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Priest: How prayers helped me in captivity A

SALESIAN priest who had been held captive for 18 months by terrorists in Yemen has reiterated that his ability to persevere “was thanks to the prayers of everyone” who interceded for him.

“Prayer is the best thing that God has given us and can obtain everything,” Fr Tom Uzhunnalil told ACI Prensa, a Spanish-language Catholic agency.

“Surrendered to the Lord’s will, during my captivity I prayed to the Lord that they would release me soon, but I also asked him to give me the grace to complete the mission that he had planned for me.”

The Salesian missionary from India was kidnapped on March 4, 2016, during an attack on a Missionaries of Charity home in Aden, Yemen, that left 16 people dead, including four Sisters.

His captors released numerous photos and videos depicting Fr Uzhunnalil, thin and with an overgrown beard, pleading for help and for his release, saying that he was in need of hospitalisation.

The government of Oman and the Holy See had worked for the priest’s release. He was freed on September 12, 2017.

In the interview, Fr Uzhunnalil recalled the experience he went through in Yemen.

“The churches in Yemen had been attacked and vandalised, but in the days prior to my kidnapping the situation had stabilised somewhat,” he said.

However, on the morning of March 4, 2016, when he was praying in the chapel of the Missionaries of Charity, he heard gunshots outside. He saw jihadists killing four of the Sisters.

“I prayed for God’s mercy on the Sisters who had died and also for those who had killed them,” he said. “They then told me to come outside and asked me if I were a Muslim. I told them no, that I was a Christian.

And they put me in the back seat of the car.”

While Fr Uzhunnalil said his captors did not physically harm him, he did suffer psychological torture.

“They took everything away from me, al-

though they gave me a little water and food,” he recalled.

In the 18 months he was held captive, Fr Uzhunnalil relied upon prayer for perseverance.

“It was thanks to the prayers of everyone who prayed for me that I was able to endure what I Fr Tom Uzhunnalil was going through. It wasn’t because of my (Photo: Salesian personal fortitude but News Agency) because of the prayers of my brothers and sisters in the faith,” he said.

Fr Uzhunnalil also relied on personal prayer during his captivity.

“Every day, I prayed the Angelus; three or four Rosaries; an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for the Sisters who died; the Chaplet of Divine Mercy; I meditated on the Way of the Cross; and I celebrated Holy Mass spiritually—I didn’t have any bread or wine but I said the prayers from memory,” he said.

“I prayed for my captors and I thanked God for the seed of goodness they could have in their hearts. Thanks be to God, I don’t hold any rancour or hatred for them,” he added.

“God knew everything that was happening, because they should have killed me in the beginning, but they didn’t. They kept me alive even though I said I was a Christian.

Here I am now, free, to bear witness that God is alive, that he has heard our prayers and has answered us. I have witnessed the power of prayer,” he said.

After his release on September 12, 2017, he met with Pope Francis, a moment that was “tremendously emotional”.

Fr Uzhunnalil encouraged all Christians who are suffering persecution today to be steadfast in prayer and faith in God. The priest currently lives in Bangalore, India, since Yemen is still at war. However, he said that he is ready to go back to the country—”if that’s God’s will”.—CNA

A depiction of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem sculpted from sand is displayed in the Italian resort town of Jesolo in December 2017. Jesolo will donate a 16m-wide Nativity scene made entirely of highly compressed sand to the vatican. The sculpture will be unveiled during the vatican’s annual tree-lighting ceremony on December 7. (Photo courtesy Jesolo Tourism office)

Sand Nativity for Vatican

By JUNNo Arocho ESTEvES

A

LTHOUGH sand castles and sculptures usually conjure up images of hot summers on the beach, the Vatican will unveil a massive Nativity scene made entirely of sand during the cold Roman winter.

According to the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the Nativity scene displayed in St Peter’s Square this Advent and Christmas season will feature a 16m-wide sand sculpture from Jesolo, an Italian seaside resort town roughly 65km north of Venice.

The intricate sculpture, along with a 13mtall red spruce tree donated by the diocese of Concordia-Pordenone in the northern Italian region of Veneto, will be unveiled at the Vatican’s annual tree-lighting ceremony on December 7.

Bas-relief sand sculptures, like the one that will be featured in St Peter’s Square, are a tradition in Jesolo which, since 1998, has been the home of an annual sand-sculpture festival.

Sand sculptures are also often seen on popular beaches in South African coastal cities.

At the helm of the Jesolo sculpture proj-

S outher n C ross Pilgrimage

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ect, dubbed the “Sand Nativity”, is US sculptor Rich Varano. According to the city’s website for the Nativity scene, Mr Varano is an accomplished sand sculptor with over 40 years’ experience and has organised various international sand-sculpture festivals, including the annual event in Jesolo.

Mr Varano is joined by 11 artists from around the world who are assisting in creating the massive “Sand Nativity” before its December unveiling.

Jesolo mayor Valerio Zogga presented sketch designs of the project in December 2017 to Archbishop Francesco Moraglia of Venice.

The process of creating the sculptures involves compressing sand and water into blocks that are then sculpted to life-size figures.

Unlike the sand castles that often disintegrate by a single touch or the occasional passing wave, the compression allows for a more durable sculpture that is able to withstand light rain.

The “Sand Nativity” scene and tree will remain in St Peter’s Square until the feast of the Lord’s Baptism on January 13, L’Osservatore Romano reported.—CNS

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The Southern cross, November 14 to November 20, 2018

LOCAL

Why we can’t be silent to cries of poor By chrISTEN TorrES

C

A boy sits outside a house in a cape Town township. For the church, taking care of the poor is a gospel command. on November 18, the church observes the second World Day of the Poor, an initiative of Pope Francis. (Photo: harald oppitz, KNA/cNS)

ATHOLICS must not forget the poor who “form part of the social fibre”, according to a priest who works with Caritas, the social outreach and development arm of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC).

“Caritas is at the heart of evangelisation, and is the home of the poor,” Fr Patrick Rakeketsi CSS, SACBC associate secretary-general, told The Southern Cross.

The second World Day of the Poor, an initiative of Pope Francis, will be observed on November 18, the 33rd Sunday in ordinary time.

World Day of the Poor was first proposed in 2016 in Pope Francis’ apostolic letter for the Year of Mercy, Misericordia et misera, which calls on the faithful to “make a serious examination of conscience, to see if we are truly capable of hearing the cry of the poor”.

“Deeply moved by the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis expressed a desire for this spirit to be present in different Catholic realities in the whole world: dioceses, parishes, movements, associations, communities,” Fr Rakeketsi said.

Poverty has been on the increase globally. In South Africa, poverty rates have increased from 21,5% in 2008 to 28% in 2018.

With such a large portion of the population affected by poverty, Fr Rakeketsi encourages South Africans to “arrange their Sundays in such a way that this day remains remarkable among the poor as well as in the community”.

One of the basic principles of Catholicism is the “Preferential Option for the Poor” which calls on all Catholics to create conditions for

the marginalised, to defend the defenceless, and assess society and the impact it has on the poor.

Pope Francis has noted that poverty is caused by pride, greed, injustice and selfishness.

“God’s act of liberation is a saving act for those who lift up to him their sorrow and distress. The bondage of poverty is shattered by the power of God’s intervention,” the pope said.

Working to unshackle the poor from that bondage are welfare organisations such as the Kolping Society of South Africa.

The Catholic lay-run society sets up support and solidarity groups for vulnerable communities, especially the poor, said Judith Turner, national coordinator of the Kolping Society.

“We set up groups where we can help people gain access to opportunities, like, for instance, work. We also train young people with life skills and with work skills so that they can carve out a better future for themselves.”

O

ther organisations focus on material relief. One of these is the Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP), which, like Kolping, is an international society. The SVP is represented in many parishes across South Africa.

“The core work of the society is to serve the poor by visiting them in their homes,” said Kevin Barnard, the SVP’s national legal advisor.

“Our vision was expressed by our French founder, Bl Frederic Ozanam, who said, ‘by drawing closer to the poor, we draw closer to God’.”

The SVP also has homes for the aged and for children, runs soup kitchens, and raises funds for its poverty-relief activities through charity shops.

For World Day of the Poor, the SVP has asked parishioners to bring loaves of breads and spreads to weekend Masses of November 17/18. The loaves will be collected by the respective parishes, whose members are then encouraged to

bring the food to their local SVP branch.

“Parishioners are being encouraged to assist with the making of sandwiches for the poor after each Mass on the weekend, and to help SVP members in distributing them to the poor,” said Mr Barnard.

The SACBC is also asking parishioners to help those in need on November 18.

“The Sunday is dedicated to praying for the poor as well as to making visible gestures in reaching out to them, such as providing meals for the poor, giving out clothing to them, and other gestures,” Fr Rakeketsi said.

Looking beyond the World Day of the Poor, Kolping’s Ms Turner said: “The public should look out for opportunities and requests from organisations like the Kolping Society and others working for poverty relief. They must offer their skills, time and resources, and stand behind organisations and movements that are there to help uplift the poor.”

This can take the form of volunteering as well as offering material contributions, including donations.

“Poverty in South Africa is on the increase. As the economic situation in South Africa gets worse, the poor are the most affected,” said the SVP’s Mr Barnard.

“People are encouraged to continue to give generously the poor.”

And while one’s individual contributions may seem insignificant, Pope Francis has emphasised that any help or effort that aims to help those in need is meaningful, “It may well be like a drop of water in the desert of poverty, yet it can serve as a sign of sharing with those in need, and enable them to sense the active presence of a brother or a sister.”

In Misericordia et misera, the pope warned that “as long as Lazarus lies at the door of our homes (Lk 16:1921), there can be no justice or social peace”. n See also page 4 and the cut-out-andkeep prayer on page 11. cBc St John’s Parklands in cape Town held its annual Laps for cancer event to raise funds for the paediatric ward at Tygerberg hospital. Students, in their house colours, had to run as many laps as possible.

SOCIETY OF SOUTH AFRICA

Kolping is a world-wide community of solidarity. Through education and other activities in many fields of daily living, Kolping develops and supports people to grow in faith and life. By putting Faith into Action, Kolping members reach out to the poor and vulnerable members of society to bring love and hope and to share goods.

“Christianity is not nice words and empty phrases, it has to be practised in a committed and sacrificial way that is clearly identifiable in the world and influences its surroundings.” (Blessed Adolph Kolping 1813-1865)

For further information contact: Ms Judith Turner Kolping National Coordinator 021 975 9722 nationalcoordinator@kolpingsa.co.za

The Southern cross, November 14 to November 20, 2018

LOCAL

3

Schools gear up for De La Salle’s 300 years A PRIL 7 next year marks the 300th anniversary of John Baptist De La Salle, a pioneer of Catholic schools throughout the world, including South Africa.

One of Johannesburg’s Lasallian schools, De La Salle Holy Cross College in Victory Park, will begin the celebration of the tercentenary of the man it calls “a visionary, leader, and game-changer”, with a year’s series of events, starting in December.

At Victory Park, the celebrations will be launched on Thursday, December 6, at the year-end Mass, and

run until December 6, 2019.

The theme for the international celebration is “One Heart, One Commitment, One Life”.

To mark the jubilee year, programmes worldwide are being planned that include liturgies, festivities, and cultural and sporting activities to promote the charism of St John Baptist De La Salle, and encourage a spirit of association between Lasallians.

Johannesburg will join in that spirit, with De La Salle Holy Cross in Victory Park, La Salle College in

Discovery, and Tsholofelo Community in Phokeng creating opportunities for interaction.

The main focus for the Johan-

nesburg celebrations will be May 15, the feast day of St John Baptist De La Salle. Archbishop Buti Tlhagale will celebrate the jubilee Mass on the Victory Park college’s rugby field at 9:00, followed by a day of celebratory activities.

Learners and staff of La Salle College will join the celebrations, as will Little Explorers Pre-primary and representatives from Tsholofelo.

2019 has also been declared the Year of Lasallian Vocations, a time to discern whether schools are following in the footsteps of their

founder, who opened schools that offered the poor preference.

“We will follow his example with an emphasis on our outreach projects in 2019,” Victory Park said.

“The first of these will be the ‘Lenten Challenge’. This year we raised 2 000 tins of food; the aim for 2019 is 3 000 tins.”

Mary Hyam, director of religious education and formation at Victory Parke, has called on the school to “really make a difference, showing that we have the heart to commit to changing lives in 2019”.

Course offered to help Catholic school opens live out prayer life innovative media centre By chrISTEN TorrES

S

T

HE Prayer and Life Workshops programme—labelled as “a more vibrant and active presentation of Jesus, with greater adaptation to the necessities of today’s societies and what people really need”—will be offered to parishes in Cape Town next year.

The workshops, starting in February and July 2019, are a four-month course with the goal of people deepening their relationship with God through prayer and Scripture.

This is done through practising different ways of prayer as well as learning and implementing “life applications” whereby participants apply what they have learned during the session to their everyday lives.

“It is a course, not a prayer group,” explained Ani Schneider, one of the organisers of the workshops. “We run the course in parishes for the moment but it can be done anywhere, and we are looking for the opportunity to have a wider range of action.”

The programme consists of 16 weeks of two-hour sessions. The workshops begin with an introduction session and end with a “desert retreat” which requires participants to spend four hours “in silence in the presence of God, practising all

The Prayer and Life Workshops team in cape Town after a “desert retreat”, four hours of silence in the presence of God, held at Schoenstatt. The workshops course will run again in in cape Town in February and July 2019 . they have learned, guided by the Holy Spirit”, Ms Schneider said.

Currently the Prayer and Life Workshops course is run in Bothasig, Fish Hoek and Lansdowne parishes.

Prayer and Life Workshops is a worldwide organisation operating in 43 countries. It is approved by the Holy See and is required to report annually to the local bishop on its activities. n Contact Ani Schneider at ani. schneider@gmail.com

AINT Benedict’s College in Bedfordview, Johannesburg, has a new media centre, offering “not just books on shelves but a space for collaboration and innovation”.

The Fr J Robert de Sylva Media Centre was officially opened with a prayer and blessing by school chaplain Fr Thabo Mothiba.

The media centre, also called BOB or the Bibliobox, is a social meeting point, a study centre, a movie studio, a music studio, a computer lab, a conference centre, and a place where boys can come in to take out videos.

It is designed to be a multipurpose space, and most of the furniture has built-in castors, so that the library can be rearranged to suit various purposes.

At the new St Benedict’s media centre’s entrance is an amphitheatre with seating for students to enjoy casual reading, catching up with friends, poetry jam sessions, and informal talks.

University-style cubicles provide ample study space for individuals who prefer to study alone. However, the dividers above the cubicles can be removed to allow for two boys to study together.

White, shaped shelving houses the non-fiction collection, while

The new media centre at St Benedict’s college in Bedfordview, Johannesburg, houses its fiction collection on colourful, wavy shelves. fiction, subdivided by colour coding, is arranged on the colourful wavy shelves on the walls. The fiction collection includes graphic novels, Pan-African literature, and Afrikaans, English and isiZulu novels.

There are 28 computers available

for research or casual use, and two conference rooms for meetings, group discussions, and exams.

The school’s new media centre also has an audiovisual room, fitted with Green Screen technology, to make films and videos, and a music studio for recording songs.

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The Southern cross, November 14 to November 20, 2018

INTERNATIONAL

Bishops hail Ethiopia’s Pope: Drop the first female president ‘phobia of the poor’ E By cAroL GLATZ

H

OW is it that God in heaven can hear the cries of the poor, but so many people watching or standing nearby either cannot or just do not care, Pope Francis asked.

People must make “a serious examination of conscience to understand whether we are really capable of listening to the poor,” the pope said in a message for World Day of the Poor, observed this year on November 18.

The recently established commemoration and the period of reflection and action preceding it are meant to give Christians a chance to follow Christ’s example and concretely share a moment of love, hope and respect together with those in need in one’s community, the pope said.

World Day of the Poor—marked each year on the 33rd Sunday of ordinary time—focuses on a verse from Psalm 34, “This poor one cried out and the Lord heard.”

“We can ask ourselves, how is it this cry, which reaches all the way to God, is unable to penetrate our ears and leaves us indifferent and impassive?” the pope asked.

To become aware of people’s suffering and know how best to respond with love, people must learn to be silent and listen, he said.

“If we speak too much ourselves, we will be unable to hear them,” he said.

That is often what happens when otherwise important and needed initiatives are carried out more as a way to please oneself “than to really acknowledge the cry of the poor”, he said.

“We are so entrapped in a culture which forces us to look in the mirror” and unduly “pamper ourselves”, he said. Such people come to believe their act of altruism is enough without having to feel any empathy or the need to sacrifice or “endanger” themselves directly.

Nobody seeks poverty or its

A rubbish dump on the outskirts of Karachi. The World Day of the Poor will focus on a verse from Psalm 34, ‘This poor one cried out and the Lord heard.’ (Photo: Shahzaib Akber, EPA/cNS) many forms, which include marginalisation, persecution and injustice, the pope said.

Poverty “is caused by selfishness, pride, greed and injustice. These are evils as old as humanity, but also sins in which the innocents are caught up, leading to consequences on the social level, which are dramatic”, he said.

“God’s answer to the poor is always an intervention of salvation in order to heal the wounds of body and soul, restore justice and assist in beginning anew to live life with dignity. God’s answer is also an appeal in order that those who believe in him can do the same,” Pope Francis added.

W

orld Day of the Poor is meant to be a small contribution that the whole Church can make so the poor may know their cries have not gone unheard, the pope said in his message.

“It is like a drop of water in the desert of poverty; and yet it can be a sign of sharing for those who are in need, that they might experience the active presence of a brother or a sister,” he said.

This encounter is a call for personal involvement, not delegation

to others, he said. And it is not cold, distant giving, but an act that requires “loving attentiveness” just like God offers everyone.

So many people in need are seeking the meaning of their existence and a response to their questions about “why they have fallen so far and how they can escape! They are waiting for someone to come up and say, ‘Take heart; rise, he is calling you,’” the pope said.

Unfortunately, people are often repelled by, not drawn to the poor, he said. The cries of the poor are often met with rebuke and they are told “to shut up and put up”.

There is a real “phobia of the poor”, who are seen not only as destitute, but also as carriers of “insecurity and instability”, to be rejected and kept afar.

But this tendency to create a distance means “people distance themselves from Jesus himself”.

The Church should give freely with an attitude of humility, “without seeking the limelight”, he said.

“In serving the poor, the last thing we need is a battle for first place,” he said. The poor don’t need heroes, but a love which knows how to remain hidden from worldly recognition, the pope said.—CNS

THIOPIA’S bishops welcomed the election of the nation’s first female president, Sahle-Work Zewde, and said they were pleased that women “are getting their rightful place in the development of the country”.

Ms Zewde, 68, a career diplomat, has served in a variety of posts, including as Ethiopia’s representative to the United Nations, and as director-general of the UN offices in Nairobi—a position in which she met Pope Francis in 2015.

“The Ethiopian Catholic Church believes that President Sahle-Work Zewde, who has years of impressive diplomatic experience, will further strengthen the leading role Ethiopia is playing in the region and enhance the soft power of the country at an international level,” said the Church statement.

The statement noted that, for years, the Catholic Church has

President Sahle-Work Zewde.

Photo: Tiksa Negeri, reuters/cNS) worked for the empowerment of women, providing young girls with education and other opportunities so that they may explore their potential. It said it hoped Ms Zewde’s election would inspire women and young girls throughout the country to recognise their potential and strive to become influential actors in the international arena.—CNS

Belgian Fr Georges Lemaître demonstrates his theory. An electronic vote among all members of the International Astronomical Union voted 78% to recommend changing the name of hubble’s law (expanding universe) to the hubble–Lemaître Law. Fr Lemaître called his theory on the origin of the universe “the hypothesis of the primeval atom” or the “cosmic Egg”.

Big Bang to be named in honour of priest

T

HE International Astronomical Union has voted in favour of a recommendation to rename the official term for the Big Bang Theory to acknowledge the contributions of Belgian priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître to the scientific theory of the expansion of the universe.

“To honour the intellectual integrity and the supremely significant discovery by Georges Lemaître, the IAU is pleased to recommend that the expansion of the universe be referred to as the Hubble-Lemaître Law,” the association said. At present the law acknowledges only the US astronomer Edwin Hubble.

Fr Lemaître, who died in 1966, was a physicist and mathematician who is widely credited with developing the Big Bang Theory to explain the physical origin of the universe.

Hubble’s Law describes how objects in the expanding universe move away from each other with

a velocity proportional to their distance apart.

The IAU is an international organisation of professional astronomers, and is the internationally recognised authority for naming celestial bodies.

More than 11 000 members were able to vote on the resolution. Of the 4 060 members who voted, 78% approved the resolution.

Fr Lemaître published a paper in 1927 discussing the rate of the expansion of the universe, but “the limited popularity of the journal in which Lemaître’s paper appeared and the language used made his remarkable discovery largely unperceived by the astronomical community”, according to the resolution.

The resolution also noted that Fr Lemaître, an IAU member since 1925, exchanged views about redshift with Hubble at the third IAU general assembly at Leiden, Netherlands in 1928.—CNA

New charismatic governing body

T

HE two international bodies that had been supporting and coordinating the international activities of charismatic Catholics will become one new organisation.

“Charis” will take over the roles previously played by the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service and the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships, the Vatican announced.

“As a body in the service of all the realities of Catholic charismatic renewal,” the Vatican said, “Charis will not exercise any authority over these realities. Each single charismatic reality will remain as it is under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical authority upon which it currently depends.”

The new body’s, ecclesiastical adviser will be Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher of the papal household.—CNS

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern cross, November 14 to November 20, 2018

Warning: Don’t get slack on abuse prevention

5

By SArAh MAc DoNALD

D

UBLIN Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has warned there is “a danger of complacency or inertia or of slippage into false confidence” in the Church’s fight against clerical abuse.

Addressing the annual National Child Safeguarding Conference in Kilkenny, the archbishop told safeguarding delegates from dioceses, parishes and religious orders across Ireland that, with renewed focus on worldwide abuse this year, people with whom the Church had been in contact years ago got back in touch.

“The wounds of the past had been reopened and they were asking for support, assistance and the reassurance that we still viewed their complaints with the same seriousness as we did when we first heard them,” Archbishop Martin said at the conference.

The archbishop paid tribute to abuse survivors, including Marie Collins, who resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in March 2017 over curial resistance to reform. He said in internal Church culture, survivors often were looked on as being “difficult”.

“All I can say is: Thank God they were so,” he said.

Fr Joe McDonald, a Dublin parish priest who was abused as an 8-year-old altar server, also addressed the conference on the need

Students at Bethlehem University, a catholic institution where Palestinian christians and Muslims study together. The head of the Knights of the holy Sepulchre has emphasised the importance of education in giving the christians of the holy Land greater opportunities and to foster interreligious relations. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher) Pope Francis talks with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin in Ireland in August. (Photo: Paul haring/cNS) for a compassionate Church. Fr McDonald was one of the survivors who met Pope Francis at the Vatican embassy in Dublin in August.

Speaking of the February 2019 meeting between Pope Francis and the presidents of bishops’ conferences from around the world to discuss clerical abuse, he urged the Vatican to invite every bishop to bring two guests with them “who could be male or female, ordained or non ordained” and even “a victim and a perpetrator”.

He stressed that the meeting in Rome “will be the poorer if it takes place without Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. He has walked a very spe-

cific journey and he has paid a high price for it—I think he has been heroic in that regard.”

Archbishop Martin is widely credited with pushing for sweeping changes in the area of safeguarding within the Irish Church and for giving victims of clerical abuse a supportive listening ear.

He was prepared to make 80 000 files available to the Murphy Commission, which investigated the archdiocese of Dublin’s mishandling of allegations of abuse.

This almost resulted in a High Court action against him by his predecessor, Cardinal Desmond Connell.—CNS

Pope focuses on ‘good politics’ for World Peace Day 2019 By cAroL GLATZ

T

HE world will not have peace without people having mutual trust and respecting each other’s word, the Vatican said as it announced Pope Francis’ 2019 World Peace Day message would focus on “good politics.”

“Good politics is at the service of peace” will be the theme for the January 1 commemoration and for the message Pope Francis will write for the occasion, said a Vatican communique.

The pope’s full message for World Peace Day, traditionally released by the Vatican in mid-December, is sent, through Vatican

diplomats, to the leaders of nations around the world.

The Vatican said Pope Francis’ message will underline how political responsibility belongs to all citizens, especially those given the mandate “to protect and to govern”.

“This mission consists in safeguarding law and in encouraging dialogue among stakeholders in society, between generations and among cultures,” the Vatican said.

“There is no peace without mutual trust. And the first condition for trust is respecting one’s word,” it said.

Political involvement is one of the loftiest expressions of charity,

Picking neighbours to love ‘is pagan’ By cAroL GLATZ

T

HE commandment to love one’s neighbour does not mean Christians get to choose who gets help and who doesn’t, Pope Francis said.

“It is not about pre-selecting my neighbour,” he said. “This isn’t Christian, it is pagan.”

Christians must encounter everyone with the heart and eyes of Jesus, listening to and being near those in need, the pope said before reciting the Angelus with people gathered in St Peter’s Square.

The pope reflected on Mark 12:28-34 in which Jesus says the greatest of all the commandments is to “love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength”, followed by the commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself”.

The two commandments—like two sides of the same coin—cannot be separated and, therefore, must

both be lived, the pope said.

However, he said, Mark does not worry about specifying who qualifies as a neighbour in his Gospel account because one’s neighbour “is the person I encounter on my journey during my day”.

“It is about having eyes to see this person and the heart to desire his wellbeing,” the pope said.

Someone who is hungry, for example, “needs not only a bowl of soup, but also a smile, to be listened to, and also a prayer, perhaps done together,” the pope said.

Christians are called to not just address people’s most urgent material needs, but above all to be attentive to their need for friendship, meaning in life and tenderness, he said.

“It’s about avoiding the risk of being a community that is made up of many initiatives but few relationships,” offering many services and little fellowship, Pope Francis said—CNS.

it said, and it brings with it a concern for “the future of life and the planet, of the young and the least, in their thirst of fulfilment.”

When people’s rights are respected, then they will start to feel their own “duty to respect the rights of others”, the Vatican note said.

The rights and responsibilities of each person help foster people’s awareness of belonging to the same community with others and with God, it added.

“We are thus called to bring and proclaim peace as the good news of a future where every living being will be respected in its dignity and rights.”—CNS

‘Stop the Holy Land becoming a museum’ By hANNAh BrocKhAUS & JUDITh SUDILovSKy

T

HE Holy Land must not become a museum without the presence of the local Christians, according to the head of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.

The order’s grand master, Cardinal Edwin O’Brien, said in Rome that the organisation is committed to providing good educational opportunities in the Holy Land to help Palestinian Christians remain in their homeland.

“We don’t want the Holy Land to become a museum,” Cardinal O’Brien told reporters as members of the order gathered in Rome for their general assembly..

Cardinal O’Brien said he believes education, at all levels, is one of the greatest contributions the order has made. Education offers stabilisation by giving young people in the Holy Land the foundation for a better future, and by contributing to interreligious dialogue and harmony, since both Christians and Muslims attend order-funded schools, he noted.

The order provides around 80% of the total operating budget of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, supporting around 68 parishes, 44 schools, and 90 000 Christians in Jordan, Palestine, Israel and Cyprus.

This aid is coordinated through the governing body of the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.

Cardinal O’Brien told the US Catholic broadcaster EWTN that the order has seen success in the cooperation among Christians and between Christians and Muslims in the area of the patriarchate.

“The effective role that we play is

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in dialogue,” he said, “but especially in education, because for many [Christians in the Holy Land] there are no real solid education opportunities.” The order provides education for Christians “no matter what they can do to pay”, he said.

The order’s members “are committed to doing whatever’s necessary to advance the pastoral, educational, and humanitarian needs of Christians and others in Palestine, West Bank, Jordan, and Israel”, he said.

The “consulta”, as the general assembly is called, takes place every five years and brings together a portion of the estimated 30 000 members to discuss future projects and the mission of the order.

M

eanwhile Catholic leaders in the Holy Land have called for the repeal of the controversial Israeli Nation State law.

“We, as the religious leaders of the Catholic Churches, call on the authorities to rescind this basic law and assure one and all that the state of Israel seeks to promote and protect the welfare and the safety of all its citizens,” they said in a statement. The ordinaries included bishops, patriarchs and religious leaders of various rites who serve in the Holy Land.

All residents of Israel—includung Palestinians–must be treated as equal citizens, the Catholic leaders said.

The law, which was passed in July, establishes that “the right to exercise national determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people”.—CNA/CNS

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The Southern cross, November 14 to November 20, 2018

LEADER PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

A Synod on Women?

F

OLLOWING last month’s Synod of Bishops on Youth, suggestions have been made that the next synod might be dedicated to women.

This would be a natural progression: after the two synods on the family and this year’s on youth, the Church would put its mind to the critical issues concerning women: in the Church, in society and in the family.

It would be a brave decision to call a synod on women. For one thing, more so than was the case with youth, the bishops would need to take extreme care not to appear patronising, never mind giving an appearance of men dictating to women.

Last month’s synod did not create ideal optics, with the various prelates sitting in front, carefully ordered by rank, with the priests behind them and, behind a barrier, youth and other laity.

For all the evidently productive work done in group meetings and informal encounters, the seating arrangement seemed to reinforce a sense of exactly the clericalism Pope Francis is criticising.

It might have been a fruitful innovation to pair up each voting member in the synod hall with a young person authorised to advise their respective bishops when speakers made particularly good or bad points.

Should there be a synod on women, the messages conveyed by (presumably unintended) optics would need to be carefully considered.

Likewise, last month’s controversy, when women religious were denied the right to vote in the synod while their male counterparts were, would have to be avoided (indeed, this must be prevented whatever the theme).

There is a need to give women influence and authority in the Church, to give substance to the notion of the “feminine genius” which so often sounds like no more than condescending rhetoric. A synod would need to explore how to adapt the Church’s structures to achieve this.

By giving a synodal voice to women, the Church would encourage the necessary development of a revitalised theology of women.

A renewed theology of women would revisit the application of the principle of complementarity, which for all its merits also bears the historical baggage of having been used to deny women equal rights, for example to justify

withholding their right to vote.

The role of women in the family, especially motherhood, merits further discussion proceeding from those in the synods of the family and youth, especially taking into account the various understandings of motherhood that differ from the dominant Western worldview.

Of course, a synod on women would also create prospects for awkward discussions, within the synod and more so outside.

One issue that would inevitably come up involves the opinion that Pope John Paul II’s 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, which declared the question of women priests definitively closed, exceeded its authority, in content and effect.

Related to that, the question of opening the permanent diaconate to women would need to be advanced by then.

A synod on women would also place the spotlight on the Church’s teachings on reproduction, some of which are not fully lived out by all Catholics, and are actively opposed by many outside the Church.

Some of these issues could be sidestepped by extending the focus of such a synod to the broader theme of gender issues.

This would give focus to critical issues such as domestic violence, sexual violence and exploitation, social and economic inequality, and so on, with a special attention on the role of men in counteracting these injustices.

The World Health Organization has declared violence against women a global epidemic; a synodal discussion would help formulate the Church’s collective response to that crisis—building on actions and programmes that are already in place, such as the Justice & Peace Tavern Project in the diocese of Klerksdorp.

A synod on gender would also create space for a dialogue on patriarchy, the Church’s relationship to it, and what might be done to address the crises linked to patriarchy.

A synod on gender would stimulate a reflection on masculinity and manhood in an age when old patriarchal systems are challenged.

Such a dialogue would give substance to the Church’s pastoral ministry to men in a changing world.

These issues and more require the Church’s response, with a synod or without.

The Editor reserves the right to shorten or edit published letters. Letters below 300 words receive preference. Pseudonyms are acceptable only under special circumstances and at the Editor’s discretion.

Name and address of the writer must be supplied. No anonymous letter will be considered.

Southern Cross shines amid vitriol

I

HAVE woken very early and opened the current digital edition of The Southern Cross. What fine sharing of communities, individuals and places emerges from the pages.

The spirit of involvement, dedi-

Greed can indeed overwhelm us

I

WRITE in full support of the excellent letter by Sr Angelika Laub OP (October 24).

What is emphasised in her letter is the problem which, to a greater or lesser extent, we all suffer from—and that is greed. It could well be the characteristic that drives us to try to do more, but it’s also a dangerous and destructive characteristic.

A brilliant man who clearly understood this danger, and furthermore tried to do something about it, was Robert Owen (1771-1858).

He began working at a very early age with nothing, but with a little borrowed money became a very wealthy industrialist.

Owen then realised what the industrial revolution, which still continues, was doing to poorer people, and initiated the trade union movement and also the political socialist movement.

One can image the anger this created among his peers.

Greed, like racism, is evil and just as bad as theft. It is in contradiction to the teaching of Our Lord. We should never forget that Our Lord said it’s not going to be easy to get into heaven.

In addition to Sr Angelika’s letter, your editorial in that issue, “How to do Halloween”, is brilliant.

It’s so unfortunate that our bishops and priests do not give The Southern Cross more support, because you, Mr Editor, and your colleagues do some wonderful work in guiding and educating us all in the Christian faith.

Roy Glover, Knysna

Cycling ’round heaven all day...

T

HE report on the Legion of Mary (October 3) starting its first South African praesidium 85 years ago in Port Elizabeth reminded me of that exceptional nun, Irish Dominican Sr Evangelist (Nancy Raleigh).

It was she who applied to Legion of Mary founder Frank Duff and the organisation’s Dublin headquarters to authorise the establishment of Our Lady’s legion here.

This was realised in 1933.

Sr Evangelist was my Standard 1 teacher at St Anne’s in Walmer, Port

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cation and practice of strong faith inspire, comfort and uplift with stories.

It takes me far from the vitriol, selfishness and cold-hearted tone that dominates the news cycle here

Elizabeth, and left a lasting impression on all whom she taught.

Gaunt, and quite ancient, with a Mother Teresa type of face beneath her flowing black and beige Dominican habit, she also had a Mother Teresa type of heart beneath an austere exterior.

An Irish raconteur, she often spoke of the painful conditions of poor families living, for instance, huddled in old, disused car wrecks.

The little food they would be given would be gladly shared with their even poorer neighbours, Sister told her amazed class.

One of Sr Evangelist’s favourite topics was the glories of heaven, where the blessed could have anything they dreamed of.

“I want to be riding around in heaven on a brand-new Raleigh bicycle,” was one of her favourite descriptions of heavenly delights. The joke was lost on us—who were not aware that Sister was herself a Raleigh!

The dreadful alternative to heaven was too distressing to dwell upon: the unspeakable H-word.

Ride well above, among the other Raleigh cyclists in the heavenly Legions of Mary’s angels, dear Sr Evangelist!

Fr Sean Collins CSsr, Howick, KZN

Are whites now being targeted?

A

RCHBISHOP Buti Tlhagale (October 17) hailed the late Black Consciousness Movement leader Chris Mokoditoa as a Struggle hero and pioneer.

AZAPO member Mr Mokoditoa did indeed play a large role in bringing about equality and change in our country. Black Consciousness fostered human dignity and worth among black South Africans.

Would it be incorrect to say that today, it is white people who are being discriminated against, not only politically but also through violence?

White dignity is being threatened and whites are being targeted in all spheres. This is borne out by the fact that so many are now leaving the country in order to live under more peaceful conditions.

There are many practising Catholics of deep faith who are now also experiencing the discrimination and inequality that has become the new order.

Tony Wyllie & Co.

in North America.

Beautiful writing, delightful photos, sincerity of dialogue...these renew and strengthen and reassure.

I am grateful for this reading.

Denise Doz, Calgary, Canada opinions expressed in The Southern Cross, especially in Letters to the Editor, do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or staff of the newspaper, or of the catholic hierarchy. The letters page in particular is a forum in which readers may exchange opinions on matters of debate.

Letters must not be understood to necessarily reflect the teachings, disciplines or policies of the church accurately.

Letters can be sent to PO Box 2372, Cape Town 8000 or editor@scross.co.za or faxed to 021 465-3850

These are white South Africans and we can only hope that their faith and religion can grant them peace and fairness.

A new organisation called the White Consciousness Movement would probably be frowned upon as racist by politicians as well as Catholic bishops.

It could, however, be necessary to restore lost dignity and the feeling of human worth among many white people.

I would support such a movement as it would be non-violent and a support to many persons who are feeling threatened and outcast in today’s communities.

Fair to say, though, that it would be disallowed and frowned upon by clergy and politicians as a racist organisation.

None of the members would enjoy the icon status conferred on their black counterparts.

Brian Gouveia, Bloemfontein

Rosary my secret to traffic calmness

I

HAVE a 10-bead rosary in my car which hangs on the indicator lever. I hold it in my right hand and pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

In this way, I am praying for every person in every vehicle on the road.

I find this beautiful prayer is most unselfish.

Depending on the distance I’m travelling, the first decade is for my beloved country South Africa. Then the next decade for troubled places, then the whole world.

Our Lord has changed me. I am a more patient driver, calmer and more alert on our busy, busy crowded roads.

Please try praying this way when driving, and God will bless you and those around you.

Judith Sims, Johannesburg

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PERSPECTIVES

The Southern cross, November 14 to November 20, 2018

Dealing with the loss of a child I RECENTLY became an uncle! After much anticipation, the family’s first grandchild has arrived, and I was very privileged to get to visit my brother, sister-in-law and our little princess a few days after she was born in Europe.

It was a long wait. Before she was born, my brother and sister-in-law had been through seven miscarriages. That experience is something we need to face as a Church community. Many families suffer the loss of a child in utero, in the early stages of pregnancy and during birth.

Their process of grief needs to be recognised and honoured.

This year in our parish, during the month of prayer for the dead, we are celebrating a special Mass for these families of loss. I’ve struggled with a name for this Mass. It’s so difficult to find a description for something so real and yet something so hard to deal with. I had thought of calling it “our teddy bear remembrance”, but that doesn’t really help.

The loss of a child—in utero or later— gives us a sense of so much loss of potential, a loss of possibility, and a loss of the story of relationship that we are all part of.

Who would this child be like? Whom would she take after? How would he have related to the other siblings in the family?

What would become of this child? How old would that child be now?

Our faith in the love of God and the Resurrection gives us space to contemplate a life for these children—not in limbo, but in the love of God, in his presence as the Little Innocents. I take great consolation in this that the eight siblings are siblings for eternity. I’ll get to meet only one of them—and she’s beautiful.

Dealing with this loss in utero or in

stillbirth is an intense pain. There is also the pain of the loss of any child.

The cliché goes that no parent should bury their own child. Losing a child produces a very real pain, whether the child dies soon after birth or in their 50s. The loss of a child is devastating. I wonder if that pain is ever fully healed or if that loss remains in the emotional world of the parents forever?

T

he process of miscarriage or still-birth often focusses around the mother. She feels the loss intensely, and the process of dealing with the death of a child in utero is often very clinical.

But I wonder how we help the dads deal with this? Is there a place and a need for dads to be honoured and comforted?

So often, supporting the mother takes precedence and dad just has to carry on— often bewildered and without having the

Losing a child is traumatic, even through miscarriages—and often even in abortions. As a church, we must create spaces of healing for grieving mothers and fathers, argues Fr chris Townsend.

Fr Chris Townsend

Pastor’s Notebook

space to grieve.

In South Africa, we are also faced with more than 20 years of legal abortion. I wonder how many of those children we would have known and loved?

The very private pain of the mother (parents?) of a child who was aborted often endures as a guilt for decades or even a lifetime.

In all the parishes I have worked in, we have tried to make a space for remembrance, a quiet, private space. Once again, we also need to find a place for the acknowledgement and compassionate healing of what is often an act of desperation.

Compassionate pastors and compassionate communities need to understand how this healing-space needs to be created as a lot of people are trapped in a cycle of guilt and recrimination.

We never legitimise the action, but age, time and experience change the mothers and fathers of those who have died—and this change, conversion and the need for healing need to be a part of our parish community.

This Mass for those who have lost a child is a small space, a simple space for those who struggle to come to terms with loss.

Remembering that the Mass is our sincerest and greatest form of public prayer, just the act of remembrance of the dead with the Remembrance of Jesus becomes a space for healing.

God invites us into a family I F you have ever attended a large family reunion, you know it becomes a kind of virtual scrapbook in the making.

We listen to one another’s stories and talk together about those relatives who couldn’t attend. We marvel at what our ancestors managed to accomplish, sometimes with meagre means, and we create new memories as we share meals, activities, laughter and tears.

In some ways, our Bible becomes a kind of family reunion as well. In its pages we meet our spiritual ancestors and discover that, although we are separated by centuries and cultures, we have much in common.

It’s that human dimension—the very mortal characteristics like fear and longing and ambition and sorrow and regret and hope—that ties us together.

When we read the story of the Canaanite woman, a Gentile who begged Jesus to heal her daughter (Mt 15:21-28), our own experiences of desperation or feeling like an outsider will help us to enter into that scene.

When we read that Jonah never wished to bring God’s message to his sworn enemy, the Ninevites (Jonah 1), we surely know how discomforting it is to recognise our own stubbornness or even resistance in doing God’s will.

When we read about the violence that erupted between Cain and Abel (Gen 4), how can we not relate it to what we see sometimes playing out in our homes and neighbourhoods?

When we come to the tomb of Jesus with the women who followed him (Mk 16:1-8), we feel their deep sense of loss, sorrow and even confusion.

As we become more and more familiar with the contours of these 73 books of the Bible, we will find ourselves befriending

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here’s where you can get to know your family of faith. the people who are introduced to us. We imagine their lives and we make connections with our own. We listen to their stories as we would listen to those of a great aunt or a cherished grandparent, or a longlost cousin. We long to know more about the God who animated their lives and shaped their futures.

T

he writers of the various books of the Bible never intended to present accounts that could meet 21st-century criteria of accuracy by documenting their sources or writing solely for factual purposes.

Rather, the Bible’s writers were responding to their experiences of the divine, and they crafted their stories in such a way that God’s very presence was at the core of what they intended to convey. They were shaped by their own cultural understandings of storytelling and by the Spirit’s promptings.

What results is a passionate passing on of tales of trust: God’s trust in us and the people’s growing trust in God. Surrounded as we are by this extended family of faith, we become more and more able to detect God within and around us.

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We also begin to sense this deep connection with a community that began in the wilderness regions of the Middle East and expanded around the world across many generations. We sense that we are to live lives worthy of the calling we have received, as St Paul reminded so many of the communities who received his correspondence.

In his recent apostolic exhortation on the call to holiness, Rejoice and Be Glad, Pope Francis tells us in the opening paragraph that the Lord “wants us to be saints and not to settle for a bland and mediocre existence”. He goes on to remind us that holiness is not reserved for the already virtuous, but comes to life in the ordinary ways of daily living as we turn toward the Lord with openness.

As we read and pray with the Bible, this openness to God grows within us and allows us to be counted among those who are holy. Holy, not perfect. Set apart, but not elite. The Bible is filled with ordinary people who are called to be holy.

Being among God’s people and being called to holiness have much in common.

God’s call and God’s community have the ability to rub off our rough edges, hone our sense of seeking true justice, and allow us to practise mercy.

Getting to know our family of faith is well worth the effort. n This is the fourth in a ten-part series of articles entitled “Why We Should Bother With The Bible”, produced by Little Rock Scripture Study. This article first appeared in the Arkansas Catholic.

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7

Michael Shackleton

open Door

Are we doomed?

Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ is like a whisper against thunder. All around us, his call to respect the biodiversity of planet Earth is ignored. Has the pope’s lone voice any serious listeners outside the Church? Is the earth doomed? Is our only hope migration to other planets?

Riccardo

P

ESSIMISM has a way of sneaking up and poking its gloomy features in our faces. Christians are called always to stare this kind of sentiment down and to rely on the providence of God. In writing his encyclical in June 2015, Pope Francis displayed his concern for the desperate cries of the earth and its poor who badly need our care and rehabilitation. His attitude was one of optimism, not pessimism.

The scientific community, he said, has accurately measured the danger to our common home caused by consumption, waste and environmental change. The pope is a realist. He trusts the scientific evidence before him and with this knowledge, he says, we can take realistic steps to cultivate and protect the earth.

His was not a lone voice. Within three months it was supported by Dr Marcia McNutt, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, who called Pope Francis “the most visible champion for mitigating climate change”.

A month later, 179 counties spent two weeks in Paris discussing the threat of climate change to the earth. They agreed to keep global temperature increases to below 2°C and, if possible, below 1,5°C. This is a huge commitment to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere. A similar meeting is scheduled to be held in Katowice, Poland, next month.

To commemorate the third anniversary of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis held an international conference in Rome this year. He reminded governments to strive to honour the commitments made in Paris.

He went further and urged them to care for indigenous communities whose lands are seized by predatory “schemes and new forms of colonialism, fuelled by the culture of waste and consumerism”.

The lives of indigenous people, he said, “are a living memory of the mission that God has entrusted to us all: the protection of our common home”.

Pope Francis admitted that challenges remain, but he made this positive comment: “Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start.”

His final remarks were equally refreshing: The Lord of life does not leave us alone, “for he has united himself definitively to our earth, and his love constantly impels us to find new ways forward”.

With our feet firmly on Mother Earth, we need not be troubled about futurist imaginings of mass migration into space.

n Send your queries to Open Door, Box 2372, Cape Town, 8000; or e-mail: opendoor@scross.co.za; or fax (021) 465 3850. Anonymity can be preserved by arrangement, but questions must be signed, and may be edited for clarity. Only published questions will be answered.

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8

The Southern cross, November 14 to November 20, 2018

COMMUNITY

Students at Marist Brothers Linmeyer school in Johannesburg with the trophy they won in the co-educational section at the Inter-catholic Athletics Meeting. The Grade 11 students are (from left) Alexander harding, callista Kalil, Kabelo Makume and Ashton hinckley. holy Family parish of Newlands East in Durban archdiocese, led by parish priest Fr Makhomba Khanyile oFM, celebrated the confirmation of a group of young men and women. (Submitted by Toni Joharie) young girls and boys at St Matthew’s parish in Bonteheuwel, cape Town, celebrated their First communion.

With them are (from left) Patricia cloete, Fr Peter Ziegler and Meagan Abrahams.

(Photo: Lan-Mar Photography)

The Friends of Nazareth group seeks to grow in the spirit of the holy Family of Nazareth and in the charism of their founder victoire Larmenier.

At a gathering at Nazareth house in Johannesburg are (from left) Kevin Uche, Sr Lorraine Akal cSN, Louis Tshilomba, Kevin Kingsley, and Mgr vincent hill.

Members of the catholic Women’s League of St Michael’s parish in red hill, Durban, in front of the church doors. (Submitted by Marlene Abrahams)

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The Durban parishes of the Good Shepherd in Phoenix and St Joseph’s in Mount Edgecombe held a day of Marian prayer at the Grove End grounds in Phoenix. (Submitted by Bradley ramjuttan)

pics@scross.co.za

Senior students at cBc St John’s Parklands in cape Town gave up their Saturday to join the rise Against hunger programme at Table Bay Mall, packing 25 000 meals for those in need and in honour of Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday.

South African and Zimbabwean Franciscans were received in Zimbabwe as novices by Friar Fanuel Magwidi, a member of the Zimbabwean Franciscan council. Novice master Friar Thomas and Friar Solomon Mphela, vicar-provincial and secretary of formation and studies, were visiting from Pretoria.

INTERVIEW

The Southern cross, November 14 to November 20, 2018

9

Taizé head: SA’s vocation is to give hope Next year the ecumenical Community of Taizé will hold an international meeting in South Africa. Taizé prior Br Alois Löser spoke to Fr rUSSELL PoLLITT SJ about South Africa and his hopes for the meeting.

S

OUTH Africa “is a country of hope, and it has the vocation to give hope to the whole continent of Africa”, believes Br Alois Löser, the 64-year-old prior of the ecumenical monastic Taizé community in France.

Br Alois, a German Catholic who first came to Taizé as a youth, was designated prior of the famous ecumenical community by its founder, Br Roger Schütz.

Br Roger never had a chance to install Br Alois as his successor. On August 16, 2005, while Br Alois was in Cologne for World Youth Day, 90-year-old Br Roger was stabbed to death during evening prayers.

The funeral for the son of a Swiss Protestant pastor and a French Huguenot was celebrated by Cardinal Walter Kasper, then president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, with four priest-brothers of Taizé concelebrating.

Br Roger founded the community in the small picturesque village of Taizé in 1940. It is now made up of over 100 brothers from 25 different countries. They welcome thousands of pilgrims every year and also organise meetings in various cities around the world.

South Africa will host the next such meeting. The Taizé Pilgrimage of Trust on Earth gathering will take place in Cape Town from September 25-29. It is aimed at young people between the ages of 18 and 35.

The last time such a meeting was held in South Africa was in 1995 in Johannesburg.

Br Alois attended the Synod on Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment in Rome in October. I had the opportunity to meet the prior of Taizé in Rome and talk to him about his trip to South Africa in 2019. I was immediately struck by his simplicity and openness.

I began by asking him why they, the Community of Taizé, had decided to visit the country next year.

Br Alois said he knows that things are not easy in South Africa.

He noted that democracy and freedom have not put an end to segregation, especially on an economic level. This situation discourages young people and is why, he said, “this Pilgrimage of Trust could be a moment of hope”.

The Pilgrimage of Trust on Earth began in the 1970s. It is a series of gatherings where young people are invited to come together to encounter others and God through hospitality, sharing, Bible study and prayer.

ally exclusive. “We see in Taizé always, when Africans come, it is always the two: it’s the situations that often are hopeless, but also there is always the festival.”

Meditative prayer is important, Br Alois reiterated. “We have to become more attentive to the interior life”, and this is why silence is important and necessary too.

In 2017, the Taizé Pilgrimage of Trust took place in the US city of St Louis to bridge racial divides after the 2014 conflicts in nearby Ferguson.

Old South African links Br Alois explained that Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu was the first to invite the community to South Africa in the 1970s.

Brs Roger and Alois first visited Johannesburg and Cape Town in 1978. Archbishop Tutu sent a group of young people from all different backgrounds to Taizé on a pilgrimage of reconciliation—he was denied permission to accompany them himself. The archbishop urged the community to visit South Africa.

Br Alois said that this time the Catholic, Anglican and Protestant Churches have invited them to visit the country. “And we are very glad about this opportunity to come back to South Africa.”

Asked about the roles Archbishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela played in the fight against apartheid, Br Alois said it is important to keep their memory alive for the entire human family.

He said he was happy to hear of the celebrations around the world for the Mandela centenary because it “can give us hope that in the situation where we don’t see hope, things can change”.

He thinks this is what South Africa teaches the world: things can change even when we do not think it is humanly possible.

Br Alois said he sees a parallel, perhaps, between Europe and South Africa. When the Berlin wall came down, “we thought freedom and community in Europe would grow very quickly”. But now, “we see many divisions, we see injustices growing”.

He believes it is good for Europe and South Africa to meet because of this similarity.

He said, as in Europe, in South Africa there was also great hope after apartheid “and now we see that it is a long way through the desert”. It is for this very reason that the Church must bring people together to “find our Christian hope”.

Br Alois pointed out that “we don’t hope because things might go well”, but Christians hope because Christ died, and Christ is risen, and he “has the last word to each human being and also to human history”.

A way of being hopeful, he believes, is for people to come together in an experience of friendship. We need to trust young people, we need to give them trust, and trust their energy as they “will find ways of overcoming [the] injustices and for them they need an experience of friendship”, Br Alois said.

“We need small experiences where people are equal, where there is real friendship, where we listen to each other.” He believes if this is done on a small scale, then young people will be encouraged to commit themselves in society.

The Cape Town meeting

Br Alois Löser, prior of the Taizé ecumenical community in France, with children in Basel, Switzerland. Taizé is holding an international meeting, called Pilgrimage of Trust on Earth, in cape Town in September 2019.

And the Church must make an effort to listen. Those who have responsibility in the Church need to become more aware of the necessity of bringing young people together so that they can have an experience of a place of friendship and of listening.

Youths can open doors Br Alois, a former altar server who entered the Taizé community in 1974, sees that young people want to come together to pray together.

“It’s very natural in Taizé; we have Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox also, and three times a day we come together [to pray],” he said.

After a week in Taizé, he noted, young people often say that the silence was the most important. This “is very astonishing because they run away from silence always, but in Taizé they say the silence has been important”.

Br Alois believes “young people can open the door for unity among Christians to grow and become stronger”. He noted that on the theological level this takes a long time, but on a practical level it is happening.

When young people pray together and care for those who are poor, they work together despite their different Christian affiliations, Br Alois said.

He used the example of Europe where young people are working together to help those who live on the streets and to welcome migrants who come to Europe.

“The situation, the fact that there are more and more migrants coming to Europe, I think is a chance for the Church. It is a chance to live more the Gospel, becoming welcoming,” Br Alois said.

At Taizé the community doesn’t lead prayer, he said. “We pray in community and we pray with them [young people] and they participate

through the singing.”

In South Africa he sees this as a real possibility. “Really singing, worship can bring together young people and I am looking forward to that in South Africa, it will be a great joy.”

The gathering in Cape Town will encourage young people in their search for God by helping them to have a deeper trust in themselves and in others.

The programme will invite them to be attentive to the signs and the people of hope present around them. It will encourage them to take up responsibilities as bearers of peace and trust in the Church and in society.

Br Alois expects that there will be a great joy at the Cape Town gathering. The event will give attention to all the problems young people face but in a spirit of festival.

These, he added, are not mutu-

The daily programme of the gathering will include common prayers, silence and times of sharing.

During the mornings, programmes will take place in parishes or local churches throughout the city. From midday onwards the meeting will continue in a common central venue.

The prior hopes the grace of the Pilgrimage of Trust in Cape Town “will be the hospitality that it will encourage”.

He added that the young people who come to Cape Town will be welcomed into families whom they do not know—young people will be accommodated with “host families” in the various parishes and local communities in Cape Town.

Br Alois believes this is something great, an experience of the Church, a sign that the Church really exists.

He said young people not only get a place to sleep in the homes of their hosts but also receive this as a sign of the Gospel. “It is a small fire of the Gospel, like God came in Jesus to us to ask for hospitality, so this hospitality can touch their hearts and can give hope.” n This is an edited version of an article that previously appeared on the Spotlight.Africa website. The final date for registration for the Cape Town meeting is July 21 2019. For more information please contact Br Luc at luc@taize.fr.

Fr russell Pollitt SJ with Br Alois Löser in rome, with St Peter’s basilica in the background. (Photo: Spotlight.Africa)

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The Southern cross, November 14 to November 20, 2018

FAITH

40 Marian shrines: The Top 8 In the final instalment in his five-part virtual journey to the world’s Top 40 Marian shrines, GÜNThEr SIMMErMAchEr takes us to the top eight sites.

A

FTER visiting 32 Marian shrines over the past four weeks, we now arrive at the world’s Top 8 sites of pilgrimage to Our Lady.

Over this series, these sites of apparitions and miracles were ranked in an approximate and entirely subjective order of popularity and importance. But as we near the top of the table, these rankings will invite broader consensus.

So here are numbers 8 to 1 in our countdown of the world’s Top 40 Marian shrines.

8. Our Lady of Lebanon Members of Maronite parishes will be very familiar with the statue of Our Lady of Lebanon, which was erected in 1907 on top of a hill in the village of Harissa, 20km from Beirut.

It attracts millions of pilgrims— not only Christians but also Lebanese Muslims and Druze, who have a devotion to Mary. As such, it is not only a site of Christian devotion, but also of interreligious encounter and national unity in Lebanon.

A large, modern basilica dedicated to St Paul serves the site’s liturgical needs. It was visited in 1997 by Pope John Paul II and in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI.

7. Loreto, Italy Of Italy’s many great sites of pilgrimage, the coastal Adriatic town of Loreto is one of the most popular, with around four million pilgrims a year.

Legend has it that in 1295 angels miraculously carried the preserved house of Mary from Nazareth to eastern Italy. The rather less fantastical truth is that the structure—9m long, 4m wide and 5m high—was likely brought to Loreto by a Crusader family. Since they were named De Angelis, the tradition about house-moving angels evolved.

Archaeologists have indicated that the stones of the structure might well have come from the Middle East; but nobody can be sure that what the Crusaders brought to Loreto was indeed Mary’s house.

The discovery of 1st-century homes in Nazareth suggests that the Loreto house is architecturally different from the residences found in the Holy Family’s village.

A pilgrim basilica was built in the 15th century to house the house of Mary.

6. Czestochowa, Poland We have encountered several Black Madonnas on our journey through the world’s most popular Marian pilgrimage sites—and the icon of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa is the most famous of them all, attracting 4,5 million pilgrims a year to the monastery of St Paul the Hermit in Jasna Gora.

The devotion to the Black Madonna of Czestochowa goes back to 1384, but legend claims that the icon of our Lady is much older than that: painted by the evangelist Luke himself. The truth probably is that the 80x120cm icon was made between the 6th and 8th centuries.

Many miracles are attributed to prayer before the icon, including the protection of Poland by invading Swedes. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, the Black Madonna was a symbol of resistance; during communist rule it was a sign of Catholic unity.

South Africa has a special link with Czestochowa: Bishop Stanislaw Dziuba and other priests in the diocese of Umzimkulu in southern KwaZulu-Natal are members of the congregation of the Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit and were trained for the priesthood at Czestochowa.

5. Fatima, Portugal An estimated 9 million pilgrims came to Fatima in 2017 for the centenary year of the apparitions there, including two Southern Cross pilgrimages. In normal years, around 5 million visit the sanctuary that now occupies the field on which five of the six apparitions to three shepherd children took place between May and October 1917.

The last apparition drew a crowd of tens of thousand to see if the miracle which the children had promised would in fact take place. The Miracle of the Dancing Sun convinced them, and many others, that the children were telling the truth about “the Lady more brilliant than the sun”.

Within weeks a small chapel was built on the site, and it soon drew great crowds of pilgrims. In the late 1920s a hospice was built there and the Stations of the Cross were erected before construction of the basilica began in 1929. The Catholic Church declared the apparitions “worthy of belief” in 1930.

St John Paul II ascribed his survival of the assassination attempt on him on May 13, 1981, to the intervention of Our Lady of Fatima, whose feast it was that day. He later had the bullet that nearly killed him placed into her crown on the statue at the sanctuary.

Pope Francis canonised the younger two visionaries who died in childhood, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, during the centenary; Sr Lucia dos Santos died in old age in 2005 and is awaiting beatification.

4. Velankanni, India Not very well known in the West, Velankanni is known as the “Lourdes of the East”, on account of the many miraculous healings reported there. Every year on its feast day alone, about 2 million pilgrims visit the shrine in the eastern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Velankanni was the site of three miraculous Marian apparitions in around 1600: one (with Jesus) to a shepherd boy, another involving the healing of a lame buttermilk vendor, and the third saving Portuguese sailors in a violent storm in the Bay of Bengal.

It was the Portuguese seafarers who in thanksgiving first built a

Above left: our Lady of Lebanon chapel near Beirut; (right) basilica of our Lady of Loreto. (Photos: Jamal Saidi/reuters/cNS; Massimo roselli: massimo.roselli.info)

Shrine of our Lady of czestochowa; and the sanctuary of Fatima. (Photos: Nancy Wiechec/cNS & Günther Simmermacher)

velankanni basilica in India; and the sanctuary of our Lady of Lourdes.

(Photos: Brownycat/Wikipedia & Günther Simmermacher)

he went to Rio, he visited the shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in São Paulo state.

The shrine is little-known outside South America but central to the faith of that continent. With around 8 million pilgrims a year, it is the world’s second-most popular Marian shrine.

Our Lady of Aparecida is the place of the final Black Madonna in our series on Marian shrines. This Black Madonna is a clay statue of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception which fishermen retrieved in 1717 from the Paraíba river. Having fished out the headless statue and then its head, they prayed to the Blessed Virgin for a good catch: their prayer was granted in abundance.

Initially kept in the home of one of the fishermen and then in a small chapel he built, the statue soon was widely venerated, especially by AfroBrazilians, and miracles were attributed to prayers before it.

By 1745, the statue had its own church. By 1934 construction for a bigger church began. In 1955, under the guidance of Redemptorists from Altötting (whose Marian shrine featured previously at #16), the world’s biggest Marian pilgrim church, holding 45 000 people, was built.

In 1930, Pope Pius XI declared the Immaculate Conception under the title of Our Lady of Aparecida as the patroness of Brazil.

The small statue probably was made around 1650 and was underwater for decades, hence its discolouration. It has survived two attacks: in 1978, it was stolen from the shrine and broken before it was recovered; and in 1995 a crazed Protestant minister insulted and vandalised it on live TV. An estimated 13 million people came to the shrine in 2017 to mark the 300th anniversary of the statue’s finding.

1. Guadalupe, Mexico Basilica of our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil; and the shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. (Photos: roosevelt cassio/cNS & P. Mudarra) church there, which has been gradually expanded to eventually be declared a basilica in 1962. Quite plain in daylight, at night the basilica of Our Lady of Good Health is lit up in bright colours.

The Holy See has not approved the apparitions since they are recorded only by oral tradition, but Velankanni is an approved site of pilgrimage. It is also visited by many Hindus and Muslims.

3. Lourdes, France Lourdes is Europe’s biggest Marian pilgrimage destination. While the town outside the shrine is commercialised, the sanctuary itself is free of mammon and filled with a spirit of prayer and holiness—two worlds existing side by side.

The devotion goes back to 1858 when the Virgin appeared 18 times to the 14 year old peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous near the south-western village of Lourdes.

Our Lady, who described herself

as the Immaculate Conception (four years after the dogma was proclaimed by Pope Pius IX), guided Bernadette to a spring which has become the source of the world’s most famous healing waters. Tens of thousands of miracles have been reported by people recovered from medical conditions; in all that time, the Vatican has cautiously approved, after long investigations, “only” 70 of them.

After initial resistance, veneration was permitted by 1862. Construction for the basilica began in 1870. St Bernadette, who became a nun in Nevers in central France and died there at 35 in 1875, was canonised in 1933. In the 1943 film The Song of Bernadette, she was played by Jennifer Jones, who won an Oscar for her role.

2. Aparecida, Brazil Pope Francis’ first foreign trip as pontiff was to World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Before

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The world’s most popular Marian shrine is Guadalupe in Mexico City, which attracts around 20 million pilgrims a year.

In 1531 the Virgin Mary appeared four times to an indigenous man named Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin: like him, she had the facial features of the Aztecs, and she addressed him (and in another apparition, his uncle) in his native Nahuatl language.

When Juan Diego spoke to the local bishop about the apparition, an image of La Morenita (the darkskinned) inexplicably appeared on the peasant’s tilma, or cloak. That is the image we know as Our Lady of Guadalupe. The tilma became not only a potent religious symbol for Mexicans, but also of the struggle for independence from Spain.

Although St Juan Diego was canonised in 2002, there have been many, even in the Church and including a former abbot of the shrine’s basilica, who dispute that he ever existed.

Until the construction in 1976 of the huge basilica which can hold 40 000 people, a small church served as the shrine. n This concludes our series of the world’s Top 40 Marian shrines.

CLASSIFIEDS

Ashley Addison

A

SHLEY Addison, a muchloved eucharistic minister of the Mthatha community, died on October 22 in East London, aged 74.

Born to Norman and Irene Addison on February 28, 1944, he grew up with three brothers and two sisters in Ngqeleni. His mother taught him to serve God from an early age, and he shared this dedication to service with his wife Rita.

Mr Addison married Rita Leeson at All Saints cathedral in Mthatha on July 5, 1969. They had three children, who were also baptised there.

Their children—Carmen,

BIRTHDAY

GILOWEY—Nicholas richard. happy 21st birthday, 13/11/2018. “May God grant you always. A sunbeam to warm you. A moonbeam to charm you. A sheltering Angel so nothing can harm you. Laughter to cheer you. Faithful friends near you. And whenever you pray, heaven to hear you.”

Love always, Dad, Mom, Gem and Gran.

PERSONAL

ABORTION WARNING: The truth will convict a silent church. See www.valuelife abortionisevil.co.za ABORTION WARNING: The Pill can abort. All catholic users (married or cohabiting) must be told, to save their souls and their unborn infants. See www.epm.org/ static/uploads/downloads/ bcpill.pdf

Prayer for World Day of the Poor loving god, You hear the cry of each of your children, and especially those who are poor and suffering.

We pray that we too might hear the cries of people in need: The family crying out for food…

The migrant child crying out for his mother…

The youth crying out for education…

The farmer crying out for rains for his harvest...

The trafficked and abused, crying out for freedom…

All of who are poor and vulnerable, crying out for help… lord, open our hearts that we may hear the cries of the poor as you do and respond as your hands and feet on earth. in your name we pray, Amen

Year B – Weekdays Cycle Year 2 Sunday November 18, 33rd Sunday of the Year Daniel 12:1-3, Psalm 16:5, 8-11, Hebrews 10:11-14, 18, Mark 13:24-32 Monday November 19 Revelation 1:1-4; 2:1-5, Psalm 1:1-4, 6, Luke 18:3543 Tuesday November 20 Revelation 3:1-6, 14-22, Psalm 15:2-5, Luke 19:1-10 Wednesday November 21, Presentation of Our Lady Zechariah 2:10-13 (14-17), Responsorial psalm Luke 1:46-55, Matthew 12:46-50 Thursday November 22, St Cecilia Revelation 5:1-10, Psalm 149:1-6, 9, Luke 19:41-44 Friday November 23, Ss Clement and Columban Revelation 10:8-11, Psalm 119:14, 24, 72, 103, 111, 131, Luke 19:45-48 Saturday November 24, Ss Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions Revelation 11:4-12, Psalm 144:1-2, 9-10, Luke 20:27-40 Sunday November 25, Christ the King Daniel 7:13-14, Psalm 93:1-2, 5, Revelation 1:5-8, John 18:33-37

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Page 10

Tlhagale: Halo of priesthood is now broken

BY CHRISTEN TORRES

A Bishop Duncan Tsoke and Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg bless newly-ordained Fathers Oupa Raymond Matseke, Daniel Sefako Satwana, Boshom Victor Mpentsheni and Abel Emmanuel Maluleka in Christ the King cathedral. (Photo: Khanya Litabe)

Star backs SA priest’s book STAFF REPORTER

A

JOHANNESBURG priest has published his first book of poetry—and had a world-famous singer write a foreword to it.

Fr Lawrence Mduduzi Ndlovu’s anthology In Quiet Realm will be officially launched on November 22 at St Augustine College in Johannesburg.

The forewords to the book were written by US opera superstar Jessye Norman and Lindiwe Mabuza, the South African ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Fr Ndlovu credits Ms Mabuza, herself a renowned poet, for giving him confidence “in my own language and poetry”.

“After she read some of my poems, she gave such inspiring feedback that I started feeling confident about them,” the priest said. “She also assisted me often with editing some things here and there.”

The Soweto-born priest said he has written poetry “from my high school days, stopping and picking up at different times”.

“I have always written poems in order to process or even let out some thoughts that have lingered in my mind, but I have not always had the intention of publishing them,” Fr Ndlovu told The Southern Cross.

“Some were written for a specific purpose

Fr Lawrence Ndlovu and the cover of his new anthology of poetry (Photo: Khanya Litabe) and were meant to be published. For example, ‘Waters of Wars’ was written to mark the centenary of the sinking of the SS Mendi and it was published on the day of the centenary,” he said.

“After a while—years really—I discovered that I had poems on my computer and on USB sticks and in my old diaries, so I decided that maybe I should publish some of them.”

Fr Ndlovu doesn’t think of himself as a classical kind of poet. “I don't always think about form, rhyme and so on. I am a historical, autobiographical, philosophical, theological kind of poet. Some poems are like short stories. My style is varied.”

Continued on page 3

RCHBISHOP Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg has called for the excommunication of all priests who abuse minors, and spoke with concern about the anger of young South Africans at what he called “broken promises”.

The archbishop’s homily at the ordination of four priests at Johannesburg’s Christ the King cathedral received coverage in secular media for his call to excommunicate abusers.

But his first priority, which escaped media notice, was to speak about the plight of the youth in South Africa today.

He noted that young South Africans have become disillusioned as a result of unemployment, and therefore find “meaninglessness” in their lives.

Archbishop Tlhagale said communities are frustrated by ‘’broken promises’’ concerning electricity, water, housing and decent sanitation.

“Their dignity is being trampled underfoot, just like in the old apartheid days,” he said, saying that their palpable anger results in “destroying public facilities to make their voice heard”.

The archbishop also detailed how the problems of the country are all a result of things such as greed, self-enrichment, corruption and state capture, saying that these ills point to there being “something fundamentally wrong in the state of South Africa”.

Archbishop Tlhagale then focused his homily on the ills within the Catholic and Christian Church, describing the “disjuncture between the action of a priest as priest, and the moral integrity of a priest”.

He referred to the recent trial of Timothy Omotoso, the Nigerian head of the Jesus Domination International Church, who has been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault and rape.

“Your ordination, gentlemen, to the priesthood, takes place against this unhappy background,” Archbishop Tlhagale told the four ordinands.

He also referred to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Condemning the cri-

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Archbishop Buti Tlhagale preaches during the ordination Mass in Johannesburg’s Christ the King cathedral. (Photo: Khanya Litabe) sis, he called for the excommunication of all priests who are guilty of abuse.

Archbishop Tlhagale explained that automatic excommunication, as detailed in canon law, is applicable to priests who, for example, marry while still ordained or assist in abortion, but not to priests who abuse minors.

“Perhaps the abuse of minors by a priest, considering its moral gravity, ought to be considered as [grounds for] an automatic excommunication,” he said. “In other words, when a priest is found to have abused a child, (it) should be included in the list of those acts that bring about automatic excommunication.”

Referring to the scandal of “silence and cover-ups”, Archbishop Tlhagale said that “the halo of the Catholic priesthood has been broken”.

“The Church is castigated because it appears to have claimed to have a holier-thanthou attitude. We priests claim to be the ‘other Christ’. We have set the bar high but fail fundamentally to live up to that moral standard,” Archbishop Tlhagale said, adding: “Hence the messiness and harsh criticism.”

He warned all those who abuse minors: “Child abuse should simply not happen!”

Archbishop Tlhagale urged a reform within Continued on page 2

PARISH NOTICES

JOHANNESBURG: St Anthony’s church in coronationville is calling for donations of tinned fish, peanut butter, jam, butter and juice for their soup kitchen. contact Faried and Nadine Benn on 073 9066037 or 083 658-2573.

CAPE TOWN: retreat day/quiet prayer last Saturday of each month except December, at Springfield convent in Wynberg, cape Town. hosted by cLc, 10.00-15.30. contact Jill on 083 282-6763 or Jane on 082 783-0331.

Perpetual Adoration chapel at Good Shepherd parish, 1 Goede hoop St, Bothasig, welcomes all visitors. open 24 hours a day. Phone 021 558 1412. helpers of God’s Precious Infants. Mass on last Saturday of every month at 9:30 at Sacred heart church in Somerset road, cape Town.

Followed by vigil at abortion

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Southern CrossWord solutions

Religious priest/diocesan priest: Religious priests are professed members of a religious order or institute. Religious clergy live according to the rule of their respective orders.

In pastoral ministry, they are under the jurisdiction of their local bishop, as well as of the superiors of their order. Diocesan, or secular, priests are under the direction of their local bishop. Most serve in the parishes of the diocese, but they may also be assigned to other diocesan posts and ministries or be released for service outside the diocese.

T he

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Quintin and Brenden—blessed the family with five grandchildren.

At Mr Addison’s Requiem Mass in All Saints cathedral, Fr Mubelo Qumntu spoke of his work taking Communion to the sick and housebound, and of Mr Addison’s particular dedication to the community of Hillcrest, where he would ensure that Mass was said even when he was out of town.

Fr Qumntu said the way Mr Addison conducted his life, his commitment to the Church, and the love he showed towards his family and many friends was inspiring.

Prayer by catholic relief Service. Photo: cNS

The Southern cross, November 14 to November 20, 2018

Feed your soul with The

S outher n C ross

IT’S WORTH IT!

clinic. contact colette Thomas on 083 412-4836 or 021 593-9875 or Br Daniel ScP on 078 739-2988.

DURBAN: holy Mass and Novena to St Anthony at St Anthony’s parish every Tuesday at 9:00. holy Mass and Divine Mercy Devotion at 17:30 on first Friday of every month. Sunday Mass at 9:00. Phone 031309-3496 or 031 209-2536.

St Anthony’s rosary group.

Every Wednesday at 18:00 at St Anthony’s church opposite Greyville racecourse. All are welcome and lifts are available. contact Keith chetty on 083 372 9018.

NELSPRUIT: Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at St Peter’s parish every Tuesday from 8:00 to 16:45, followed by rosary, Divine Mercy prayers, then a Mass/communion service at 17:30.

PRAYERS

HEAR ME, LORD, on behalf of all those who are dear to me, all whom I have in mind at this moment. Be near them in all their anxieties and worries, give them the help of your saving grace. I commend them all with trustful confidence to your merciful love. remember, Lord, all those who have asked me to pray for them, all who have been kind to me, all who have wronged me, or whom I have wronged. Give all of us to bear each other’s faults, and to share each other’s burdens. Amen.

GOD BLESS AFRICA Guard our people, guide our leaders and give us peace.

Luke 11:1-13 The

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Christ the King: November 25 Readings: Daniel 7:13-14, Psalm 93:1-2, 5, Revelation 1:5-8, John 18:33b-37

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EXT Sunday is the feast of Christ the King, marking the end of the liturgical year; but what kind of king is Jesus?

Our readings for the feast indicate that he is something very different from what we normally expect of a monarch or a president in our world.

Initially, the first reading from Daniel might seem a bit triumphalist, with “one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven”.

Christians, of course, see Christ as the Son of Man, although probably in the original setting it referred to the persecuted people of Israel; the point is that there is undoubted triumph here.

He comes before the Ancient of Days, and receives “dominion, glory and kingship; nations and peoples of every language serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, and his kingship shall not be destroyed”.

It is a powerful picture, but it is painted before the astonished gaze of a people who were under appalling persecution aimed precisely at destroying them as a nation, and at putting an end to their religion. The point is that God is at work here.

S outher n C ross

Christ the King is at work Of course the only possible king is God, if we really understand what is going on, and that is what the author of our psalm for this Sunday knows perfectly well: “The Lord is King,” he bellows, “he is clothed in majesty.”

It is a song sung to the invincible God, “Your throne is established from of old; you are from forever, O God.” And it is not just God’s power that we are to contemplate, but the divine teaching: “Your decrees are utterly reliable; holiness is suitable for your house, Lord, for all time.”

Is this triumphalist? Not really, because the mention of that word “holiness” puts it all in a very different context. Can you think of a contemporary world leader whose admirers might speak of his (or her) holiness?

Then the second reading invites us to contemplate Jesus, who is indeed our king; “the witness [or “martyr”], the faithful one, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the emperors of the earth”.

It sounds very grand; but notice that reference to Jesus’ death; that is not normally an advertising point for politicians. And see what is said about him: “He has turned us into a king-

dom, priests to his God and Father.” So that is rather different from what we might say of contemporary leaders.

Now it is true that we are invited to sing him a song of praise: “to him be glory and power for ever. Amen”. And it is also true that the image from Daniel reappears here: “He is coming with clouds and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him (this reference to Zechariah once again reminds us of Jesus’ death), and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over him, Yes. Amen!”

Then it comes back to God who is our real king: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, the Is and the Was and the Coming One, the Almighty.”

There is power of a sort here; but it is very different to that which we are used to.

Power is the name of the game in the Gospel for next Sunday; or rather, it is not.

For what we are given here is a debate precisely on kingship between Jesus and Pilate; and although Pilate is the most powerful man in town, the emperor’s local representative, it is Jesus who dominates the scene.

Pilate asks him if he is indeed the “king of

When is our life fulfilled?

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terms of some concrete, positive accomplishment, like a successful career or some athletic, intellectual or artistic achievement that has brought us satisfaction, recognition and popularity.

Or, looked at from the point of view of depth of meaning, we might answer the question differently by saying that our ultimate achievement was a life-giving marriage, or being a good parent, or living a life that served others.

When, like a flower, do we give off our seed? Fr Henri Nouwen suggests that people will answer this very differently: “For some it is when they are enjoying the full light of popularity; for others, when they have been totally forgotten; for some, when they have reached the peak of their strength; for others, when they feel powerless and weak; for some it is when their creativity is in full bloom, for others, when they have lost all confidence in their potential.”

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hen did Jesus give off his seed, the fullness of his spirit? For Jesus, it wasn’t immediately after his miracles when the crowds stood in awe, and it wasn’t after he had just walked on water, and it wasn’t when his popularity reached the point where his contemporaries wanted to make him king that he felt he had accomplished his purpose in life and that people began to be touched in their souls by his spirit.

None of these. When did Jesus have nothing further to achieve?

Classic Conrad

HEN is our life fulfilled? At what point in our lives do we say: “That’s it! That’s the climax!

Nothing I can do from now on will outdo this. I’ve given what I have to give.”

When can we say this? After we’ve reached the peak of our physical health and strength? After giving birth to a child? After successfully raising our children? After we’ve published a bestseller?

After we’re famous? After we’ve won a major championship? After we’ve celebrated the 60th anniversary of our marriage? After we’ve found a soulmate?

After we’re at peace following a long struggle with grief?

When is it finally done? When has our growth reached its furthest place?

The medieval mystic John of the Cross says we reach this point in our lives when we have grown to what he calls “our deepest centre”. But he doesn’t conceive of this the way we commonly picture it, namely, as the deepest centre inside our soul.

Rather, for John, our deepest centre is the optimum point of our human growth, that is, the deepest maturity we can grow to before we begin to die.

If this is true, then for a flower, its deepest centre, its ultimate point of growth, would be not its bloom but the giving of its seed as it dies. That is its further point of growth, its ultimate accomplishment.

What’s our ultimate point of growth?

I suspect that we tend to think of this in

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Sunday reflections

the Judeans”, and Jesus, playing quite hard to get, asks what Pilate’s sources are.

Pilate is reduced to asking: “What have you done?”, which ought to be precisely his task to find out.

Jesus is magisterial: “My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have fought for me not to be handed over to the Judeans. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this world”.

Pilate hardly grasps a word of this, and is reduced to saying: “So you are a king, then?”

Again Jesus soars above him: “You say that I am a king. I was born for this; and for this I have come into the world, to witness to the Truth. Everyone who is of the Truth listens to my voice.”

At that point, though it is not in our Gospel, Pilate reveals his total lack of grasp of what is going on, asking: “What is Truth?” (and not staying for an answer).

So what kind of a King is Jesus, do you think?

Southern Crossword #837

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final reflection

It’s worth quoting Fr Nouwen again, in answering this question: “We know one thing, however, for the Son of Man the wheel stopped when he had lost everything: his power to speak and to heal, his sense of success and influence, his disciples and friends—even his God. When he was nailed against a tree, robbed of all human dignity, he knew that he had aged enough, and said: ‘It is fulfilled’” (Jn 19:30).

“It is fulfilled!” The Greek word here is tetelesti. This was an expression used by artists to signify that a work was completely finished and that nothing more could be added to it.

It was also used to express that something was complete. For example, tetelesti was stamped on a document of charges against a criminal after he had served his full prison sentence; it was used by banks when a debt had been repaid; it was used by a servant to inform his master that a required act of work had been completed; and it was used by athletes when, tired and exhausted, they successfully crossed the finish line in a race.

It is finished! A flower dies to give off its seed so it’s appropriate that these were Jesus’ last words.

On the cross, faithful to the end, to his God, to his word, to the love he preached, and to his own integrity, he stopped living and began dying—and that’s when he gave off his seed and that’s when his spirit began to permeate the world.

He had reached his deepest centre, his life was fulfilled.

When does our living stop and our dying begin? When do we move from being in bloom to giving off our seed?

Superficially, of course, it’s when our health, strength, popularity and attractiveness begin to wane, and we start to fade out, into the margins, and eventually into the sunset.

But when this is seen in the light of Jesus’ life, we see that in our fading out, like a flower long past its bloom, we begin to give off something of more value than the attractiveness of the bloom.

That’s when we can say: “It is fulfilled!”

ACRoSS

5. Qatar’s capital city (4) 7. In the lips I move I indicate early Palestinian (10) 8. Bright star of innovative astronomy (4) 10. Make known you are closely acquainted (8) 11. Great effort to hear a snatch of the hymn (6) 12. See 2 14. Praised God publicly (6) 16. He will ride roughly between two centuries (6) 17. To sum up, there’s an extra convert (8) 19. Patron saint of sailors (4) 21. Explaining systematically upon index G (10) 22. A branch of Islam (4)

DoWn

1. Allowing passage to the church (4) 2 and 12. Involving intrigue with knife covered (5-3-6) 3. It sounds like a portent to appoint the chaplain (6) 4. Did some abstaining the Banting way? (6) 5. Consider what the Redeemer holds (4) 6. Absence of traditional religion (10) 9. Old haunt is bizarre (10) 13. Opportune events from heaven (8) 15. Sloppy kind of candle (6) 16. Caesar Augustus decreed it (Lk 2) (6) 18. Thought that is not quite up to standard? (4) 20. Wild party among ancient Solutions on page 11 Romans (4)

CHURCH CHUCKLE

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CATHOLIC bishop is dying in hospital, and asks to urgently see the president and the province’s premier.

When the two arrive, he asks them to sit on either side of the bed, and holds their hands in silence.

The politicians are touched, and also proud to be chosen by the well-respected bishop on his deathbed.

The premier asks: “Why did ask for us specially?”

The bishop gathers his strength and holds their hands even tighter. Then, with his eyes still closed, mumbles: “Jesus died between two crooks. My only wish is to die the same way.”

Minutes later, the bishop takes his last breath.

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