'Repent . . . and follow me.' Sunday Reflections, 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Calling of Peter and Andrew

Duccio di Buoninsegna [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Mark 1:14-20 (New Revised  Standard Version, Anglicised CatholicEdition) 

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

Speaking in Rome to members of ecclesial movements on the evening of Saturday 17 May 2013, the Vigil of Pentecost, Pope Francis told this story:

One day in particular, though, was very important to me: 21 September 1953. I was almost 17. It was 'Students’ Day', for us the first day of spring — for you the first day of autumn. Before going to the celebration I passed through the parish I normally attended, I found a priest that I did not know and I felt the need to go to confession. For me this was an experience of encounter: I found that someone was waiting for me. Yet I do not know what happened, I can’t remember, I do not know why that particular priest was there whom I did not know, or why I felt this desire to confess, but the truth is that someone was waiting for me. He had been waiting for me for some time. After making my confession I felt something had changed. I was not the same. I had heard something like a voice, or a call. I was convinced that I should become a priest.

What is striking is that the young Jorge Mario Bergoglio experienced God's call to the priesthood unexpectedly and within the context of confession. In today's Gospel the call of Simon and Peter, of James and John to follow Jesus is within the context of a call to conversion: repent, and believe in the good news. 

In the First Reading God sends a very reluctant Jonah to Nineveh to call the people there to repentance. And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

An old photo of Portobello Bridge, Dublin [Wikipedia]

Last Monday on  Nationwide on RTÉ, Ireland's national radio and TV service, a young Irish Dominican friar, Fr David Barron OP, told how he remembered the very moment when he decided to give up his job in banking, in which he was very happy, to become a Dominican priest: One evening, coming on the bus from Trinity (Dublin University) into Rathmines, coming over Portobello Bridge, I still remember, I finally gave in and said, 'I'll give it a go' [11:17 - 11:29 in the video].

The Prophet Jonah Before the Walls of Jericho

Rembrandt [Wikipedia Commons]

The First Reading, from the Book of Jonah, shows the people of Nineveh, from the King down, believing the reluctant prophet and then fasting and repenting.

In the Gospel Jesus preaches, Repent, and believe in the good news. It is in the context of that proclamation to the people in Galilee that Jesus invites Simon and Andrew, James and John, to follow him. Each of the four could make the words of Pope Francis their own: For me this was an experience of encounter: I found that someone was waiting for me. Yet I do not know what happened . . . I was not the same. I had heard something like a voice, or a call. That call was to lead the four of them to leave everything to follow him, a decision that was to bring three of them to martyrdom. The young Jorge Mario Bergoglio could not have had the slightest idea that listening to God's call would lead him to Rome.

About 16 years ago I did a mission appeal in a parish in England where the then recently appointed parish priest had inherited a filthy rectory/presbytery/convento from his predecessor. He had managed by then to clean up only his own bedroom. He could not invite me to stay at his place because the guest room was filthy and so had me put up by a neighbouring parish priest.

The people of Nineveh cleaned up the 'room' of their inner heart by turning away from sin and allowed the word of God to enter. The Gospel suggests that the two sets of fishermen-brothers had done the same and were able to hear and respond to the call of Jesus there and then.

May we do likewise, with God's grace, especially through the sacrament of reconciliation / penance / confession.

Jesus calls each of us through baptism into an intimate, personal relationship with him. He eventually reveals to us, within that relationship, the specific vocation to which he invites us - to marriage, to the priesthood, to religious life, to remaining single. We can only hear that specific invitation from Jesus if we constantly repent of our sins and accept his loving forgiveness and mercy.

Responsorial Psalm

New American Bible Lectionary (Philippines, USA)

100th Death Anniversary of Fr William Doyle SJ

Fr William Doyle SJ

3 March 1873 - 16 August 1917

Today is the one hundredth anniversary of the death of Fr William Doyle SJ, an Irish Jesuit who served as chaplain to Irish regiments in the British Army during the Great War (1914-18) later to be known also as the First World War. 

There is a beautiful post today on Remembering Fr Willie Doyle SJ, the blog of Dr Patrick Kenny, a blog that nourishes one's Catholic Christian faith, with writings by or about Father Willie each day. There are three other posts on the same site today: here, here and here.

Here I simply copy and paste what I posted six years ago. Fr Doyle was killed in Belgium during the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele.

This account of Father Willie Doyle's death in Ypres/Ieper, Belgium, while serving as a chaplain in the British Army during The Great War is from Father William Doyle S.J. by Professor Alfred O'Rahilly and taken from the blog Remembering Father William Doyle SJ. Fr Doyle was from Dalkey, County Dublin.

Fr. Doyle had been engaged from early morning in the front line, cheering and consoling his men, and attending to the many wounded. Soon after 3 p.m. he made his way back to the Regimental Aid Post which was in charge of a Corporal Raitt, the doctor having gone back to the rear some hours before. Whilst here word came in that an officer of the Dublins had been badly hit, and was lying out in an exposed position. Fr. Doyle at once decided to go out to him, and left the Aid Post with his runner, Private Mclnespie, and a Lieutenant Grant. Some twenty minutes later, at about a quarter to four, Mclnespie staggered into the Aid Post and fell down in a state of collapse from shell shock. Corporal Raitt went to his assistance and after considerable difficulty managed to revive him. His first words on coming back to consciousness were: “Fr. Doyle has been killed!” Then bit by bit the whole story was told. Fr. Doyle had found the wounded officer lying far out in a shell crater. He crawled out to him, absolved and anointed him, and then, half dragging, half carrying the dying man, managed to get him within the line. Three officers came up at this moment, and Mclnespie was sent for some water. This he got and was handing it to Fr. Doyle when a shell burst in the midst of the group, killing Fr. Doyle and the three officers instantaneously, and hurling Mclnespie violently to the ground. Later in the day some of the Dublins when retiring came across the bodies of all four. Recognising Fr. Doyle, they placed him and a Private Meehan, whom they were carrying back dead, behind a portion of the Frezenberg Redoubt and covered the bodies with sods and stones.

On 14 August Remembering Fr William Doyle SJ carried a photo of his last letter to his father, written two days before his death. Read the full post here.

I first learned about Father Willie Doyle from Sister Stanislaus, the Irish Sister of Charity who was principal of the boys' kindergarten I attended in Stanhope St, Dublin. She also prepared us for First Holy Communion. I learned mor about him in my first year in St Columban's College, Dalgan Park, when I entered the seminary there in September 1961. Remembering Fr William Doyle SJ is a blog that is a work of love and a reminder to me of what a priest is called to be.

Prayer for Priests by Fr Doyle

O my God, pour out in abundance Thy spirit of sacrifice upon Thy priests. It is both their glory and their duty to become victims, to be burnt up for souls, to live without ordinary joys, to be often the objects of distrust, injustice, and persecution.

The words they say every day at the altar, 'This is my Body, this is my Blood,' grant them to apply to themselves: 'I am no longer myself, I am Jesus, Jesus crucified. I am, like the bread and wine, a substance no longer itself, but by consecration another.'

O my God, I burn with desire for the sanctification of Thy priests. I wish all the priestly hands which touch Thee were hands whose touch is gentle and pleasing to Thee, that all the mouths uttering such sublime words at the altar should never descend to speaking trivialities.

Let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty functions, let every man find them simple and great, like the Holy Eucharist, accessible to all yet above the rest of men. O my God, grant them to carry with them from the Mass of today, a thirst for the Mass of tomorrow, and grant them, ladened themselves with gifts, to share these abundantly with their fellow men. Amen.

Two significant Dominican ordinations in Ireland and Australia

Last Saturday, 8 July, Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia OP, Assistant Secretary at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican, ordained Fr Philip Mulryne OP to the priesthood in St Saviour's Church in the heart of Dublin.

Archbishop Di Noia and Fr Philip [Irish Dominicans' website]

The new priest has an unusual, though not unique, background in that he is a former professional footballer, having played for Manchester United and a number of other British soccer clubs between 1997 and 2009, and for Northern Ireland 27 times during that period.

Father Philip entered St Malachy's Seminary in his native Belfast in 2009 to study philosophy in preparation for becoming a priest in the Diocese of Down and Connor, which includes that city. But while studying theology in Rome he felt a call to the Dominican Order and joined their novitiate in Cork in 2012.

Brother Robert Krishna OP [Source]

On Saturday 15 July Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP will ordain his fellow Dominican, Brother Robert Krishna, to the priesthood. Brother Robert's story is a little more unusual than that of his newly-ordained confrere. He is from India and his journey led him from Hinduism to atheism to agnosticism to Anglicanism in Australia and, finally to Catholicism. 

The Catholic Weekly report [my emphases added] says:

Around this time, Br Robert encountered some Catholics at Sydney University.

One thing which impressed him was the fact that there were many young Catholics who were happy in living what the Church teaches.

“I was converted through their example and conversations, rather than through their arguments” he said.

Of the latter, one which sticks out was the exasperated comment of the chaplaincy convenor at the time, Robert Haddad: “You’re never going to get all the answers to all your objections, and at some stage, you need to make a leap of faith.”

It was a throwaway line, but it contains a truth which bothered Br Robert until it ended up convincing him. He was received into the Church in 2003 and confirmed a year later by then-Bishop Anthony Fisher OP, who had just been ordained a Bishop. Robert Haddad was his confirmation sponsor.

God always speaks to us through those happy in living what the Church teaches. And so often God speaks to us through a throwaway line. I remember one such line by Brother Finn, a Christian Brother, in religion class one day when I was in secondary school. Only the best fellows join the Columbans, he said. He had no idea that I was considering becoming a Columban priest. He was referring to former students of his who had taken that step. His throwaway line encouraged me.

St Saviour's Church, Dominick St, Dublin [Wikimedia]

The seed of my own vocation to the priesthood was perhaps sown in this church, where Fr Mulryne was ordained last Saturday. My father loved the solemnity of the High Mass and often took me to one on days such as Easter Monday and Whit (Pentecost) Monday, sometimes to the Dominican church in Dominick Street and sometimes to the Capuchin church in Church Street (St Mary of the Angels). Dubliners usually refer to their churches by the name of the street that they are on rather than on the patronal name. As a child I did not particularly appreciate the High Mass.

Whenever my mother took us 'into town' - the city centre - we usually went by Church Street and would drop in to say a prayer. Occasionally she would take the longer walk and go by Dominick Street where we would also drop in and say a prayer. I remember when I was six or seven being attracted by the white habit of the Dominican friars I saw. Looking back I know that the seed of my vocation was being sown there, though I wasn't aware of it. However when at 13 and 14 I began to seriously think of the priesthood I never considered the Dominicans. But I am grateful to God for the part that they, and my parents, played in my own faith and vocation journey.

A year ago Archbishop Robert Rivas OP of the Diocese of Castries in the Caribbean ordained eight Dominican priests in St Saviour's Church.

Fr Gerard Dunne OP, the vocation director of the Dominicans for many years, gives some ideas on why the Order is attracting men leading successful professional lives in an article by Doreen Carvajal published in The New York Times in 2013, For Friars, Finding Renewal by Sticking to Tradition.

'Sticking to Tradition' did not preclude the Irish Dominicans from being ahead of almost every other order and congregation in Ireland in evangelising 'this digital continent', as Pope Benedict called the internet. May God continue to bless them and, through them, the Church, especially in Ireland and in Australia.

St Dominic Adoring the Crucifixion

Fra Angelico OP [Web Gallery of Art]

'My Lord and my God!' Sunday Reflections, Second Sunday of Easter (or Sunday of Divine Mercy), Year A

The Apostle St Thomas, El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

                

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel John 20:19-31 (New Revised  Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition) 

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

John 20:19-31 from The Gospel of John

We can read the words of Jesus to Thomas as a gentle rebuke that has led to the nickname he may carry for all eternity: 'Doubting Thomas'. But I prefer to see him as the one who understood that the Risen Lord must carry the scars of his crucifixion and who made the most explicit act of faith in the whole of Sacred Scripture: My Lord and my God!

The First Reading today (Ats 2:42-47) opens with the words They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 'The breaking of the bread' is an expression used for the celebration of the Eucharist. We can see in this sentence the essence of the Mass as we celebrate it today: listening to God's word, praying and sharing in the Sacrifice of Jesus and sharing his Body and Blood.

Some commentators say that the failure of Thomas was not to listen to God's word as related by his companions. Maybe he did fail here but did the others have the same awareness as Thomas had that the Risen Lord must carry his scars for all eternity?

In Evangelii Gaudium No 7 Pope Francis writes: I never tire of repeating those words of Benedict XVI which take us to the very heart of the Gospel: 'Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction'.

Thomas had been a companion of Jesus for two to three years but what he experienced in today's gospel was precisely what Pope Benedict describes as the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

Servant of God, Fr Emil Joseph Kapaun (20 April 1916 - 23 May 1951) celebrating Mass with American soldiers during the Korean War [Wikipedia]

In his general audience in St Peter's Square on 31 October 2012 Pope Benedict said: I cannot build my personal faith in a private dialogue with Jesus, because faith is given to me by God through a community of believers that is the Church and projects me into the multitude of believers, into a kind of communion that is not only sociological but rooted in the eternal love of God who is in himself the communion of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, it is Trinitarian Love. Our faith is truly personal, only if it is also communal: it can be my faith only if it dwells in and moves with the 'we' of the Church, only if it is our faith, the common faith of the one Church.

Pope Francis re-echoes this in Evangelii Gaudium Nos 264 - 268: We need to implore his grace daily, asking him to open our cold hearts and shake up our lukewarm and superficial existence . . . Sometimes we lose our enthusiasm for mission because we forget that the Gospel responds to our deepest needs, since we were created for what the Gospel offers us: friendship with Jesus and love of our brothers and sisters . . . The word of God also invites us to recognise that we are a people . . . Mission is at once a passion for Jesus and a passion for his people. When we stand before Jesus crucified, we see the depth of his love which exalts and sustains us, but at the same time, unless we are blind, we begin to realize that Jesus’ gaze, burning with love, expands to embrace all his people. We realize once more that he wants to make use of us to draw closer to his beloved people. He takes us from the midst of his people and he sends us to his people; without this sense of belonging we cannot understand our deepest identity.

What both Pope Benedict and Pope Francis are saying is that while our faith is in a person, Jesus Christ the Risen Lord, it can never be a question of 'Jesus and me'. Pope Benedict says, faith is given to me by God through a community of believers that is the Church and projects me into the multitude of believers and Pope Francis emphasises that He takes us from the midst of his people and he sends us to his people; without this sense of belonging we cannot understand our deepest identity.

In other words, I can only know myself as a brother or sister of Jesus, as a son or daughter of God the Father when I know myself as a member of their family, which I have become through my baptism.

And that awareness of who I am is strengthened when I join other members of God's family every Sunday as they devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

British soldiers at Mass in the Netherlands during World War II [Wikipedia]

Many Irish Columbans served as chaplains in the British Forces during World War II. One, Fr Patrick McMahon, died in action in Normandy, France, after rescuing a Canadian soldier on 14 August 1944.

In the Office of Readings, prayed by priests, monks, nuns and others as part of the Prayer of the Church, there are two readings. The first is from the Bible and the second usually from writers in the early centuries of the Church. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Easter Week the second reading is from Instructions to the Newly Baptized in Jerusalem also known as The Jerusalem Catechesis, written, as far as I know, by St Cyril of Jerusalem. The author says, Just as the bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Spirit is no longer just bread, but the body of Christ, so when the Holy Spirit has been invoked on the holy chrism it is no longer mere or ordinary ointment; it is the gift of Christ, which through the presence of the Holy Spirit instils his divinity into us [Friday].

For the Saturday reading the author tells the newly-baptized: Do not, then, regard the bread and wine as nothing but bread and wine, for they are the body and blood of Christ as the master himself has proclaimed. Though your senses suggest otherwise, let faith reassure you. You have been taught and fully instructed that what seems to be bread is not bread, though it appears to be such to the sense of taste, but the body of Christ; that what seems to be wine is not wine, though the taste would have it so, but the blood of Christ. 

When I celebrate Mass with the Deaf here in Bacolod City, a group whose needs the late Columban Fr Joseph Coyle was the first priest to respond to and whose vision is being carried on now by many others, both Deaf and hearing, after the consecration of the bread and again of the wine, I hear from speaking people who are present the words of St Thomas, My Lord and my God. Just like St Thomas, they recognise the presence of the Risen Lord in the bread and the winde that have no become his Body and Blood.

Fr Emil Kapaun and Fr Patrick McMahon recognised the presence of Jesus in the bread and wine that became the Body and Blood of Christ each time they celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. They also recognised the presence of Jesus in the wounds of the soldiers they tended and in whose service they sacrificed their lives - following the example of St Thomas who, according to tradition, was martyred in India.

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Regina caeli is sung during the Easter Season at the end of the Church's Night Prayer (Compline).

The Coronation of the Virgin, Fra Angelico [Web Gallery of Art]

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluia:

R. Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia,

Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia,

R. Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia.

Gaude et lætare, Virgo Maria, alleluia.

R. Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia.

Oremus.
Deus, qui per resurrectionem Filii tui, Domini nostri Iesu Christi,
mundum lætificare dignatus es:
præsta, quæsumus, ut per eius Genitricem Virginem Mariam,
perpetuæ capiamus gaudia vitæ.
Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. R. Amen.

Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia.

The Son whom you merited to bear, alleluia.

Has risen, as He said, alleluia.

Pray for us to God, alleluia.

V. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.

R. For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

Let us pray.
O God, who through the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
gave rejoicing to the world,
grant, we pray, that through his Mother, the Virgin Mary,
we may obtain the joy of everlasting life.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Columban Fr Vincent Batchelor RIP

Fr Vincent Batchelor died in Box Hill Hospital in Melbourne on 28 May at around 5:30pm in his 96^th year. He had been living in Nazareth Care Camberwell, under the care of the Sisters of Nazareth. Camberwell is a suburb of Melbourne.  Father Vincent had a fall after which the staff decided to send him to hospital for observation. The doctor suspected that the fall was brought on by a heart attack. He had been visited by his sister Mary and  niece and  Fr Ray Scanlon who kept in constant contact with him and with Fr Gary Walker, the Regional Director of the Columbans in Australia and New Zealand, that afternoon. He died shortly after they left.

Gunbower Creek, Cohuna, Victoria [Wikipedia]

Vincent Batchelor was  the fifth child in his family of five brothers and four sisters who grew up in Cohuna, in country Victoria on the Victorian side of the Murray River. 

He joined the Columbans in 1938 and did his Spiritual Year and philosophy at St Columban’s, Essendon (above), a suburb of Melbourne, but had to travel to St Columban's, Omaha, Nebraska, USA (below), for theology in 1941 where he was ordained on 21 December 1944.

On returning to Australia Fr Vincent held a variety of roles: Asian students' chaplain, parish work, Director of Spiritual Year for Columban seminarians. In 1967 he was appointed to Fiji where he stayed for 40 years serving in parishes, as a teacher and chaplain to Xavier College in Ba and chaplain to the De Montfort Brothers who took over Xavier College from the Columbans. His work as a hospital chaplain was legendary. He returned to Australia and retired to St Columban’s, Essendon, until he needed nursing care.

Xavier College, Ba [Facebook]

He had little interest in money or possessions and once sold his car after a cyclone in Fiji to buy food and essentials for people who had lost everything. He was clear in his desire to be a missionary, always willing to accept whatever appointment was asked of him. He was childlike in the best sense and God’s word was revealed in him as the many emails we have received testify. 

Funeral Mass

His funeral was on Thursday morning 2 June at the chapel in St Columban’s, Essendon; he was buried in the Columban plot at Melbourne General Cemetery. His coffin was wrapped in ‘tapa’ a traditional barkcloth used in the Pacific on important occasions such as burial.  Fijian people sang hymns at the chapel and the graveside. It was very appropriate. May he rest in peace.

Burial

Singing during Mass, Fiji

Obituary by Fr Gary Walker, Columban Regional Director, Australia and New Zealand.