personal Stories (Orbis) and Our Catholic Symbols: A Rich Spiritual Heritage.
As a young woman, Dorothy Day had been a militant feminist and Communist
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An Inspiration f ON OCTOBER 14, POPE FRANCIS WILL CANONISE BLESSED PAUL VI AND BLESSED OSCAR ROMERO. BLESSED OSCAR WAS ASSASSINATED WHILE CELEBRATING MASS IN THE CHAPEL OF A HOSPITAL FOR THE TERMINALLY ILL IN EL SALVADOR. JOHN SCALLY
He
was a man of contradictions. He hated the spotlight. Yet he was a huge radio star. He disliked waffle. Yet his sermons lasted an hour. In his early years as a priest he was a deep conservative. He became known as a leading liberal. He was a local ‘shepherd to his flock’. He is an international celebrity. He was a man of deep and quiet prayer. Yet he exhorted people to become ‘microphones of God’. This month he becomes a saint.
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MAN WITH A MESSAGE Archbishop Oscar Romero was and remains a prophet for all seasons. Every Sunday people in El Salvador tuned into to hear him preach on his radio station YSAK, popularly known as ‘Radio Romero’. To the majority in that troubled country, the campesinos (ordinary people), he was a hero. To people who had almost nothing, he was a beacon of hope. In one of his homilies he said: “Even those on the margins of society, those living in poverty, humiliation and torture are experiencing this heaven and this hope. If they should die, it is only the vessel of clay that is broken, but a brilliant light illumines all their lives.” As with most of his homilies that one was greeted with sustained applause. The distinguished theologian Jon Sobrino S.J. said of Romero’s preaching that it was “an unprecedented ecclesial and social phenomenon… the powerful orator uttering the courageous liberating words that met his people’s needs”. Romero reacted against the twin
El Salvador is on the Pacific coast of Central America
Blessed Oscar Romero 1917-1980
evils of El Salvador society: poverty and violence. Every day he travelled across the country he loved so well, a state the size of Wales, and encountered horrific tales of torture, disappearance and gruesome assassinations. In March 1977 after the brutal murder of his dear friend, the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande, and two campesinos by government-sponsored militias, Romero cancelled all Masses in the country and called all the faithful to gather as one in front of San Salvador’s cathedral. In his homily Romero said: “Anyone who attacks one of my priests attacks me.”
HOPE IN THE FACE OF DEATH Two weeks later he was back presiding over the funeral of another friend lost because of state-sponsored violence. Again Romero struck a note of hope and defiance: “This cathedral, unfortunately accustomed to gathering up the victims of bloodshed and assault, beholds the smallness of a person when enclosed within the four walls of a coffin. But no matter how small we seem, the Church keeps her faith-filled eyes fixed on eternity.” In sermon after sermon Romero denounced the state’s injustice and oppression. He knew that ultimately he was signing his own warrant. In July 1979 he pleaded with the lay people in the church to take up the mantle of witness. Moreover, if his enemies in the nation’s authorities killed him and all his priests, the people must take his place. I have always been a big admirer of people who loved until it hurt. One stands out for me. On March 24, 1980
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for all Seasons the Archbishop of San Salvador was reading the Gospel: “The hour is coming for the son of man to be glorified… unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains only a grain. But if it dies it bears much fruit” (John 12: 23). Only minutes before a bullet from an assassin’s rifle tore through his chest, Oscar Romero preached on the Gospel he had just read. “Whoever, out of love of Christ, gives himself to the service of others, will live like the grain of wheat that dies and only apparently dies. If it did not die, it would remain alone. Only in giving ourselves totally, can we produce a harvest.” At his funeral in the square in front of the cathedral, smoke bombs exploded on the streets around, followed by rifle shots from surrounding buildings. Many people were killed by gunfire and in the stampede of people running away. Government sources reported 31 casualties, while journalists recorded that between 30 and 50 died. There were many reasons to believe the government was responsible. BACK TO BEGINNINGS I believe that such sacrificial love is needed if peace and justice is ever to reign in our troubled world. Even before he started to study for the priesthood the young Oscar Romero had a keen interest in faith and culture. After his ordination, he was appointed to a pastoral ministry in a society where the majority went hungry while a minority lived in privilege.
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Riots during funeral of Archbishop Romero
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Romero cancelled all Masses in the country and called all the faithful to gather as one in front of San Salvador’s cathedral. A key influence was the spirit of aggiornamento (updating) of the Second Vatican Council. However, the biggest influence on his thought was the irruption of the poor into his consciousness. He was also inspired by the famous Medellin Conference in 1968 which strongly highlighted the essential link between salvation and liberation. In the chapel where he was shot, in the Divina Providencia cancer hospital where Romero lived a very simple life while he was archbishop, his death is commemorated. His murder while celebrating Mass is recorded over the
spot where he fell with the words: En este altar Mons A Romero ofrendo su vida a dios por su pueblo (On this altar Mons Oscar A Romero offered his life to God for his people). Every Sunday he preached to his people that the Christian message is one of justice and reconciliation. Romero believed it was not enough to talk the talk. Christians must walk the walk. As he was a major thorn in the political and economic establishment Romero made powerful enemies. Ultimately he paid the highest price with the loss of his own life for fearlessly preaching this Gospel. His words still have a great challenge: Helping the poor is like motherhood and apple pie. Nobody could object to it. The problem is that everybody is for it in principle, but for how many does it translate into practical action? The litmus test for our worship of this new child will not be the number of nice phrases we trot out but by how we live. This is a challenge that we must confront individually and
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St John Paul praying at the tomb of Oscar Romero
ROMERO AND BONHOEFFER Like Pope Francis Oscar Romero reminds all Christians that working with people at the margins brings us back to our roots – to live up to our Christian calling and become disciples. Historically Romero has always been linked with liberation theology and it is easy to see from his comments in his sermons why this is the case. However, I think that Romero also inhabits another strand of the Christian tradition – specifically that embodied in the theology and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We do not know definitively how much Romero was influenced by Bonhoeffer. It is noteworthy though that in the summer
"Only in giving ourselves totally, can we produce a harvest."
PHOTO: T Taylor
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collectively. Institutions like religious congregations who incorporate phrases like ‘preferential optional for the poor’ into their constitutions must be ever vigilant that they practice what they preach. Those five words are very easy to say but much more difficult to live by. Christian love means that in the intermingling of faith and life we want to be attentive to where God is today. In responding to the needs of society we are striving to witness to Christ and to reveal His love to struggling people.
Twentieth century martyrs, Westminster Abbey: Mother Elizabeth (Russia), Martin Luther King (USA), Oscar Romero (El Salvador), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Germany)
of 1998 Westminster Abbey decided to fill ten empty niches with statutes of outstanding Christian martyrs of the 20th century and Bonhoeffer and Romero were placed side by side. Bonhoeffer was a fascinating man and in light of the increasingly high-profile debate surrounding secularisation in the world, that has seen people like Richard Dawkins, Cristopher Hitchens and even Stephen Fry speak out ever more loudly against the church, his work is of particular
significance. It was not until 1943 that the Gestapo traced the large monetary sums that Bonhoeffer had been using to aid Jews escape from Germany, and in 1944 he was moved to the Gestapo prison camp in Berlin and would later be executed on April 9, 1945 in Flossenburg concentration camp, just two weeks before the Allied forces liberated the camp and three weeks before Hitler’s suicide. Shortly before his execution Bonhoeffer famously said: “God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Only the suffering God can help… Man is summoned to share in God’s sufferings at the hands of a godless world.” Those challenging words could have come straight from one of Romero’s homilies. Perhaps Bonhoffer’s most enduring legacy today is his distinction between ‘cheap grace’ and ‘costly grace’. Cheap grace leads us to go to Mass on a Sunday and give the odd donation to charity. Costly grace though is heroic because it demands that we are willing to put our comfortable lifestyles on the line for our faith and ultimately be willing to give our lives for what we believe. How many of us are willing to do this? Oscar Romero was. That is why he rightly will become a saint this month. Saint Benedict distinguished between the service of God and worship of God. In the theology of Thomas Aquinas and in the life of Oscar Romero we find that service, worship and mission coincide. In a world where there is much talk about self-affirmation and self-fulfilment, Romero clearly demonstrate that the priority is union with God through selftranscendence. To become our true selves we must become selfless. John Scally teaches theology at Trinity College, Dublin. He has a special interest in the areas of ethics and history.
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P R AY I N G W I T H T H E R O S A R Y - FO U R T H LU M I N O U S M Y S T E R Y
Transfiguration THE
PETER, AWAITING HIS OWN EXECUTION, DESCRIBES WHAT HAPPENED ON THE MOUNTAIN WITH JESUS. You might find it helpful to keep your Bible handy and to mark the places that describe this event: Mt 17:1f; Mk 9:3f; Lk 9:18-28f; 2 Peter 1:16-18
FR GEORGE WADDING CSsR
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I
have left a record of this incredible experience elsewhere, but no matter how often I try to describe it, the appropriate words never come to me. Even at the time, James and John and myself never really understood what we were witnessing nor why. It was only when we subsequently tried to make sense of Jesus’ terrible death and glorious resurrection that we began to get a handle on the mountain-top experience. And if I am to share that experience with you now, you will have to be patient with me. WHO DO YOU THINK I AM? So to begin, I must take you back a week or so before the event itself. One day Jesus was praying in a corner on his own. The twelve of us were close by but we kept a respectful silence. “Well,” said Jesus, puncturing the silence, “have you been listening to the people? What are they saying about me? Who do they think I am?” I sensed a little loneliness or frustration in the question.
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Transfiguration by Bellini (c 1487)
“Some think you are John the Baptist come back from the dead,” one of us suggested. “Yes,” said another, “I was talking to one of the palace servants and he told me that that’s what King Herod believes.” We laughed at the foolishness of it – sure weren’t Jesus and the Baptist contemporaries! “A good number of people think you might be the prophet Elijah. Isn’t he or Moses or another one of the prophets supposed to come back to earth before the Messiah comes?” That was certainly more plausible. But Jesus did not respond. Then he suddenly took us off guard…
“And what about yourselves – what do you think?” I had seen and heard a lot over the past two years. If anyone could liberate our people from Roman oppression, it was Jesus. He had shown himself Lord of life and death, of wind and wave. I blurted out: “You are surely the Messiah of God!” The Lord became all solemn.“Bless you, Simon Bar Jonah. My Father has just spoken through you.” It was then he called me his rock on which he would build his church; he would give me the keys of his Kingdom and said that heaven would stand over any decisions I might make on earth. I was chuffed though I had no clear idea what all this meant.Was I
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The Lord’s words had sparked a small flame of ambition in me, which he would quickly douse going to be a governor in his Kingdom, or a commander or Tribune in his army? I knew nothing of either role. I was just a fisherman. Still, the Lord’s words had sparked a small flame of ambition in me, which he would quickly douse. But first, he warned us to tell no one that he was the Messiah. Then he sat us down and began teaching us that the “Son of Man” would suffer and be rejected by the religious authorities; they would kill him and after three days he would rise again. We heard him and we didn’t hear him. And here’s me, acting like I was a great general or something, “No one will touch you while I’m around. It just won’t happen.” Jesus took me aside and told me off. “You’re talking Satan talk now, Peter, not God talk.” I was chastened. From hero to zero I fell in the blink of an eye!
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CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN Days later I was still trying to make sense of it all when we were passing near Mount Hermon (or was it Mount Tabor – I can’t recall). As he often did, Jesus climbed the mountain to spend some time in prayer. I know God is everywhere but, humanly speaking, the higher up you go, the nearer you feel to God. He invited James and John and me to join him which we readily did. It was on the top of Sinai that God spoke to Moses, our great lawgiver, and God spoke there again to Elijah, our great prophet. I tried to pray but I was still distracted by Jesus’ recent prophecy. Soon my eyes began to close. Did I sleep? Or was it a sort of trance, or an ecstasy? Suddenly the whole setting changed. The mountaintop was enshrouded in a luminous white light and the shekinah, the presence of God, was all around us. We had to shield our eyes against the inaccessible brightness of the Master’s clothes while his face shone like the sun. I understood why, after speaking with God, Moses had
absorbed some of the intense brightness of God and, to avoid dazzling the people, had to veil his face until the lustre faded. Now here was Moses himself and Elijah speaking with our Master, the Messiah they had foretold. Our entire history was being confirmed before our eyes on the mountain-top. They spoke of Jesus’ “passover” but our minds were unable to comprehend the significance of what was being said and they would remain dull until after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Then they were opened to the truth, and we realised that Jesus’ passover was his passing over from death to life, from Calvary to the empty tomb. Though God’s sensible presence was all around us, as I said, the final act in the unfolding drama was when the cloud that accompanied our people on their exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land descended on the mountain
and enveloped us. It was frightening.Then God’s voice came startlingly clear from the cloud,“This is my Son whom I love. Listen to him.” It was like being transported to Mount Sinai where Moses received his revelation. On that occasion, the voice from the cloud stamped the divine authority on the Law. Here, at Jesus’ transfiguration, the voice from the cloud stamped God’s authority on the words, the life, the death and resurrection of God’s Son, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was not merely one of the prophets; he far surpassed them in authority and power.The heavenly voice confirmed for me what I had confessed about a week before, that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. ONLY JESUS And then it was all over. We emerged slowly from our stupor.The cloud was gone, the luminous light was gone, Moses and Elijah were gone. Only Jesus stood there alone, just as we knew him. We were all confused. We knew we had witnessed an extraordinary
We realised that Jesus’ passover was his passing over from death to life, from Calvary to the empty tomb.
Fresco of Elijah – Basilica of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor
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revelation. We should honour it somehow – but how? I recalled what God said to Moses after giving him the Law: “Have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.”That’s it. We would build three similar commemorative tabernacles or tents, one each for Moses, Elijah and Jesus. However, that thought was not of God; it evaporated as quickly as it was conceived. On the way down from the mountain, once again Jesus told us to tell no one about what we had witnessed until after his resurrection. I wondered why not? Only much later I realised that if the crowd got a hint of what we had seen, Jesus in his glory, they would rush to crown him king and military ruler – just as, eight days earlier, I had done when I protested that I would fight for him and not let him suffer. Like us, the people must first discover that the model for Jesus’ Messiahship was Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, not the military descendent of King David. There was one piece of unfinished business which we simply had to ask Jesus. So we did. “The Scribes tell us that Elijah must come again before the Messiah. Is that true?” “Yes,” he replied “In fact, Elijah has already come and they have mistreated and murdered him, as they will do with the Messiah himself.” (We knew then he was referring to John the Baptist. How could one sum up what happened on the mountain-top? It was a statement that Jesus, even in his earthly existence, was the glorious Son of Man – a truth we would only truly grasp after his passion and resurrection. It was a revelation that glory follows the passion, a truth that was valid not only for Jesus but for all of us in the years that followed, and especially now for me as I lie in my prison cell awaiting my own crucifixion.
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Icon of the Transfiguration (Anon)
Fr George Wadding CSsR is a member of the Redemptorist Community at Dun Mhuire, Griffith Avenue, Dublin. His most recent book is Praying with St Gerard, the Family Saint (Redemptorist Communications). Fresco of Moses – Basilica of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor
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IN TUNE WITH THE LITURGY: A SERIES THAT HIGHLIGHTS ASPECTS OF THE CHURCH’S WORSHIP
Welcoming the Child ARE CHILDREN ALWAYS WELCOME IN YOUR CHURCH, OR DO THE MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION SHOW, EVEN BY A LOOK OR A GESTURE, THAT THEY THINK THEM A NUISANCE? SARAH ADAMS
All
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are welcome! This opening verse of Marty Haugen’s gathering song, ‘All are Welcome’, is visionary. Indeed, the whole song is visionary for it expresses a hope, a dream, of what our Christian community might aspire to be, a place where truly all can gather and know that they belong. As I sing these words, I too am filled with that hope, but it is tinged with some degree of sadness because in truth we often fall far short of this idealised vision. In particular, I think of the many families who do not feel welcome, who if anything feel alienated from their community of faith, simply because children are involved. If we have never had children, we might find it hard to appreciate just how hard it can be for parents to bring their children to church. At the same time we wonder where our young people are, where the families have gone but far less often do we stop to wonder if we have played a part in their absence, perhaps unwittingly. HALLMARK OF HOSPITALITY Within the Christian community, the quality of our welcome has always been seen to be the hallmark of our hospitality, our commitment to be open and receptive to the wider world. We want to embrace the newcomer, the stranger, the outcast, and the downtrodden, but do we forget that our welcome is meant to go far beyond ‘hello’ or a smile and the handing
out of a hymn book or newsletter? When we come to Mass on Sunday, we do so because we have been called to gather as the community of Christ, where together we recognise one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Because we are baptised in Christ, we are equal in the eyes of God. This equality allows us to welcome one another, so why should parents feel anxious about what their
there (in the back!) wiggling around and distracting everyone, and subjecting ourselves to the judgment of a large number of people who might not understand how hard it actually is to teach a toddler to sit quietly for 45 minutes. Still, we button up our wrinkled Sunday clothes anyway, and get our bodies under that roof, just like Mother Church asks us to. Often, I
Why should parents feel anxious about what their children might or might not do which will be frowned upon by others? children might or might not do which will be frowned upon by others? If Mass for me on Sunday is my private affair and only to do with my personal relationship with God, I am not going to be very happy if my peace and quiet is disturbed by noisy children or toddlers running around the church. If I cannot hear what ‘Father’ is saying, the child who is causing the disruption is going to irritate me endlessly. Why should my Mass be interrupted by the presence of children? The problem with this attitude is that it leads parents to despair and they either give up going to church or they persevere, despite the battle as expressed in this comment by one mother: In spite of it all, every week, I and my loud, chaotic family are going to be
leave Mass feeling like the whole thing was a disaster. I didn’t even manage to follow along, and I left so fast I forgot to genuflect. What kind of a Catholic am I? SEEN AND NOT HEARD? Years ago children were expected to sit still, keep quiet and not be heard when adults were present, and that wasn’t only in church. If they couldn’t be quiet, they were not expected to be there at all. Considering and responding to the needs of children is a challenge, but it is also an opportunity to recognise the innate contribution they make to our lives and our communities. Sadly, the message that children receive is often negative: “You are
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“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” (Mark 10:14)
welcome as long as you don’t expect to join in with anything, or expect to see anything, or be able to understand anything.” Is part of the adult struggle to accept children in church that we do not see ourselves as a community that takes responsibility, not just for welcoming the child but seeing children and their families as our own to be nurtured and treasured? This is the central message of the baptism of children. When a new member arrives in a particular society, that society welcomes them into its group. A baby is no different. Rarely would family and friends not want to celebrate the arrival of a baby and rejoice at the birth.Within the Catholic community, this is celebrated when parents seek baptism for their child. If the parents are regular church-goers, this is a natural process.When the parents of a child are not regular church-goers, for whatever reason, asking for baptism may be seen more as a reason for a social event than a meaningful rite of initiation.This is not a reason to not baptise a baby.The issues are more complex and need to be addressed with some care and sensitivity, always with a belief that God works in and through every experience.
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BAPTISM OR CONSCRIPTION? Infant baptism reflects God’s relationship with humanity – that is the total free giving of God’s action in our life, God’s choice for us, God’s acceptance of us.The imagery and metaphors within the rite for infant baptism are all about the womb and giving birth. It is about showering the baby with gifts that have come from God.This child is a gift to the community given by God and to be cherished by the community. When the community takes this responsibility seriously, its commitment can be an enormous source of strength to all those involved in this new beginning for the child.This is not always an option for the community. Ideally, baptism should take place on Sunday in the presence of the whole community; it is not meant to be a private affair for family only. As a child of God, the infant has a right to the love and help of the community. When we celebrate a sacrament in the community it is an action of the whole community – not simply the minister. Eventually the child becomes a toddler, unable to sit still, but can we forget that they are ours, and frown or tut, despite
parents doing their utmost to maintain some sense of order? Over recent years a number of our churches have really tried to think about how as communities we see our children as equal in the eyes of God. Some have a special Liturgy of the Word for children. In this time away with catechists they are helped at their own level to understand the Gospel of the day.They are encouraged to express their own response to Jesus speaking to them. This kind of catechism gives them a rich and meaningful experience which allows them to participate and feel valued.This is important for their own spiritual growth and their relationship with God. Safeguarding of children has rightly become a priority in our churches. Their well-being must be paramount. If this is to be truly understood in all its depth, how we look after their spiritual well-being is just as essential. Getting cross, resenting a child’s presence and getting irritated with parents who appear to have ‘no discipline’ is to make a judgement which flies in the face of the Gospel. Parents who bring their children to church and perhaps struggle through Mass, trying to keep them from distracting others, are just like the poor widow in the Gospel, putting two small coins in the treasury. Like her, they are giving their all, just by doing their best, just being at Mass. It may not seem much to those of us on the outside. We might even question why they bother if all they are doing is engaging in toddler damage limitation, but the effort that they are making is seen by Christ and recognised for all its worth. When we welcome the child, we grow as a community of hospitality open to the needs of others and especially the most vulnerable in our society.
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Sarah Adams studied liturgical theology at Maynooth. After ten years in Devon she has recently moved to Bath to take up a new role as a school lay chaplain.
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FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS CARMEL WYNNE
LEARNING TO BE PAIN-FREE
A CHANCE DISCOVERY OF THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE MEANT THE END OF A TIME OF INTENSE PAIN. MANY CASES OF CHRONIC PAIN RESPOND TO SIMPLE PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPIES THAT KEEP PEOPLE ACTIVE AND ABLE TO CONTINUE THEIR WORK. Isn’t it strange how the words of a song can play in your mind, mirroring how you feel? Words from the hymn God’s Spirit is in my Heart keep repeating in my mind. First it was “Tell prisoners that they are free”, then “Go tell everyone”. I was celebrating a new lease of life, feeling pain-free for the first time in many years. Walking without difficulty was a joy. Any sufferer of chronic back, knee or neck pain will know what it’s like to feel like a prisoner, a captive to the pain that interferes with the quality of your life. Others are also affected by what you can’t do; going places together stops being an option because it’s hilly, or there are too many steps, or the ground is uneven. Our favourite restaurant had a steep stairs and no lift, so a meal there was out of the question. Going upstairs was hard and coming downstairs was agonising. “Downtrodden” is a good word to describe how I felt on a bad day when my right knee was really painful and I wished I lived in a bungalow. A friend suggested that a five-day intensive course of Alexander treatments in a North Dublin retreat house might help alleviate my pain. It did far more than I could ever have expected. I left pain-free with my knee problem resolved.
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On the third day the course facilitator brought me to a stairs and asked me to go up and down the way I normally did. The maladjustment of my turned-in knee and foot was pointed out and once I was taught the correct placement the pain was gone. Before the course, I wouldn’t have believed that participants, people with no medical training, could point out the obvious twisted placement that my doctor had missed and which was the reason for my excruciating pain. My first inclination was to phone my family and all my friends, to tell everyone that I knew how to be pain-free. My second was to wait and see what happened over the coming weeks, as that state seemed too good to last. Happily it has lasted. I’m not sure if treatment is the correct term to use about the Alexander Technique. Part of the course involved education about getting the head balanced and allowing the spine and muscles to work as nature intended. Participants learned how to stand and sit and move, so that the spine lengthened, the shoulders widened and the neck, wrists, knees and ankles felt loose and free. The Alexander Technique is used throughout the world to increase awareness of one’s
body posture and educate people to change the harmful and unconscious habitual postural patterns that too often are the underlying cause of painful problems. It was shocking to learn that we shouldn’t be standing up ramrod straight to avoid slouching, as we were taught as children. Watch a three-year-old child to see the ideal body posture. There comes a point in all our lives when it is wise to examine information we have accepted in good faith and believed to be true. There is no denying that the recent saga of scandals and cover-ups in the medical profession and religious institutions have eroded the trust that ordinary people once had in doctors, priests and other experts they trusted to have superior knowledge. Having access to the internet allows people to find up-to-date information on therapies that can be helpful. Take for example information on back pain.You’ll find that the world’s leading experts in lower back pain have established that patients are being mistreated and let down by outmoded methods of care. A series of papers led by a team of international researchers in scientific medical journal The Lancet looked at the best treatments for back pain. They found that doctors frequently tell people with back pain to
do the exact opposite of what they should do! The series highlighted that more aggressive treatments for lower back pain have little proven benefit and have the potential to make things significantly worse for patients. Rest is one of the worst approaches and opioids offer uncertain benefits and carry substantial risk of addiction. Series author Professor Rochelle Buchbinder, Monash University, Australia said, “The majority of cases of low back pain respond to simple physical and psychological therapies that keep people active and enable them to stay at work. Often however it is more aggressive treatments of dubious benefit that are promoted.” I was blessed to discover that misalignment of my body more than advancing years contributed to my knee problem. I understand how emotional pain can result from faulty perception. I learned that physical pain may result from faulty posture and the good news is that it’s never too late to readjust to a new way of walking, or a change of perception.
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Carmel Wynne is a life coach, cross-professional supervisor and author based in Dublin. For more information go to www.carmelwynne.org
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DEVELOPMENT IN ACTION
TRÓCAIRE IMPROVES LIVES OF 2.8 MILLION PEOPLE THANKS TO €12M RISE IN INCOME THANKS TO THE LENTEN CAMPAIGN WHICH TOUCHES MANY HOMES 38 AND SCHOOLS, AND THE NATIONAL CHURCH COLLECTION,TRÓCAIRE IS ABLE TO RESPOND TO EMERGENCY APPEALS AND TO SUSTAIN PROGRAMMES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.
Trócaire’s
income jumped significantly – by €12m – in the 2017/18 financial year, marking the second-highest level achieved in the 45-year history of the organisation. Income grew by 19 per cent with the increase in funding allowing the organisation to assist 2.8 million people in the developing world last year. The organisation’s newly released Annual Report records an income of €75m last year, €29.1m of which came from public donations and €45.8m of which came from institutional grants. Both public donations and institutional grants rose significantly, from €22.2m and €40.1m respectively. The Lenten campaign remains Trócaire’s largest fundraising campaign, generating
€8.7m, while an emergency appeal for drought and conflict crises in east Africa resulted in €5m being raised from a national church collection. Trócaire’s reach increased in numerous countries. For example: • 192,800 people in Somalia provided with healthcare and food support • 75,000 people in east Africa supported through the food emergency • 60,100 people in Malawi were supported to increase food production • 28,000 people in Pakistan received support to combat gender-based violence “It was a year of incredible generosity
“It was a year of incredible generosity from the Irish public, parishes, clergy and schools” from the Irish public, parishes, clergy and schools,” said Éamonn Meehan, Trócaire executive director. “A total of €29.1m was donated. That was underlined by donations of €8.7m to our Lenten Appeal, an increase of €1.3m from 2016. These donations are the lifeblood of our work. “I want to thank our supporters around the country for their generosity that allowed Trócaire to reach 2.8 million
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Villagers in Nyamagabe, Rwanda celebrate the achievement of their kitchen gardens. Photo: Alan Whelan.
people last year. That support helps to build a more fair and just world. That is the core of our work and, ultimately, it is the measure by which we judge ourselves.” While donations to Trócaire continue to make a real difference to the lives of people in over 20 countries in the developing world, Éamonn Meehan warned that worsening climate change is pushing many people into poverty. “Climate change continues to worsen the situation facing millions of the world’s poorest people. Droughts, storms and other erratic weather events push people into poverty and have a devastating impact on communities. The response from the world’s highest polluting countries, including Ireland, has
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“Populism has led to a growing disregard for human rights” been weak. A much stronger response is needed by those who contribute most to this global crisis.” Although the boost in income led to increased support for people living with poverty and injustice, Trócaire’s staff and partners in certain areas have been forced to work against a worrying trend of civil-society organisations being denied the freedom to operate and speak freely. “Populism has led to a growing disregard for human rights,” said Meehan. “The
freedom and space for civil society organisations to operate is tightening in many countries. This should be a concern for everybody. Like a free press, a free civil society is fundamental to democracy. “Our par tners operate in countries where human rights activists live with daily threats of violence against them as a result of standing up in suppor t of communities at risk. Trócaire works with incredibly brave people who risk their lives to defend people’s land and homes. Last year alone, over 300 human rights defenders around the world lost their lives.”
To see Trócaire’s Annual Report 2017/18 visit www.trocaire.org/about/finances
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UNDER THE MICROSCOPE With the autumn, time for reading returns
The Twelve Steps and the Sacraments, a Catholic journey through Recovery
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By Scott Weeman Paperback. 192 pages. Ave Maria Press, 2017. Price: $15.95 (£9.61) ISBN: 978-1-59471-725-3
At the age of 17, American Scott Weeman celebrated the sacrament of Confirmation. The same year, he began his descent into addiction, nine years of ever-deepening wreckage and loss of self. The Twelve Steps and the Sacraments is Scott’s account of his addiction and life in recovery. Weeman’s book, with a foreward by the Catholic Bishop of San Diego, Robert W. McElroy, lays out in twelve chapters the steps to recovery used in Twelve-Step groups and communities throughout the world. Scott’s recovery was also enhanced by his return to his church, to its sacraments and its spirituality. The book connects Steps 1-3 – admitting
to being out of control, coming to rely on a power greater than self, and seeking to live by the daily invitation of a gracious and loving God – with the Sacrament of Baptism. For Steps 4 through 9 – where the recovering addict faces up to the past damage, admits wrongs, examines his/her life, and faces up to self-sabotage and harmful behaviour, all assisted by the Twelve-Step community and a surrender to his/her Higher Power/God – the book associates this journey with the experience of celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Steps 10 and 11 – often referred to as the daily maintenance steps, involving daily honesty with self, and some action to maintain one’s surrender to and relationship with a caring God – the book relates to the experience of the Eucharist. Finally Step 12 – which stresses that recovery requires service to other suffering addicts – Scott links to the understanding of the sacrament of Confirmation. Each chapter ends with two further elements: ‘Let us Pray’, a prayer which captures the focus of the chapter, and ‘Going Further’, which comprises a series of reflection questions. Scott writes the book for addicts of whatever kind, and for anyone who does not identify as an addict but desires a fuller spiritual experience in life. This book is not the story of a ‘holy Joe’. It captures well the darkness, isolation, shame and
denial of addiction. It makes very accessible the courageous journey into recovery. It expresses in everyday language what it is like to be befriended by others in recovery, and ultimately, for Scott, to find a God of his understanding, who cares for him and wants the best for him and his life. One of the strengths of this book is Scott’s description of his
It expresses in everyday language what it is like to be befriended by others in recovery, and ultimately, for Scott, to find a God of his understanding, who cares for him and wants the best for him and his life. developing relationship with a Higher Power whom he comes to call God. This moves from a sense of God as “a distant reality” for whom he believed he needed to get into shape before approaching “like getting into shape before heading to the gym”, to a deep sense of being cared for and befriended. Scott captures the many faces of the addictive prison and the
challenges he faced in working the Steps. He speaks of the journey from isolation and despair to hope, from blame to taking responsibility, from avoidance to relationships, from self-centredness to generosity and a life beyond his wildest dreams. There is no dogmatism in this book. One of the jewels of the book is a fine description of the many expressions of prayer and obstacles to prayer. Scott’s description of how the sacraments have deepened his recovery is offered in a non-defensive, open manner. This aspect of the book may have a more limited appeal for many in recovery. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Scott Weeman’s book to anyone engaged in Twelve-Step recovery, or to those seeking a deeper spirituality for life. Within the Twelve-Step Community there is a wise saying: “Take what you like and leave the rest”, which encourages people to avail of whatever is good and not get hung up on what is problematic for them. Reading with this saying in one’s back pocket should help readers to appreciate the many, many gems contained in this fine work, and leave aside what does not resonate, at least for now! Fr Brendan O’Rourke CSsR is native of Wexford. Wellknown as a therapist and retreat-giver, he is Rector of the Redemptorist Community in Esker, Co Galway.
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EIGHTH CENTURY IRISH LITANY TO THE VIRGIN MARY
O Great Mary, Mary, greatest of Marys, Most great of women, Queen of the angels, Mistress of the heavens, Woman full and replete with the grace of the Holy Spirit, Blessed and most blessed, Mother of eternal glory, Mother of the heavenly and earthly Church, Mother of love and indulgence, Mother of the golden light, Honour of the sky, Harbinger of peace, Gate of heaven, Golden casket, Couch of love and mercy, Temple of the Divinity, Beauty of virgins, Mistress of the tribes, Fountain of the gardens, Cleansing of sins, Washing of souls, Mother of orphans, Breast of the infants, Refuge of the wretched, Star of the sea, Handmaid of God, Mother of Christ, Abode of the Godhead, Graceful as the dove,
Serene like the moon, Resplendent like the sun, Destruction of Eve’s disgrace, Regeneration of life, Perfection of women, Chief of the virgins, Garden enclosed, Fountain sealed, Mother of God, Perpetual Virgin, Holy Virgin, Prudent Virgin, Serene Virgin, Chaste Virgin, Temple of the Living God, Throne of the Eternal King, Sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, Virgin of the root of Jesse, Cedar of Mount Lebanon, Cypress of Mount Sion, Crimson rose in the land of Jacob, Fruitful like the olive, Blooming like the palm, Glorious son-bearer, Light of Nazareth, Glory of Jerusalem, Beauty of the world, Noblest born of the Christian people, Queen of life, Ladder of Heaven,
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Hear the petition of the poor; spurn not the wounds and the groans of the miserable.
This ancient prayer to Our Lady is in the Leabhar Breac (Irish Academy Dublin)
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COMMENT REALITY BITES PETER McVERRY SJ
A SOCIETY IN NEED OF REHABILITATION?
THE PLIGHT OF PRISONERS RETURNING TO THE COMMUNITY WITH LITTLE OR NO ARRANGEMENTS MADE FOR THEIR WELL-BEING
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In England, a young Irish man, serving a five-year prison sentence, wrote to me in November last. He was looking forward to his release the following February. He told me that his accommodation on release had already been organised, a place on a training course had been arranged, two weeks of welfare payments would be waiting for him at the prison gate and, of course, his physical and mental health needs would be provided, free of charge, by the National Health Service. In Ireland, a young man was recently released from prison after serving a five-year sentence for a random knife assault on a stranger on the street. This young man spent most of his sentence in the Central Mental Hospital, a secure hospital for offenders with serious mental health problems. Some weeks before his date of release, the doctors in the hospital agreed that he should not yet be released back into the community. They sought a place for him in a secure ward in a psychiatric hospital to which he would be transferred when his sentence expired. However, no hospital in Ireland would take him. The Dublin hospitals refused to accept responsibility for him as he was originally from the west of Ireland. The hospitals in the west of Ireland refused to accept responsibility for him as he had been
living (homeless or in prison) in Dublin for the past ten or 12 years. This young man was released onto the streets, homeless, no accommodation provided for him and with nothing to do all day long except to walk the streets. He believes, rightly or wrongly, that his offence was due to the fact that he had stopped taking his mental health medication. The reason he had stopped was that he was waiting for his medical card, and until that was
If this young man re-offends, society will judge him as a recidivist criminal, unwilling to accept the rehabilitation efforts that have been offered him! approved, his doctor told him he would have to buy his medication privately, which he was unable to afford on his welfare payments. On release, he again had no medical card, and his doctor told him that, while waiting for his medical card, he would have to buy his
medication privately. If this young man re-offends, society will judge him as a recidivist criminal, unwilling to accept the rehabilitation efforts that have been offered him! Perhaps it is society that needs rehabilitation. While in prison, he had his accommodation, food, education, training and all his medical needs looked after. However, on release, his accommodation becomes the responsibility of the local authority, his medical needs become the responsibility of the Health Service Executive, and his welfare payments become the responsibility of the Department of Social Protection. All are working independently of each other, in their own silos. For example, to get a welfare payment, he will be asked to produce a birth certificate, but he cannot afford a birth certificate until he gets a welfare payment! On one of my visits to a prison, I met with 20 young prisoners. Nineteen of them were known to me to have grown up with either alcoholic or drug-using parents. As a 13-year old, one of them used sit in the kitchen every night watching both his parents injecting heroin. Another 12year old had to go into town every day before he went to school and buy the heroin his mother used. On release, most of these offenders will return to a home where
addiction is the norm, or they will be accommodated in a homeless hostel, where addiction is also the norm. On another visit, I met with
As a 13-year old, one of them used sit in the kitchen every night watching both his parents injecting heroin. nine adult prisoners. Six of them were known to me to have been abused as children, and had never received counselling or other supports. They used drugs to help them cope with their experience, had to rob to pay for their drugs, and ended up in jail. They too will be released back into the community without their childhood traumas being addressed and most will inevitably return to drugs to help them cope. Most young people actually do grow out of crime. The reason they give is that they have fallen in love or they have a child and, for the first time in their life, they now have a reason not to go to jail. If we addressed young people’s traumas, and gave them the possibility of a better future – a reason to change - we might be able to close some of our prisons.
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Breaking the word in October 2018
OCT 6-11:
MIDLETON, CORK Laurence Gallagher CSsR, Derek Meskell CSsR & Helena Connelly
OCT 13-21:
CARRICK-ON-SHANNON, CO. LEITRIM (Kiltoghert Parish); Johnny Doherty, C.Ss.R. & Fodhla McGrane
OCT 8-16:
ST GERARD MAJELLA NOVENA Mount St Alphonsus Limerick. Seamus Enright CSsR & Margie Kennedy
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OCT 13-21:
KINLOUGH & GLENADE, CO. LEITRIM
OCT 20-27:
RATHMORE, KERRY Denis Luddy CSsr & Kieran Brady CSsR
OCT 27- Nov. 4:
ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL, BELFAST Johnny Doherty, C.Ss.R. & Brendan Keane, C.Ss.R.
Team: Brendan Keane, C.Ss.R. & Ciaran O’Callaghan, C.Ss.R.
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COMMENT WITH EYES WIDE OPEN JIM DEEDS
FOR A HEAVENLY CHISEL
LIKE A SCULPTOR, GOD TAKES THE CHISEL TO US, STRIVING TO RELEASE THE IMAGE HIDDEN DEEP INSIDE.
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I love sculptures. As I walk or drive past them, I sometimes stop and spend time looking at and touching these great works of art. I am in awe, too, of the skills of sculptors. Whether they work in metal, wood or in other media, their deftness of touch and the creativity of producing a sculpture is something special. I have heard sculptors over the years speaking about their craft. One thing I hear, time and again, is a sculptor saying something like, “When I look at the piece of raw metal/wood in front of me, I know that the image of the sculpture is inside there. My job is to find it and to release it.” Wow! I love that. The sculptor sees the art and the image of the completed article right from the start. Others would only see a lump of wood or a chunk of metal – perhaps seeing it as useless or ugly. The sculptor knows that their job is to cut away the excess pieces that take away from the true form of the sculpture. With saw, hammer and chisel, with blow torch and anvil, they cut away, melt, mould and reshape what seems to be formless and they reveal what was already hidden inside of it – and when they do this, what they reveal to the world is good. I believe in the inherent worth of all people. I believe that inside of each of us dwells a Spirit of beauty and of goodness. I know that a lot of us do
not feel that about ourselves some of the time. I also know that a lot of us do not feel that about other people a lot of the time. Still, I believe it to be true. And I invite you to consider this as true, too. Yet, I also believe it to be true that we all can do with a bit of sculpting as we grow through this life. At times, this may be because we have become a bit formless – we may feel lost or out of shape with our selves, not knowing who we really are or where we are going in life. Other times, we may have become a shape that is not our
or with metal, the process of sculpting the person can create heat, sparks or splinters. It can feel like a difficult task. It can even feel a bit like losing at the start. Committing to the sculpting of ourselves means that we are committing to letting go of parts of us that, while unnecessary in the long run, might have become part of how we live our lives. We can hold on to them as a kind of safety blanket and letting them go can be a challenge. This is serious stuff. But our consolation can be found in the words that Jesus spoke so often: “Be not
I believe that inside of each of us dwells a Spirit of beauty and of goodness. true, good and beautiful selves. We may have become angry, or bitter, or frustrated. We may have become hateful, in fact. Perhaps, as we grow, we never fully become that beautiful and perfect creature we are at our very core. The ‘me’ that we are in the world is always in need of sculpting. And that is not such a bad thing. It is what it is: a constant invitation to allow a chisel to sculpt us and shape us as we grow up and grow older. Our simple ‘yes’ to this reality and our consent to allowing a sculpting to occur will bring us on a journey of constant self-discovery and re-discovery. Like working with wood
afraid”. The reality is that there is a beautiful image within us just waiting to be revealed! Pause here for a minute – particularly if you are having difficulty believing that you are truly beautiful inside and out. Pause now and consider that within you, just waiting to be revealed, and being revealed in this very moment, is a beautiful work of art – and that work of art is you! We can find our sculpting in a variety of places. I’ll list a few and invite you to consider where you might find your sculpting: • Spiritual direction (meeting monthly with a wise person
• • • • • • •
who allows us to reflect on where God has been active in our life) Silent reflective prayer Reading Scripture Celebrating liturgy Making and learning from mistakes Advice and love from family Reflecting on the beauty of nature Reading good books
It is in these moments that we encounter the heavenly chisel cutting away the parts of us that are excessive, unnecessary and counter-productive. It is in these moments that we meet the Sculptor; the Sculptor of all life. I am a work in progress. I have edges and corners that need rounding. I have spots of ugliness hiding the beauty within. I have habits and patterns that are unproductive and unhealthy. I have flaws – boy do I have flaws. I know, however, that God the sculptor always sees the beauty of the real image hidden in the lump in front of him. I am a work of art, being revealed as I travel through life. Heavenly chisel, do your work! Jim Deeds is a husband and father living in the wounded and wonderful city of Belfast. He is a poet, author, pastoral worker and retreat-giver working across Ireland, always with eyes wide open for the presence of God in everyday life.
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GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH WHAT GOD HAS JOINED TOGETHER, HUMAN POWER MUST NOT SEPARATE There are three little 27TH SUNDAY IN units in today’s Gospel – a ORDINARY TIME response to the Pharisees’ question about divorce, a private teaching on the same topic to the disciples “back in the house”, and an attractive scene of Jesus blessing the children. Divorce was one of the areas in which Jesus rejected the received wisdom of the Judaism of his time.The Torah permitted divorce: Deuteronomy 24:1 was the basic text permitting it. It reads “suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house.”The Pharisees debated the correct
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HE WENT AWAY SAD, FOR HE WAS A MAN OF GREAT WEALTH
Today’s Gospel has two distinct parts: the story of Jesus meeting a prospective disciple, and a conversation with those who are already his disciples. They are bound together by the theme of wealth and possessions. The story of Jesus meeting the man who wants to know how to inherit eternal life is common to all three synoptic gospels.They make some slight changes: Matthew describes him as a young man, while Luke makes him
28TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Hoffmann: Christ and the Rich Young Man
interpretation of “because she does not please him because she finds something objectionable about her”.The stricter school of thought, led by Shamai, stressed the importance of the words “something objectionable”, and insisted only very serious grounds justified divorce.The more liberal school under Hillel, on the basis of the words “because she does not please him”, held that divorce might be justified by relatively minor matters like the wife turning out to be a poor cook, or she was ageing, and he had his eye on a younger and more attractive model.The Pharisees clearly wanted Jesus to come down in favour of one or other, but he refuses to take that path. By pointing out that the commandment to become “one flesh” goes back to the creation story of Genesis, it has higher authority than the verse from Deuteronomy that comes at a later stage in Jewish history. He presses the point still further: divorce was granted by Moses (not God!) as a concession to their ancestor’s
“hardness of heart”. By invoking the creation story, he is rejecting the teaching of both Hillel and Shamai and setting himself apart from them. The debate continues “back in the house”. This phrase usually signals that Jesus continues to teach his church after the Resurrection. As it moved into the wider world, the Christian community still had to deal with the question of divorce but in a new cultural setting. We see this in the question of whether women can divorce their husbands. According to Jewish law, only men could initiate divorce. Elsewhere, women had the legal right to divorce.The explanation of Jesus’ original saying here leaves no doubt that divorce proceedings initiated by a woman are every bit as forbidden as those initiated by men.
a “ruler” and Mark says that he is a person of great wealth.The man is respectful but urgent: he “ran up” and “knelt before Jesus”. He addresses him respectfully as “good teacher”. All this seems to suggest this will be an encounter with life-changing consequences. Observance of the commandments in Judaism was associated with life (Deut 30:16). The man replies that he has kept the commandments from his youth – in other words, he is Torah observant.The narrative takes a new turn at v 21:“and Jesus looking upon him loved him.”This is the only place outside of the Gospel of John where it is specifically said that Jesus loved someone (in John, Martha, Mary and Lazarus 11:5, his disciples 13:1, one specific disciple is known as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” – 13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21: 2, 7, 20).The dialogue now turns into a call story. Someone who is apparently wealthy must begin the way of discipleship by abandoning his property to become part of Jesus’ intimate circle. It is at this hurdle that the man falls as he has great wealth and “he went
away sorrowful”. The story leads on to a set of further sayings from Jesus about wealth and possessions addressed to those who are already disciples, and their questioning of him.Verses 23-25 about how wealth conflicts with the kingdom culminate in the saying about the camel passing through the eye of a needle. Jesus’ attitude to riches is radical. Humanly speaking, it may be impossible to enter the kingdom if one is as laden down with wealth as a pack-camel, but it is God who makes it possible.This in turn draws from Peter the observation that he and his companions have left all things for Jesus. He assures them that they will be repaid in the kingdom. “Not without persecutions” is a reference to the reality that the followers of Jesus will be required to endure persecution and to give witness in the age of tribulation.
Today’s Readings Gen 2:7, 8, 18-24; Ps 128; Heb 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16
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Today’s Readings Wis 7:7-11; Ps 90; Heb 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30
God’s Word continues on page 46
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GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH
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James and John
FRONT SEATS IN THE KINGDOM? In today’s gospel, a very human story of two ambitious brothers turns 29TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME into a challenging teaching about power and leadership. Jesus’ disciples did not all come from exactly the same social background. Sometimes social distinctions are more marked in country villages than they might be in big cities. At least four of Jesus’ disciples are fishermen from the Sea of Galilee. The Gospel accounts, however, hint at some differences. Are Simon and Andrew, for example, casting their nets from the shore or a rocky outcrop because they cannot afford a boat?
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Old man Zebedee not only has at least one boat, but in addition to two rugged sons has a crew to work it. Do James and John consider themselves socially a cut above the rest when they approach Jesus to ask for the two best seats in the new Messianic kingdom they believe lies ahead? Sometimes money gives people a sense of entitlement unmatched by their natural talents or their wisdom. Jesus replies that two tests lie ahead – can they drink the cup of suffering he is to drink and be baptised, immersed, in the waters of death as he will be? They reply that they can, but Jesus still refuses to guarantee a particular place in the kingdom. That will depend on the Father’s judgment of who is most entitled to them. The other disciples are furious at the
brothers’ attempt to gain an advantage over them, and an unseemly squabble ensues. Jesus tries to calm things once more, reminding them that the future kingdom will not be run on earthly lines. In an ear thly kingdom, or a blue-chip modern company, getting on depends on being able to advance your own case, keeping your credentials updated, letting everyone know the contents of your CV. In the community of Jesus, what counts is readiness to become the servant of all, to take the last place, in companionship with the one who gave his life as a ransom for many. Today’s Readings Isa 53:4, 10-11; Ps 33; Heb 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45
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THE REALITY CROSSWORD
NUMBER 8, OCTOBER 2018 OCTOBER
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30TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
THE BLIND MAN WHO FOLLOWED Jericho marks the last stage of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the Cross. Jericho is more than 800 feet below sea-level and Jerusalem is 2,500 feet above, so a stiff climb over a distance of 15 miles lies ahead of them. As they leave the town of Jericho behind, a blind beggar calls out for help. People who receive healing from Jesus in the gospels are usually anonymous.The exceptions are Peter’s mother-in-law (but we don’t know her proper name), Lazarus who was raised from the dead (John 11) and the man in today’s story. He is called Bartimaeus (‘the son of Timeaus’) just as Jesus would have been known to his neighbours in Nazareth as Bar Yoseph (‘the son of Joseph’). Beggars were nobodies.They could claim no rights for themselves. Often their economic need was compounded by physical disability, in this case blindness. He has heard that it is Jesus who is passing, and cries out for pity, addressing him in the messianic title, Son of David. Despite the efforts to silence him, he refuses to be cowed. No one will stop him when he decides he needs to be heard. When Jesus calls him, he responds eagerly, throwing off his cloak, jumping up and asking for what he wants: to have his sight restored. Mark has two cures of blindness stories, one at the beginning of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the other at its end. The first is unusual of all the healing stories of the Gospel, for the cure seems only partly successful, and needs to be repeated. In the story of Bartimaeus, it is instantly successful and the man “follows him along the road”, that is, he becomes a disciple. Mark is using the symbol of blindness to convey to his readers how blind disciples of Jesus really are, and preparing the reader for their failure to follow him to the cross. The poet Robbie Burns once prayed “O would some power the giftie gie [give] us, to see ourselves as others see us.” Seeing ourselves as we are is not such a small gift, but it is an uncomfortable one! Catching a glimpse of myself behaving badly is enough to make me turn away and look at something else, preferably someone else’s mistakes! The last journey to Jerusalem was a crash course in discipleship. Most of what Jesus taught the disciples about replacing ambition with service, about imitating the poverty and humility of a child rather than the power-grabbing of the tyrant, went over their heads. The one who became the model of discipleship was the blind beggar who followed him along the road. Today’s Readings Jer 31:7-9; Ps 126; Heb 5:1-6; Mark 10:46b-52
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SOLUTIONS CROSSWORD No. 5 Across: 1. Attila, 5.Vacant, 10. Pandora, 11. Neptune, 12. Hour, 13. Midas, 15. Limp, 17. Owl, 19. Teeter, 21. Pathos, 22. Rainbow, 23. Norway, 25. Enamel, 28. Sly, 30. Nosy, 31. Sleet, 32. Fret, 35. Earshot, 36. Riddles, 37. Smears, 38. Samson. Down: 2. Tonsure, 3. Idol, 4. Adagio, 5.Venial, 6. Ceps, 7. Nourish, 8. Upshot, 9. Tempts, 14. Dwindle, 16. Feral, 18. Pawns, 20. Ray, 21. Poe, 23. Nantes, 24. Rostrum, 26. Morello, 27. Latest, 28. Sloths, 29.Yearns, 33. Rhea, 34. Adam.
Winner of Crossword No. 6 Nancy Clarke, Ballina, Co Mayo.
Across 1. Bible book comprised of religious verses. (6) 5. Apostle who travelled to India. (6) 10. A formal speech on a ceremonial occasion. (7) 11. Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes. (7) 12. The strong taste of a Chinese dynasty. (4) 13. The wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac. (5) 15. The third son of Adam and Eve. (4) 17. Careless, not strict or severe. (3) 19. A grain used for food. (6) 21. Make something less tight. (6) 22. Apostle who was a tax collector. (7) 23. Mace is the other spice derived from this tree. (6) 25. Take a brief or hurried look. (6) 28. Container for the Covenant. (3) 30. A persistent dull pain. (4) 31. Enclosed area used for public entertainment. (5) 32. Deep wide ditch around a castle. (4) 35. Custodian of a museum or other collection. (7) 36. Pretty and kind like a messenger from God. (7) 37. Turn upside down. (6) 38. Deriving pleasure from inflicting suffering on others. (6)
Down 2. Tool for nuts and bolts. (7) 3. A place where a wild animal lives. (4) 4. Light shoe with an openwork upper. (6) 5. The part of the body between the neck and abdomen. (6) 6. Leave out. (4) 7. Slow-growing flowering shrubs. (7) 8. Relating to the Christian Church which was started in Egypt. (6) 9. Tiny plants which form a crust on rocks. (6) 14. Evangelical belief in the transport to Heaven of believers after the Second Coming. (7) 16. The greater Apostle. (5) 18. Large loose hood forming part of a monk's habit. (5) 20. Fall behind on the Internet. (3) 21. From the knee to the ankle. (3) 23. A subtle difference in meaning. (6) 24. The capital of Iran. (7) 26. Very thin, long strips of pasta eating in soup or with a sauce. (7) 27. Tempt by offering pleasure or advantage. (6) 28. Turkish mountain associated with Noah's Ark. (6) 29. Works flour into dough. (6) 33. An inflamed swelling on the edge of an eyelid. (4) 34. Very old. (4)
Entry Form for Crossword No. 8 October 2018 Name: Address: Telephone:
All entries must reach us by October 31 2018
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. 8, Redemptorist Communications, Unit A6, Santry Business Park, Swords Road, Dublin 09 X651
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