Reality March 2016

ST PATRICK WHAT SUSTAINED HIS FAITH?

MEDJUGORJE A FESTIVAL THAT CHANGES ATTITUDE

SYRIA IN DIFFICULT TIMES, STORIES OF HOPE

Informing, Inspiring, Challenging Today’s Catholic

MARCH 2016

RESTORING HOLY WEEK

CHANGES TO HOW WE CELEBRATE HOLY WEEK IN 1956 BROUGHT FRESH UNDERSTANDING TO THIS GREAT WEEK

A TIMELESS WAY TO EXPERIENCE GOD

UNDERSTANDING THE SYMBOLS OF THE EASTER VIGIL

1916 - THE GOLDEN JUBILEE OF OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP

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Year of Mercy

Let the Church be a place of Mercy and Hope, Where Everyone is Welcomed, Loved and Forgiven Pope Francis

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IN THIS MONTH’S ISSUE FEATURES 12 RESTORING HOLY WEEK IN 1956 In 1956, Holy Week ceremonies changed to give us a fresh understanding of the Passion

By Fr Patrick Jones

15 LENTEN PASSION REFLECTION Looking at the Passion Narratives that preserve the memory of Jesus’ sufferings

By Fr Anthony O'Leary CP

18 A TIMELESS WAY TO EXPERIENCE GOD Familiar symbols take on a new life in the Easter Vigil

By Fr John Schmidt CSsR

22 QUESTIONS TO JESUS: “WHO IS THE GREATEST?”

12 12-20

By Mike Daley

25 1916 – THE GOLDEN JUBILEE OF OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP As we mark 150 years of the Icon in Ireland this year, we look back at its 5oth anniversary in 1916

By Eóin Mac Néill

28 THE FATHER OF GEOLOGY BLESSED NIELS STENSEN The Danish Lutheran-turned Catholic who started life as a student of anatomy

By Susan Gatley

30 LETTER FROM THE NOVICIATE A report from the International Redemptorist Noviciate in Toronto

By Ryan Holovalsky

34 PASSIONATE IMAGES CINEMA AND THE PASSION

By Paul Clogher

37 SYRIA: HOPE IN THE DARKNESS Stories of courage and dedication

By Noelle Fitzpatrick

40 YOUNG SPIRITS SOAR AT MEDJUGORJE YOUTH FESTIVAL The festival that challenges and renews the faith of many young people

By Anne Keeling

34

37

OPINION

REGULARS

11 BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

04 REALITY BITES

21 DAVID O'DONOGHUE

07 POPE MONITOR

33 CARMEL WYNNE

08 FEAST OF THE MONTH

43 PETER McVERRY SJ

09 REFLECTIONS 44 UNDER THE MICROSCOPE 45 GOD’S WORD

REALITY BITES THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH IN DUBLIN? DUBLIN

4

A GROWING CONCERN

A study commissioned by the Council of Priests of the Archdiocese of Dublin has attempted to look into the future and its view is bleak.

The study was conducted by an international company that advises clients on human resources in planning for the future. Among other findings, the report estimates Mass attendance could be expected to decline further from its present level by a further 47% by 2030.

Figures for Sunday practise between 2008 and 2014, showed a decline of 20%, and the report projects a further decrease by 33% between 2014 and 2030. It predicts that a decline of 61% in the number of full-time priests is likely in the same period. As of June, 2014, there were 110 priest-religious and 276 diocesan priests under the age of 75 (estimated as retirement age) in the service of Dublin diocese (i.e. 386 in total). There are an additional 14 religious and 19 diocesan priests between 75 and 80 who are

still in service. The report estimates that catering for the requirements of the estimated number of Mass goers in 2030 would require 246 full-time priests. A realistic assessment of the number of priests available, based on current trends in recruitment, suggests that shortfall of more than one hundred is likely, increasing to 130 if the religious orders relinquish their parishes.

While marriages celebrated in church are likely to decline by about 4% a year, funerals and baptisms will probably remain stable (the report cites the argument alleged by some religious correspondents that parents are having their children baptised to ensure school enrolment).

The report’s proposals include recruiting priests from elsewhere (from other Irish dioceses or from overseas), greater use of lay people, allowing priests to concentrate essentially on liturgical ministry and make it attractive for older priests to continue in some form of part-time ministry.

IS PARIS THE FUTURE? A delegation of priests from the Diocese of Limerick travelled last month to visit the diocese of Evry-Corbeil-Essonne, one of the seven dioceses of the Paris region, to see how the church there is dealing with the crisis of vocations. A total of 28 of the churches in this diocese are served by just five priests. Faced with collapsing numbers of priests, the diocese began some twenty years ago to create teams, headed by a priest, with lay people involved in doing much of the work.

Like other Irish dioceses, Limerick is struggling with a shortage of priests.

More than half of 71 priests are over 65.

Ten parishes no longer have a resident priest, but are served by priests living in nearby areas or retired clergy. There is only one seminarian in training and by 2020, there will only be six priests under the age of 50 serving more than 100 churches, REALITY MARCH 2016

three third-level institutions, one of the country’s largest prisons and one of its busiest hospitals.

Many clergy now work 60 and 70 hours a week keeping rotas going and there is a cost to that, commented Fr Eamonn Fitzgibbon, director of the Limerick Diocesan Synod and episcopal vicar for pastoral planning, who was a member of the delegation. He added that a number of priests under 75 have taken early retirement due to health issues. “In many ways Paris is where we will be in 15-20 years. It is something we could learn from,” he said. In the future, it is likely that there will not be a Sunday Mass in every church every Sunday. It is hoped that the churches will not be abandoned, but that during the week, trained lay people might lead liturgies or prayer services.

N E WS

WINDFALL FOR VOCATIONS ORGANISATION DUBLIN

VALUING THE SPIRITUAL WITNESS

Efforts to promote vocations to religious life in Ireland will be boosted this year, thanks to a generous grant from a US-based foundation set up by hotel billionaire, Conrad Hilton. Vocations Ireland, an umbrella group for promoting vocations among religious orders, has been awarded more than a quarter of a million euro by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Conrad Hilton had a soft spot for religious sisters and recognised the contribution they made world-wide. His Foundation also recognizes sisters as “resourceful, efficient, and powerful agents of social change.”

It acknowledges their contribution to human development through their spiritual witness and service to those in need. “More than 700,000 sisters around the world educate our children, care for the vulnerable, stand with the oppressed, promote peace, and advocate for justice” it says, and assisting the work of sisters is one of the priorities of the Foundation. The funding will

be spread over three years and is intended to help build organisational capacity for Vocations Ireland to support and nurture vocations to religious life. Margaret Cartwright, a laywoman who is director of Vocations Ireland, said the funding would enable it support religious orders, congregations and missionary societies in telling the stories of their ministry.

Conrad Hilton

FIFTY-FIRST EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS IN CEBU CEBU

CALLING FOR A THIRD WORLD WAR... ON POVERTY

As part of the Eurcharistic Congress programme, Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon, Myanmar, spoke to inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Centre in the Philippines.

Pope Francis was represented at the 51st International Eucharistic Congress in Cebu,

Philippines, which began on 24 January, by Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon, Myanmar

FIRST CATHOLIC SERVICE IN CHAPEL ROYAL IN 450 YEARS

Cardinal Vincent Nichols celebrated the first Catholic service in the Chapel Royal of Hampton Court Palace since the Protestant Reformation, on Tuesday 9 February. It was a service of solemn Evening Prayer or Vespers. The palace was originally built by Cardinal Wolsey who, sensing a change in political direction, gifted it to Henry VIII. The service included a sermon from the Anglican Bishop of London, Dr Richard Chartres.

Vespers were sung in Latin and much of the music used was composed by Catholic Tudor musicians, including Thomas Tallis’ Magnificat, William Cornysh’s Salve Regina and John Taverner’s ‘Leroy’Kyrie.

(Burma). Speaking at the opening Mass of the event, Cardinal Bo described the widespread malnutrition and starvation in the world as "mass genocide." “This calls for a commitment to a world of justice," he continued. "The Eucharist calls for a third world war, a third world war against poverty … a third world war against a world that produces more weapons while more than half a billion don’t have enough food.”

Cardinal Bo called the Eucharist a "beacon of human dignity" for the poor. “No other religion elevates the poor to this level,” he said. He also described abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty as "enemies of the Eucharist."

The fiftieth Eucharistic Congress was held in Dublin in June, 2014. Pope Francis presented a Book of the Gospels as a gift to the International Eucharistic Congress. It was handed over by Archbishop Piero Marini, the President of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses. continued on page 6

5

REALITY BITES REFUGEES IN LEBANON LEBANON

AN ENORMOUS BURDEN

About one person in four in Lebanon is now a refugee from Syria. This has posed an enormous burden on the country, according to the head of Caritas Lebanon. Lebanon’s population of 4.3 million has been boosted by the arrival of 1.5 million Syrian refugees and an additional 20,000 refugees from Iraq. According to Fr Paul Karam, the Lebanese “have shown a real spirit of welcoming the refugees” but warned that the situation was already critical.

Ninety-seven per cent (97%) of the Syrian

refugees are Muslim. This threatens to radically alter face of the only country in the Middle East where there is a large Christian population (traditionally about 40%). The Lebanese constitution has ensured that the three main groups in Lebanon (Christian, Druze and Muslim) enjoy parity of esteem and their rights to representation in the government are recognised.

Lebanon’s infrastructure is struggling to cope with such a huge influx of refugees. Michel Constantin, regional director of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, has said: “Lebanon cannot bear this responsibility without the support of the international community”.

Syrian girls walk near piled rubbish inside an informal refugee camp in Zahle, Lebanon. Lebanon continues to bear the brunt of absorbing massive numbers of refugees

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SISTERS TO REPLACE FRIARS

Dominican Priory, Limerick © Courtesy of Domicians.org

With the Dominican friars set to withdraw from Limerick, their place will be taken by four sisters from the Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of St Cecilia of Nashville, Tennessee, an apostolic community in the Dominican tradition. They will take up residence in the priory of St Saviour with its adjoining church in Glentworth Street in the city centre next August. They will keep alive the long association between Limerick and the Order which goes back to about 1227. The Dominican Order celebrates this year the 800 anniversary of its foundation. Declining numbers and aging communities have forced the Irish province to consider how best to use its diminishing resources, and five priories, including Limerick, have been identified for closure.

The decision to invite the sisters to Limerick was taken by Bishop Brendan Leahy. He said he was surprised and delighted that they had responded so readily to his invitation. He told the local paper, The Limerick Leader: “I got an immediate reply, as the sisters came back to say they were interested in exploring the possibility.” Two sisters visited the city last summer, and the first community will take up residence later in the year. The church will continue to be open as a place of prayer. The Biblical Institute, founded in 2000 and which had been attached to the priory, closed last autumn.

A CARDINAL ON DAVID BOWIE Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, expressed sympathy on the occasion of the death of the rock singer, David Bowie, in a way which showed an unexpected familiarity with the singer’s life and work. “In an album that reflected his darkest years, Bowie, who five years previously in one of his lyrics had entrusted salvation to aliens, dedicated himself to the Stations of the Cross. He prayed, in the depths of his addictions and lacerating questions: ‘Lord, I kneel REALITY MARCH 2016

and offer you my word on a wing / And I’m trying hard to fit among your scheme of things,’” said the Cardinal. “But Bowie’s quest was unfinished,” he continued, “and it did not cease to torment him, while always enriching his art. In those days – he himself told us – he wore for many years a small silver crucifix. His was a search, a questioning, that went to a greater height and plumbed a deeper mystery than any answers or responses were able to reach.”

The Cardinal suggested that the singer was in a constant but unfulfilled search for meaning. He admitted that he was “not quite an atheist,” but as the years went by, “his questions were fewer but deeper and more painful.”

The late David Bowie

N E WS

POPE MONITOR KEEPING UP WITH POPE FRANCIS PAPAL VISIT TO THE ROME SYNAGOGUE

Pope Francis visited the Great Synagogue of Rome, becoming the third pope to do so, following St John Paul II (1986) and Benedict XVI (2010). The synagogue stands in the traditional Jewish quarter of Rome, the ghetto. The Roman Ghetto was created in 1555 by order of Pope Paul IV and its walls were only torn down in 1880. Pope Francis is known for his respect for the Jewish community and his long-standing friendship with Abraham Skorka, an Argentinean rabbi.

The visit was particularly welcomed by the Jewish community as it followed a ground-breaking document on Jewish-Catholic Relations, issued by the Vatican Commission for Relationships with the Jewish People. Entitled, The Gifts and the Calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29) and issued on 10 December last, it was intended to mark the Golden Jubilee of the Second Vatican Council’s document, Nostra Aetate on the relationship of the Church to other religions.

Originally intended as a Catholic response to the Holocaust in World War II, Nostra Aetate extended its scope to include Moslims, Buddhists and Hindus and others as well as Jews.

The new document takes its title from the Letter to the Romans where St Paul discusses the place of Judaism in the divine plan after the Christ-event.

The Resurrection did not mean the end of Judaism, he insists, because God’s original choice of the Jewish people remains in place. During his address in the synagogue, the pope reflected the tone of the new document, emphasising that, that although salvation comes through Jesus, God is faithful and he has not revoked his covenant with the Jewish people. This is a statement Pope Francis had already affirmed in his 2013 evangelical exhortation "The Joy of the Gospel." The document reaffirms Pope Benedict XVI's teaching that the church "neither conducts nor supports" any institutional missionary initiative directed toward Jews. The congregation at the synagogue included some the elderly survivors of the Holocaust.

While most Jewish leaders welcome the change of tone in Catholic-Jewish relations, there are still some points of contention, including the Church’s relationship with the State of Israel and the fact that official theological dialogue is not always matched at the level of popular preaching and religious education, where old stereotypes die hard. The Vatican has formal diplomatic relationships with Israel, but it must tread a fine line, since the majority of Christians in the Middle East and Israel are Arabs and Israel’s security concerns have not always been noted for their concern for Palestinians.

POPE APOLOGISES TO OTHER CHRISTIANS One of the highlights of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in Rome is the celebration of Evening Prayer at the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls.

Representatives of various Christian churches usually participate in the service.

This year, Pope Francis invited the Orthodox Metropolitan Gennadios, representing the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, and Archbishop David Moxon, representing the archbishop of Canterbury, to join him in walking through the Basilica’s “Holy Door” at the beginning of the service.

In the course of his homily, the Holy Father apologised for Catholic mistreatment of other Christian traditions, and called on Catholics to forgive followers of those traditions for any offences of today or of the past as a step toward deeper unity.

“As Bishop of Rome and Shepherd of the Catholic Church, I plead for mercy and forgiveness for the behaviour by Catholics against Christians of other churches which was not in keeping with the spirit of the Gospel,” he said.

“We cannot undo what was done in the past, but we don’t want to allow the weight of past sins to pollute our relationships,” he said. “The mercy of God will renew our relations.”

At the end of the liturgy, the Pope motioned to the two archbishops to join him in jointly imparting the final blessing.

WASHING THE FEET OF THE SISTERS Pope Francis, in a formal letter addressed to the Vatican Cardinal responsible for the liturgy, has formally included women in the rite. The letter, written in Italian, dated on the Feast of the Epiphany and published 21 January, specifically says that “after careful consideration, I have decided to make a change to the Roman Missal. I therefore decree that the section according to which those persons chosen for the washing of the feet must be men or boys, so that from now on the Pastors of the Church may choose the participants in the rite from among all the members of the People of God. I also recommend that an adequate explanation of the rite itself be provided to those who are chosen.”

It had been noted that Pope Francis included women among those to have their feet washed when he celebrated the Evening Mass of Holy Thursday in Roman prisons. This letter, addressed to Cardinal Robert Sarah, head of the Congregation for Divine Worship, now opens to every community the possibility of including women among those to have their feet washed.

7

FEAST OF THE MONTH Reality

ST PATRICK That which gave zip to St Patrick’s life is available to each one of us, and like a hug: one size fits all.

The key factors that sustained the Christian life of our National Patron are: 1. His life with Christ; 2. The absolute value to Christ of every single human being everywhere; 3. The transforming of minds and hearts to be like those of Christ.

LIFE WITH CHRIST Many Irish Christians, whether of Catholic or Protestant background possess some facts, figures, stories and prayers relating to Christ. St Patrick possessed a similar stock of data before being kidnapped.

When his Christianity moved from knowledge of facts to relationship, his whole spiritual outlook shifted to a higher gear. His now saw his ‘Life in Christ’ as a relationship with Jesus, his friend. Jesus Christ was no longer a mystery only; he was a friend. Not only that: he was a friend whom Patrick trusted and relied upon in all circumstances. From that day on, prayer was not a chore to be performed; it was a relationship to be deepened.

In this higher gear of relationship ‘Life with Christ’ means linking the heart and mind with the heart and mind of Jesus, unifying our lives with His, and then watching the slow emergence of a richer, fuller, and more generous and fulfilled self. That’s something we can never realise possible until the Risen Christ crossed our path and called us into the company of his chosen friends. Essentially this was the experience of St Patrick. It can also be ours.

8

THE HUMAN PERSON’S ABSOLUTE VALUE TO CHRIST Patrick proclaimed the “absolute value to Christ of every single human being everywhere.” For that reason he wasn’t content with presiding over a community of believers while others remained in the dark. Hence, his endless journeying back and forth across Ireland, seeking out people who had not heard the message of Jesus.

The modern world is ambivalent on the value of the person. Side by side with a large corpus of legislation on justice and human rights, there is widespread tolerance of an ongoing assault on lifeenhancing values such as truth, goodness, fairness and what is broadly termed ‘common decency’.

In the violent world in which he found himself, Patrick, the Christian saint, never lost sight of the absolute value to Christ of every individual. Patrick did not seek revenge but repenting and conforming to the heart and mind of Jesus Christ.

God in Patrick’s own life was one who acted gently but effectively: “He who is mighty came and in his mercy he not only pulled me out [of the mud] but lifted me up and placed me at the very top of the wall.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF HEARTS AND MINDS Patrick saw the mystery of the incarnation as God’s supreme outreach. That which we call God now has a human heart and mind, with a capacity to endure pain, express love, joy, empathy, disappointment, loneliness, exasperation - the full range of what it is to be human with the exception of sin.

Through Jesus, humans are offered a new vision of reality in which God is not a neutral observer.

God is on our side, irresistibly drawing us into a world of divine love, transforming minds and hearts into copies of the very heart and mind of Christ. And by the power of Him who loves us there is a final destination towards which the Christian strives and waits in joyful hope.

Patrick, the missionary makes a simple, direct appeal to the individual to turn to Christ in whose heart all hearts ultimately find the fulfilment of their dreams. And the invitation stands.

John J. Ó Riordáin, CSsR REALITY MARCH 2016

Volume 81. No. 2 March 2016 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.)

Chair, Redemptorist Communications Seamus Enright CSsR Editor Brendan McConvery CSsR bmcconvery@redcoms.org Design & Layout David Mc Namara CSsR dmcnamara@redcoms.org 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 Catholic News Service, Shutterstock REALITY SUBSCRIPTIONS Through a promoter (Ireland only) €18 or £15 Annual Subscription by post: Ireland €22 or £18 UK £25 Europe €35 Rest of the world €45 Please send all payments to: Redemptorist Communications, 75 Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6, Republic of Ireland ADVERTISING Whilst we take every care to ensure the accuracy and validity of adverts placed in Reality, the information contained in adverts does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Redemptorist Communications. You are therefore advised to verify the accuracy and validity of any information contained in adverts before entering into any commitment based upon them.

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IRISH REFLECTIONS I am Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful and despised in the eyes of many.

ST PATRICK

I would like an abundance of peace. I would like full vessels of charity. I would like rich treasures of mercy.

I would like cheerfulness to preside over all ST BRIGID

May there always be work for your hands to do, May your purse always hold a coin or two.

May the sun always shine warm on your windowpane, May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.

May the hand of a friend always be near you, And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

TRADITIONAL IRISH BLESSING

I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the time.

IRIS MURDOCH

Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam. A country without a language is a country without

The heart of an Irishman is nothing but his imagination.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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

FLANN O’BRIEN

Cad é an mhaith dom eagla a bheith orm? Ní shaorfadh eagla duine ón mbás, dar ndóigh.

What was the good of being afraid? Fear never saved anyone from death of course.

PEG SAYERS

Where courage and judgement are equally required a clever coward is better than a stupid hero.

There is the solitude of suffering, when you go through darkness that is lonely, intense, and terrible. Words become powerless to express your pain; what others hear from your words is so distant and different from what you are actually suffering.

JOHN O’DONOHUE

If continental tea is like a faded yellow telegraph form, in Ireland it has the dark, glimmering tones of Russian icons, before the milk gives it a colour similar to the complexion of an overfed baby.

HEINRICH BÖLL,

MICHAEL COLLINS

One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people JOHN O’DONOHUE

We do not always like the people we love: we do not always have that choice.

ANNE ENRIGHT

a soul.

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

PÁDRAIG PEARSE

WINSTON CHURCHILL

Recipe for a long life: leave the table hungry, leave the bed sleepy, leave the table thirsty.

IRISH PROVERB

Heavenly wind, spring rain, blinding Light that overcasts the sun.

Mightier than the mountains, greater than the seas.

The sun is your chariot, the moon and stars your playthings.

The clouds skip like lambs around your feet. Beauty that captivates all hearts, light that dispels all darkness, Mary, whiter than the snows.

PRAYER TO MARY BY ST LOMAN, NEPHEW OF ST PATRICK

9

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EDI TO R I A L UP FRONT BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

FOOT WASHING

There

is an old Jewish novel, called Joseph and Aseneth. No one is quite sure how old it is – it may have been written as early as a hundred years before Christ – but it was popular in its day. It tells a romantic but pious story. The Joseph of the title is the boy with the technicoloured dream coat, now grown to manhood and in search of a wife. A young woman called Aseneth has caught his eye, but since she is the daughter of an Egyptian pagan priest, she is beyond the reach of a good Jewish boy like Joseph. Aseneth, who returns Joseph’s feelings, has the perfect solution: she will convert to Judaism. She finds a heavenly ally in her plans, however, when Michael the Archangel comes visiting regularly, and teaches her everything she needs to know.

The day of the wedding finally arrives. Joseph goes to fetch his bride, but to his consternation, he discovers she has prepared the water and towel to wash his feet.

He protests, saying: "Let one of the servant girls come and wash my feet". Aseneth replies: "No, my lord, because you are my lord from now on, and I am your hand-maid. Why do you say that another girl is to wash your feet?

For my feet are your feet, my hands are your hands, and your soul is my soul, and your feet another woman will never wash". Realising he is not going to win this one, Joseph agrees and when she had finished, “he grasped her right hand and kissed it, and Aseneth kissed his head and sat at his right hand.”

For Joseph, washing someone’s feet was an unpleasant duty, best performed by someone at the very bottom of the pecking order. For Aseneth, it was an action that expressed everything she felt for the man she loved.

Getting your feet washed with fresh cool water, especially after several hours of walking along a hot and dusty road, was a welcome gesture of hospitality in the world of the bible.

It is the first thing Abraham offers the three mysterious strangers who come to visit him (Gen 18:4). Students sometimes honoured a distinguished teacher by washing his feet.

Omitting to wash the feet of a guest might even look like a studied insult, as it appears to be in the case of Simon who invited Jesus to a sabbath meal (Lk 7:44).

The most memorable act of foot washing was done by Jesus on the night before he suffered. Laying aside his garments in a way that foreshadowed how they would be torn from his body the following day, he began to wash his disciples’ feet. Rather like Joseph’s first reaction to Aseneth, Peter insists the Lord will never wash his feet. Peter needs to learn that allowing someone to minister to you, even if it puts you in a position of weakness, is a disposition of the disciple of Jesus.

For many years, the mandatum, or ritual washing of feet on Holy Thursday, has brought to the fore some ongoing problems in the liturgy. The rubrics made it clear that this was a ‘men only’ event. Some places ignored the rule, and washed the feet of which ever twelve volunteered, and, of course, women were more likely to volunteer than men. Others dropped the foot-washing altogether, or turned it into a hand washing ceremony for everyone, which was to miss the point that there is something uncomfortable, perhaps even shocking, in our culture of putting your feet on show in a public place and allowing someone, to pour water over them, dry them and even kiss them, however much of a ritualised gesture it has become.

Popes usually washed the feet of twelve clerics in the Lateran Basilica, the cathedral of Rome.

Since his election, Pope Francis has celebrated the Holy Thursday evening liturgy in homes for the disabled or in prisons, and washed the feet of men and women, Catholic, nonCatholics and even non-believer, highlighting the foot washing as an act of inclusive love and generosity. Was the rest of the church free to follow Pope Francis’s example? Some experts in the liturgy expressed shock at the suggestion: “No. A rubric in a liturgical book can only be changed by an official directive.” Pope Francis solved the problem by issuing that directive, removing the phrase “twelve men” from the rubric of the missal. The decree was issued on 6 January, in good time for Easter. A commentary on the foot washing and its history published along with the decree concludes: “It is for pastors to choose a small group of persons who are representative of the entire people of God – lay, ordained ministers, married, single, religious, healthy, sick, children, young people and the elderly – and not just one category or condition.”

So maybe we can begin again to rediscover the mystery and the symbolism of this rite that makes us vulnerable, and begins our celebration of the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, leading us to the Cross and Easter tomb

Brendan McConvery CSsR Editor

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C OVE R STO RY

RESTORING HOLY WEEK IN 1956 12 THIS YEAR, AS WELL AS CENTENARIES, WE REMEMBER A SEXAGENARY OR SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY. IN 1956, WE BEGAN TO CELEBRATE HOLY WEEK IN A NEW FORM, ONE THAT GAVE US A FRESH UNDERSTANDING OF THE GREAT WEEK THAT REMAINS WITH US TODAY.

BY PATRICK JONES

At

Sunday Mass in the weeks before Ash Wednesday, once upon a time we would hear the diocesan Lenten Regulations read. In the regulations for the archdiocese of Dublin in 1956, after the large print regarding fast and abstinence, and the small print rules about Trinity College, mixed marriages, communism and secret societies, horse-racing on Sunday, dancing and mixed public sports, there was a special paragraph. It read: This year, by direction of the Sovereign Pontiff, the ceremonies of Holy Week have been revised, especially in regard to the times of their celebration, with a view to allowing the Faithful to share more fully in the sacred ceremonies that commemorate the Institution of the Blessed Eucharist, the Passion, REALITY MARCH 2016

Death and Resurrection of Our Divine Redeemer.

It is the intention of the Holy Father that the Faithful should, as far as it is possible, receive Holy Communion on the last three days of Holy Week.

This rather sober notice doesn’t state how dramatic and far-reaching the revisions were.

Though the document setting out the Holy Week reform is dated 16 November 1955, it was in 1956 that people experienced the revisions for the first time. In a few places, by way of exception and on an experimental basis, the Easter Vigil had been celebrated as a night vigil since 1951.

A LITURGICAL REVOLUTION For most people, 1956 was the first time they experienced the procession with palms at the

beginning of Holy Week on Palm Sunday. The procession had been restored and, with the priest in red vestments, the royal colour of a king, where it happened –it was an option- it was a vivid reminder of that first procession from the Mount of Olives when the Christ was greeted by the crowd in the city of Jerusalem. On Holy Thursday the washing of the feet, again though optional, would now take place within Mass after the gospel which was about the washing of the feet of the apostles.

On Good Friday, churches were now full at 3 o’clock, recalling the 9th hour of the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion. In 1956, with readings, including the traditional reading of the Passion according to St John, and prayers, they would

13 venerate the cross. Then, in place of what had been called the “Mass of the Presanctified” (the name that had been given to the Good Friday liturgy), they would receive Communion, consecrated on the previous evening. For several centuries, only the priest was permitted to receive Communion on this day.

But the most dramatic change was the Easter Vigil. As well as simplifying some of the rites and reducing the Old Testament readings from twelve to four, in 1956 the Easter Vigil was celebrated late in the evening of Holy Saturday. It really was an Easter celebration on a night that was already Sunday, 1 April 1956.

Since the 14th century, the Vigil had taken place early on Holy Saturday morning. Now it was restored as a night vigil, as it originally was. It is an intriguing story, how the night vigil of Easter ended up in the bright morning of the previous day!

RECLAIMING THE NIGHT From the beginning, the Christian community observed Sunday as the memorial of the death and resurrection of the Lord by gathering for

Eucharist. Sunday was the ‘original feast,’ to use the words of the Second Vatican Council. But soon, one Sunday would be chosen for a special commemoration of these sacred events through gathering for an all-night vigil. While ways for calculating the date varied from place to place, and some wanted to use the Jewish calendar reckoning of Passover, the Council of Nicea in the year 325 fixed Easter as the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

This Easter night was a night to recall what God had done for his people, how God had intervened in the life of individuals like Noah and Abraham but, above all, in the Exodus from slavery and the dark years in Egypt, and the promises made through Isaiah, Ezekiel and the other prophets.

This was the night to recall those promises fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as the Gospel of St Luke this year asks, ‘why look among the dead for someone who is alive?’

It was also the privileged occasion for baptism and concluded with the Easter Eucharist. By the end of 6th century, the Vigil was completed before midnight. This gradually became earlier, so that by

the 9th century, the Mass began at 3 o’clock, with the Vigil beginning around midday. That is why many people today still speak of midday Holy Saturday as the end of the Lenten fast. In fact, the rigours of fasting had contributed to the Vigil beginning earlier. Eventually by the 14th century the Vigil began in early morning.

ENTHUSIASTIC RESPONSE In 1956 our churches were crowded. People were, for the most part, enthusiastic about the reforms of the liturgy. Previously, the ceremonies of Holy Week were often not celebrated in country places, apart from the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. The Holy Thursday Mass, Good Friday “Mass of the Presanctified” and the Vigil held on Saturday morning were poorly attended.

There was real effort in preparing priests and people for the reforms. Booklets and commentaries were produced. One popular Holy Week booklet published in Ireland sold out before publication. Articles appeared in the two popular newspapers of the day, the Irish Press and Irish Independent. Talks were given on Radio

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Éireann which also broadcast the ceremonies from Maynooth College, except for Good Friday when the radio service remained silent.

CHANGING HOLY WEEK After the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), there have been further revisions in our liturgy, including Holy Week. The most obvious change was the use of the vernacular for the entire liturgy.

In 1956, Latin was used for the entire liturgy. The revisions since the Council also brought some changes in Holy Week. The blessing of the palms, for example, takes place before the procession, so that people carry blessed palms. The main Gospel is from the evangelist of the year. It used always be St Matthew on Sunday, St Mark on Tuesday and St Luke on Wednesday of Holy Week. For Holy Thursday’s washing of the feet, it omitted the number 12, speaking only about ‘selected men.’ As recently as this year, it has omitted the word ‘men.’ The Good Friday intercession for the Jewish people was also changed to respect them as the people God first made his own and ‘to

whom the Lord our God spoke first.’ There has also been a simplification of the different parts and order of the Vigil.

What took place in 1956 made this possible and was a unique moment in the story of how God’s people worship and understand Holy Week.

GETTING THE TIME RIGHT Getting the times right is important. We are then in touch with the pilgrims of the 4th century and of present day Jerusalem processing from the Mount of Olives into the city. We begin the Easter, or the Paschal Triduum with Holy Thursday’s Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper. On Good Friday, we proclaim the triumph of the cross as told in the Passion of St John, we pray for all of God’s people in the old Roman style of intercessions, and ‘behold the wood of the cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.’

We keep Holy Saturday as ‘the Church waits at the Lord’s tomb in prayer and fasting, meditating on his passion and death and on his descent into hell and awaiting his resurrection.’ Saturday is

ended, and on Easter night, we keep vigil, we usher in the brightest night of the year with new fire and the Paschal Candle, we proclaim the triumph of the resurrection through light, in song, with ‘Alleluia,’ in words of scripture as ‘the fundamental element of the Easter Vigil,’ in the water of baptism and, above all, in Easter Eucharist.

There is more to this than just appropriate times. There is the marvellous unity about the different days of the Week that is Holy, or as Eastern Christians say, Great. The Lenten days of Palm Sunday, the weekdays from Monday to Thursday give way to the Paschal Triduum, beginning with the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper and ending with evening prayer on Easter Sunday, as we celebrate the crucified, buried and risen Lord, to use St Augustine’s words. Holy Week 1956 is worth remembering for awakening our understanding of this Week.

Fr Patrick Jones was Director of the National Centre for Liturgy and Liturgy Secretary to the Irish Episcopal Conference. He is currently co-parish priest of St Columba’s, Iona Rd, Dublin.

SEEK A NEW DIRECTION

EXPLORE RELIGIOUs SISTERS OF CHA RIT Y

The Love of Christ urges us on – as Sisters of Charity we continue to live a journey of loving service in the Spirit of our Foundress Mary Aikenhead who spent her life in love serving ‘God’s nobility the suffering poor’.

The rest of your life is starting now – Is God inviting you to share in this same journey of loving service as a Sister of Charity, as a friend of Mary Aikenhead or as volunteer in one of our services?

Take the first step and contact Sr. Rita Wynne on 086 343 4448 or email ritawynnersc@eircom.net

You can also get more information on our website www.religioussistersofcharity.ie

LENTEN PASSION REFLECTION THE PASSION NARRATIVES OF THE FOUR GOSPELS TELL THE STORY OF JESUS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF HIS ULTIMATE VICTORY AT EASTER

BY ANTHONY O’LEARY CP

In

Lent Christians remember the Passion of Jesus in their prayer and for Catholics this frequently means meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary or the Stations of the Cross where the mental and physical sufferings of Jesus come into sharp focus. The original gospel accounts of the Passion do not portray the details of Jesus’ suffering graphically. There is no morbid dramatization or idealization of pain.

The horrible facts were all too familiar to people living in that robust era, and devout Christians would reverently turn their eyes away from such horrors because their faith assured them that Jesus was risen and alive The gospel accounts preserve the memory of Jesus’ sufferings in the light of his glorious final triumph. The horrors are not denied; the grim realities are acknowledged for what they are. The evangelists were artists who skillfully presented the traditional descriptions of the various incidents to preserve the memories reliably for readers and listeners in all generations. But Easter faith had opened up new perspectives on Jesus’ final days and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit guided them to express their discoveries in skillful narratives to help their audiences discern the significant relationships and penetrate beyond the surface savagery of the brutal events.

Looking at the famous painting of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, even a person with no training in art appreciation can see how the artist has arranged the figures skillfully to show the different characters.

What we would not know, without further

information was that da Vinci painted this mural on a wall opposite an existing representation of the Crucifixion. He even added figures to the earlier work. He planned both the internal composition and the surrounding context of the picture to communicate his insight into the meaning of the Last Supper. The visual artist imitated the evangelists’ theological artistry.

The gospel authors selected their material, arranged it and presented it in a style which communicated each one’s perspective of the Saviour. Many of the episodes of the Passion which the gospel writers chose to present are not the ones which we find emphasized in contemporary popular devotions. In the gospels much space is devoted to Jesus’ appearances before the Jewish and Roman authorities, where we witness the attitudes of the High Priest, Herod, Pilate and his wife. The accounts have their own particular inner composition and unique contexts which communicate important truths about God’s work in Jesus Passion.

one place to the other and three times denies any relationship with Jesus. The scenes are like contrasting pictures hung side by side to stimulate the person experiencing both simultaneously The inner composition of the Trial shows development in the drama of Jesus’ questioning. It opens with ‘all the chief priests and elders and scribes’ gathering and the ‘whole council’ seeking evidence against to put him to death, but finding none (Mk14:53.55) The next stage is that ‘many’ brought false evidence against him but only to find that the evidence was conflicting and useless (14:56). At a further stage ‘some’ assert that he threatened to

Easter faith had opened up new perspectives on Jesus’ final days and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit guided them to express their discoveries in skillful narratives

JESUS BEFORE THE HIGH PRIEST In Saint Mark’s gospel this incident is described in parallel with Peter’s denial.

Within the residence of the High Priest, Jesus speaks assuredly and solemnly of his identity as Christ and Son of the Blessed, while outside Peter insecurely moves from

destroy the temple made with hands and rebuild another not made with hands. Yet not even so did their testimony agree. The waves of opposition break uselessly.

There has been a gradual narrowing of the opposition of Jesus from ‘all’ and the ‘whole council’, to ‘many’ to ‘some’ and now the High Priest himself stands to question Jesus, oneto-one, about his silence in another attempt to elicit a reply. The supreme leader of the Jewish Nation stands opposite the Lord. But Jesus maintains his silence. It is not a protest

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Crucifixion by Donato da Montorfano (1460–1502) on the wall opposite Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper in S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan

position of refusing to recognize the court, because in an earlier series of four questions put to Him by the Jerusalem authorities in Chapters 11 and 12 , Jesus answered so fully that at the end of that series the evangelist remarks that ‘after that no one dared to ask him any question’ (Mk12:34). Jesus lives out the prophecy of Isaiah on the Servant of God, ‘he was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth’ (Is 53:7) The High Priest introduced a new topic, asking about Jesus’ identity as Christ and Son of the Blessed and out of his sovereign silence REALITY MARCH 2016

Jesus solemnly affirms ‘I am’ and promises that they will ‘see the Son of Man seated at the Right Hand of Power and coming with clouds of heaven’. The accused announces to the assembly that the judges will be judged by the prisoner. God will ultimately vindicate His servant. Suddenly the pent up tension breaks out as the High Priest condemns Jesus and the wave of rejection spreads to the ‘all’ who condemn him to death. The servants confirm the actions of their masters in violent mockery as they spit on him, cover his face and strike Him.

Jesus’ open declaration of who He is as Christ and Son of God goes beyond what the listeners can understand. Earlier in the narrative, at the Baptism and the Transfiguration the voice of the Father acknowledged Jesus as His Son the Beloved.

But no human being in his right mind accepted Jesus as Son until Calvary. After Jesus' death with a wordless cry, Mark recounts that ‘when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!" (Mk15:39). God’s absolute

commitment to humanity was revealed in the ultimate weakness of death. Using the universal language of human experience Jesus communicated the boundless love of God so that the centurion could perceive the transcendent Son in the self-giving of Jesus.

Like the da Vinci Last Supper positioned opposite the Crucifixion, Mark’s account of the appearance before the High Priest illuminates his description of Jesus’ Death.

Words spoken to entrap by the Jewish High Priest, but accepted by Jesus, are uttered in faith by the pagan soldier who saw ‘how He died’. The cross is the point where God’s word effectively reaches humanity.

Christ before Pilate by Mihály Mukácsy, 1881

JESUS AND PILATE The fourth evangelist offers a dramatic account of the encounter between the Roman governor and Jesus. Pilate shuttles between the noble authoritative figure of the silent Jesus and the frenzied agitation of the accusing crowd. The setting changes from inside the official residence to outside. The artistic effect ironically shows Pilate, the official in charge, to be far from holding control of the events at hand. He is ambiguous. On the one hand he expressed wonder at the enigmatic silence of Jesus and on the other he fears his Jewish subjects.

The accused Jesus proclaims his identity as he did before the Jewish assembly, but his claim to be a King of Truth goes beyond what the politically cute Pilate can grasp. He responds with the dismissive ‘What is Truth?’

The Christian hearer perceives echoes of Jesus’ earlier declaration ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’ and also the Prologue’s ‘Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ’ (Jn 1:17; 14:6).

Despite despising Jesus’ words, Pilate unconsciously speaks the truth when he presents the Lord publicly with the mocking ‘Behold your King!’.

Just as Mark’s narrative linked the earlier Trial and the Crucifixion, the Fourth Gospel takes up the theme of Jesus as King in the inscription over the Cross, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’. The Jewish authorities object, but Pilate’s response is a firm affirmation that is best translated as ‘what I have written stays written’. This is a reality that will not be done away with.

The Cross is the triumph of Truth and Love in the face of Sin, Evil and hatred whose power is definitively broken in the Lord’s faithful loving commitment to broken humanity even unto an unjustly imposed public death as a criminal. God communicated to humanity in the language of the universal experience of death and the inspired evangelists expressed this faith event in the artistry of their refined descriptions. Mark offers the Centurion contemplating God’s action in Jesus' final moment, while John defiantly proclaims Jesus’ Kingship on the Cross of shame. The Christian is invited to look on the one whom they pierced and perceive more than horrific pain.

A medieval monk summed it up well in his prayer: And everything Jesus did and everything he said on earth, even the insults, the spitting, the buffeting, the cross and the grave, all that was nothing but yourself (Father) speaking in the Son appealing to us by your love, and stirring up our love for you.

(William of Saint Thierry, On Contemplating God) Fr Anthony O'Leary is a Passionist priest. He has taught scripture at Milltown Institute and St Patrick's College, Maynooth

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A TIMELESS WAY TO EXPERIENCE GOD THE EASTER VIGIL IS THE CLIMAX OF THE CHURCH’S YEAR. IT BEGINS ONLY WHEN NIGHT HAS FALLEN, AND THE PASCHAL FIRE LIGHTS UP THE DARKNESS. ON THIS NIGHT OF WATCHING, FAMILIAR THINGS LIKE FIRE AND WATER TAKE ON A NEW LIFE AND BECOME SYMBOLS PROCLAIMING THE DEEPEST MEANING OF THE RESURRECTION.

BY JOHN SCHMIDT, CSsR 18

Christians

keep vigils.

They give us an impor- tant way to live our faith daily.

They allows us to reshape time, put down the clock and encounter God. To keep vigil means that we have a purpose for watching and waiting. To be vigilant requires a level of endurance and patience. It invites us into a world that asks us to savour the presence of God EXAMPLES OF VIGILS Jesus reminds us to be vigilant and faithful servants: “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately….Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival” (Luke 12:35–37).

Another image of a vigil is when Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. He invites his disciples to “remain here and keep watch with me” (Matthew 26:38).

Perhaps one of the most vivid images of a vigil is the group of apostles in prayer © Liguorian 2015

REALITY MARCH 2016

following the death of Jesus. In their vigil they recall the events of the crucifixion and ponder the meaning in God’s plan of salvation. It’s in this moment that Christ appears to reassure their faith and send the Holy Spirit so they would continue preaching his name.

The Irish wake is a perfect example of a vigil—lengthy, filled with prayer, stories about our beloved dead, laughter, tears, food, and drink. Since my mother was Irish, a typical Irish wake to our family is a real experience—more than an idea found in a book.

I can offer liturgical examples of vigils that I’ve personally experienced both from growing up and since I’ve been a priest, but the death of a dear family friend brings a particularly vivid example to mind. As my friend was dying, I joined his family in his final moments. It was beautiful watching his wife speak softly to her husband words of love and tenderness.

We told stories, laughed, cried, and even

took time to eat. What was important was spending time with him, comforting each other, and remembering God’s gift of life.

We waited with him and did what we could to reassure him of God’s love and our love and presence so he would know he wasn’t alone. This vigil took time; it went long into the night until he peacefully entered into God’s embrace.

The challenge in keeping vigil is to endure the waiting while holding on to faith that God also is in the midst of the moment.

Prayer is a way to make sense of an activity that passes so quietly and slowly. Keeping vigil is difficult, but it helps us to further understand the expressions of the psalms that exclaim: How long, O Lord!

The vigil is a way for us to reset our clocks according to God’s time.

THE MOTHER OF ALL VIGILS Our Church’s liturgy gives us a prime example of vigil in the celebration of Easter. Easter has

enjoyed a vigil for centuries and developed very early in Christian worship. It became an annual celebration as early as the second century. The original preparation, a fast before Easter Sunday, was eventually lengthened to form our modern-day Lent. The ancient catechumenate gave important focus for the vigil. It comprised teachings that took the Scriptures as the basis of explaining the Christian faith.

Today, at the heart of the Easter Vigil are the readings that map God’s interaction in human life and the saving deeds that continually reminded his people that their lives were sacred and that God loved them.

The catechumens would hear these readings and become convinced that God was present in their lives and guiding them to deeper love of Jesus. Today’s vigil is rather short compared to earlier times. We can expect a long Mass, where our ancestors would have been in vigil for an entire night. The vigil was marked by the same things that we hold important in our vigils, sharing stories, prayers of faith, exhortations that God is present in our lives, and an invitation to participate in the Eucharist bringing us to new and lasting life.

Chris- tians remember this vigil with great fondness as a time of grace, open to the movement of the Holy Spirit.

The Roman Missal tells us that this “mother of all vigils” is the “greatest and most noble of all solemnities and it is to be unique in every single Church” (Missale Romanum, “Rubrics for the Easter Vigil,” no. 2). On this holy night, the Church keeps watch, celebrating the resurrection of Christ in the sacraments and awaiting his return in glory. It is the turning point of the Triduum, the Passover of the new covenant, which marks Christ’s passage from death to life. Therefore, the Easter Vigil does not correspond to the usual Saturday evening Mass, and its character is unique in the cycle of the liturgical year. We are called to wait— Easter day is only part of the night’s celebration. We are still waiting for the Lord’s return at time’s end. And this waiting requires much patience and prayer. We have to keep focused and savour the different elements that a vigil affords us. To understand better, let’s compare the Easter Vigil to partaking in daily meals.

ATTENDING TO GOD'S PRESENCE This past year, I’ve had to travel a lot. Much of the time I ate in airports, waiting for my plane to leave.

There was always a schedule, and the clock dictated how much time I could spend having a meal. Most of the time, I ate on the run. So

Vigils allow us... Be enveloped in a saving action of God’s grace.  Put down the clock and enjoy God’s time. Wrap ourselves in a fruitful encounter with God.  Bring the beauty of the Easter Vigil to every day of our lives. while I was able to fill my stomach, it wasn’t an enjoyable feast; it was useful and necessary but hardly a dining experience. There wasn’t time to savour the flavors or even enjoy the exchange of company or a nurturing conversation with friends.

© Liguorian 2015

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But when we sit down to dine, we take our time. Clocks don’t set the pace. We fall into the embrace of a God who fills the room, our conversation, our laughter, and our sorrow. In some cultures, meals are long events with many courses eaten over hours of time, spaced with conversation and story.

When enough is eaten, people rest before continuing. The meal is about more than filling one’s stomach. It includes engaging in fellowship with others and is punctuated with talk about life, God, and God’s place in our world. The meal is more than food.

Similarly, the Easter Vigil is also about more

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and minds to a pace quite different from what we’ve become accustomed to.

First we have to make time for reflection: It's like sitting down to a lavish dinner. We are invited to feast at God’s word and savour the stories. Preparing a holiday feast requires great attention. We usually spend lavishly to have the best ingredients. We plan and take our time to prepare and savour each dish as we create it. We add more spice or even a dash of wine to bring out the flavor. We do this to enhance our dining experience and excite all our senses. Reacquainting ourselves to the Easter Vigil requires the same attention. We spare little so that the experience is full and great. We pick up on the subtle flavors that blend together and the final result affects our spiritual senses.

The heart of the Easter Vigil is Scripture. We are on God’s time, so maybe we can read the Scriptures with no regard for time, reading slowly and carefully until the end of the story. And when we get to the end, we can ask God to help us offer a prayer that reflects what touched us. We have a rich array of stories that speak to God’s call and relay his constant presence with us in our journey to new life. There’s so much to tell that we have to expose ourselves fully to God’s word. And as we immerse ourselves, God talks to us.

Take in the sights and smells, the music and the silence of the word of God. Sit close to see the faces of those being baptized and join them around the Lord’s table....

Then give thanks to God for the wonderful gift of new life. than completing a task. It’s about sitting, reflecting, praying, and singing—all part of the vigil that attends to God’s presence. The vigil is a way for us to sit down and reset our clocks according to God’s time. It invites us into a world that asks us to savour the presence of God in companionship, sacred story, prayer, conversation, eating and drinking the memorial supper of the Lord, who is truly present under sacred signs of bread and wine. The vigil calls us to embrace the sacred events of Easter night without rush and with full attention.

WRAP YOURSELF IN A ROBE OF PATIENCE So how do we keep vigil in today’s world? So many things compete for our attention. The simple answer is, keeping the vigil in a life of business and immediate gratification takes work. The Easter Vigil invites us to take a different focus. It calls us to reset our clocks

PUT DOWN THE CLOCK Keeping vigil is not easy. Our world is fastpaced. Information is immediate. We are bombarded by twenty-four-hour news, weather, and sports. SmartPhones allow us to be connected, but they also are a distraction.

Vigil is a way to break away from the technology and allow meditation to fill our minds. Consider how you can fully take part in your parish’s Easter Vigil this year. Prepare yourself by continuing to go to Mass during the remainder of Lent and hearing the stories of salvation that the Church presents. On Holy Saturday, make the vigil the highlight of

your day and commit to participating with wide-eyed wonder.

The beauty of the vigil is that it’s more than one day or one night. It resets our clocks to see that the night of vigil moves to the joy of the day and the season of Easter, which lasts fifty days. Take in the sights and smells, the music and the silence of the word of God. Sit close to see the faces of those being baptized and join them around the Lord’s table for the feast that delights all people. Reflect on the experience: What sights, smells, or words stuck with you? What brought out your emotions? Then give thanks to God for the wonderful gift of new life that unfolds for all creation yearning for perfection through the resurrection of Christ.

Fr. John Schmidt, CSsR, is the director at St. Clement Health Centre in Liguori, MO. He previously served as the formation director for the Denver Province of the Redemptorists.

First published in Liguorian, April 2015. Reprinted with permission. © Liguorian 2015

REALITY MARCH 2016

COM M E N T THE YOUNG VOICE DAVID O’DONOGHUE

WHY THE MYSTICS MATTER

ARE THE MYSTICS OF THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION, FROM THE DESERT FATHERS AND MOTHERS ONWARDS, TOTALLY IRRELEVANT, OR DO THEY INVITE US TO REDISCOVER SILENCE AND THE INNER WORLD? The word ‘mystic’ can be an off putting one. In a Western world that increasingly shuns the light of spiritual exploration for the glow of a smartphone trying to sell the teachings of wild eyed religious devotees as something that could substantially improve your life and allow you to explore yourself and your beliefs is a tough task. In a world that moves at the lightning speed of micro transactions and social media clicks it proves difficult to sit and appreciate the works of men and women who advocated stopping the whirring gears of the mind and peering past it to find the pin pricks of light that spill out from the soul.

But we’re beginning to discover the machine gun rattle of technology’s constant march as it melds itself to our bodies and minds can unsettle us. Lives lived entirely through screens leave us less satisfied and less connected with both our natural environment and ourselves, which the mystics always saw as one and the same. ‘Mindfulness’ has become a big hit judging from the abundance of adult ‘mindfulness’ colouring books that dot the shelves of many bookshops, promoting this act of quiet contemplation.

And while the idea of an adult colouring book simply seems like easy fodder for a stand-up comedy routine, the central idea that these exercises are trying to promote is something many people sorely feel a need for. A quiet, repetitive and controlled action like colouring within the lines gives a much needed moment of contemplation and quiet in a world that constantly quivers with the noisy mechanical

gives us the feeling of a cliff all of a sudden battered by the tremendous drum beat of a clear blue wave. We have had a shocking moment of revelation but in our hidden crevices the remains of that experience clings on in little droplets of wisdom. As poet William Wordsworth said “With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.” ping of smartphone social media notifications. Although this idea of mindfulness has been trumpeted as a hot new trend by numerous articles and opinion pieces, many are aware that its roots extend back to people for whom the mechanical plough would have been a state-ofthe-art piece of technology.

The Desert Fathers were one of the earliest notable communities of Christian mystics and their writings date to around the third century.

Theirs was a life lived in the harshness of the Egyptian desert, scorched by the heat, frozen by the cold, battered by the wind and worn down by the sands. But through these harsh experiences and isolation, they found a quiet and a stillness in which they achieved an immediate and humbling connection to a sense of transcendent awe they identified as God. The natural landscape taught them lessons that many believed could only be truly absorbed by dedicated scholarship of scripture; inner strength, absolute humility, an unending love for one’s fellow man and respect and awe for your environment. The mystics understood the difference between

intellectually knowing something (glancing over a principle in a book or article) and true, interior knowledge gained from experience and contemplation. They felt knowledge of Christ’s decency and morality awaken within them like a flower blooming into life, growing up from their gut until its petals dropped from their fingertips in loving and kind actions.

Although many think of mysticism as revealing dense and complex truths about the universe and God, the true purpose of these actions is to give a powerful understanding to the most basic of truths. As Franciscan priest and activist Fr Richard Rohr says of the essential principle discovered by the mystics: “God is always given, incarnate in every moment and present to those who know how to be present themselves”. For centuries artists and mystics (the two have often overlapped in their search for beauty, such as Saint John of the Cross) have discovered this essential truth, that a moment of quiet and contemplation of our surroundings can lead to the deepest of understanding. Truly witnessing the awe and beauty of our lives

In our world of constant noise and distractions the idea of a quiet moment of contemplation and divine encounter is an appealing one. In the Christian tradition, and indeed that of religions the world over, this reflex toward mindfulness has been cultivated and appreciated for millennia and now it rears its head again in another form. We must remember that even in our faith we can become complacent, not recognising the moments of awe and beauty that appear before us, nodding along as bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ when we should, as monk Thomas Merton put it: “stop breathing for a moment”. In the teachings of the mystics we may not discover the secrets of the universe, but we may learn to love and understand our fellows a little bit more, and after all isn’t that the same lesson?

David O'Donoghue is a freelance journalist from Co. Kerry. His work has appeared in the Irish Catholic, The Irish Independent, and the Kerryman. He is the former political editor of campus.ie and holds an abiding interest in all things literary, political and spiritual.

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Q U E ST I O N S TO JESUS 6

WHO IS

THE GREATEST? AS HOLY THURSDAY APPROACHES, IT CAN BE HUMBLING TO EXAMINE HOW WE SEE OUR PLACE IN THE WORLD. THE WASHING OF THE FEET IS NOT JUST FOR THE SANCTUARY ON ONE NIGHT OF THE YEAR.

BY MIKE DALEY

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Our

encounter was brief, but lasting.

To top it off I didn’t like the version of myself that emerged.

We were in the checkout line at a local neighborhood convenience store. She was right ahead of me. It looked like she was getting off work, while my day was just starting. As she was putting her items on the counter we made eye contact. Polite smiles followed. Then I saw her offer a card for payment to the cashier. Except it wasn’t the usual credit card that I had, but an EBT card or electronic benefit transfer card.

Also known as “food stamps” or social welfare.

My judgmental mind quickly went to work.

Here was someone on public assistance; probably her own fault, I said to myself. In that moment I believed I was better than her. I worked for what I had. I presumed she didn’t. In fact, “my hard earned taxes” probably went to fund her “easily earned welfare.” Naturally, I saw myself being more valuable, more important. Simply put, I was greater. At least in my own mind.

REALITY MARCH 2016

Writing this now I am more than embarrassed at my thoughts. Yet, I take some comfort in knowing that Jesus’ own disciples had these very same inflated opinions of themselves.

FOLLOWING IN WHOSE FOOTSTEPS? Whether people agreed with him or not, word had got around about Jesus, the one who was travelling around Galilee, “proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people” (Mt 4:24). Crowds were starting to follow him. How could they not have? Waiting and wanting to see what miracle or wonder would happen next by this charismatic and itinerant preacher.

The disciples were there for all of it. I’m sure they were, at times, impressed by how it was turning out. No longer dismissed as naïve dreamers and misguided followers of Jesus, people were starting to take them seriously.

Enough, evidently, that they started to take themselves too seriously. To the point that they

actually started to argue about who was greatest (c.f. Mk 9:33-34).

BECOMING LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN? Picture it, like children on the playground, Peter says to James, “Let’s make one thing clear, as if it really needs to be said, Jesus needs me the most.

I am the greatest disciple.” “No, you’re not,” says James. “I am. Jesus would be clueless without me.” “Get real,” interjects John. “I’m the real brains behind this operation.”

The Gospel of Matthew (18:1-5) continues the story: “The disciples approached Jesus and said, ‘Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?’

He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, ‘Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.’”

Removed from the historical context of the

Jesus challenges his followers not to think in terms of social hierarchies. The ‘humility’ that he recommends involves putting aside such considerations and being willing to become a social ‘nobody.’”

story, most of us smile and say, “Sign me up.”

Who doesn’t want to return to their selectively sweet and innocent childhood? If we knew better, there’d be few if any takers. With good reason, “Not on your life” would be our reply.

BECOME A “NOBODY”? NO THANKS What does Jesus think he’s doing? Is he calling for a new lived paradigm, a different model of how we relate to one another and God? According to Beatrice Bruteau, the author of The Holy Thursday Revolution, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Yet, as she argues, the “Domination Paradigm” is so entrenched in our minds and culture.

Whether we agree with it or not, domination is what we’ve come to expect. As Bruteau observes, it’s seen in the way we make decisions at home and work, or relate to one another through gender, race and class or engage others politically, militarily, and economically. We try our hardest to be “top-dog,” seeking to avoid at all cost being the “the guy at the bottom of the totem pole.”

Unfortunately, as a result people are seen as competitors or threats, fear and defensiveness surface, which leads to separation.

WHAT FOOT-WASHING REALLY MEANS As a first century Palestinian Jew, oppressed by the Romans and reviled by the religious authorities of the day, Jesus faced and resisted the Domination Paradigm. Holy Thursday (cf. Jn 13:120) was his response. With his ministry coming to a head, Jesus gathered his disciples together for a final meal. As the Gospel of John relates, there Jesus, “poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet.”

Peter, like so many of us, at first resists: “You will never wash my feet.” Reluctantly, he relents. Peter knew that the master/servant relationship was being overturned in this gesture.

Signifying what he had done to his disciples, Jesus replies, “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow….” In so doing, Jesus reorients and collapses any sort of social order built on who’s

in or out, rich or poor, male or female. Instead, he invites us into greater service to one another.

St. Paul echoes this paradigm shift when he tells the community at Philippi, “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (2:6-8).

This understanding and response to the question of greatness cost Jesus his life. But it also led to his resurrection.

Ironically, with his popularity at an all-time high, Pope Francis, has faced this master/ servant—“Who is the greatest?”—tension so evident in our culture. After his visit to the United States, he was asked at a news conference, “Holy Father, you have become a star in the United States. Is it good for the Church if the Pope is a star?”

Pope Francis replied, “Yes, in the media this is happening but there’s another truth. How many stars have we seen that go out and fall.

It is a fleeting thing. On the other hand, being servant of the servants of God is something that doesn’t pass.”

Blessed greatness indeed.

Jesus reorients and collapses any sort of social order built on who’s in or out, rich or poor, male or female. Instead, he invites us into greater service to one another In his book, The Gospel According to Matthew, biblical scholar and Jesuit priest Daniel Harrington writes that “Jesus’ response about becoming like a ‘child’ challenges cultural assumptions about social status. The child is not so much a symbol of sinlessness or dependence here, but rather an example of a so-called ‘nobody.’ The child had no status and no social importance.

Mike Daley is a teacher and writer from Cincinnati, OH where he lives with his wife June, and their three children. His latest book is Vatican II: Fifty Personal Stories (Orbis).

23

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A RESOURCE FOR THE YEAR OF MERCY JOURNEYING WITH JONAH –THE STRUGGLE TO FIND YOURSELF By Fr Denis McBride CSsR In this new book Fr Denis has chosen to explore the character of Jonah – a somewhat unlikely hero. The prophet Jonah is a sympathetic partner, albeit a curious one, to help us review our lives. Although a believer in God, Jonah struggles to come to terms with the awful strangeness of God’s choices, particularly God’s mercy; he grapples to find his true self and purpose in life; he tries to flee from the presence of God; he is angry when he finds that God is not angry but all-merciful. Jonah is offered to us as an unusual teacher – awkward, reluctant, disobedient, opinionated, fearful, flighty: the prophet who remains stubborn to the end. But his story celebrates the beauty of the indiscriminate mercy of God, a message for our time.“ There is one constant in the book of Jonah: Jonah’s belief that God’s indiscriminate mercy extended to the pagans of Nineveh is not only inappropriate but incomprehensible: Jonah is scandalised by God’s mercy. Our minor prophet has to learn as we all do, that mercy is indivisible: we cannot plead for mercy for ourselves and then deny it to others.”

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1916

JUBILEE OF OUR MOTHER OF PERPETUA L H E LP

The Golden Jubilee of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

A CHAPTER OF IRISH RELIGIOUS HISTORY

THE GOLDEN JUBILEE OF THE GIFT OF THE ICON OF OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP WAS CELEBRATED IN 1916. THE REDEMPTORIST S HAD BEEN PROPAGATING DEVOTION TO IT DURING PARISH MISSIONS THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY SINCE THE ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST COPY IN LIMERICK IN DECEMBER, 1866 AND IT WAS FAST BECOMING ONE OF THE BEST-KNOWN IMAGES OF OUR LADY IN THE COUNTRY.

BY EÓIN MAC NÉILL The growing spirit of Irish Nationalism in 19196 is reflected in some aspects of the Jubilee celebration. A small collection of essays and literary pieces by Redemptorists and others in both Irish and English was published in Belfast. We publish here two pieces by men who would play a part in the formation of the new Ireland.

The first is an edited version of an essay, entitled “A Chapter of Irish Religious History,” by Professor Eóin Mac Néill (18671945). A native of Glenarm in Co Antrim, he was one of the founders of the Gaelic League and a dedicated Irish scholar.

Though chief of staff of the Irish Volunteers, he was opposed to physical force, except as a last resort. On Holy Saturday, he attempted to countermand the order to mobilise, an action that caused much confusion. Despite his opposition to the Rising, he was arrested and imprisoned. He was elected to three parliaments – Westminster, Dail Eireann and Stormont. He was in favour of

the Treaty, and served as Minister for Education in the Free State Government for a period. His article combines both devotion and a strong sense of Irish Catholic tradition. (Editor)

Now,

what sort of picture is this that has so much stirred the hearts of the faithful and is daily growing in reverence among them? It is a picture of the Blessed Virgin and the Divine Infant... Its object is to arouse a sense of the supernatural, not “to hold the mirror up to nature.”

The little Jesus is childlike and yet not childlike. The limbs, the head, the expression, suggest the Child full of wisdom. The robing is conventional, and the back-ground is conventional.

In short, the natural means is subordinated to the supernatural meaning. The real subject of the picture being supernatural, this treatment is surely truer art than if the artist had been content with even the highest ideal of a natural subject. “Holding the

25

JU B IL EE O F O U R MOTH ER OF P E RP E TUAL HELP

mirror up to nature” can never be good religious art, and we see often, and even in our churches, examples of painting and sculpture that would be better elsewhere, because they show no sense of supernatural religion.

The subject of the picture is the foreknowledge of the Passion possessed by the Blessed Virgin (“thine own soul a sword shall pierce”) and of course by the Divine Child. This is also the subject of another later picture, called I think, The Shadow of the Cross [by Holman Hunt?],” but in the later picture the treatment is as nearly natural as can be, and consequently our attention is diverted to natural aspect. In the ancient painting there is no such danger. No apparently accidental shadow of a cross calls

to mind the contrast between the happiness and tenderness of a home in Nazareth and the awful hours during which At the cross her station keeping, Stood the mournful Mother weeping, Close to Jesus to the last.

Instead, the vision of the future Passion is signified by two tiny figures, the archangels Michael and Gabriel, who carry in their hands the instruments of the Crucifixion. This very conventionality serves to fix our minds on the reality.

DEVOTION TO MARY AND IRELAND The picture came to Rome from the Eastern world, the world of the Greeks. In the Eastern world, in the year 431, in the pontificate

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of St. Celestine, the great Council of Ephesus met, and against the heretical teaching of Nestorius, defined the Church’s doctrine. In the year of that Council – 431 – a man called Patricius went to St. Celestine, and received from him authority to come to Ireland and preach the Faith.

Earlier in that year St. Celestine had sent Palladius to Ireland, and probably the failure of this mission had been reported in Rome.

We need not doubt that St. Celestine especially enjoined on St. Patrick to make clear to his converts the Church’s teaching that Mary was the Mother of God, and we can thus understand the great reverence of the Irish for the Blessed Virgin in all ages afterwards. These words “Mother of God,” apart from the glory of Mary that they imply, are full of significance of the supernatural character of the Christian religion from its beginning – the moment of the Incarnation. St. Celestine must also have requested or commanded St. Patrick to teach the Irish the unity of the Church under the bishop of Rome as chief and universal pastor. If at that very time he is found asserting his pastoral authority over Constantinople, the city of the Emperors, the head of the Roman Empire, it is not less likely that he sought to make this teaching clear to the Irish, who had never submitted to the Emperors, and whose country lay outside the bounds of the Empire.

Thus again we can understand how the Irish Church in all later ages clearly and fully recognised the supremacy of the Popes.

THE IRISH GUARDIANSHIP OF THE ICON It was fitting, then, that in Rome, the city of the Popes, Irishmen should have been specially chosen to guard and tend this holy picture which proclaims Mary to be the Mother

of God. Though the Faith is always the same, at one time one doctrine, at another time another doctrine, is more in prominence and has greater influence on the religious life of the time. St. Patrick brought the fullness of the Faith to Ireland, but he must have laid special stress on certain doctrines, among them the primacy of the Holy See and the teaching of the Council of Ephesus. Fidelity to these doctrines made the Protestant Reformation impossible in Ireland; it could only have succeeded so far as to tear up Christianity by the roots [....]

In plain truth, the majority of us speaking the English language are afraid to be heard saying such things. When we learn to speak Irish, we soon find it is what we may call essential Irish to acknowledge God, His presence, and His help, even in our most trivial conversation. I can well remember, in my reckless endeavours to use the future tense, how I used to be pulled up time and again by the old men and women and by young ones too, with ‘abair “le congnamh Dé”’ – “say ‘with God’s help.’” The old tradition has this merit, that it confesses God before men, and the measure of this merit is fixed for us.

I question if there is any popular literature so leavened, so ingerminated, with the fullness of that spirit as is the religious literature of our language. In the history of the holy picture, the most interesting chapter is the one that tells how, for long years, the picture had one only faithful guardian, Fr Donato (an brathair Donnchadh), an Irishman. A learned theologian used to converse with him. The Irish friar was simple and not very learned as far as schooling went, but his talk on sacred subjects left the theologian “full of wonder.”

A few weeks ago an experienced catechist told me that he often wondered at the deep religious

knowledge possessed by simple folk of the old Irish tradition. Perhaps Fr Donato was one of these. Those old Irish hymns and prayers were not composed by trained theologians.

Tadhg Gaedhealach, whose beautiful Hymn to the Heart of Jesus, which says “The brightness of my heart is Thy Heart, O my Saviour!”

- was not a theologian, but he was not likely to make mistakes in theology. Tadhg lived through the darkest days of Irish history. He died, I think, in 1790, and the people preserved his hymns and learned his theology, as he had learned from others like him, not abating any-thing of their docility towards the Ecclesia Docens.

local o your Look t r parish o press r details fo n i bullet on’s visit to c I e of th rea your a

Born in Kilskyre, Co Meath, in 1882, Brian O’Higgins was a member of the Gaelic League and Sinn Fein. He took part in the Rising and was in the GPO. He spent some time as a member of Dail Eireann and opposed the Treaty. A devout Catholic, O’Higgins published greeting cards with Celtic designs and traditional prayers. He died in 1963.

Golden Jubilee Hymn Mother of Perpetual Succour!

Hark to Ireland’s hymn of joy, For her faith in thee and Jesus That our foes could not destroy.

For thy victories, for thy graces, For thy glorious jubilee, For thy guidance and protection Of the race that leaned on thee.

Mother of Perpetual Succour!

When our faith was crushed and banned, Thou wert near us in our thraldom Bearing succour through the land.

Thou wert with us in our exile, In our suffering and our loss, Leading Ireland ever upward In the shadow of the Cross.

Mother of Perpetual Succour!

Ireland’s children cry to thee, We have loved thee in our bondage, We will love thee when we’re free.

Be our mother, be our guardian, Be our guide to heaven’s shore, Be our shield ‘gainst all temptations Till we meet to part no more!

Follow the Icon Coming to a Cathedral near you!

Celebrating 150 years with the Redemptorists Blessed Pope Pius IX presented the Icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help to the Redemptorists for veneration in their newly-built Church of Sant’Alfonso, Rome in December 1865. It was much in need of restoration so it was April 26th 1866 before it was solemnly installed there. The Holy Father gave the Redemptorists a mandate: they were to promote devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help throughout the world. Just over a year later, the first copy arrived in Mount St Alphonsus, Limerick.

To celebrate this Jubilee year, the Icon will visit all the Redemptorist communities and the 26 cathedrals in Ireland, beginning Limerick on April 4th and ending in Belfast on May 15th 2016. Watch the local press or Reality magazine for details or go to: www.followtheicon.ie for information of its visit to your cathedral.

www.followtheicon.ie

SCIENCE AND FAITH SERIES Science and Faith are often placed in opposition to each other. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. Some of the greatest scientists have been Catholics, and among them a number of Catholic priests. In this series we tell some of their stories.

BLESSED NIELS STENSEN FATHER OF GEOLOGY THE FATHER OF GEOLOGY WAS A DANISH LUTHERAN WHO STARTED LIFE AS A STUDENT OF ANATOMY. WHILE LIVING IN ITALY, HE BECAME A CATHOLIC, ASKED FOR ORDINATION AND RETURNED TO HIS NATIVE LAND AS MISSIONARY BISHOP OF A LARGE TERRITORY. HE WAS BEATIFIED BY ST JOHN PAUL IN 1988.

BY SUSAN GATLEY

28

When

Niels Stensen died in great poverty in 1686, he could little have though that not only would he be remembered one day as the “Father of Geology” but also a Catholic saint.

Declared Blessed by Pope John Paul II, he was born in Copenhagen in 1638, son of a goldsmith. He inherited his father's steady hands, performing skilful feats of dissection and anatomical study in public as a young professor. Geology was an unknown science and young Stensen, a Lutheran, studied medicine.

FROM BODIES TO STONES Niels had a brilliant mind, and aged just twenty two, he became famous when he stumbled upon his first scientific discovery.

While dissecting the head of a sheep he found the duct of the parotid gland, a source of saliva in the mouth.

"Stenson very soon advanced from his ‘little discovery’ to a basic understanding of the whole glandular, lymphatic system which he counted among the most sublime artifices of the Creator", writes Gustav Scherz in his Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Stensen (who became known as Nicolaus Steno when he moved to Italy), discovered glands in the

REALITY MARCH 2016

cheeks, beneath the tongue, in the palate and explained tears.

He moved on to study the heart which Aristotle saw as the seat of the soul. Scientists like Descartes, believed it to be a hearth of fire. Through his anatomical studies, Stensen realised it was a muscle. Meanwhile his fame spread. In Paris he was "all the rage," when he did public dissections.

In 1666, Stensen settled in Italy working, as professor of anatomy at the University of Padua. Later he came to Florence as physician of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II de' Medici, a great supporter of the arts and sciences. Although he had moved on to experiments on the brain and ovaries, the landing of a great white shark near Livorno in 1666, sent to Steno on the path to writing his greatest work.

GEOLOGY – TIMING CREATION Relying on a literal reading of the Bible, it was commonly believed that the world was a mere 6,000 years old. James Ussher, Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, even claimed that 23rd October 4004 BC was the first day of creation! Stensen wondered why seashells were found at the tops of mountains.

Scientists proposed the shells grew within

the earth. In Malta, 'glossopetra' or “tongue stones” were believed to have fallen from the sky or grown in the rocks.

When he dissected the shark's head, Stensen noted how its teeth bore a striking resemblance to the 'tongue stones' in Malta. In his findings, published in 1667, he concluded that “tongue stones” were fossil shark's teeth. He was now firmly on the track of what would become geology.

Within eighteen months, aged just thirty, he published his landmark study, De Solide (On Solids) which outlines the principles of modern geology.

The backbone of his system was a simple but tremendously powerful idea. He recognised that layers of rock that entombed fossil shells were made by the gradual accumulation of sediment and that each layer embodied a span of time in the past.

Stensen did not try to measure the time, but he grasped that the layers formed a sequence. The lowest layer had been formed first, the highest last. Geologists call Stensen's insight the 'principle of superposition,' which means that, layer by layer, the history of the world is written in stone.

His book, which ran to just 78 pages, was to be an outline document for a fuller work. But

a year before its publication a "chance event" triggered a change in Stensen's life direction.

BECOMING A CATHOLIC Living in Italy, Stensen had begun to study the Catholic faith and to read the Fathers of the Church. One evening in 1667 as he was walking through Florence, a woman called to him "Go not on the side you are about to go, sir, go on the other side." He took it as a sign. He would become a Catholic.

Abandoning his Lutheran heritage brought him severe criticism from his Protestant colleagues throughout Europe. Working now at the court of a new grand duke, Cosimo III, Stensen tried to defend himself, and became a leader in the Counter Reformation. The Bible was inspired by God, but it was not his literal word, only an approximation, he said.

He travelled to Hungary, Austria and Holland trying all the while to convert his colleagues. "Beautiful is what we see. More beautiful is what we understand. Most

beautiful is what we do not comprehend," he told a gathering at his final appearance as a professional scientist in 1673 in Amsterdam.

PRIEST AND BISHOP Convinced he had a higher calling, Stensen returned to Italy to study for the priesthood.

Four months later he was ordained and renounced science in favour of life as a simple priest. But this was not to be. Just two years later, Stensen was ordained bishop and sent to Germany. The diocese assigned to him was huge, covering northern and western Germany, Denmark and Norway.

Initially he was supported by the local Catholic duke of Hannover, but when the duke died, Stensen had to move to Münster.

There he aroused the wrath of lax Catholics by refusing to celebrate mass for a bishop who had bought his way into office. Next he fled to Hamburg, where a friend reported he sold his bishop's ring and crucifix and gave away the money.

Bishop Neils’s extremely austere lifestyle, frequently fasting and going without sleep, took its toll and he became very ill.

The resident priest in Schwerin, where he now lived, had died just days before and, so according to Cutler, he made his last confession to his "assembled household."

His funeral was delayed for some weeks on account of "lack of proper clothing to dress the corpse".

After his death, interest in Stensen's theories of fossils and strata waned, although its publication in Britain aroused great interest.

It was not until the 18th century that his theory triumphed. "His geological principles were put to work and began to reveal a new, unknown history of the earth," writes Cutler.

Meanwhile his reputation as a saintly man grew. In 1988 the man who declared himself a 'member of three realms -nature, mind and faith' was beatified by St John Paul II and became Blessed Niels Stensen, or Nicolaus Steno.

DCHY00028

An urgent plea from Thailand to change a life this Lent

“Every day thousands of children are forced to flee from hunger, sexual abuse and violence.

We urgently need your help to protect them” Fr Olé C.Ss.R By saving just €1 a day this Lent you can offer the gift of life and hope to thousands of innocent children. Your one-off donation of €40 would feed a child for three months. But it’s much more than just food – it is the chance of an education, a good home, and a future.

PHOTO: REBECCA ROBYNS

This Lent I would like to give €1 a day to feed a child in Thailand for 3 months

by

€40 will provide a vulnerable child with 3 meals a day for three months

Please return to:

I will give (my preferred sum) this Lent to help feed a future €

Thai Children’s Trust PO Box 13 Edenderry Post Office 6/7 JKL Street Edenderry Co. Offaly

Cheque*

PO*

Mastercard

*Payable to ‘Thai Children’s Trust’

Visa

Address

Name on Card Card no.

www.thaichildrenstrust.ie +353 (0)85 751 9509

Expiry date Security code (3 digits on reverse)

Phone no.

Thank you!

RM0316

VO CAT I O N

LETTER FROM THE NOVICIATE WITH THE NUMBER OF CANDIDATES RELATIVELY SMALL, SEVERAL REDEMPTORIST PROVINCES HAVE COMBINED TO FORM A COMMON NOVICIATE IN TORONTO. THERE ARE TWO IRISH CANDIDATES AND ONE OF THEM GIVES US AN INTRODUCTION TO LIFE IN THE NOVICIATE.

BY RYAN HOLOVALSKY

Hello.

30

My name is Ryan Holovlasky and I am a novice with the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists). On the 29th July 2015, Mark McMullan and I set off to start a new chapter in our religious life, crossing the ocean to Toronto, Canada. This move was very hard for me, as I spent the last 3 years living in our Redemptorist community in Dundalk. My time in Dundalk was a very good experience, and living with my fellow Redemptorist brothers taught so much about who the Redemptorists are.

My first year with the Redemptorists allowed me to discover and discern who they are, and I was very privileged to work in the different types of ministries around Ireland. I got to meet many inspirational people, the late Frs Alec Reid, Gerry Reynolds, Br Tommy Walsh and Sr Clement Hoey OSsR, to name but a few. These and many more, who still work and serve the poor and most abandoned, continue to inspire me in my vocation and life journey to becoming a Redemptorist.

Ryan Holovlasky

REALITY MARCH 2016

OFF TO CANADA When we arrived in Toronto, we were welcomed by our novice master, Fr Ray Douziech CSsR and the assistant novice master Fr Ronnie Bonneau CSsR. The following day, Michael Taylor and Royston Price arrived from the London Province and the day after that again, Brian Vaccaro, Kevin McGraw and Song You arrived from the Baltimore Province, along with Thien Hoang from the Denver Province.

The Noviciate year 2015/2016 officially began with mass on the 1st August 2015, the feast of our founder Saint Alphonsus de Liguori.

During the first month, we explored Toronto as well as the capital city, Ottawa, experiencing something of the life, culture and history of Canada. We were welcomed everywhere with the friendly and warm Canadian hospitality, as we settled into the change of pace and started a new chapter in our lives. We set out to discover what we want, and to follow the call we are being asked to live as Redemptorist Missionaries, a life dedicated to service and those who are in need.

LIFE IN THE NOVICIATE Our lives in the Noviciate are very structured and busy. We spend a lot of time together as a community, praying and studying the lives of our Redemptorist Saints and the history of the Church, scripture and collaboration with all.

We are learning more of what it means to be a Redemptorist. Prayer is so important in all of our lives: it feeds us with nourishment and draws us closer to our Lord and Redeemer.

Every second week, we all take part in a pastoral placement. Royston and I work at a local hospital in the chaplain’s department, visiting the sick and bringing Eucharist to those who wish to receive. At times, this has been very difficult. I meet people who are very sick, and ask, “Where is God?” in all their pain and suffering. At the same time, this experience has taught me the love of God through the people I work with and visit. God is truly present when they light up after I spend time listening to them, sharing stories and joyous moments. I see that my being there can make someone’s day and this has been so enriching for me. I thank God and

Mark McMullan

the chaplain’s of the hospital for giving me this opportunity to be a part of their team. Our founder St Alphonsus worked in the Hospital for the Incurables in Naples, in a much less hightech hospital than we have today, and where many of the patients were truly abandoned, so my hospital work makes me feel like a true son and follower. Others work with local homeless shelters. All our experiences vary, but we are grateful for the opportunity to help those in need.

MY IRISH BROTHER NOVICE Mark, our other novice from the Irish province, has settled in well here in Canada. This being the first time he has been away from the shores of Ireland for a long period of time. He is the only brother candidate in our group. This is very important to know, as he is a presence among us, who brings life and joy to the group. Mark is a native of Belfast city, and his laugh is often heard down the corridor here in the Noviciate. Mark joined the Redemptorists one year after me. I joined September 2012, and he arrived in 2013. We have been through our ups and downs together, and we have seen people come and people go. He has been a great support to me, and I am truly blessed to call him my brother in the Redeemer. Mark works at the Good Shepherd shelter every second week as his pastoral placement. He had worked with the homeless in Belfast, so he brings to this group a rich knowledge and skill in this field.

As Redemptorists we could be sent anywhere in the world to do the work of our founder. We are being prepared for the ministry of plentiful Redemption, by getting the experience of living in an international community, it starts now! I have

The present novitiate group

learnt so much from the Canadian people and Canadian Church. Like the Irish Church, it is faced with the same difficulties of declining vocations and fewer people in the pews. They are not giving up hope. The joy in peoples’ faces when they see 8 novices, gives me hope and encouragement.

INTER-CONGREGATIONAL NOVICIATE As we enter this Year of Mercy, the Church invites us to be merciful to those in need. Pope Francis said at the opening of the Holy Door: “To pass through the Holy Door means to rediscover the infinite mercy of the father who welcomes everyone and goes out personally to encounter each of them.” We are invited to be the door in people’s lives. My vocation story has been a very interesting and enjoyable one so far. As with everything in life, there are trials and temptations, but I know that God is with me, as are all those many people who pray and support me daily. The Church in my eyes is still alive and has so much to offer. With your help and support through prayer I will be able to continue in my formation Journey and discovery of the Redemptorist Missionaries.

Let us continue to pray for more to answer that call to serve the church as a brother, sister or priest, and to give each other encouragement to carry on. Here in the Noviciate we meet up once a month with others who are making the noviciate in other congregations. They include ourselves and the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood, as well as a male and female order from the Anglican Church. The experience of this group is so enriching, as we work together as Christians serving the people of God in our different ways, but we pray together and learn together how to best do this.

OUR GUIDES Our Novice masters come with a richness of Missionary experience, Fr Ray has a doctorate in counselingpsychologyandhasdedicatedmanyyears to this calling, as well as teaching and working in our general government in Rome, where he was General Secretary and as a General Consulter. Fr Ronnie spent manyyearsinParaguay,servingourSpanish-speaking brothers and sisters both there and in the Bronx in New York. They teach and share with us daily the richness of life as a missionary through their stories and rich experience. They are forming us to be men of the world and disciples of Jesus who have come to serve and not be served.

As Mary says in Luke 1:38: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.”

This is what I hope I can be and live in my daily life.

OurfounderStAlphonsusdeLiguori,saysinhisbook, How to Converse with God: “Freely open your heart to him, and ask him to lead you to do His divine will in a perfect manner.” May I always have this grace!

We had the opportunity to do this as we took part in a project called “Out of the Cold”, at our parish in Toronto. We cooked for over 300 people. This too, was a very rich and rewarding experience.

I am very grateful for the people in my life who support and pray for me here. My family at home in South Africa and Co Clare and my family in Dundalk whoaresokeyinmylifeandwhohavesupportedme through the good and bad moments. We all need prayers as our Holy Father Pope Francis reminds us to pray for him, and so I ask of the readers of Reality to pray for me and my fellow novices and be assured of our prayers in return.

Ryan Holovlasky was born in South Africa. He joined the Irish Province of the Redemptorists in 2012 and is currently making his noviciate in Canada.

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COM M E N T FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS CARMEL WYNNE

PUSHY PARENTS

WHEN THERE IS ONGOING CONFLICT IN FAMILY RELATIONS, IT IS IMPORTANT TO LOOK AT THE ISSUE OF CONTROL. PARENTS CAN OVER-CONTROL, BUT THE CHILD CAN ALSO FIND MANY WAYS TO FRUSTRATE IT Parents who push their children to achieve may genuinely believe that they only want what is best for them. Even though their good intentions are genuine, the way they go about encouraging emerging talent can be somewhat misguided.

Very recently some football clubs have found it necessary to ban parents from attending youth football practice. It’s unfortunate that a whole group of parents suffer because a small number of pushy adults behave badly, using abusive language, arguing with the sports coach and shouting menacingly at the children on the pitch.

If the drive for success creates stress and conflict for a child, it’s very probable that the parent is seeking to live vicariously through the child. When a parent is overcontrolling, the child develops strategies to evade this control.

Blaming and placating are common forms of manipulation that spouses, parents and children use against each other. The blamer has rigid expectations of the right way that something should be done. Say Dad is immature and unwilling to take responsibility for the demands he makes of others.

He attempts to manipulate mum into doing what he wants. He tells her how she should be dealing with little Johnny. If their son does not live up to his expectations, he feels justified in blaming mum. He claims it is her fault. He tells her that she goes about things in the wrong way. If their son succeeds

he never gives her credit for doing things the right way.

Mum is a placator who wants to keep her husband happy and at the same time protect little Johnny when Dad is disappointed. In her efforts to keep everyone happy she manipulates many situations.

She regularly intervenes to smooth things over and makes excuses for little Johnny. Her belief is she does this in order to keep the peace.

What she fails to see is that keeping everyone happy meets her need to avoid confrontation.

Little Johnny is caught in the middle of parental manipulation patterns. What he is learning about how men and women treat each other, from watching how his parents relate, will have an impact on how he will parent his own children in the future.

Most parents would be horrified if anyone suggested that everyone in their family was engaged in a vicious circle of manipulation and control. There are no perfect families. The majority of parents are doing what they believe is in the best interest of their child or

children. Many have no insight into how they are engaged in a power struggle of control that creates unnecessary unhappiness.

It may seem harsh to suggest that even toddlers know how to manipulate a parent. The child who gets a parent to do for him or her what s/he can easily do is a manipulator. An outsider looking in can recognise the manipulation of a whining child who is playing helpless to get parental attention.

Control issues are some of the most important factors to examine when there is a lot of bickering and conflict in family relationships.

Children can use endless varieties of manipulation to evade parental control by withholding what the parent wants. Of course children don’t do this deliberately. These are unconscious strategies that children use to get parental attention.

Most children find it easier to get negative rather than positive attention from busy parents. So one young girl will mumble or talk under her breath expecting a

reprimand for not speaking clearly.

Her brother will seek attention by asking endless questions. A third sibling seeks attention by being absent-minded and forgetful – control and manipulation in action.

Most parents are too close to the situation to see the manipulation that is going on. It’s a fact of life that when there is conflict in a family hidden power struggles are going on. Let me explain. There is a world of difference between two people responding to each other and two people manipulating each other.

If you make a request that leaves me free to respond by saying yes or no, I am in control.

If I experience your request as a demand to do what you ask, I feel you want to control me. Consent that is not freely given feels like a manipulation. When a parent demands obedience a child who feels controlled may do what is expected but with bad grace. Or the child may decide to exert some control by manipulating the situation without directly refusing to obey.

Understanding about manipulation and control can give you insights into how to be a better, more supportive parent. I could tell you that you don’t have to push a child who has talent, ambition and passion but it’s a more powerful learning experience if you discover this for yourself.

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

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EAST E R

Jim Caviezel takes direction from Mel Gibson, The Passion of the Christ

PASSIONATE IMAGES CINEMA AND THE PASSION 34

FROM ITS EARLIEST DAYS, CINEMA HAS BEEN ATTRACTED BY THE NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE GOSPELS, ESPECIALLY ITS CLIMAX IN THE PASSION STORY. PRODUCERS AND DIRECTORS HAVE OFTEN USED THE NARRATIVE OF THE SUFFERINGS AND DEATH OF JESUS TO REFLECT ON OTHER QUESTIONS

BY PAUL CLOGHER

If

you ever visited Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, you are sure to have come across Michelangelo’s Pietà, a sculpture depicting the dead Christ in the lap of his mother. Christianity’s fallen Rabbi bears no marks from his torture, suffering, or death.

His mother, too, seems much younger in appearance than her son and dwarfs him in size and height. The piece does not represent the historical moment of Jesus’ death but rather a feeling of serenity, a moment of communion between the divine and the human.

Over five centuries later, the South African filmmaker Mark Dornford-May pays homage to this image in his Son of Man (2006).

This retelling situates the Jesus story in contemporary Africa. The passion ends

REALITY MARCH 2016

not with the cross but a grim story of the ‘disappeared.’ The victim of an oppressive regime, Jesus is shot and buried in a shallow grave. His family arrive to bring his body home. Seated on the back of a pick-up truck, Mary holds her dead son in a reimagined vision of Michelangelo’s contemplative sculpture.

AN ON-GOING STORY The passion story does not end with the Gospels. Indeed, the New Testament is itself only the beginning. In the intervening two millennia, artists of all types have re-imagined the passion in the cultural language and symbolism of the time. In another famous example, Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece depicts a suffering, contorted

Christ, his body twisting in pain. This piece was painted in aftermath of the Black Death for the Monastery of Saint Anthony, whose monks were especially noted for their care of plague victims. Those who prayed before the altarpiece may well have been victims themselves.

The passion, then, was no distant historical event but something happening in the present, in the lives of the very people who prayed before the image. Likewise, DornfordMay represents the solidarity of God with a world touched by violence. But the passion does not romanticise suffering; rather, it offers us an image of the world (re)created.

Jesus’ victory challenges us in the shadow of the cross, a shadow that both mirrors humanity’s potential for inhumanity and, in Leonardo Boff’s words, reveals God’s will to ‘put an end to all the crosses of history.’

MEL GIBSON AND THE PASSION PLAY? The release of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in 2004 revived one of Europe’s oldest dramatic traditions: the passion play. Dating from the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, these plays expanded and supplemented the biblical story. Often,

they accompanied a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, thus drawing a clear link between the twin ‘screens’ of stage and altar.

Cinema borrows heavily from the dramatic and theatrical traditions of the medieval world. Likewise, much of our modern understanding of theatre has its roots in the liturgical traditions of medieval Christianity.

The Passion equally harkened back to early cinema. Some of the oldest known movies were dramatizations of the passion. One of the earliest dates from 1897, while cinema was very much in its infancy. Cinema, though very much an adolescent art, shares more with the Christian heritage than we might think. Like the mystery plays, Gibson expands and supplements the biblical accounts. In one example, he imagines Pilate’s wife meeting Mary.

While producing a visceral cinematic experience, Gibson, too, descends into kitsch moments, reminding viewers of the elaborate, sub-plot saturated style of the Hollywood bible films. In one scene Jesus falls over a cliff during a beating from his captors, only to encounter Judas hiding after his treachery.

Other moments are filled with sentimentality, such as a flashback scene involving Jesus building a high table during his carpentry career. In another link to the mystery plays, Gibson released his film on Ash Wednesday, thus tying his drama to the liturgical season.

CINEMA – NEW ‘BIBLE OF THE POOR’?

As cinema evolved, it claimed the Christian tradition for itself, becoming something of a latter day audio-visual ‘bible of the poor.’

Every cinematic ‘incarnation’ of Jesus is shaped by the era in which it is produced.

Some bear the scars of uglier times, such as Cecil B. DeMille’s casual anti-semitism in The King of Kings (1927), where a plump, hand rubbing, money loving Caiaphas embodies all the hallmarks of Shakespeare’s Shylock.

Nicholas Ray would attempt to correct this

lack of compassion, and occasional hypocrisy.

At times he expressed this through comedy.

In one such piece, La Ricotta (1962), Stracci, a homeless man, is hired to play the Good Thief in a passion play. Starving, Stracci gorges himself on a block of cheese, only to choke to death while ‘crucified’ as the main actors cavort and drink. Stracci dies on the cross, the victim of a hypocritical society that cannot get the joke.

Just over a year later, Pasolini released The Gospel according to Saint Matthew (1964)

Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus in King of Kings

35

distortion three decades later in King of Kings (1961), prefacing the story with images of crucified Jews and burning bodies – a clear allusion to more recent events. Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) with its introspective, deeply psychological style mirrored the darker, less optimistic America of the late 1980s. Gibson’s work, too, sought to shock an allegedly postChristian world with the ultraviolence of its story. Cinema, then, gives us a Jesus for our time, shaping, forming, and even transforming our perceptions of the Christian story.

Sometimes, filmmakers who do not identify (at least entirely) with Christianity produce the most compelling passion stories. Pier Paolo Pasolini spent much of his filmic career castigating the Italian church for its excess,

to an initially hostile reception. How could a Marxist anti-cleric with a penchant for satirizing Christianity make a serious film about Jesus? The answer, as always, lies in the film itself. Pasolini’s work departs radically from the spectacular melodramatic passions of the Hollywood gospels. Working in the neo-realist tradition, Pasolini adopts an

Every cinematic ‘incarnation’ of Jesus is shaped by the era in which it is produced

Son of Man

understated, stark approach to Matthew’s story. With amateur actors, on-location filming, black and white photography, and an eclectic mix of music, Pasolini avoids an overtly dramatic style or climactic structure.

The effect is contemplative rather than

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Enrique Irazoqui as Jesus in Pasolini's The Gospel according to Saint Matthew

36

entertaining. The passion scenes are both understated and beautiful. In one scene the camera stalks Peter from behind in the aftermath of his three denials. As the cock crows, the sound of Bach’s St Matthew Passion follows the apostle as he slumps in a doorway weeping. Pasolini chose to shoot his Jesus story in southern Italy. This gives the film a timeless, yet contemporary, quality, reminding viewers that this is very much a story for the present as much as the past.

Over two decades later, Denys Arcand, a French-Canadian director, decided to make a film about a passion play. Jesus of Montreal (1989) tells the story of a group of actors staging a passion play in 1980s Montreal.

Though a declared unbeliever, Arcand finds

little comfort in the brave new world of secularity. Daniel Coulombe, a mysterious actor, is hired by a local shrine to revive an aging passion play, produced annually in its grounds. The play itself is a stripped-down version of the passion, devoid of divinity. In the play, Jesus’ death is entirely un-unique while the resurrection becomes a pious fraud.

None of these arguments are new. Indeed, they are almost entirely the product of postenlightenment critiques of Christianity.

The real passion play happens outside the theatre in the lives of Daniel and his fellow actors. In Arcand’s Montreal, the theatre replaces the church as a source of meaning.

But the purity of the theatre, an allegory for the church, is threatened by the crass Willem Dafoe in The Last Temptation of Christ

and exploitative world of commercial media.

Rapidly, Daniel becomes the eponymous Jesus of Montreal. He drives greedy producers from the theatrical temple with a wire chord plucked from a camera. Arrested for his disorder, he refuses to defend himself in court. Finally, the two plays collide with tragic consequences. Refusing to retract his Jesus under pressure from the shrine authorities, Daniel dies accidently crucified, in the midst of a riot as security guards intervene to stop the play. Many will find Arcand’s work disturbing, especially in his depiction of the passion as an event devoid of cosmic significance. Understood against a broader canvas, Arcand merely transplants meaning elsewhere to the world outside the play. Here, the passion occurs anew, like a moment of anamnesis (memory), in the lives of its participants who, instead of taming or nullifying the Christian story, have given it another medium.

THE SECULAR PASSION? Cinema is an avowedly secular space. From week to week, superheroes, romantic leads, and biblical figures adorn its walls, none with superiority over the other. Yet filmmakers never seem able to let go of the passion, that most poignant, traumatic, yet liberating and hopeful of stories.

For every era of cinema, there is a Jesus and a passion. In each case, the story embodies a spirit of the age, or cultural moment. Like the great masters of the past, filmmakers imagine Jesus in ways shaped and formed by their culture and audience. This reminds us that the passion story is never fixed, static, or tamed. Instead, it is an expansive story, told, re-told, and interpreted through many media, including cinema. Films about Jesus have their limitations, of style and tone perhaps, but like all art, the movies are a matter of taste. At its best, however, cinema can capture something of the passion’s depth of meaning, provoke reflection, and make us think again in the shadows of the screen where the cross still haunts.

Dr Paul Clogher lectures in theology and culture at the Waterford Institute of Technology. He has a particular interest in cinema and its wider role.

REALITY MARCH 2016

D E V E LOP M E N T I N ACTION

SYRIA: HOPE IN THE DARKNESS

TRÓCAIRE IS WORKING WITH LOCAL ORGANISATIONS IN SYRIA TO SUPPORT PEOPLE IN DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES AND DISCOVERING STORIES OF COURAGE AND DEDICATION AS PEOPLE CONTINUE 37 TO REACH OUT ACROSS BORDERS AND LINES OF FIRE

BY NOELLE FITZPATRICK

Lara

was with her husband when he was shot dead by a sniper as they drove the family car. Their children were with them. The Syrian couple was trying to get food into the Yarmouk district of Damascus city, an area under siege primarily by Syrian armed forces. With severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of this area, people were dying from starvation.

Some were resorting to eating family pets and grass to survive.

Her husband’s heroic efforts led to his death and Lara had to escape to Lebanon to protect her children. She relied on the courage of a stranger who smuggled her out of the camp in the boot of his car. She walked the final part of the journey over the mountains into Lebanon in the freezing cold.

Lara had no friends or family in Lebanon but she managed to find shelter in a largely Palestinian community. A priority was

getting her frightened and traumatised children psychological help after seeing their own father killed. She is now working for a Syrian organisation that is getting aid to Syrians living in Lebanon. Her bravery shows the extraordinary steps that Syrian people are taking to help their own people.

DAILY LIFE IN SYRIA Between 400,000 and one million people are living under siege in Syria. Many of these villages or camps are in Damascus province.

Places like Yarmouk or eastern Ghouta in the suburbs of Damascus have been under siege for years. Sometimes sieges are deliberately tightened during winter months when food is scarce and people’s vulnerability increases.

Cut off from sufficient access to food and medicine, people are dying of starvation and related illness. Recently, reports from the government-besieged town of Madaya finally

made the headlines, throwing the spotlight on the reality of so many others living under siege in Syria.

Various parties to the conflict seek to control access to civilian populations in order to make money, to grind people into

Some were resorting to eating family pets and grass to survive submission, to collectively punish and to politically bargain. In certain areas of Syria, electricity, water and food supply into civilian areas is routinely and deliberately cut.

Infrastructures, like schools and hospitals, are deliberately targeted. The armed forces of the ruling Syrian regime must bear the highest burden of responsibility for these crimes.

T R Ó CA I R E - D E V E LOPMENT IN ACTION

HEALTH AT RISK In areas under siege, lack of medical facilities and drugs means that medical staff have to live with the burden of deciding who will live and who will die. The weakened physical condition of people means that it can take longer to recover from simple injury.

Basic services like rubbish collection are no longer provided by local government.

People have resorted to burning plastic to extract oil derivatives and other rubbish as a source of heat. In some places, firewood has replaced oil as a fuel for heating and cooking.

It has been estimated that 50% of the trees in the Damascus suburb, Ghouta, have been cut down.

38

9-year-old Samir at the Qab Elials camp for Syrian refugees in Lebanon's Bekka Valley

Syrians look at a destroyed field hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma on the outskirts of Damascus

REALITY MARCH 2016

Lack of medical facilities and drugs means that medical staff have to live with the burden of deciding who will live and who will die LOCAL LEADERSHIP No humanitarian response would be possible across large parts of Syria without the leadership and courage of the Syrian people themselves. Yet little is being said about the courage of Syrians like Lara, who continue to reach out across borders and lines of fire to those most in need. They provide hope where there is no hope and in the future, when peace comes, they will be the building blocks of a more inclusive Syria, one built on principles of democracy that are not imported, but cultivated from within.

Thanks to support from people in Ireland, Trócaire is working with Church and other Syrian organisations to support people in need in Aleppo, Damascus and Daraa, including some living under siege or in difficult-to-reach areas. Many of the Syrians working to provide humanitarian assistance have suffered immensely themselves from the death, injury and disappearance of

family members and friends, as well as the devastation of their villages and homes.

Despite this, every day they are resolved to care for other Syrians in distress.

In Lebanon, Trocaire is supporting group and individual counselling for refugees and medical, educational, psychosocial and legal support for women who have suffered sexual and physical violence. We are also supporting shelter renovation for refugees living in miserable and dangerous housing and income generation schemes.

Trócaire is also working with Caritas Internationalis, the international network of Catholic relief and development agencies, to reach refugees entering Europe in Macedonia, Serbia and Greece, providing hygiene kits, sleeping bags, rain gear, washing facilities, medical services and psychosocial support.

Noelle Fitzpatrick is Trócaire’s Syrian Programme Officer

Syrian refugees attend a Caritas mobile health clinic in Taalabaya, 20 kilometres from the Syrian border.

Trócaire’s Lenten Campaign runs until Easter Sunday, 27th March 2016. Trócaire boxes are available in parishes nationwide. To support Trócaire’s work visit trocaire.org or call 1850 408 408

F E AT U R E

Young Spirits Soar at

MEDJUGORJE YOUTH FESTIVAL TOM DENNEHY ORGANISES A GROUP OF YOUNG IRISH PEOPLE TO GO EACH SUMMER TO THE MEDJUGORJE YOUTH FESTIVAL. MOST FIND IT A CHALLENGE THAT RENEWS THEIR FAITH AND DEVOTION TO THE ROSARY AND BLESSED SACRAMENT. 40 BY ANNE KEELING

In

this almost post-Christian era, the Church finds it harder and harder to reach its youth. But one man has influenced hundreds of young people from Cork and Kerry to experience their Catholic faith in a way that is nothing less than life-changing.

“I woke up in Medjugorje in 2006, and I said I would bring young people to Medjugorje.

That’s the mission really, to let young people know how much Jesus loves them.”

This simply-stated goal prompts Tom Dennehy from Kiskeam in north County Cork to bring groups of 16 and 17 year olds each year to Medjugorje for the dynamic International Youth Festival, held from 31st July to 6th August. Tom, a former community welfare officer, first went on pilgrimage to Medjugorje in 2003 . He was struck by the people he met there and how they prayed "with such love". It was in Medjugorje that he discovered the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Three years later in Medjugorje again, he woke up one morning and decided that he would start bringing young people there. He brought his first group in 2007. When preparing for a REALITY MARCH 2016

pilgrimage, Tom visits schools in Cork and Kerry with his wife Máiréad, who is a teacher. They give talks to transition and fifth year students, who are their target groups. It is now very easy to get the number of young people as "good news spreads."

A YOUTH FESTIVAL The festival was first held in 1989. Fr Liam Lawton was among those who launched it, along with Fr Slavko Barbaric, spiritual director to the visionaries, before his sudden death in 2000. Tom started bringing groups in 2007 and has continued every year for the past 9 years.

“When we started out we were a bit amateurish,” he says, “but we’re much better now and still learning. We have to be prepared for whatever happens but we’re very blessed that nothing has happened to our young people. We’ve climbed the high mountains and not even a scratch and that’s the great thing about it. Nobody even got sunburnt, though it’s often in more than 40 degrees. The big task is to make sure that they come home safe.”

Fr Lawton has certainly left his mark on the festival, as one of the most memorable and moving aspects of it is the beautiful music which is central to all the liturgical celebrations. There is an international orchestra and choir that includes young people from over twenty countries. At times lively and joyful, at times tranquil and meditative as during Eucharistic Adoration, the quality of the music and singing is always sublime and lifts hearts towards the divine. A flavour of it can be found on the festival website where dozens of songs, recorded live at festivals, can be heard.

AN INTERNATIONAL MEETING PLACE Tom describes the effect of seeing and meeting young pilgrims from so many different countries: “Medjugorje is very special in that young people realise that their faith is universal. They see people from eighty or ninety countries and learn how fast the faith is growing in some of these countries. They meet young priests in Medjugorje, often very young priests, who are happy, with a smile on their face and delighted with their priesthood.”

Medjugorje is often described as Our Lady’s ‘School of Love’, where she is leading us to Jesus.

“If Our Lady takes you by the hand,” Tom says, “that’s one guarantee that she will bring you to her Son Jesus in the Holy Eucharist in the Mass.

And that’s what Medjugorje is all about really.

It’s about the Mass. It’s about the Eucharist.

It’s about knowing and loving her Son Jesus in the Holy Mass.”

CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN Apart from the spectacle of outdoor Masses and adoration, there are also the basics of the pilgrimage as experienced by every other group.

These include climbing the mountains, both Mount Krizevac, also known as Cross Mountain, which takes about two hours to climb, and Apparition Hill. The young people particularly enjoyed climbing these mountains.

“In the Gospel readings,” Tom reflects, “mountains are important. Jesus went up Mount Tabor to pray. Mountains take us above everything else, and we can look down.

Sometimes, we are in our own bunkers and we cannot see above them. If we can get a bird’s eye view or even a view from the high mountain in Medjugorje, it’s a different perspective.”

WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE WANT This year for the first time, Tom decided to carry out a survey among the young pilgrims. On their return home, they were given a question sheet to fill out. He wasn’t surprised when most of the 48 chose the mountains as their favourite place. He was pleased to read just how positive an experience they had had, and most gratified at how almost all of them said that the pilgrimage had deepened their appreciation of Mass and of the rosary.

One respondent said, “Before, the rosary seemed like a chore but it doesn’t anymore.”

Another said, “I now know it’s a thank you to Mary and offering of love.”

“We said the rosary often,” Tom explains, “in the bus going to the plane, on the bus up to Medjugorje: going through the fields to Apparition Hill or to Cross Mountain, we always had the Rosary, and when we had our prayer meetings, the rosary is very much part of it and they get used to it. They get to know the power of the rosary because when we pray, we get a sense of our own dignity and we open the path to God and to Our Lady. It’s a two-way thing.

Prayer is very powerful and the rosary is a very powerful prayer. Some people might say it is old-fashioned, but it isn’t. Every Hail Mary is a new Hail Mary, it’s not repetitive either, it’s a new Hail Mary. Even with one Hail Mary Our Lady can do so much.”

Almost all the respondents indicated that they would like to return. As Tom knows by now, young people tend to bond very well with each other while out there and these friendships remain strong.

“When you spend a week in Medjugorje with young people from different parts of Cork and Kerry, every time they meet subsequently, whether it’s at a night club or wherever, Medjugorje is always the first thing on their lips, the week they had in Medjugorje. They think about that and the great friendships they made and the great time they had.”

Tom is able to deal with any difficulties that might arise. “It’s our responsibility and we take it very seriously,” he stresses. “But I couldn’t do this on my own. I have my wife Máiréad, and I always have two priests with me and good leaders who’d have good experience of young people. They’d be teachers mostly, and we’d have about five young people to every leader.

We have some rules, and the leader makes sure that their five young people are at breakfast on time, at meetings on time, at the apparitions on time, Mass on time and all that. We do it as a group together. That makes it easier. The young people build a relationship with their leader as well. They are people of faith and young people seem to be able to associate with people like them. Problems are only there if we don’t lead

them properly. If young people are led properly, there are no problems. They respect rules and regulations, that’s the way they are and I think every year we seem to have a better group of young people. It’s amazing but I always say Our Lady is very selective, she only picks the best and she seems to be doing that for us.”

THE CENACOLO Young members of Cenacolo, a community for drug-addicts founded by an Italian nun, which offers them healing through work, friendship and prayer, also put on a concert for the youth festival. Their testimonies are powerful for Tom’s group to hear. It’s almost a counter-cultural message today, but as Tom repeats, “Drugs and drink and free love will give you happiness for a little while but then it consumes you, it won’t give you joy. God has created us with a void in our hearts that can only be filled with the love of Jesus and young people need to know that.”

Tom keeps in contact afterwards with the people who travel with him. He also meets up with their parents who tell him how happy they are. “The parents are very grateful for the work I do,” he says, “they thank me and say, ‘you know, he has been transformed, he doesn’t miss Mass any more, he’s praying now every day, his rosary beads are very special to him’. It’s wonderful to hear that. Parents tell me ‘we have been on many holidays during the Celtic Tiger era. Now they come home and tell me “we have never been on a holiday like this, this is the best week I’ve ever had.” You know, they really enjoy it because they’re with a group of young people from all over, from different countries and they come home on a high and they realise the real treasure their faith is for them.”

Anne Keeling is a freelance journalist based in Co Kerry. She has nearly twenty years of experience in media which includes radio and print journalism and photography.

Visit www.mladifest.com or look up Medjugorje Youth Festival on Youtube

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Breaking the Word in March 2016 www.proclaim.ie

Please pray for the Redemptorist Teams who will preach the Word and for God’s People who will hear the Word proclaimed this month in:

Burren and Mayobridge, Warrenpoint, Parish Mission (5th – 12th March 2016) Mission preached by Denis Luddy, Peter Burns and Sarah Kenwright Innishannon Knockavilla, Cork, Parish Mission (5th – 11th March 2016) Mission preached by Brian Nolan and Seamus Enright St. Colmcille Parish, Aughnacliffe, Longford Mini Mission (12th – 15th March 2016) Mini-Mission preached by Derek Meskell and Niamh O’ Neill Loughguile, Ballymena, Parish Mission (12th – 18th March 2016) Mission preached by Brendan Keane and John Hanna

SPRING

We have limited availability for missions up to Christmas 2016

Ennismore Retreat Centre

28th February - €20 New Spiritual Communities/New Monasticism 3-6pm Dr Bernadette Flanagan 18th March - €55 “Family Tree Healing Day” 10am - 4pm Fr. Jim Cogley 20th March - €20 “Interpreting the Signs of the Times: Through the Eyes of Faith”. 3-6pm Martina Lehane Sheehan 24th - 27th March - €200 Holy Week Retreat Ennismore Retreat Team

ST DOMINIC’S

16th April - €55 “The Ecology Encyclical of Pope Francis”- an inspiring call to Contemplation and Action Fr. Donal Dorr 7th May - €55 Mental Health, Spirituality & Well-Being 10.30am-4.30pm Professor Patricia Casey & Martina Lehane Sheehan

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

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

COM M E N T REALITY CHECK PETER McVERRY SJ

THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC SYSTEM

IS THE WORLD ECONOMY IN DEEPER TROUBLE THAN WE ARE LED TO BELIEVE? CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING ENCOURAGES US TO ASK SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT THE GLOBAL ECONOMY We are out of recession, the economy is in recovery. All the promises in 2009 to reform the world economy to prevent another global recession have been forgotten and ignored. It is back to business as usual.

But the global economic system is in urgent need of much greater reform than a few extra regulations.

A world economy that depends on continuous, and ever increasing, growth to avoid recession •is unsustainable, as the world’s resources, and the non-renewable energy sources on which such an economy is so dependent, are limited.

•Produces enormous amounts of waste, which are polluting our planet. As Pope Francis has said: “The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.” (Laudato Si, No. 21) •Is incapable of lifting the billion poor in our world out of poverty without destroying the planet with pollution, waste and greenhouse gases.

In Ireland today, despite having the fastest growing economy in the EU, the number of homeless people and families, the number of households on the social housing waiting list, and the numbers attending food kitchens for meals each day, are all at a record high.

Pope Paul VI highlighted the three pillars on which the global economy is founded when he said: “It is unfortunate that on

these new conditions of society (industrialisation) a system has been constructed which considers 1. profit as the key motive for economic progress 2. competition as the supreme law of economics 3. and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right that has no limits and carries no corresponding social obligation.

One cannot condemn such abuses too strongly by solemnly recalling once again that the economy is at the service of humanity.”

(Populorum Progressio 1967).

PROFIT AS THE KEY MOTIVE In pursuit of maximum profits, we have seen scandal after scandal, in country after country: Volkswagon putting the health of millions at risk by rigging emission tests; Worldcom which inflated the company’s assets by $11 billion, Enron and the Madoff ponzi scheme in the US; the Petrobras corruption scandal in Brazil ; Olympus and Toshiba accounting fraud in Japan; the Libor scandal in UK; Anglo-Irish Bank in Ireland; the Clerys scandal; developers in Ireland hoarding land at a time of severe housing shortage in the hope of making a greater profit when the price of houses increases; large multinationals using aggressive tax avoidance schemes thus depriving developing countries (and Ireland) of much

need money to provide health, education and social services to their people.

CO M PE TITI O N A S TH E SUPREME LAW Our world economy requires nations to compete with each other to attract and maintain the investment needed to grow.

Countries with poor enforcement of environmental regulations are attractive to many investors.

The Taoiseach, in an address in 2015 to the American Chamber of Commerce, said the high rate of personal taxation in Ireland was something that had to be addressed if the country was to remain “internationally competitive”. He promised to slash income taxes across the board to bring Ireland in line with low-tax countries such as the US and UK. What he failed to say is that lower taxes results in poorer services, services which predominantly affect the lives of the poor. The Irish Government’s failure to introduce a 20% “sugar” tax, which would have reduced the number of obese adults by 10,000, and brought in an extra €134 million in taxes, was primarily due to the fear that it would act as a disincentive for large soft-drink multinationals to locate in the State.

PRIVATE OWNERSHIP Who controls this world economy?

Although the three left wing parties in Portugal got over 50%

of the vote in 2015, the President requested the conservative party (with 39%) to try and form a government saying that a left wing government would lead to “a breakdown of confidence of international institutions, of our creditors, of investors and of the international financial markets.” Elected governments are beholden to un-elected, often anonymous, wealthy individuals and institutions. Governments have to play the game by their rules or risk being ostracised.

Even to publicly challenge the rules carries risks. Such nations may be considered “unfriendly” towards international investors who may look to move elsewhere.

Those with the wealth not only control what decisions national governments can make, but they also control the discourse which is permissible.

Ireland (like most other countries, as Syriza in Greece found out) is embedded in an economic system from which it cannot escape, nor even challenge, a system which favours the wealthy and excludes the unneeded.

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UNDER THE MICROSCOPE MUSIC AND PRAYERS WITH A NORTHERN SOUND REVIEWED BY BRENDAN McCONVERY

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MUSIC: It is good to be able to review, however briefly, a new collection of liturgical music by a practising local musician. ‘In Him All Things’ is a 12-track collection of religious compositions by Brendan Dowd, accompanied by a group of talented church musicians and singers from Belfast. Brendan describes it as “contemporary Christian music with a north Belfast heart.” The composer is leader of the Down and Connor Folk Group (DFC), and has associations with music groups elsewhere in the north, including in Clonard Monastery. Each year, DCF joins with the Clonard Folk group for the youth session on the Sunday evening of the Solemn Novena in June. Brendan recalls that he sang one of the songs in this collection “Mother Behold Thy Son” at a celebration in Clonard, and regards

Jim Deed Surfing Life’s Waves is published by Shanway Press, 1-3 Eia St. Belfast BT 14 6 BT REALITY MARCH 2016

it as “a humbling experience” to sing it at Our Lady’s Shrine.

Many of the pieces were specifically written for use at Mass (e.g. “Come Follow Me,” “All People Clap Your Hands,” “Emmaus”), others were composed with other liturgies in view. Some, such as “The Sacrament of Your Mercy”, or “Micah”, will be particularly appropriate for penitential services, while “The Gift Hymn” or “God’s Chosen People” are ideal for confirmation celebrations. The title track, “In Him All Things” is Brendan’s personal reflection on Paul’s exhortation to the Colossians.

He says, “Real peace is found only in Jesus and when we are rooted in Him, we are no longer prisoners, we are free to love. He loves me and I can only try in my small way to share that with others.”

PRAYER: Jim Deeds is a Belfast man, husband and father of three children who works as coordinator of parish development in the diocese of Down and Connor. This is only the most recent of a series of interesting jobs from busker to NHS manager. The title of his book, Surfing Life’s Waves, is a reminder that one of his hobbies is surfing. It is also a reminder that the surface of life is often troubled by large waves we must learn to surf and reflective prayer is one way to do so. The book is divided into three unequal parts. The longest section of the book, running to almost one hundred pages, is a collection

In Him All Things Music by Brendan Dowd Distributed by Veritas of reflections. It is followed by more than twenty ‘poems for the journey’ and the book concludes with a series of short dialogues between God and the author, entitled, “It is good to talk: Chewing things over with God:” it offers models of how to pray as a dialogue with God on subjects as diverse as praying for friends who are undergoing difficulties such as serious illness or loss of a child or simply the dawning realisation that one is actually growing old – the author is still a relatively youthful 44 year old.

In his foreword, Jim Deeds tells us how the book took shape.

During Lent 2014, he decided to write up a daily prayer or

reflection on his Facebook page. He stuck to his resolution and wrote something for each of the forty days. His readers and friends liked them and encouraged him to do some more and the result is this collection. The charm of the reflections is their randomness.

S o me are sho r t , o thers somewhat longer, but few more than a page. They are provoked by such ordinary incidents as having an old guitar restored, losing a coin in a coffee machine, or trying to keep in step while walking the dog. Hopefully this little collection will encourage those who read it to surf the waves of their own lives.

GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH A TALE OF TWO BROTHERS The story of the Prodigal Son is probably the best known parable from the Gospel of Luke. Its FOURTH SUNDAY meaning is so obvious OF LENT that it requires very little by way of explanation. It is the third of a series of three parables about things lost and found – a lost sheep, a lost coin and most importantly of all, a lost child. These parables were told because the professionally religious people in the time of Jesus that a man, who claimed to be speaking in God’s name, was welcoming all sorts of people without demanding that they first perform the rites necessary to bring them back into good standing in the community.

The story reflects a common family situation.

A young man in Galilee, who was not going to inherit the major share of the family estate, takes off to seek fame and fortune elsewhere. A wallet full of money in the big city, however, can mean the end of carefully laid plans and resolutions and the money is quickly disappearing. Then an even worse catastrophe strikes - an unexpected famine and an empty wallet. Luke is a skilful storyteller in this parable. He does not just tell what happens,

but he lets us look in on the young man’s inner world by having him speak his thoughts aloud. A pigsty was no place for a well brought-up Jewish boy, so he plans his return and we hear his carefully rehearsed home-coming speech: ‘I have sinned … I do not deserve to be called your son…just give me a job as a hired hand.’

We hear little of the journey home The comeback of the prodigal son by Josef Kastner, Erloserkirche church, Vienna, Austria until it is almost over, but then we see the arrival, not from the point of view of boy, what? Never as much as a young goat to celebrate but from that of the father who runs to welcome with the lads! The father listens quietly, but just him home. He lavishes the signs of sonship on as determinedly, shows he is not for budging on him – best clothes, gold signet ring, fine shoes and the way he has treated the prodigal. The elder orders a feast to be prepared, for this boy who has brother has a choice – to come into the party, or sulk in the barn – and good story teller that he is, been restored to life.

We sometimes stop the parable here. But Jesus Luke leaves us to work that one out. If you were continued with the story because he wanted to the elder brother or sister (and you are), what make an even more telling point. A new character, would you do? the elder brother, now appears. We have not yet heard him speak, but does he deliver a tirade of angry complaints! He rakes over his brother’s faults Today’s Readings (and adds a few more for good measure, including Josh 5:9-12 Ps 33 2 Cor 5:17-21 suggesting he has been living a wild sex life. Then Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 he turns on his father – years of slaving, and for

HAS NO ONE CONDEMNED MARCH YOU? This wonderful story has a curious history. It is not found in most of the oldest FIFTH SUNDAY versions of the Gospel of St OF LENT John. Sometimes, it is found at the end of the Gospel of Luke. We might even say it is a story about Jesus that refused to die. Many stories about Jesus probably circulated during his life time and in the early days of the church that did not make their way into the gospels. As the people who originally told them died off, they probably took their stories with them. So why did this story not get lost but proved so popular that a place had to be found for it somewhere in the Gospels?

The spokesmen for the official religion, the scribes and Pharisees, have caught a woman

committing adultery. There is not a word about the man, even though the Law said quite explicitly that both should suffer the death penalty (Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22.22). They bring the woman before Jesus, claiming that they want his advice on how to implement the Law. It is more likely they suspect that, as a man who welcomes sinners and outcasts, he is likely to call for mercy, but if he does, then he will be going against the Law and they can accuse him of being unfaithful to God’s teaching.

It is a trap in which Jesus refuses to be caught.

Almost nonchalantly, he bends down and begins tracing something in the dust. We would all love to know what he wrote, but the Gospel writer does not tell us. For a moment, he raises his head and says: ‘If there is anyone among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.’ Then he resumes his writing. One by one, the accusers

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slink away, ‘beginning with the eldest,’ leaving only the woman and Jesus. Once more, he looks up and asks her where her accusers have gone.

There is no one left to accuse her or to initiate the horrible death by stoning that would have been the penalty. Jesus then says something that makes even some Christian commentators on this scene nervous: ‘Neither do I condemn you: go and do not sin any more.’

Like last week’s story of the prodigal son, this story is about Jesus’ welcome for the sinner. Once again, it breathes the Good News we need to hear in the Lent of the Holy Year of Divine Mercy.

Today’s Readings Is43:16-21 Ps 125 Phil 3:8-14 John 8:1-11

God’s Word continues on page 46

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GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH

46 INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT During the coming week, our thoughts will be PASSION SUNDAY centred on the Lord’s [PALM SUNDAY] final days, culminating in his death on Calvary.

We start the week by hearing the account of the Passion: this year, it is from Luke’s account.

The four Gospel accounts of the passion tell substantially the same story, but each evangelist brings to it his own distinctive touch, sometimes omitting things, sometimes developing points passed over lightly by another, sometimes adding to the basic familiar narrative. We can only highlight what Luke brings to the story.

Luke makes two very interesting additions to his account of Jesus’ prayer in the garden (22:3946). This was surely the darkest moment of his life. Luke describes how he sweated profusely, his perspiration falling to the ground in great drops, ‘like clots of blood.’ Luke wishes to emphasise here that Jesus is struggling: he is the only Gospel writer to describe the prayer as ‘agony.’ He is

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in Jerusalem was complicit in the death of Jesus. A large crowd follows him along the way, especially the women who show their distress (23:26-31). He does not reject their sympathy, but being a prophet, he foretells that something even worse lies for them and their children. Jerusalem would be under siege and eventually fall to the Romans in the year 70. At such a bitter time, mothers would no longer bear to look on their suffering and starving children but regret that they had brought them into such a world of pain. The words (‘say to the mountains fall on us…’) are taken from the prophet Hosea, who predicted the fall of another city, Samaria, some seven hundred years before. So great would the anguish be that people Christ on the Mount of Olives by Paul Gauguin, 1889 would long for an early death rather also the only Gospel writer to mention ‘an angel than endure more of the siege. If the fate of Jesus, coming from heaven to give him strength.’ Luke the green wood of the tree of life, was the cross, wishes us to see this time of lonely personal what would be the fate of the dry wood? prayer as a struggle. He calls it ‘agony,’ a word Above all, Luke is anxious to show us a Jesus that originally meant a contest, like a wrestling who dies with dignity, every inch a king on a cross match, in which the angel takes on the role of that proclaims his kingship. He is the only Gospel the trainer or ‘second’ encouraging his champion writer to include the prayer of forgiveness, and for the fight ahead. even excusing his enemies (‘Father, forgive them Luke is also the only evangelist to include Herod for they do not know what they are doing’). To as one of those who decides Jesus’ fate (23:6-10). the criminal alongside him who prays that Jesus He was a son of Herod the Great under whose remember him in his Kingdom, he proclaims reign Jesus was born, and who had already that he will be with him that very day in paradise executed John the Baptist. Luke may intend to (23:39-43). Despised shepherds were the first associate this scene with a description of the to hear the good news that ‘today’ a saviour Messiah in Psalm 2, whom the rulers of the earth had been born: a condemned bandit is the last and the princes of the people joined to resist. person to receive the offer of salvation, not at Herod clothes Jesus in a garment of mockery some remote time in the future, but ‘today.’ before sending him back to Pilate. Luke adds an Luke also changes the final words, ‘My God, my intriguing detail: these two earthly powers, who God, why have you forsaken me?’ of Mark and have many every reason to hate one and other, Matthew to a prayer of confidence – ‘Father, into become friends by this act against Jesus. Even as your hands I entrust my spirit’ (4-49). he is being condemned to death, Jesus is still the Today’s Readings reconciler of division.

Luke also adds a scene to the journey to [Procession Lk 19:28-40] Mass: Is 50: 4-7 Calvary. He takes care to insist that not everyone Ps 21 Phil 2:6-11 Lk 26:14-27:66

THE REALITY CROSSWORD NUMBER 2, MARCH 2016

HE IS RISEN! MARCH The Good News of Easter is that death is over and done with, defeated: it has lost its power to terrify us.

Today’s Gospel contains two stories. The first is Mary Magdalene’s discovery of the Empty Tomb before dawn on Easter Sunday. The second is a somewhat EASTER SUNDAY humorous story of the race between two of the disciples to get to the tomb to verify Mary’s story.

John has taken the traditional story of several women coming to visit the tomb of Jesus (or even to anoint his body), and pared it down drastically until only one woman remains. She is Mary Magdalene who followed him from her native Galilee. Mary is often confused with some other women in the Gospels. She is not the woman taken in adultery (whose name is not given): neither is she sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus (also nameless) nor even the sister of Martha and Lazarus. This Mary followed Jesus because he had cured her of some mysterious disease (‘cast out seven devils’). John pares his narrative down to its bare essentials because he wants to focus on the personal reaction of the characters. Here it is Mary hurrying to the disciples in panic, to tell them that the tomb appears to have been robbed and the body is gone. John’s story of the meeting of Mary with the Risen Jesus is even more personal in its intensity, but you will have to read it in the section immediately following today’s Gospel (20:11-18).

The second part tells how the two disciples respond to the Mary’s news and rush to the tomb. There is something quite humorous about Peter being out-run by the younger Beloved Disciple, who gets to the tomb first and sees the clothes in which Jesus’ body had been wrapped for burial empty and cast aside. The Beloved Disciple stands in sharp contrast to Peter. Just as he outran him to the tomb, he is quicker on the uptake in grasping why the tomb and the grave clothes are empty. The truth about Jesus is beginning to dawn on them but they cannot yet pull it all together.

An empty tomb is a powerful symbol. For the moment, the Lord seems absent. John will go on to tell how Mary recognises him when he softly speaks her name. The empty tomb speaks above all of victory over death, humanity’s Last Enemy. A few years ago, Anna Manahan, a famous Irish actor died. Anna was every inch a believer, even when she lost her young husband after a year of marriage. The preacher at her funeral said: ‘Anna believed in the empty tomb of the Resurrection and she believed the empty tomb could be filled by hearing the word take the place of the emptiness.’ It is to that sort of Easter faith to which this Gospel invite us.

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SOLUTIONS CROSSWORD No. 10 ACROSS: Across: 1. Adored, 5. Alpaca, 10. Waldorf, 11. Amateur, 12. Dove, 13. Beret, 15. Okra, 17.

Sod, 19. Sarong, 21. Floppy, 22. Coracle, 23. Shroud, 25. Useful, 28. Wok, 30. Lust, 31. David, 32.

Snub, 35. Knocked, 36. Natural, 37. Sermon, 38. Purple.

DOWN: 2. Deliver, 3. Rood, 4. Defies, 5. Abated, 6. Pray, 7. Checkup, 8. Swedes, 9. Treaty, 14.

Romanov, 16. Uncut, 18. Bless, 20. God, 21. Flu, 23. Saluki, 24. Restore, 26. Funeral, 27. Labels, 28.

Warden, 29. Kidnap, 33. Skim, 34. Star.

Winner of Crossword No. 10 H. O'Dornan, Co Antrim.

ACROSS 1. Refrained from killing, injuring or distressing. (6) 5. Rubbed out. (6) 10. Centenarian father of Isaac. (7) 11. Pipe repairer. (7) 12. Connected items written consecutively.

(4) 13. Electronic folder for received emails.

(2-3) 15. Forearm bone. (4) 17. Period from midnight to midnight. (3) 19. Sheepdog with long pointed nose and long thick hair. (6) 21. U. S. state purchased from Russia. (6) 22. Declare a deceased person to be among the blessed. (7) 23. Pen name of Eric Arthur Blair. (6) 25. A building devoted to the worship of a god. (6) 28. Powdery residue left after a fire. (3) 30. Two similar things matched for use together. (4) 31. Large American mammals. (5) 32. Vault for burying the dead. (4) 35. The highest singing voice in women and boys. (7) 36. Female warriors. (7) 37. Widely known Hun. (6) 38. Dark shade of blue. (6)

DOWN 2. Light umbrella used to give shade from the sun. (7) 3. German industrial region. (4) 4. An insistent and peremptory request. (6) 5. Make use of, give work to. (6) 6. Latin water. (4) 7. Preserves the dead from decay. (7) 8. Smelly relative of the onion. (6) 9. A list of errors and corrections to be made in a book. (6) 14. Initiatory sacrament. (7) 16. The sacred writings of the Christian religion. (5) 18. A small handbill. (5) 20. Snakelike fish. (3) 21. Towards the stern of a vessel. (3) 23. To stand in the way of, obstruct. (6) 24. Small racing dogs. (7) 26. Extend the duration of. (7) 27. Decorate a surface with raised ornament.

(6) 28. Roman goddess of the dawn, natural light display. (6) 29. The only U.S. state composed entirely of islands. (6) 33. Run an airplane slowly on the ground under its own power. (4) 34. 0.9144 metre. (4)

Entry Form for Crossword No.2, March 2016 Name:

Today’s Readings

Address: Telephone:

Acts 10:34, 37-43 Ps 117 Col 3:1-4 John 20:1-9 All entries must reach us by March 31, 2016 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. 2, Redemptorist Communications, Unit A6, Santry Business Park, Swords Road, Dublin 09 X651

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