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Second Sunday of the Year 2023 – Year A

Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE , via Wikimedia Commons

15 January 2023

Isaiah 49: 3,5-6                    1 Corinthians 1:1-3                    John 1:29-34

Theme:  Jesus: the Lamb of God

The readings of today’s Mass, following on from those of last Sunday [Baptism of the Lord], continue to focus on the identity and mission of Jesus. At his baptism by John, Jesus is revealed as the Father’s beloved Son, anointed and sent to inaugurate God’s reign of justice, peace and love. In today’s gospel John points to Jesus and says Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29), thus drawing our intention to the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ mission. Jesus will lay down his life to overcome the power of Sin in the world and bring people back to God.

We are familiar with the title, ‘Lamb of God’, though perhaps less familiar with the significance of the title.  We invoke it at three different moments during  Mass: first, during the Gloria, when we sing or recite ‘Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us’; second, during the breaking of the sacred host, just before communion; and, finally, when the Celebrant invites us to receive communion, proclaiming ‘This is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.’  But what does the title mean, and why to we apply it to Jesus?

For the Jews, whom John the Baptist was addressing, the title, ‘Lamb of God’,  brings to mind the Passover Lamb whose blood, sprinkled on door-posts, protected their ancestors when the Angel of Death struck the Egyptians.  The slain lamb was the sign and symbol of their liberation from slavery and oppression, their passage from bondage in the land of the Pharaohs to  freedom in the land of Israel. So significant was this Exodus event for the Jews that they commemorated it every year at the Feast of Passover.

When John the Baptist calls Jesus ‘the Lamb of God’ he is proclaiming him as the true Lamb who will bring about a final, decisive liberation of the people from all forms of slavery and oppression, especially the slavery of sin. And Jesus will accomplish this by the giving his life for them. It is no coincidence that Jesus’ sacrificial death on the hill of Calvary took place during the Passover Feast. Jesus is the new Paschal Lamb who both sacrifices himself, and is sacrificed, to free us not just from our personal sins but from the waywardness that leads us to sin. The Baptist points to Jesus as the One who takes away the ‘Sin of the World’ (not just our personal sins).

The image of Jesus as the Paschal Lamb is intimately linked to the figure of the Servant of Israel referred several times by the prophet Isaiah. Bearing the sins of others, this Servant is led like a silent lamb to the slaughter and his sufferings brins healing to many. Our first reading today refers to this figure of the Servant as the one chosen by God, not merely to save the people of Israel, but to be ‘the light of the nations so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth’ (Is 49:6). The early Church viewed and interpreted Jesus’ mission and his life-giving death through the lens of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant.

Today’s gospel reading also highlights the Baptist’s role as a witness to Jesus, ‘the Chosen one of God’ (Jn 1:34). Humbly, the Baptist directs the attention of his disciples to Jesus, not to himself. He affirms that Jesus precedes him in dignity and status, because, as the Word of God, he existed before him. The Baptist knows that he has no other purpose than to point to Jesus. In the words of St John’s gospel prologue, ‘He was not the light but came to bear witness to the light (Jn 1:8).

John is therefore an ideal model for all of who who have been baptised in the Spirit and are called to witness to Jesus. We are challenged to point away from ourselves and lead people to focus on Jesus. In meeting this challenge we have much to learn from the Baptist, who recognised that he must decrease to let Jesus increase. The following story is told about the great artist, Michelangelo. When he was at work, he wore over his head, fastened to his cap, a lighted candle, so that no shadow of himself might fall upon the marble or the canvas. In our role as witnesses to the light of Christ, we need to be careful that no shadow of ourselves, our personal ambitions, our self-seeking, clouds our witness to the light of Christ.

In this regard, we have much to learn also from the example of our Pope emeritus, Benedict XVI.  He once described himself as ‘a humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord’ and that indeed he was. As Pope he never projected himself, never played the crowd nor sought approval. What was important for him was the office of the Papacy not the person holding it. It was this clear subordination of himself to the august office he held that gave him the freedom to retire when he felt no longer able to exercise that office. Let us pray that, like John the Baptist and Pope Benedict, we, too, may always be transparent witnesses to the Light of Christ, never letting our own shadows cut across it. 

Fr Michael McCabe SMA

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Pope Benedict XVI: Theologian, Pope and Man of God

The SMA community in Blackrock Road, Cork, celebrated Mass for the happy repose of the soul of Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI on the day of his burial in St Peter’s Basilica, Rome. Fr Michael McCabe SMA was the Chief Celebrant. The following is the reflection Fr Michael gave during that Mass.

Introduction

On this the day of Pope emeritus, Benedict XVI’s funeral, it is appropriate to thank God for his long and fruitful life, to acknowledge his legacy, and pray him home to the Lord whom he loved and served so well. 

Joseph Ratzinger was born on the 16th of April 1927 into a devout Catholic family from Bavaria, Germany. From a very young age he wanted to become a priest. His formation and studies were interrupted when he and his brother, George, were called to serve in the German Army during World War II. For some months he was also a prisoner in an American prisoner-of-war camp. At the end of the war he resumed his theological studies and was ordained along with George on the 29th June, 1951.

Theologian

An academically inclined and serious student, Joseph continued his theological studies after ordination and obtained a doctorate in theology two years later for a thesis on St Augustine’s Doctrine of the Church. Four years later, he qualified as a university professor. Augustine and Bonaventure were his main theological mentors. A gifted and popular lecturer, Fr Ratzinger taught in several German Universities (Freising, Bonn, Munster, Tϋbingen and Regensburg) for the next 20 years. He would go on to become one of the leading theologians of the 20th century.

While still in his 30’s, Fr Ratzinger made a major contribution to Vatican II as theological advisor to Cardinal Frings, Archbishop of Cologne, who wanted to see change in the Church. Though cautious by nature, the young theologian also wanted change and he stoutly defended the freedom of theologians to engage in theological research. However, following his experience of the Student Revolts in Germany in 1968, he changed his tune, became fearful of revolutionary ideas, and applied his intellectual prowess more to defending the traditional faith of the Church than to updating it and making it relevant. Nevertheless, he made a huge contribution to theology. He is the author of over 50 books,  including Introduction to Christianity (translated into 20 languages), and more recently, Jesus of Nazareth (3 vols). In these popular and eminently readable works, he communicates profound ideas with great clarity of expression and simplicity of language – a rare quality among theologians. He remained a theologian all this life up to, and including, his final years in retirement.

Archbishop of Munich (1977-1981)

Despite his preference for the academic life, Fr Ratzinger found himself reluctantly drawn onto the public stage of Church leadership. In March 1977, Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of Munich and bestowed the cardinal’s hat on him. His episcopal motto, ‘Co-workers of the Truth’, highlights his commitment to expounding and protecting the truth of the Catholic faith. As bishop he was noted for his concern with doctrinal orthodoxy, a concern that led Pope John Paul II in 1981 to appoint him Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. 

Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (1981-2005)

For the next 24 years, Cardinal Ratzinger became the right hand man of Pope John Paul II. In this role he was uncompromising in his defence of the Faith and unrelenting in his pursuit of theologians he considered to have crossed the line. Kung, Boff, Dupuis and many other theologians were brought to book. While upholding the teaching of Vatican II, he was strongly opposed to liberal interpretations of its teaching. He coined the phrase the ‘Dictatorship of Relativism’  to characterise the self-referential spirit of the times, to which (in his judgement) a number of theologians had succumbed. In the interpretation of the texts of the Council, he argued for a ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ rather than one of rupture. During these years, he also chaired the Commission charged with producing the new and excellent Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) as well as collaborating in the writing of many of the texts of of John Paul II.

Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013)

In 2005, aged 78, Cardinal Ratzinger was chosen, much to his surprise, as  successor to Pope John Paul II, and took the name of Benedict XVI. He was the 265th pope in the history of the Church. This was not a burden he desired or wanted but he accepted it as the will of his Lord and Master. As pope, he struggled to get to grips with the challenges of reforming the Church, especially the Roman Curia, though he was aware that reform was needed. A teacher more than an administrator, he focused on nurturing the faith of his flock through his writings rather than by his actions. He wrote 3 inspiring encyclicals, God is Love, Saved by Hope and Love in Truth, which are models of clarity of thought and simplicity of expression. They can be read for spiritual nourishment as well as intellectual formation.

While many people have the impression that Pope Benedict was a ‘stay at home’ Pope, during his 8 year pontificate he made 24 apostolic trips outside Italy to six continents (including two to Africa – visiting Cameroon, Angola and the Republic of Benin). He presided over the Second Special Synodal Assembly for Africa, the theme of which was ‘The Church in Africa in Service to Reconciliation, Justice and Peace’. The promotion of peace, not just in Africa but throughout the world, was a dominant concern of his pontificate.

Conclusion

Joseph Ratzinger was a shy, soft spoken, gentle person – very much at odds with the ‘Rottweiler’ image of him presented in the media. I had occasion to meet him – by accident – when I was a student in Rome and found him friendly, courteous and a good listener.

He described himself as ‘a humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord’. That indeed he was.

As Pope he never projected himself, never played the crowd nor sought approval. What was important for him was the office, not the person holding it. It was surely this clear separation of himself from the office of Pope, that enabled him to take the extraordinary and unprecedented step or resigning when, at the age of 85, he felt unable to bear the burden of the office any longer. He was the first pope in 600 years to take such a step. That decision surely took courage, humility and clear-sighted acceptance of reality.  

He was, in truth, a good and holy man who served the Church well. As we remember and celebrate his life and bid him a final farewell, let us strive to reflect in our own lives something of the beauty and attractiveness of the vision of faith that inspired him.

Baptism of the Lord 2023 – Cycle A

8 January 2023

Isaiah 42: 1-4,6-7                         Acts 10:34-38                         Matthew 3:19-16

Theme: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him’ (Mt 2:13)

Today we celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord – the last major feast of the Christmas season. His baptism by John is a threshold moment in Jesus’ life. He is leaving behind the security of his ‘hidden’ life in Nazareth and entering the public arena for the first time. So, the liturgy invites us to shift our focus from the baby in the manger to the adult Jesus about to embark on his messianic mission in the service of God’s reign.

Jesus’ first public act is to go to the Jordan river to be baptised by his cousin John, an event recorded by Mark and Luke as well as Matthew. Matthew’s account suggests that John is reluctant to baptise Jesus, saying in words with which we can readily identify,  ‘It is I who need baptism from you’ (Mt 2:14). But Jesus insists and is baptised. At this moment the true identity of Jesus as God’s Beloved Son is revealed and he is empowered by the Spirit: As soon as Jesus was baptised, he came up from the water, and suddenly the heavens opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And a voice spoke from heaven, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased”’ (Mt 3: 15-16). For Jesus, this event marks the beginning of a journey that will take him from Nazareth to Jerusalem, from the hills of Galilee to the hill of Calvary.

Jesus’ baptism by John, ‘a baptism of repentance’ (Acts 19:4) manifests Jesus’ complete solidarity with sinful humanity. In the words of James Martin SJ, ‘The divine one, is fully immersing himself, literally in this case, in our humanity’. It also confirms Jesus in his messianic mission and indicates the shape that mission will take. He will be the kind of Servant Leader, outlined by Isaiah in our first reading. He will not shout out, ‘or make his voice heard in the streets’ (Is 42: 3), as many political leaders and angry prophets are wont to do. He will be kind and merciful to all who are oppressed and who carry heavy burdens. ‘He will not break the crushed reed, nor quench the wavering flame’ (Is 42:3).  But he will be implacable in his pursuit of justice for the poor and exploited: ‘Faithfully he brings true justice; he will neither waver nor be crushed until true justice is established on earth’ (Is 42:4). He will be a compassionate and merciful leader bringing healing and liberation to his people. His mission will be ‘to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison, and those of live in darkness from the dungeon’ (Is 42:7). And he will be a light not just for the people of Israel but for all nations of the world. As St Peter reminded Cornelius and his family in our second reading, ‘Jesus Christ is Lord of all people’ (Acts 10:35).

Recalling the baptism of Jesus and what it meant for him reminds us of our baptism and what it means for us. It reminds us of who we are and to whom we belong. By baptism we become children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus, members of the Church, and sharers in the threefold office of Jesus: the priestly, prophetic and kingly offices. Hence, by baptism, all who are baptised, not just priests and religious, are called to continue the mission of Jesus of establishing true justice on earth; to become co-creators with God in building his Kingdom of compassion, justice and love; to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. The importance of baptism is highlighted by the renowned biblical scholar, Raymond Brown, when he states that ‘the day when a person is baptised is more important than the day when a person is ordained priest and bishop’.

Today, then, is an appropriate occasion for us to remember the graces we have received in Baptism and renew our Baptismal promises. On the day of our baptism, we were anointed with the oil of Chrism to show that we were consecrated in the image of Jesus, the Father’s Anointed One. The candle, lighted from the Paschal Candle, was a symbol of the light of Faith which our parents and godparents passed on to us. This is, then, a day for us to renew our baptismal promises and to consecrate ourselves anew to the Lord, ‘rejecting Satan and all his empty promises’. Let us ask our Lord to help us to be true disciples of Jesus,  faithful to our baptismal commitment. Let us thank him for the privilege of being joined to Jesus’ mission in witnessing to the Gospel by our lives of love, mercy, service and forgiveness.

Fr Michael McCabe, SMA

SMA International News – January 2023

Welcome to the first edition of the SMA International News of 2023.  This month we have stories from Tanzania, Ireland and Nigeria. 

From Ireland we hear about a Christmas Carol Service with an international flavour organized by the SMA Parish in Wilton, Cork.   Then we go to Tanzania to hear about developments in the SMA District and work being undertaken to build its future.   From Nigeria we hear about two SMA Youth camps, one in the north and the other in the south of the country.  

 

 

The Spiritual Testament of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Following the death of  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI the Holy See has released his Spiritual Testament dated 29 August 2006.
 
My spiritual testament

When, at this late hour of my life, I look back on the decades I have wandered through, I see first of all how much reason I have to give thanks. Above all, I thank God Himself, the giver of all good gifts, who has given me life and guided me through all kinds of confusion; who has always picked me up when I began to slip, who has always given me anew the light of his countenance. In retrospect, I see and understand that even the dark and arduous stretches of this path were for my salvation and that He guided me well in those very stretches.

I thank my parents, who gave me life in difficult times and prepared a wonderful home for me with their love, which shines through all my days as a bright light until today. My father’s clear-sighted faith taught us brothers and sisters to believe and stood firm as a guide in the midst of all my scientific knowledge; my mother’s heartfelt piety and great kindness remain a legacy for which I cannot thank her enough. My sister has served me selflessly and full of kind concern for decades; my brother has always paved the way for me with the clear-sightedness of his judgements, with his powerful determination, and with the cheerfulness of his heart; without this ever-new going ahead and going along, I would not have been able to find the right path.

I thank God from the bottom of my heart for the many friends, men and women, whom He has always placed at my side; for the co-workers at all stages of my path; for the teachers and students He has given me. I gratefully entrust them all to His goodness. And I would like to thank the Lord for my beautiful home in the Bavarian foothills of the Alps, in which I was able to see the splendour of the Creator Himself shining through time and again. I thank the people of my homeland for allowing me to experience the beauty of faith time and again. I pray that our country will remain a country of faith and I ask you, dear compatriots, not to let your faith be distracted. Finally, I thank God for all the beauty I was able to experience during the various stages of my journey, but especially in Rome and in Italy, which has become my second home.

I ask for forgiveness from the bottom of my heart from all those whom I have wronged in some way.

What I said earlier of my compatriots, I now say to all who were entrusted to my service in the Church: Stand firm in the faith! Do not be confused! Often it seems as if science – on the one hand, the natural sciences; on the other, historical research (especially the exegesis of the Holy Scriptures) – has irrefutable insights to offer that are contrary to the Catholic faith. I have witnessed from times long past the changes in natural science and have seen how apparent certainties against the faith vanished, proving themselves not to be science but philosophical interpretations only apparently belonging to science – just as, moreover, it is in dialogue with the natural sciences that faith has learned to understand the limits of the scope of its affirmations and thus its own specificity.For 60 years now, I have accompanied the path of theology, especially biblical studies, and have seen seemingly unshakeable theses collapse with the changing generations, which turned out to be mere hypotheses: the liberal generation (Harnack, Jülicher, etc.), the existentialist generation (Bultmann, etc.), the Marxist generation. I have seen, and see, how, out of the tangle of hypotheses, the reasonableness of faith has emerged and is emerging anew. Jesus Christ is truly the Way, the Truth, and the Life – and the Church, in all her shortcomings, is truly His Body.

Finally, I humbly ask: pray for me, so that the Lord may admit me to the eternal dwellings, despite all my sins and shortcomings. For all those entrusted to me, my heartfelt prayer goes out day after day.

Benedictus PP XVI.

The above text is taken from
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2022-12/the-spiritual-testament-of-pope-emeritus-benedict-xvi.html    

READ ALSO: Farewell to Benedict XVI: ‘Humble worker in vineyard of the Lord’

Mary, Holy Mother of God 2023 – Year A

Mary, Mother of God
Mary, Mother of God

1 January 2023

Numbers 6:22-27                         Galatians 4:4-7                         Luke 2:16:21
Theme:   The Love of a Mother

This Christmas many of you may have watched as I did, perhaps for the umpteenth time, the popular children’s movie, ET. It’s a heart-warming movie classic and a Christmas favourite. Its producer and Director, Stephen Spielberg, was once asked why he chose to create ET the stranded extra-terrestrial creature befriended by Elliot and his family – rather ugly instead of cute. He replied that he wanted ‘a creature only a mother could love’. This tells us a lot about mothers and their love for their children. They are invariably seen as the embodiment of that total and unconditional love which is God’s way of being. The great English novelist, William Thackeray, wrote that ‘Mother is the name for God on the lips and in the hearts of little children’.

Today we honour the most famous mother who ever lived: Mary, the mother of the incarnate Son of God, the Mother of God. Mary was probably a teenager when she received and accepted God’s invitation, through the angel Gabriel, to become the mother of his Son. In the words of the Second Advent Preface, she carried him ‘in her womb with love beyond all telling’. She gave birth to him in a stable. In the family home in Nazareth, she nursed him, taught him how to walk and talk, to read and write. With the help of her husband, Joseph, she reared him from infancy to manhood. When she could not understand some of the things he said and did, she ‘pondered them in her heart’ (Lk 2:19). Jesus lived with her for 30 years, in other words, for most of his life. We are told by St Luke that, during this time, Jesus ‘increased in wisdom and stature and favour before God and people’ (Lk 2:52). When the time came for her Son to leave home, she let him go. And, when her Son made the supreme sacrifice of his life on Calvary, she stood in silence beneath the Cross as he lay dying in unspeakable agony.

Mary’s role as Mother began the moment she said ‘yes’ to God’s Word. Her  response to the Angel, ‘May it be done to me according to thy word’ (Lk 1:38) was the perfect response of obedience to God. Standing in contrast to the disobedience of the first Eve, it established Mary as the new Eve, the mother of all those born again through Christ. The poet, Denise Levertov, highlights another important quality of Mary’s yes that we sometimes overlook – courage:

‘We are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage …
Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
the astounding ministry she was offered.’

Mary is the mother of God’s Son, and she is our mother too. As he lay dying on the Cross, Jesus gave Mary to the Church. It is no surprise that she was with the Apostles when the Church was born on Pentecost day. She continues to mother our growth in Christ. As the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it in his lovely poem, The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air we Breathe: ‘She mothers each new grace that does now reach our race’. Mary’s work is not finished. She continues, as Hopkins reminds us, to let God’s glory shine through our humanity, ‘God’s glory which would go// Through her and from her flow// Off, and no way but so.’ 

As we enter another Year in a broken world still living ‘in the shadow of darkness’ (Is 9:2) and lurching from crisis to crisis, we surely need the embrace of Mary’s loving care, perhaps more than ever. In the words of Pope Francis, ‘We need her maternal gaze: the gaze that frees us from being orphans; the gaze that reminds us that we are brothers and sisters, that I belong to you, that you belong to me, that we are of the same flesh; her gaze that teaches us that we have to learn how to care for life in the same way and with the same tenderness that she did – by sowing hope, by sowing a sense of belonging and of fraternity’. We need the reassurance of Mary’s healing touch to release us from our fears of an uncertain future and awaken us again to God’s dream of a world remade in the image of his Jesus Christ, her Son: a more just and equal world; a world free from the cancers of war, aggression and hate; a world in which the dignity and equality of all God’s children is respected; a world where the threat of catastrophic climate change is replaced by respect and care for the gift of creation; a world where the ‘shalom’ of Christ reigns supreme. And we need the encouragement of Mary to continue striving with all our hearts to create such a world. I will end this homily with a New Year prayer.

Grant us, Lord God, a vision of your world as your love would have it:
a world where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor;
a world where the riches of creation are shared, and everyone can enjoy them;
a world where different races and cultures live in harmony and mutual respect;
a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love.
Give us the inspiration and courage to build it, in your name. Amen

Happy New Year!

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

A Christmas 2022 Reflection

“The Word was made flesh and made his home among us”

Dear Friends,

Christmas is a time when we try to re-connect with family and friends – those with whom we feel most at home. Many years ago I attended a memorable concert in the National Concert Hall in Dublin featuring The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. The concert was so enjoyable that nobody wanted it to end. After several encores, Liam Clancy finally called the concert to an end with the words ‘Have ye no homes to go to? Fortunately, we all had homes to go to but we also felt completely at home listening to the captivating songs of the Clancy Brothers.  

In our world today, there are a great many people who don’t have homes to go to – uprooted and displaced people in search of a home. Sadly, we inhabit a world where what Fergal Keane calls ‘the madness of war tears asunder the thin fabric of human civilisation, yielding an unholy harvest of destruction and misery, and adding to the legions of refugees and homeless people. Almost daily we are assailed with horrific images of Putin’s senseless war on the people of Ukraine. Because of this war, Ireland is now host to  over 60,000 Ukrainian refugees – a striking tribute to our spirit of generosity. But this war is only one of several wars afflicting our world today.

According to a recent UN Report, there are 27 wars being waged currently, affecting the lives of over 3 billion people. Africa, my home outside Ireland for many years, has more refugees and displaced persons than any other continent, most of them fleeing from situations of war, famine, or economic hardship. I am glad to see that we also welcome a good number of these refugees to our shores. Ireland, however, in spite of being one of the richest countries in Europe, is unable to provide affordable, decent and secure accommodation for many of its own citizens. As of October this year, 11,397 people were accessing emergency accommodation according to a recent report of the McVerry Tust.

Even people who do have homes to go to don’t always feel at home in them. Those of us with ‘a couple more years on us’ recall, with a sense of nostalgia, ‘the good old days’ when homes were places where families and friends met and talked, laughed and sang, and celebrated life together.  Yes, we live in a world of mass communication with the latest state of the art iPhones and iPads, but perhaps we communicate less with those who matter most in our lives. Christmas is a time when we make a special effort to reach out to those whose love creates a home for us in the world.

Some of you will have lost loved ones during the past year. Christmas is a time when we remember them with an acute sense of loss and also with gratitude. Their ‘sunlit presence’ profoundly enriched our experience of being at home in the world. Though we cannot deny the the pain of their parting from us, we must not think of them as totally absent from our lives. Their lives are ‘changed not ended’. They have not forgotten us and we should remember them as the poet Patrick Kavanagh remembered his beloved mother.

‘O you are not lying in the wet clay.
For it is harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you are smiling up at us – eternally’ 

As we celebrate Christ’s birth this Christmas, may he find a home in our hearts and may we find ourselves at home with him and with one another. I wish you all a blessed and peaceful Christmas.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA

To listen to a Christmas Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Christmas Eve Mass 2022 – Year A

24 December 2022

Isaiah 9:1-7                    Titus 2:14-18                    Luke 2:1-14

Theme:  ‘A  Saviour is born to us; he is Christ the Lord’ (Lk 2:11)

On this night we celebrate the dawn of a new age in the history of humanity, an age that arrived over 2,000 years ago in the little town of Bethlehem with the birth of Mary’s child. This was an epoch-changing event heralded by angels in the words of today’s gospel: “I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a Saviour has been born for you who is Christ the Lord(Lk 2:12). We celebrate this event with great acclaim because it was a moment that changed human history, revealing the boundlessness of God’s grace and, as our second reading tells us, making ‘salvation possible for the whole human race’ (Titus 2:11).

Tonight’s liturgy pulsates with a joy that resonates throughout the universe. The responsorial psalm calls on earth and heaven to join in one great song of joy and praise.

‘Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad,
let the sea and all within it thunder praise,
let the land and all it bears rejoice,
all the trees of the wood shout for joy
at the presence of the Lord for he comes,
he comes to rule the earth.’                 (Ps 95: 11-13)

The child whose birth we celebrate this night is hailed by Isaiah, in our first reading, with the resounding titles, ‘Wonder Counsellor’, ‘Mighty God’, ‘Eternal Father’, ‘Prince of Peace’ (Is 9:5).

The gospel reading from Luke describes in concise, unadorned language how the Christ child came to be born in a manger in Bethlehem, David’s city, while Mary and Joseph were there to be registered for a census of the people. It tells us how angels announce his birth to shepherds who come to worship him. And we, too, worship him because he is Emmanuel, God-with-us. As we gaze in wonder upon the nativity scene, represented in the Christmas crib, we see the Lord of the universe as a baby totally dependent on his mother for his every need. Becoming one with us, he became subject to the joys and pains that all human flesh is heir to: the joy of loving parents, of friendship, of play and laughter, of song and dance; but also the pain of hunger and thirst, disappointment and frustration, grief and sadness.

Like all human beings, Jesus had to learn to walk and talk, to pray and study, to work and play. He would come to know the joy of bringing healing and hope to the crippled, the blind, the dumb, and those excluded from society. He would experience the pain of ingratitude and rejection, and the misunderstanding of even his closest disciples. He would also know fear when faced with the hostility of those who sought to destroy him. Finally, he would endure the unspeakable agony of a shameful death on Calvary – and all this to manifest the Father’s unfailing love for us and to show us what it really means to be human.

The Christmas story recalls the birth of this unique person, the incarnate Son of God, who emptied himself of glory to be with us – who didn’t just tell us how to live but showed us by the way he lived and died. The Christmas story touches something deep in our hearts. In the words of Pope Francis, ‘Christmas is a feast that is heart-felt, participatory and capable of warming the coldest of hearts, of removing barriers of indifference towards our neighbours and encouraging openness towards others’. It challenges us to reflect on the life of Jesus so that we enter into the immense mystery of the love of God and discover the meaning and purpose of our lives and share it with others.

Many years ago while on a visit to my SMA brothers in Tanzania, I came across a little book of spiritual reflections for missionaries. The book, appropriately entitled Catalysts, was written by two Missionaries of Africa, Fr René Dionne and Fr Michael Fitzgerald. I was deeply touched especially by their reflection on the meaning of Christmas and I will end this homily by sharing it with you.  

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of the One who is the Yes of God,
the affirmation of a love so intense it transforms all who believe and accept it,
the Father’s total availability, the Open Door of his joyful forgiveness,
the glad tidings that we are accepted by God as we are,
and the spur to our own self-acceptance on the same terms.

He is the cool hand on the brow of a fevered race,
the reconciler, in the Spirit, of people to God and to one another,
the gentle dismantler of social barriers, and the healer of enmities and prejudices,
the ongoing revolution of unrestricted love in a world of egoism, violence, and power.

For he is the ultimate gift of God,
the ultimate source of all reality, God’s love,
which is stronger than death, or hatred or injustice,
the Father’s final, breath-taking reply to all our human,
faint-hearted, self-centred responses to God’s gracious initiatives,
the last word between God and us in the dialogue of salvation,
the Word-made-flesh, the Great Amen of God.’

As we celebrate Christ’s birth this Christmas, may our hearts burn with the fire of the love he has kindled on this earth. Have a happy, peaceful and healthy Christmas.

I wish you all a truly blessed Christmas celebration.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Christmas Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

CHRISTMAS – SERVICE OF CAROLS

A Christmas Carol Service organised by SMA Parish Wilton.

The Service has an international flavour with choirs and singers from, the Philippines, Finland, Ukraine, India, and of course Ireland.  It was recorded over a number of weeks in late Nov & Dec in Wilton and Blackrock Rd and there was a great spirit of cooperation and willingness from all involved to share something seasonal from each of the communities.

 Wishing you a Happy and a Peaceful Christmas!

A special thank you to all the individuals and groups who participated and to Paul O’Flynn and David O’Flynn who produced the program.

  Click on the play button below to view

 

4th Sunday of Advent 2022 – Year A

 Readings: Isaiah 7:10-14; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

Theme: Putting St Joseph back into Christmas

 As Christmas draws near, we tend to get caught up in a whirligig of preparations for this annual celebration: hosting or attending pre-Christmas parties; putting up lights and Christmas trees; going on shopping sprees to purchase extra food and drink, as well as presents for family and friends. With the risk of forgetting what Christmas is all about, preachers call on us ‘to put Jesus back into Christmas’. Perhaps we need to be reminded also to add Mary and Joseph and the many characters that people the bible stories of the birth of Jesus. Today, it is Joseph who is the focus of our gospel reading from Matthew.

While we do not know very much about Joseph from the gospels, and we have no record of anything he said. Matthew draws our attention to the important role he played in God’s plan of salvation. Today’s gospel reading highlights one of many crises Joseph had to negotiate in his chosen role as the husband of Mary (Mt 1:19) and legal father of Jesus. We are told that Joseph is already engaged to Mary, but not living with her, when he makes the shocking discovery that she is pregnant. We are left to imagine the turmoil and anguish Joseph must have felt in the wake of his discovery. Matthew tells us that he had made up his mind to divorce Mary informally. He wanted to keep the law but without publicly shaming Mary. At this stage, Joseph does not know that Mary has conceived her child through the Holy Spirit. He probably assumes that another man must be the father of Mary’s child. As a righteous Jew he is obliged to divorce her, but as an honourable man of integrity and sensitivity, he tries to find a way to meet the requirements of the law without causing extra pain to Mary.

Pray for the success of the Synod

Then Joseph has a dream in which an angel of the Lord appears to him with words of assurance and startling news about Mary: ‘Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit’ (Mt 1: 20). The angel also instructs Joseph to give Mary’s boy child the name Jesus ‘because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins’ (Mt 1:21). This instruction is highly significant as it underlines Joseph’s responsibilities not only as husband of Mary but the legal father of her child.  The final part of the Gospel reading tells us that, in the light of what the Angel told him, Joseph reverses his decision to divorce Mary and takes her home as his wife – a decision that will forever change change his life. During a latter part of the Christmas story, when the holy family flees from the murderous designs of King Herod, Joseph will be responsible for protecting Mary and her Son from clear and life-threatening danger.

It is time that we put Joseph back into Christmas.  Though never hogging the limelight, he is a central figure in the Nativity story, one who can speak to contemporary men and women.  We have much to learn from this ‘righteous man’ who does what God asks of him. He is open to changing his plans and welcoming the ‘new thing that God is doing’ (Is 43:19) in history. It can certainly happen in our lives too that God has a different plan for us from the one we chose for ourselves. Are we open to change like Joseph?  Are we ready and willing to take the risk of going along with God’s plan for us? Another aspect of today’s gospel that we should note is that Joseph is asked to change his plans and adapt because of the role God has chosen for his wife Mary. Usually in life it is the other way around, that a wife has to fit in with her husband’s plans. Joseph is the opposite. He has to fit in with God’s plan for her life.

It is not popular today to adjust our hopes, desires and plans for the sake of others and God’s plans for them. The dominant culture of our times is ego-centric and achievement oriented.  Joseph shows us another way of living God’s dream for us, one in which we need not be the centre of attention but we can let God use us to nourish the greatness of others. Are we willing to be heroes in the lives of others, to take on the role famously celebrated by Bette Midler’s in her hit song ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’? As we reflect today on the important role of St Joseph in story of the birth of Jesus, it is also good to celebrate the generous, unsung people, who are happy to live their lives in the shadows, helping others to shine. I will end with a short prayer.

 We bless God for the example of Joseph,
For his humility before the greatness of God’s plan
For his love and loyalty to Mary and Jesus;
For his willingness to change and adapt his life
So that the greatness of other might flourish.
We pray for ourselves that, in our turn,
We might be attentive listeners to God’s word
And accomplish God’s will in our lives. Amen

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, December 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

3rd Sunday of Advent 2022 – Year A

11 December 2022

Isaiah 35:1-6,10                      James 5:7-10                      Matthew 11:2-11

Theme: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always’ (Phil 4.4)

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday of joy. Our Eucharistic liturgy today echoes this joy. In our opening prayer we prayed to the Father to help us experience the joys of the salvation Christ has won for us ‘and celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing’. In  our first reading, the prophet Isaiah invites nature to join in this rejoicing: ‘Let the wilderness and the dry land exult, let the wasteland rejoice and bloom, let it bring forth flowers like the jonquil, let it rejoice and sing for joy’ (Is 35:1). The responsorial psalm proclaims the praises of God ‘who gives sight to the blind, raises up those who are bowed down, protects the stranger and upholds the widow and orphan’ (Ps 145). And our gospel reading from Matthew invites us to embrace Jesus as the Messiah, the saviour, whose life and ministry manifest the saving power of God: ‘the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them’ (Mt 11:3).

Too often in the past, Christianity has been presented as a rather grim and joyless affair, confronting us with guilt and failure. In an interview he gave a  short time before his death, Terry Wogan, the well-known Radio and TV broadcaster, described his experience of growing up in Catholic Ireland in these depressing terms: There were hundreds of churches, all these missions breathing fire and brimstone, telling you how easy it was to sin, how you’d be in hell.’ Sadly, Terry’s perception of Holy Catholic Ireland would have been shared by many of his contemporaries. However, it is a distorted perception based on the ‘hell-fire sermons’ of zealous but misguided preachers. 

Today’s gospel reading shows us that John the Baptist, too, for all his greatness – ‘a greater than John the Baptist has never been seen’ (Mt 11:11) – and zeal, may also have been misguided about Jesus and his message. When he heard what Jesus was doing he was disturbed and confused, so he sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the promised Messiah ‘or have we got to wait for someone else? (Mt 11:3). The response of Jesus is to point to the incontestable evidence of his healing and life-giving ministry: ‘Tell John what you hear and see (Mt 11:4). His actions prove that he is the Messiah foretold by Isaiah, the one who embodies God’s healing love.

The reality of sin and failure is not the centre piece of the Christian story, but rather the victorious love of God who forgives, heals and makes all things new. And it is the experience of this love that is the source of our joy.  But what is this joy that is at the heart of the Christian message? We think of joy very much in association with youthfulness, freshness, innocence. And it is true that joy keeps us young. A joyful person seems always youthful. Like the kiss of the sun on a flower, or a smile lighting up a child’s face, joy transforms. People who are joyful transform those around them. Joy is contagious. In the presence of joyful people, our hearts become lighter and the world around us seems so much brighter. 

However, Christian joy must not be confused with the kind of superficial cheerfulness we often come across in our social gatherings. It is not the false hilarity of those who choose to ignore the reality of suffering in the world around them, or avoid pain in their own lives.  In the words of John Catoir, ‘Joy is not the absence of pain. It is the awareness of God’s loving presence within you.’ And this awareness is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Christian joy is quite compatible with sorrow and even with anger. As Christians we are called to share not only in the passion of Christ, but also in his passions – his joy and sorrow, his frustrations. These are the passions of those who are alive with the gospel, those who come to know from personal experience that ‘it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and in dying that we are born to eternal life’ (Prayer of St Francis).

The joy that Christ brings us is a joy that is often found in the midst of pain and suffering. The most joyful people I have come across in my life as a missionary priest were those who had been profoundly touched by the pain of the world. I give just one example among many. Several years ago, an Irish Lay Missionary, Barbara McNulty, worked among the poor in Brazil. She wrote a memorable account of her experience for an article in The Tablet, describing how she found joy in the heart of suffering. ‘It is the paradox of joy that it is at its most significant in association with suffering. I worked for many years with the sick and the dying in a place where one would expect to find despair and depression; yet because of the warmth of the love all around me I found laughter and hope’. As disciples of Jesus, we are invited, like Barbara McNulty, to share the joy Jesus offers us, the joy we discover when we reach out to others in love.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, December 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

SMA International News – December 2022

Welcome to the December Bulletin of the SMA International News.  This month we have stories from France, Benin Republic and Canada. 

We hear from France, about the annual memorial of the massacre of African soldiers on Nov 8th 1942, during World War II.  This event a tradition of which the SMA has been part of since it began.   Next we go to the Beinin Republic to visit the Parish of Our Lady of Lourdes where we hear from Fr Christopher Oshalaiye SMA, about the people he ministers to and some of the projects he is involved in.  Then we go to Canada to hear about the pastoral experience of Fr Benjamin Ubi SMA.  

As usual the Bulleting rounds-up with news and information from the Generalate in Rome.

Conference Of Parties (COP)What Happened?

FLOODING IN PAKISTAN – Kasim Berech/Oxfam,Flickr CC

Below is the text SMA Justice Briefing No 47

In 2022 the severe impacts of climate change were made clearly visible through widespread floods, heat, droughts and wildfires that displaced millions of people, destroyed property, crops and cost many lives.

 

WILDFIRES IN THE USA – FEMA photo/Andrea Booher, NAR & DVIDS Public Domain

It was hoped that after many years of procrastination, vested interest and disagreement, the urgency and seriousness of these events would concentrate minds and lead COP27 to make effective decisions to mitigate and to deal with the effects of climate change. This did not happen.

A record 45,000 people registered for the Conference of Parties (COP) in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Another record established at this event was the attendance of over six hundred lobbyists seeking to protect the interests of fossil fuel companies.  

At times proceedings during the meeting were described as chaotic with the UN Secretary General, Antonio Gutteres stating, “There is clearly a breakdown in trust between North and South, and between developed and emerging economies.”

Negotiations to draft the final text were difficult, with opposing interests fighting to have their positions enshrined in the final agreement. As a result the meeting was extended for two days beyond the planned closing date. As in previous years, there were last minute changes, additions and the watering down of the final text. This left negotiators exhausted and many participants deflated and disappointed by the end of the event.

Missed Opportunities

Carbon Emissions Reduction: The greatest failure of the summit was in not reaching any new agreement on carbon emissions through the establishing of more ambitious reduction targets for countries. This kind of mitigation is what is needed most to reduce climate change and severe impacts like those witnessed this year.

Attempts by lobbyists and by fossil-fuel rich countries to abandon the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels were successfully withstood. Nevertheless, this missed opportunity to adopt greater CO2 emissions reduction targets will make staying within the 1.5 °C threshold all but impossible. At the end of the meeting Frans Timmermans said that the final deal puts “unnecessary barriers” in the way to 1.5°C and allows countries to “hide from their responsibilities.” Doing nothing new also opens the way for even more serious climate change impacts.

NFCCC_COP27_6Nov22_OpeningPlenary_KiaraWorth-Flickr CC

Phasing down Gas and Oil: At last year’s Glasgow COP, India wishing to protect its dependence on coal, made a last-minute intervention. This changed the draft text from “the phasing out”, to the less drastic “phasing down” of coal. This year, European Union and G20 countries wanted to add the “phasing down” of oil and gas as well. However, this was too much for lobbyists from fossil-fuel companies. They were joined by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Nigeria and developing countries who wished to benefit from their as yet untapped resources. Their combined opposition succeeded in blocking this addition to the final text. Therefore, there are still no clear commitments on phasing out or even on the phasing down fossil fuels. 

To make matters even worse, at the very end of the meeting the inclusion in the final text of a surprise reference to “low-emission” technologies has caused concern. It is feared that this may be used as a loophole to justify the development of further gas extraction and use, as gas produces less emissions than coal. This means that even the limited progress on mitigation made at COP26 in Glasgow now risks being lost.

Loss and Damage

The successful reaching of an agreement to establish a Loss and Damage Fund was the most positive result of COP27. EU nations and the US – fearing unending demands for compensation – went to COP27 adamant that Loss and Damage would not even be discussed. It had been kept off the COP agenda for thirty years but the impacts of flooding in Pakistan, Nigeria and elsewhere in recent months tipped the balance. It was included in the Agenda at the start of the meeting.

As proceedings became bogged down around the issue of emissions reductions, and the prospect of the meeting breaking down became more evident, the EU changed its position (which put pressure on the US to follow suit). The hope was that, in return, there would be agreement to step-up emissions reductions targets. While this hope was not realised, the Loss and Damage fund was still established.
The Fund is, without doubt, a positive result, but many unknowns remain regarding who will contribute to the fund and when this will begin. Decisions will also have to be made regarding how and under what criteria funds will be disbursed. The real test is what richer countries do next. The developed world still has not kept its 2009 pledge to spend 100 billion euros a year in other climate aid designed to help poor nations to develop green energy and adapt to warming.

Gabor KOVACS CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2020 – Source: EP

According to the COP27 agreement, the Loss and Damage Fund will initially draw on contributions from developed countries and other private and public sources such as international financial institutions. While major emerging economies such as China and India (still classed as developing nations) would not initially be required to contribute, that option remains on the table and will be negotiated in the future. Next year’s summit, COP28 in Dubai, will decide who pays into the loss-and-damage fund and who benefits from it. The EU and the US are determined to make China, the world’s largest emitter, foot part of the bill. 

The Outcome of COP 27

Speaking after the meeting, the EU President Ursula von der Leyen described the final agreement as marking – “a small step towards climate justice but much more is needed for the planet.” She then went on to say; “COP27 has kept alive the goal of 1.5C. Unfortunately however, it has not delivered on a commitment by the world’s major emitters to phase down fossil fuels, nor new commitments on climate mitigation.”

Alok Sharma, the UK government’s representative and Chair of the Glasgow COP 26 summit was more direct. He summed up the issues of concern and the disappointment felt by many. Highlighting the summit’s failure to cut emissions, Mr Sharma said:  “Emissions peaking before 2025, as the science tells us is necessary – [it is] not in this text. Clear follow-through on the phase-down of coal – not in this text. A clear commitment to phase out all fossil fuels – not in this text.”

What next?
Professor Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology, University College London (UCL), in his reaction to the outcome of the summit made four points in relation to preparing for the next COP meeting. He said:
“The lessons of the multiple failures of COP27 for COP28 in Dubai are four fold:
1) Start the negotiations now and work hard for the next 12 months so that all countries are prepared to get a clear agreement by the end.
2) Run an open and transparent process so that all countries understand what is being negotiated and trust can be repaired.
3) Push key countries to increase their ambition and submit improved pledges, so there is a chance of sticking to the 1.5˚C limit with a focus on phasing out fossil fuels and
4) Rich nations including both high-income countries and emerging economies must contribute to adaptation funds and a transparent and an effective Loss and Damage Facility.

Climate justice will need to be at the heart of the negotiations for COP28 as money will need to be put on the table for adaptation, loss and damages and rapid ramp up of renewables.”
Source: https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-end-of-cop27/

2nd Sunday of Advent 2022 – Year A

4 December 2022

Isaiah 11:1-10                    Romans 15:4-9                    Matthew 3:1-12

Theme: Keeping Hope Alive

Many  of you, I’m sure, have seen Franco Zeffirelli’s classic film, Jesus of Nazareth.  Though it is many years ago since I saw it, a striking image from the movie has remained with it: ‘A future without hope is like a night without stars’. It is spoken by Yehuda, the rabbi, as he looks forward to the birth of the Messiah. Keeping hope alive is the dominant theme of our scripture readings today and it is the context in which we must situate the urgent cry of John the Baptist in today’s gospel to ‘prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight’ (Mt 3:3).

An Irish liturgist, writing on the Advent Liturgy, describes it as one continuous song of hope. The spirit of Advent is admirably summed up in one of the season’s typical antiphons: ‘Lift up you eyes, Jerusalem, and see the power of the King. Behold the Saviour comes. He will free you from your bonds.’ But what is hope? It is best described as a basic human attitude: a positive attitude that includes trust and expectancy for the future, an attitude that gives us confidence and energy. In the words of the poet Emily Dickinson,

‘Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

Pray for the success of the Synod

Hope lifts us up. It encourages us to change ourselves and our society for the better. While hope is the opposite of despair and cynicism, it is not naive about human life or blind to the reality of evil in our world. To the contrary, a hopeful attitude is only possible in an imperfect situation, a situation in need of, and open to change, a world where the future can be better than the past. If the world were already perfect, there would be no point in hope. On the other hand, if the world is simply a disaster, there is no room for hope. This is why should resist the prophets of Doom and there are a lot of them around at the present time. They are not just killjoys. More seriously, they are killers of hope.

Christianity is basically a religion of hope. It envisages a better and brighter future for all humanity and indeed for the entire order of creation – a hope based on God’s coming to dwell among us to heal, redeem, and transform our lives. The people of Israel expected this hope to be realised with the advent of the Messiah. Israel’s messianic hope is movingly expressed in today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah. For him, the Messiah will be a wise, holy and peaceful King, ‘who will judge the poor with justice and decide in favour of the land’s afflicted(Is 11:4). He will put an end to conflict and bring lasting peace, a peace that will extend beyond the frontiers of humanity to the world of nature: ‘The wolf lives with the lamb, the panther lies down with the kid, calf and lion feed together, with a young child to lead them’ (Is 11:6). The word that Isaiah uses to embody this hopeful vision of a world at peace is ‘shalom’; a word with a much greater breadth and depth of meaning than we normally give to the term ‘peace’.  It signifies, as the images of Isaiah suggest, not merely the absence of war or violence, but the universal presence of harmony and integrity – a world of restored relationships at every level. So we proclaim joyfully in the words of today’s responsorial psalm: ‘In his days justice shall flourish and peace till the moon fails’ (Ps 71:7).

As disciples of Jesus we believe that, with the first coming of Jesus Christ, God’s reign of justice, peace and love has begun. In Christ, God has come closer to us than we could ever have imagined. His only begotten Son became one with us. He suffered, died and rose again to unite us to one another and to the Father. Our hope for ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (Rev 21:1) is now centred on him and on what God has done and is doing in and through him. So, while we still inhabit a world that is far from the peace envisioned by Isaiah, we do not lose heart. As St Paul reminds us in our second reading today, ‘Everything that was written long ago in the scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope from the examples scripture gives of how people who did not give up were helped by God’ (Rom 15:4).

Our hope in Christ is a hope that looks beyond the often tragic circumstances of our lives – a hope based ultimately on his resurrection, and hence a hope for new life rising from the ashes of death and decay. Such a hope is not confined by the limits of what we can achieve by our own efforts. God has faith in us even when we lose faith in ourselves. He never gives up on us for he is the ever faithful God, whose Spirit enables us to live in accord with Jesus Christ and, by our actions of justice, mercy and love, to keep hope alive in our struggling world.

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, November 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

SMA Wilton Parish offers YOU an alternative to TV!

The SMA Wilton parish are broadcasting a one-hour selection of interesting material from 4 -5pm and from 8 – 9pm daily. 

You will find meditations, spiritual music, monthly SMA news, climate programmes – much of it produced by the parish or gleaned from other sources.

Take a break from the soaps and taste some life-giving material.

Check out www.smawilton.ie or click here (Note: these programmes will only be running at the specified times – otherwise this link leads to the Parish Webcam) 
CHECK IT OUT!

First Sunday of Advent 2022 – Year A

Kittelendan, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

27 November 2022

Isaiah 2:1-5;                    Romans 13:11-14                    Matthew 24:37-44

Theme: ‘No more war, war never again’ (Pope Paul VI)

We begin our new liturgical year with the season of Advent – four weeks of preparation for Christmas. The purpose of Advent is, in the words of Richard of Chichester’s familiar prayer, ‘to see Christ more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more closely.’ The Advent season with its special readings and attractive symbols (wreath and four candles) is designed to help us to appreciate more fully the significance of Christ’s first coming, and to make more room for him in our hearts now.

An ardent yearning for peace marked Israel’s long period of waiting for the first coming of Christ. A tiny nation wedged between huge and ambitious empires, Israel was at the mercy of larger nations constantly vying for superiority. Wars were almost constant, many with devastating consequences for the people of Israel. For much of its existence, Israel lived under the sovereignty of larger nations and was unable – and sometimes unwilling – to secure freedom and peace for its people. Naturally the people grew weary of war, weary of the divisions that had torn their country apart, weary of the instability of a world where power and might prevailed and the weak and powerless suffered constant oppression.

Pray for the success pf the Synod

However, the people of Israel knew that the God they worshipped was a God who had heard the cries of their ancestors when they lived as slaves in Egypt, and who intervened to relieve their oppression. They knew that God could not remain indifferent to their plight, for he is the Lord of history who ‘puts forth his arm in strength and scatters the proud-hearted; brings down the powerful from their thrones and raises up the lowly; fills the starving with good things, and sends the rich away empty’ (Lk 1:51-53). So they hoped and they dreamed. They dreamed of a time when their God would decisively enter the world and bring an end to war and suffering, when he would finally establish his reign of peace and justice on earth and restore all creation to what he intended it to be. They dreamed of a time when the divisions that had torn their people apart would be healed and they would be united as God’s chosen people in a world at peace. This dream – this hope – is poignantly evoked by Isaiah in our first reading today. Isaiah envisions a time when Israel’s God will once again intervene decisively to ‘wield authority over the nations and adjudicate between many peoples who will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation and there will be no more training for war’ (Is 2:4).  

Two and a half millennia later, these words of Isaiah still resonate with us as we long for a world where war will be no more. Despite the coming of Christ and his inauguration of God’s universal reign of Love, justice and peace on earth, Isaiah’s vision of a world at peace under God is still far from being a reality. We have not yet learned how to live as children of a loving Father and brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. We inhabit a world where  ‘the madness of war’ (Fergal Keane) tears asunder the thin fabric of civilisation, yielding an unholy harvest of destruction and misery. Almost daily we are bombarded with images of Putin’s senseless war on the people of Ukraine. And, sadly, this is only one of several wars afflicting our world. According to a recent UN Report there are 27 wars being waged currently, affecting the lives of 3.2 billion people. Many of these conflicts are causing much greater loss of life and human misery than the war in Ukraine.

So, as we await Christ’s second coming, we continue to dream Isaiah’s dream of a world where war is no more – the dream echoed by Pope Paul VI in his historic address to the United Nations on 4 October 1965 when he said: ‘No more war, war never again’. We long for that day when, to echo the words of St Paul in today’s second reading, the night of war and misery will be over and it will soon be daylight. We yearn for the day when we will ‘throw off everything that belongs to the darkness and equip ourselves for the light’ (Rom 13:12).

These words of Paul remind me of the familiar story of a wise old Rabbi who instructed his students by asking questions. He asked them: ‘How can a person tell when the darkness ends and the day begins?’ After thinking for a moment, one student replied, ‘It is when there is enough light to see an animal in the distance and be able to tell if it is a sheep or a goat’. Another student ventured, ‘It is when there is enough light to see a tree, and tell if it is a fig or oak tree.’ The old Rabbi then spoke, ‘No. It is when you can look into the face of a stranger and recognise him or her as your sister or brother. For if you cannot recognise in another’s face the face of a sister or brother, the darkness has not yet begun to lift, and the light has not yet come’.

So we pray: Come Lord Jesus and let the light of your love lift the darkness from our hearts and from our world. Amen.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Who to contact with concerns about the Welfare or Safety of Children or Vulnerable Adults

The guiding principles in regard to the reporting of abuse or neglect are:

  • The safety of the child / adult at risk is paramount
  • If you have a safeguarding concern and are not sure what to do, contact the SMA Designated Liaison Person immediately.
  • Reports should be made without delay to the SMA Designated Liaison Person, Túsla / HSE and An Gardaí and to the PSNI if it relates to an incident in Northern Ireland.
  • If a child / person is in immediate danger contact the Gardaí directly.

Since 11 December 2017, SMA members, as mandated persons, must report any knowledge, belief or reasonable suspicion that a child has been harmed to TUSLA and to An Garda Síochána.

SMA DESIGNATED LIASION PERSON

Ms Elizabeth Murphy, African Missions, Blackrock Road, Cork, T12 N6C8                   
087 – 7135 240                     [email protected]

GARDA SIOCHANA                  1 800 555 222 – Child Sexual Abuse Freephone

Gardaí National Protective Services Bureau      01 – 666 3430 or 666 3435   or call your nearest Garda Station.

HSE             1 850 24 1850  or  [email protected]

TÚSLA: Child & Family Agency         1 800 555 222   or   021 – 492 3535

Unit 4a, Floor 3, North Point House, North Point Business Park, T23 AT2P, Cork

PSNI – Police Service of Northern Ireland

101 (within Northern Ireland) or +44 28 9025 9299 (Central Referral Unit)

 

Some Support Organizations

Towards Healing              1 800 303 416          

Towards Healing is a private and confidential counselling and support service for survivors of institutional, clerical and religious abuse, funded by the Catholic Church in Ireland. Office open Tuesday to Friday 9am-5pm but you can leave a message on their Answering service.

Towards Peace                 1 800 505 3028

Towards Peace offers spiritual support to victims / survivors of clerical abuse whose faith in God may have been affected by their experience. Following initial telephone contact, Towards Peace offers an opportunity to talk to a trained spiritual companion in a one-to-one setting and to explore questions and concerns about God, and to get in touch with God’s presence in their lives.

The Samaritans                1 850 609 090

Urgency and responsibility should orient work of COP27 – Holy See

We have reached the final day of COP27 and again, as in previous years, it is likely to go overtime as participants haggle over the text of the final document.  The draft text as it stands contains flaws and loopholes that those advocating for strong climate action are worried about.  For example there is no mention of phasing out gas and oil and the EU is again refusing to support the establishment of the Loss and Damage mechanism crucial to the global South who are suffering most.   
 
Below is an article from Vatican News by Amedeo  Lomonaco.  It reports on the Address of the Holy See’s Delegation at the COP27 summit in Sharm El-Sheik,  In this Archbishop Nicolas Thevenin, Apostolic Nuncio in Egypt, reflects the Church’s position. 
 

“The Holy See’s Delegation” to the COP27 summit “would like to underline two values which should orient our work in this remaining week: urgency and responsibility for concrete and far-sighted actions to face the climate crisis, which affect too many people, especially the poorest and the most vulnerable”, said Archbishop Nicolas Thevenin, Apostolic Nuncio to Egypt and delegate of the Holy See to the League of Arab States.

In his address to the climate summit, the Archbishop added that “the Holy See Delegation hopes both urgency and responsibility will be clearly reflected in the cover decisions. These concrete actions must strengthen what for the Holy See are the four pillars of the Paris Agreement: mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, and education”.

Archbishop Nicolas Thevenin (Wikimedia commons)

The Nuncio explained that political, technical and operational measures are no longer enough. “They must be combined with an educational approach that promotes new lifestyles, while fostering a renewed pattern of development and sustainability based on care, fraternity and cooperation.”

Archbishop Thevenin also highlighted the the link between climate, food, and water which he insisted cannot be ignored. “A food systems approach, as well as water security, taken in their integral perspective, ”can and should play an essential role in climate policies and should be included in national climate strategies.”

In conclusion, the Archbishop insisted on the Holy See’s position that “Time is getting shorter to achieve a final outcome which could represent a genuine step forward.”

Read the full Vatican News article here

Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, 2022 – Year C

20 November 2022

2 Samuel 5:1-3                    Colossians 1:12-20                    Luke 23:35-43

Theme:  The Kingship of Jesus

The solemnity of Christ the King marks the end of Ordinary Time and the culmination of the Church’s liturgical year. This feast was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 to promote devotion to the Universal Lordship of Christ in response to the growing secularism of the Western world. In 1969, Pope Paul VI gave the celebration a new title ‘Jesus Christ, King of the Universe’, and moved it from the last Sunday in October to the last Sunday in the liturgical year. He also declared it a ‘Solemnity.’ But what does it mean to worship Jesus as King of the Universe? And what kind of kingship are we celebrating?

Pray for the success of the Synod

Our common idea of Kingship evokes images of wealth, power, control, and distance from the concerns and struggles of ‘ordinary’ people – images impossible to associate with the figure of Jesus as presented in the gospels. Here we meet Jesus, the itinerant preacher who walked the roads of Galilee and had nowhere to lay his head, the good shepherd who went in search of the lost sheep, the compassionate healer whose touch brought inner peace as well as physical health, the man for others who came to serve, not to be served, the suffering Messiah who died forgiving his enemies. Our idea of kingship seems to contradict everything that Jesus stood for. And yet we honour Jesus as King. Why?

Nothing is more certain about the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth than that he proclaimed the kingdom or reign of God. The phrase ‘Kingdom of God’ occurs 122 times in the Gospels, 90 of which are on the lips of Jesus. The synoptic gospels introduce Jesus’ public ministry with the phrase: ‘The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent. Believe the Good News’ (Mk 1:15). The kingdom God was the central theme of Jesus’ teaching and the event that shaped all his entire ministry – his table-fellowship with sinners and outcasts, his healing miracles and exorcisms, his forgiveness of sins. God’s kingdom, as lived and proclaimed by Jesus, meant good news for the poor, healing for the sick, and liberation for the enslaved and oppressed: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord (Lk 4:18-19).

The kingship of Jesus is, above all, a kingship of love and forgiveness, as our Gospel reading from Luke shows. Dying in the unspeakable agony of the Cross, and mocked by the leaders of the people, Jesus reaches out to those around him with words of forgiveness and consolation. The unique kingship of Jesus is recognised by the repentant thief: ‘Remember me when you come into your kingdom’ (Lk 23:42). And to him Jesus makes this promise:  ‘Today you will be with mé in paradise’ (Lk 23:43). The same promise is made to us. As St Paul reminds us in our second reading today: ‘He (God the Father) has taken us out of the power of darkness and created a place for us in the Kingdom of his Son that he loves, and in him, we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins’ (Col 1:13).

As inheritors of Jesus’ promise and sharers in his kingship, we are challenged to walk in his footsteps and imitate his example of love and forgiveness. But forgiveness does not come easy to us. Even in small things we find it difficult to forgive. We can bear grudges for years against those whom we consider to have wronged us, let us down, or treated us unfairly. This can include even to family members, neighbours, friends and colleagues at work or in school. We may harbour bad feelings towards them and even try to exact revenge. We avoid people with whom we have ‘fallen out’ or squabbled. We forget, or overlook the fact, that God has forgiven us.

Today’s gospel reminds us that is in forgiving that we are most like God our Father and Christ his Son. It is in forgiving that we bring healing to others and to ourselves, that we restore broken relationships and release the seeds of love in our communities and in the world. It is in forgiving that we manifest the kingship of Christ and extend on earth the reign of God’s love. I will end with a challenging reflection from the pen of Fr Flor McCarthy SDB (Salesian) which captures perfectly what the kingship of Christ means and the kind of response it requires from us. It is entitled ‘The victory of Love’.

On the Cross Jesus endured insults and mockery.
Yet his heart remained open, even to his enemies.
He absorbed all the violence, transformed it,
and returned it as love and forgiveness.
One’s pain can so easily turn into rage,
so that one wants only to lash out blindly
at whoever happens to be within range.
From the depth of his own pain,
Jesus reached out to comfort the thief.
Some people are like sugar cane:
even when crushed in the mill, what they yield is sweetness.
Jesus stretches our capacity for compassion.
He challenges our idea of love.
The pity is that it often goes unused.
By our love people will know that we
are followers of Christ the King.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, November 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

NOVEMBER | For children who suffer – the Pope’s Prayer Intention

We pray for children who are suffering, especially those who are homeless, orphans, and victims of war; may they be guaranteed access to education and the opportunity to experience family affection.

  • In The Pope Video for November, Francis makes a powerful appeal regarding the extreme conditions in which millions of children live throughout the world.
  • Each child has the right to play, to study, and to dream, and the Holy Father asks that we take responsibility and not forget that “they are human beings with names, with a face of their own, with an identity that God has given them”.
  • For the Pope, “an abandoned child is our fault”: this is why he insists that they must “be guaranteed access to education and the opportunity to experience family affection.”

Text of the Pope’s message 

There are still millions of boys and girls who suffer and live in conditions very similar to slavery.
They aren’t numbers: they are human beings with names, with a face of their own, with an identity that God has given them.
Too often, we forget our responsibility and we close our eyes to the exploitation of these children who don’t have a right to play, to study, to dream. They don’t even enjoy the warmth of a family.
Each marginalized child, abandoned by his or her family, without schooling, without healthcare, is a cry! A cry that rises up to God and shames the system that we adults have built.
An abandoned child is our fault.
We can no longer allow them to feel alone and abandoned —they are entitled to an education and to feel the love of a family so they know that God does not forget them.
Let us pray for children who are suffering, especially for those who are homeless, orphans, and victims of war. May they be guaranteed access to education and may they have the opportunity to experience family affection. 

Pope Francis – November 2022

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

13 November 2022

Malachi 3:19-20                    2 Thessalonians 3: 7-12                    Luke 21:5-19

Theme: Perseverance in Hope

As we near the end of the Church’s liturgical year, our Scripture readings speak of the end times, of persecution, of plagues and famines, of wars and revolutions, of destruction and betrayal, and of God’s judgement on an evil world. These readings, especially today’s Gospel, confronts us with images of future disaster and leaves us with the feeling that things are going to get worse before they get better, if indeed they are ever going to get better. 

We might be inclined to sidestep the challenge of these readings by categorising them as apocalyptic literature – a literature that flourished in times of great crisis and hence not relevant today. However, we should ask ourselves: are we not faced with the greatest crisis in human history, the crisis caused by human-produced global warming? The very survival of human life on Planet Earth, our common home, is endangered, and the fault lies with us. As the UN Secretary General, Antonio Gutierres, reminded the delegates at COP 27 (the international climate summit currently taking place in Egypt), ‘We are in the fight of our lives and we are losing’. Given the severity of this crisis, the failure of world leaders to take decisive and concerted action to address this issue is particularly distressing. 

Another disconcerting sign of our times, to which Pope Francis has frequently referred, is the crisis in the world of politics. We are witnessing a noticeable decline in civilised and respectful political debate and the replacement of rational persuasion with invective and slogans. In the words of the Pope, ‘Today in many countries, hyperbole, extremism and polarization have become political tools in the service of self-interest rather than the common good’ (FT 15). Moderation, self-control, decency and respectful dialogue are no longer seen as virtues to be practised in the public sphere. 

Apart from the world of politics, Christianity is also in crisis today. It is marginalised if not banished from the public sphere in the Western world, and persecuted and suppressed in the other parts of the world. By even the most conservative estimates, about 8,000 Christians die each year for their faith. Certainly we are witnessing a new wave of Christian persecution. ISIS has beheaded Christians, driven them from their ancient homes in the Middle East and forced them to choose between conversion or death. William Butler Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming, written after the First World War I and on the cusp of the Irish Civil War, surely rings a bell. The poem speaks of things spiralling out of control:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Our readings today, then, with their apocalyptic language, are very relevant to our current situation and offer a Christian reading of that situation. Unlike Yeats’ poem, however, these readings do not plunge us into despair but provide us with grounds for hope and a positive response. The context in which the readings should be read is that of God’s coming reign of justice, truth and love, as expressed in our Responsorial psalm: ‘For the Lord comes; he comes to rule the earth. He will rule the world with justice and the peoples with fairness’.

Our first reading, written by the last of the prophets, Malachi (the name  means ‘my messenger’), sometime in the 5th century BC, speaks of a day of Judgement when ‘all the arrogant and the evil-doers’ meet their comeuppance – and are burned up ‘like stubble’ (Mal 3:19). But, on that day of judgement ‘the sun of righteousness will shine out with healing in its rays’ (Mal 3:20) for the Lord’s faithful ones. This reading exhorts us, even when things seem to be collapsing around us, not to be overcome by fear, but to trust in God’s promises and to persevere in faithful service of the Lord.

In our gospel reading from Luke, we see Jesus predicting the terrible catastrophe which would befall Jerusalem almost 40 years later. In the year 70 AD, Jerusalem was besieged by the mighty Roman army. Over a million people were killed or died of starvation during the long siege. The city was destroyed and the Temple burned to the ground. Jesus assures his disciples that, even though they will suffer persecution, they will not be overwhelmed or paralysed by fear, for they will be protected from harm. ‘Not a hair of your head will be lost’ (Lk 21:19). Through the power of his Spirit they are to continue to bear witness to him. Their perseverance will win them their lives. Such words of hope for the future are always needed just as much to day as they were for the first followers of Jesus.

The response to today’s psalm (Psalm 97) yearns for the God who will govern the world with justice and fairness. With our own fears and hopes about the future, we can surely identify with this yearning. Times of suffering can offer the possibility of renewal, of new directions, that may give birth to the hope that, as the prophet Malachi assures us, ‘there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays’ (Mal 3:20). And so we pray: ‘May your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you’. (Ps 32)

Michael McCabe, November 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

SMA International News – November 2022

Welcome to the November  bulletin of the SMA International News.  This month we have stories from France, Togo and Zambia. 

We hear from Lyons, about the installation of a new SMA team, consisting of three members, in the Parish of St Michel, Castlenaudary, the home Parish of the Founder, Bishop Melchior de Marion Brésillac. 

Then we go to Togo to hear about the development of the web TV Channel of the SMA Togo Province.  Set up five months ago, we look at how it is developing and at what needs its trying to address.  

We also have a report from Zambia about the recently mid-mandate Assembly held by members of the District between the 25th to the 27th of October. We hear from different SMA’s who attended the meeting.  

As usual we finish with a round-up of general news including that of of an international meeting or formators in Cotonou, Benin and of the official visitation of the Superior General, Fr Antonio Porcellato and General Councillor, Fr Krzysztof Pachut to Ireland.

 

JOURNEYING TOGETHER FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE: An African perspective- part 2

Today, by way of preparation for he COP27, we bring you the second part of the African Climate Dialogues which give an African perspective on issues that will be discussed at the meeting in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.  below are the main points that emerged during the dialogues – these indicate the outcomes that African countries would like to see coming from COP27.

From July to September 2022, five sessions of the African Climate Dialogues were held:

  1. False Climate Solutions and the Congo Basin – July 19, 2022
  2. Food Systems, agriculture and adaptation – August 10, 2022
  3. Climate Finance – August 30, 2022
  4. Loss and Damage and Adaptation – September 8, 2022
  5. Climate-Induced Migration and Displacement – September 15, 2022

Each of these invite-only sessions were hosted by organisations and individuals from the Catholic Church and secular civil society actors. Each session saw a diverse list of stakeholders and experts come together to discuss and reflect on their experience, with a special emphasis on the moral and spiritual dimensions of the climate crisis and what action is needed at COP27. Participants were invited to respond to expert presentations, dialogue with each other and contribute to a shared output. All of the comments and presentations from each session were then collated and distilled into newsletters, which can be accessed via the links beneath. This document, the communiqué, is a distillation of each of these newsletters – including only the key messages from each session.

An interpretivist approach was taken to synthesise and distill the information from the sessions and to generate key conclusions. This approach differs from positivist approaches of enquiry, which traditionally attempt to convert oral contributions to comparative units. Instead, our approach sought to discern meaning and arrive at conclusions based on experience, consensus and reflective conversation. These outputs have been agreed to by the African Climate Dialogues steering committee, made up of key event organisers, and therefore represent an uncontested summary of event outputs. 

KEY MESSAGES FROM THE AFRICAN CLIMATE DIALOGUES

  1. False Climate Solutions and the Congo Basin
  • Transform Africa’s fossil fuel energy system to one that is powered by renewable energy sources in order to fairly and equitably provide energy for people and promote energy sovereignty, all while protecting the inherent rights of communities and ecosystems.
  • Promote peace and regional integration in Africa, especially in the Congo Basin, by protecting ecosystems, regenerate Lake Chad basin, respecting human rights, establishing and enforcing binding regulations and the rule of law, and sensitising the public on climate change impacts.
  • Abandon all false solutions including net-zero pledges, failed emissions trading and offsetting schemes, nature-based solutions and unfounded technological optimism (i.e., geoengineering).
  • Transition to new sources of energy that are locally produced, cheap, accessible and benefit local and Indigenous communities in Africa.
  • Establish and restore community-based management of natural resources like forests, rangelands and fishing grounds and abide by established legal and ethical principles such as the rights to free, prior, and informed consent, fair compensation, and a clean and healthy environment.

➢ Read the full report from the dialogue on False Climate Solutions and The Congo Basin

False-Climate-Solutions-and-the-Congo-Basin-NEWSLETTER.pdf (cidse.org)

  1. Food Systems, Agriculture and Adaptation
  • Recognise that agroecology puts farmers and vulnerable communities at the centre, pro-planet approach to food production underpinned by a philosophy of harmony among human and other-than-human beings, and that a transition to agroecology can help mitigate and adapt to climate change.
  • Establish a democratic mechanism for the governance of agriculture, land and food systems under the UNFCCC.
  • Make agroecology a prominent theme at COP27 and in any follow-up decision of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture, as it offers clear co-benefits when addressing food insecurity and the impacts of climate change.
  • Move away from the myopic focus on efficiency and profit maximisation in the food system and instead focus on human rights, nutrition, food justice, seed and food sovereignty and sustainable farming practices.
  • Allocate more resources to support smallholders, family farmers and indigenous people, including extension services based on agroecological methods.

➢ Read the full report from the session on Food Systems, Agriculture and Adaptation
NEWSLETTER-Food-systems-ACD-FINAL.pdf (cidse.org)

  1. Climate Finance

 

https://climatevisuals.org/groupitem/103/
MAN PLANTS MANGROVE PLANTS IN DEEP MUD IN A MANGROVE REPLANTING PROJECT IN PORT HARCOURT, IN THE NIGER DELTA, NIGERIA. Credit: Jerry Chidi / Climate Visuals Creative Commons
  • The Global North must pay the ecological debt it owes to the Global South.
  • Provide new, accessible, adequate, predictable and additional climate finance from public sources that supports the needs of people and local communities.
  • Improve and simplify access to existing climate finance funding mechanisms so that local communities and civil society organisations can more easily use and benefit from these funds.
  • Provide climate finance in the form of grants rather than loans and increase funding for adaptation.
  • Improve transparency and tracking of climate finance disbursement to strengthen democratic checks and balances and improve governance.
  • Respectfully utilise Indigenous knowledge to design interventions that are locally-driven and context specific.

➢ Read the full report from the session on Climate Finance   

  1. Loss and Damage
  • Recognise loss and damage as the third pillar of responding to climate change alongside mitigation and adaptation.
  • Establish a loss and damage finance facility at COP27 funded by penalties levied against private and public sector polluters based on well-defined measurements including from public sources.
  • Pay special attention to the issue of non-economic loss and damage and take immediate actions to avert the impending loss of heritage, cultures and languages.
  • National Governments in climate vulnerable countries should immediately draft loss and damage strategies and assessment schemes for submission to the UNFCCC.
  • Faith leaders, including the Holy See, senior Church leaders, and the Bishops of Africa, should speak out in support of civil society on the issue of loss and damage at COP27.

➢ Read the full report from the session on Loss and Damage
Draft ACD Loss and Damage Newsletter.docx (cidse.org)

  1. Climate-Induced Migration and Displacement
  • The strong interconnection between climate, migration, conflict and food security requires urgent and greater awareness, comprehensive policies, better nexus between humanitarian and sustainable development aid, and adequate financing.
  • The conflict and tension between climate-induced migration-displaced people and hosting communities require local policy, finance and action in sharing common resources.
  • As transboundary migration increases over time, climate migration policy needs to be recognised as a human rights issue and an adaptation measure.
  • Among the most affected community, young people should be given more opportunities to support their capacity to preserve cultural heritage and roots.
  • Climate-induced migration and displacements from losses and damage are a justice issue and should be seen as part of the discussion on Loss and Damage.
  • Finance for Loss and Damage must include climate-induced migration and displacement.
  • Climate-induced migration and displacement exacerbate the underlying socio-economic and developmental crises.
  • Job creation and tree planting initiatives, according to agroecology and agroforestry principles, should prevent environmental degradation and community exclusion/migration.
  • NGOs and Catholic institutions should call for greater solidarity around these issues and should equip communities with legal assistance and tools to provide policy input into various governance processes.
  • To have a stronger voice, the actors involved in climate-induced migration and displacements should collaborate and build synergies.

➢ Read the full report from the session on Climate-Induced Migration and Displacement
https://www.cidse.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ACD-Climate-Migration-Displacement-Newsletter-final.pdf

For general inquiries about the African Climate dialogues, please contact: Lydia Machaka, Climate Justice and Energy Officer, CIDSE ([email protected])

JOURNEYING TOGETHER FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE: An African perspective- part 1

In advance of COP27 we publish the first part of a Communique from the AFRICAN Climate Dialogues.  These took the form of five sessions organized by the Catholic Church which took place between July and September 2022.  They give an African perspective on climate justice and the issues that need to be addressed in order to achieve it.    

Communiqué – 17 October 2022

JOURNEYING TOGETHER FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE
The climate crisis is a lived reality for people across Africa. Recent summer heatwaves in the north of the continent have caused massive social and economic losses and damages, breaking temperature records and severely disrupting agri-food systems in an already hungry region. Storms and cyclones early in the year caused devastation in Southern Africa, resulting in the destruction of homes and the loss of lives. Eastern Africa is facing the worst food crisis in a generation, precipitated by extreme drought. In West Africa, cities are flooded, communities in the creeks are submerged, conflicts which have simmered for years are now intensifying due to climate-induced displacement. Wherever you look on this continent, a continent already struggling due to an unjust global economic system, you see climate change holding back the potential for development.

Sometimes it is difficult to see the solutions to this complex situation. We can, however, be certain of a few things. For example, we know that the Global North is largely responsible for the climate crisis and must contribute their fair share to address it. This means leading the way in emissions reductions, providing funding for climate adaptation, loss and damage, and supporting countries in the Global South to achieve just levels of development within planetary boundaries. We know that the most promising solutions will reflect key principles of Catholic Social Teaching, such as the common good, justice between generations, care for our common home and the preferential option for the poor. We also know what other solutions won’t: the solutions to this crisis must not continue the business-as-usual approach that is responsible for creating the problem in the first place and will only enrich wealthy nations and individuals at the expense of the world’s poor.

And yet, in the face of these certainties, it can still be challenging to understand the precise routes to change. In the latest Encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis proposed dialogue and encounter as a means of building a more just world. This was the inspiration for the African Climate Dialogues – a series of conversations hosted by Catholic Church actors and civil society in Africa to discuss, learn from each other and identify key policy priorities ahead of COP27 in Egypt. These dialogues included community and civil society representatives with lived experiences of climate change, researchers and professional advocates with policy expertise, officials from all levels of government, and leaders in the Catholic Church who could frame the pressing ethical questions raised by climate change in terms of the action Régis Salefran, CC BY-SA 4.0François-Régis Salefran, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commonsof God and the demands of justice.

Climate change is a moral outrage. It is a tragic and striking example of structural sin, facilitated by callous indifference and selfish greed. The climate crisis is leading to the destruction of our planet, the devastation of the lives of the poor, and the detriment of future generations. We, Church leaders and civil society organisations in Africa and beyond, demand world leaders, business leaders and decision makers to heed to this important communiqué, and in so doing, heed to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth.

His Eminence Fridolin Besungu Cardinal Ambongo
Archbishop of Kinshasa, DR Congo
Vice-President of SECAM and President of the Justice, Peace and Development Commission (SECAM)

Tomorrow we will publish the main points from these five  sessions along with links to the full reports from which these points emerged.  The focus and topics addressed in each of these sessions will also be a major part of the debate at the COP27 event in Egypt.

 

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

6 November 2022

Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14                    2 Thessalonians 2: 16-3:5                    Luke 20:27-38

Theme: Faith in God’s Promise of Eternal Life

Last Sunday we were reminded of the moral courage of Zacchaeus, the diminutive tax collector, standing his ground in the face of a hostile crowd and welcoming Jesus into his home and into his heart. In today’s first reading from the second book of Maccabees we have another example of courage: the heroic courage of a mother and her seven sons enduring horrific suffering and death rather than abandon their ancestral faith. Their courage is based on trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who ‘is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all people are in fact alive’ (Lk 20:38).

In the second century before Christ, a Jewish priestly family, the Maccabees, launched a revolt against the rule of the Syrian King, Antiochus IV, who wanted to replace Jewish culture and religion with Greek culture. Among the religious practices he tried to suppress was the Jewish prohibition against eating pork. This is the background of our first reading, which depicts the horrific torture and death of several members of a brave family who resisted the King’s edict. The focus of the reading is not the dietary preferences of the Jews, but the faith of the brothers who are prepared to die rather than break the laws of their ancestors (cf. 2 Macc 7:2). It is about values that transcend physical existence, values that are more important than physical survival. It is about a choice based on God’s promise of eternal life, as the words of these martyrs illustrate: ‘The King of the world will raise us up, since it is for his laws that we die, to live again forever… Ours is the better choice, to meet death at human hands, yet relying on God’s promise that we shall be raised up by him’  (2 Macc 7: 9, 14).

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus affirms the faith of the Maccabean martyrs when he is confronted by the Sadducees, a sect of Judaism who did not believe in the resurrection. The conundrum the Sadducees present to Jesus is about a woman who was married to 7 brothers. It is intended to make Jesus look foolish. But Jesus turns the tables on them, and it is they that end up looking foolish for imagining that life beyond the grave is a straightforward continuation of life on this earth. Jesus points out that, ‘while the children of this world take wives and husbands,… the children of the resurrection do not marry, because they can no longer die (Lk 20: 34-35). In other words, the lives of those who have gone ahead of us, ‘marked with the sign of faith’ (Eucharistic Prayer, IV), are ‘changed not ended’ (First Preface for the Dead). They are completely transformed, in a manner, and to a degree, we cannot imagine. In the words of St John, ‘we are already the children of God, but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is the when it is revealed we shall be like God because we shall see God as he really is’ (1 John 3:2).  

Our hope of resurrection is based on the power and love that God has shown us by raising Jesus from the dead. St Paul reminds us in our second reading today that God our Father ‘has given us his love and, through his grace, such inexhaustible comfort and such sure hope’ (2 Thess 2: 16). Today’s readings challenge us to renew our faith in the Lord of our lives, the one who is ‘God, not of the dead, but of the living’, and in the blessed destiny he has in store for us. This is the faith that gives ultimate meaning to our lives. And it is the faith we express in a special way in the month of November when we remember all our deceased loved ones and pray for then.

Often when we remember our dead, we tend to think of them as ‘departed souls’, completely absent from us. This, according to the great German theologian,  Karl Rahner, is a serious mistake, for if the dead are alive in God, they must, in some way, be present to us as God is present. I will end with Rahner’s profound and comforting reflection.

[The Dead] do not leave us. They remain! Where are they? In darkness? Oh, no! It is we who are in darkness. We do not see them, but they see us. Their eyes, radiant with glory, are fixed upon our eyes full of tears…. Though invisible to us, our dead are not absent.

I have often reflected upon the surest comfort for those who mourn. It is this: a firm faith in the real and continual presence of our loved ones; it is the clear and penetrating conviction that death has not destroyed them, nor carried them away. They are not even absent, but living near to us, transfigured: having lost, in their glorious change, no delicacy of their soul, no tenderness of their hearts, nor especial preference in their affection. On the contrary, they have, in depth and fervour of devotion, grown larger a hundredfold. Death is, for the good, a translation into light, into power, into love. Those who on earth were only ordinary Christians become perfect, those who were good become sublime.

So let us pray that the God of love ‘may enlighten the eyes of our mind so that we can see what hope his call holds for us, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit (Eph 1:18).

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Fr Michael Nohilly SMA [RIP] – Obituary

Fr Michael Nohilly SMA [RIP]

Fr Michael Augustine Nohilly SMA died peacefully in the Cork University Hospital on Tuesday, 27 September 2022, aged 76 years. Fr Nohilly was buried after a Concelebrated Funeral Mass in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork on Friday, 30 September 2022.

Michael Nohilly was the fifth of seven children born to Joe and Nora [née Burns] on 27 August 1946 of Cummer, Tuam, Co Galway. Michael attended Cummer Monastery Primary School (Franciscan Brothers). His secondary schooling was at the SMA Sacred Heart College, Ballinafad, Belcarra, Castlebar, Co Mayo and Tuam CBS. Having decided to respond to a call to missionary priesthood, Michael followed an older brother, Seamus, into the SMA.

He began his priestly formation at the SMA Novitiate in Cloughballymore, Kilcolgan, Co Galway and became a member of the Society on 29 June 1967. He studied Philosophy and Theology at the SMA Major seminary in Dromantine, Newry, Co Down (1967-1972) and completed his theology studies at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare where the SMA had moved to following the closure of Dromantine. This was done partly to ensure a greater connection between the SMA and the diocesan clergy and to take advantage of the greater variety of courses available in the National Seminary and in Maynooth University.

He was ordained a priest in St Colman’s Church, Cummer, by the late Archbishop of Tuam, Most Rev Joseph Cunnane, on 13 June 1973.

Michael, along with two classmates, was appointed to the Archdiocese of Kaduna, Nigeria. The Nigerian Civil War ended in 1970, and the issuing of Visas for Irish missionaries became an issue with the Nigerian authorities. When it was clear that no Visas would be issued, Michael was reassigned to the fledgling Irish SMA mission in Sunyani diocese, Ghana. He arrived in Ghana on 2 November 1973 and served there until May 1990 where he was an exemplary missionary, particularly noted for his commitment to speak the local Twi language, and amazing his parishioners by his proficiency in the language and using their proverbs to illustrate some teaching or other or in his homilies.  Visiting the large number of outstations attached the different parishes he served was also notable, which included sleeping in a school classroom or a hut during his visits. Ghana was a very challenging mission during Michael’s time there. Food and medicines were in short supply and our missionaries – as well as the Ghanaian people themselves – suffered a lot but our men stayed with them. During 1984-1985, Michael had a sabbatical year which gave him, as well as an opportunity to update himself in theology and missionary methods, time to rest and gain some weight. After his sabbatical, Bishop James Owusu of Sunyani diocese was happy to welcome Michael back and resume his service of the people. In his homily at a Mass on the day of Fr Michael’s burial, Fr Anthony Kelly speaks of how Michael was always encouraging the people to help themselves – be it building a school, clinic, farming or whatever. “People loved him and he loved them. He always respected their customs and treated them with dignity and respect. He was a great Missionary.” During his years in Ghana, Michael was elected as the Deputy Superior of the team there and attended Society meetings on their behalf. On his departure from Ghana, Bishop Owusu wrote of Michael to the Irish Provincial Superior, “Father has done a lot for my people and no amount of words can be said to pay him our debt of gratitude. We only have to ask the good Lord to reward him fittingly.”

Fr Michael returned to Ireland in 1990 and in November of that year he joined the SMA Promotion Team in the West of Ireland, living at the SMA House near Claremorris, Co Mayo. After two years, he was asked to help out in the SMA Parish – St Peter the Apostle – in Neilstown, Clondalkin, Dublin, before going to the SMA mission in South Africa. From 1993 to 1996, Michael served in both Rustenburg diocese and Pretoria Archdiocese in that country. Returning to Ireland, Michael began what could be described as the second major part of his life – serving in the Archdiocese of Tuam for 18 years. Knock Shrine, Annaghdown, Breaffy (an outstation of Castlebar parish), Moylough and Parke-Crimlin were Fr Michael’s Irish mission fields where, again, he was noted for his kindness and hospitality.

In 2011 Michael had a stroke. While he recovered sufficiently to resume ministry in Parke-Crimlin parish it soon became apparent to him that he could no longer continue as his speaking and hearing were badly affected – conditions that deteriorated further in the coming 2/3 years. Consequently, in 2014, he stepped down from fulltime pastoral ministry and spent a short while in the SMA community in Claregalway but it soon became clear that Michael needed the nursing care provided in the SMA St Theresa’s Nursing Unit in Blackrock Road, Cork. Over the last 7 years, since 2015, Michael settled into the community and participated in the different activities in so far as he could in light of his increasing deafness.

In the words of the second reading at his Funeral Mass: Fr Michael has ‘fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; all there is to come now is the crown of righteousness reserved for me, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me‘. [2 Timothy 4:7]

Fr Michael is deeply regretted by his sisters Peggy [Gilmore] and Una [Mitchell], his brothers Fr Seamus SMA, Tom and Eamonn, sisters-in-law Margaret, Marie and Gemma, and his brother-in-law Michael Mitchell, nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, other relatives, friends, the people of the Diocese of Sunyani, Ghana; Archdiocese of Pretoria, South Africa and the Archdiocese of Tuam, Ireland, and his confreres in the Society of African Missions.

His remains reposed at the African Missions House, Blackrock Road, Cork on Thursday 29 September from 4pm to 5.30pm. A Thanksgiving Mass for the life of Fr Michael was celebrated on Friday, 30 September. Fr Anthony Kelly, SMA Provincial Councillor, preached the Homily. Read his homily here.

His remains were then brought to St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork, for his Funeral Mass at 12 noon followed by burial in the community cemetery. His brother, Fr Seamus SMA, was Principal Celebrant and Homilist. Read his homily here. He was assisted by the SMA Provincial Leader, Fr Malachy Flanagan and the Provincial Councillor, Fr Anthony Kelly SMA.

Apologies for the delay in publishing this Obituary which were due to circumstances beyond my control. Fr Martin Kavanagh SMA

Fr Michael Nohilly SMA [RIP] – Thanksgiving Mass Homily

Fr Michael Nohilly SMA [RIP]

Fr Michael Nohilly SMA died peacefully in the Cork University Hospital [CUH] on Tuesday, 27 September 2022, aged 76 years. Fr Nohilly was buried after a Concelebrated Funeral Mass in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork on Friday, 30 September 2022. Before the transfer of Fr Michael’s remains to Wilton, a Thanksgiving Mass was celebrated in the SMA House, African Missions, Blackrock Road, Cork. Fr Anthony Kelly, SMA Provincial Councillor, preached at this Mass. Fr Michael and Fr Anthony had worked together for some years in Ghana, West Africa.

The Mass readings were: 1 Timothy 6:11–16 and John 19:17-18, 25 & 30. The following is an edited version of Fr Anthony’s homily.

Jesus invites us to follow him and in return he promises to bring us home.

Jesus never said it would be easy but he did that those who follow Him would not walk in darkness but would have the light of Life. To ‘follow him‘ means taking up our own Cross, whatever this may be. Someone once said that the Greatest Man that ever walked this earth was given a Cross, and if you are lucky you will get one too. All of us that knew Michael Nohilly know that he was given a very heavy cross about 12 years ago when, following a stroke, he lost the power of his speech and his hearing. For a man that liked to joke and laugh and engage with people this must have been a very heavy Cross. St Rose of Lima whose feast day was a few weeks ago said she had a vision where Jesus spoke to her saying that without the Cross there is no road to Heaven but in that same vision the Lord also told her that the measure of Heavenly gifts is increased in proportion to the Cross that we are asked to carry. As Christians we believe that the vocation of suffering is accompanied by the grace and strength to carry the cross and this according to St Rose has a purifying effect on us. Michael bore that cross with courage and until recently with great patience and love.

A few months ago, after the death of his brother Johnny, Michael seemed to give up and he seemed to feel the moment of his approaching death was drawing near. He was no longer interested in a walk or a chat or engaging with people around him or even watching Golf on TV. That was the case during the week when he was admitted in CUH. He indicated to the Doctor that he was not interested in any medical intervention. Like Jesus in the Gospel of today he “knew that everything had been completed”. He made signs to the Doctor that he wanted to go to the Lord. He demonstrated this by waving his hands.  For those of us that were with him this was hard to accept but Michael was a man of Faith and he had complete trust in the promise of Jesus “come to me all you who are burdened and heavily laden and I will give you rest for your souls”.  Moreover, he was ready to go to meet his Lord and Saviour. He certainly lived out his life in the words of St Paul in todays first reading “Strive to be holy and godly, live in Faith and Love, fight the good fight of Faith and win everlasting life to which you were called”. Fr Denis Ryan and I had the great privilege of working alongside Michael as he fought the good fight in Sunyani diocese in Ghana through his work and love for people.

I was so blessed to have Michael as my first Parish priest in 1977.  He was a great, great pastoral man putting the people first at all times. Everything he did was done willingly and with great care and preparation. 

Language: He faithfully practiced the Twi language and encouraged me too to work at the language during my first years in Ghana. He went to great lengths to show me how to organise the work, catechism classes for those preparing for the sacraments. He had a wonderful grasp of the language himself and would floor the people during his homilies by peppering them with proverbs. He encouraged the people to get involved in the Credit Union and to take out loans to better their farms and their homes.

Pastoral work: He was meticulous about his pastoral work. We shared the visitation of outstations and after a week on trek he would always encourage me to take a day off and go to stay overnight with one of our confreres. He had a great balance of work, prayer and leisure. He organised home visitation in the town where we stayed. He helped the villages to help themselves by encouraging them to start a small church or a school of their own. During the time we were in Ghana there were coups and counter coups so things were scarce but Michael encouraged people in the villages to cooperate and he formed them into Zones so each Zone took turns to do a project in their own village, e.g. build a school.

Education: There was a huge shortage of teachers for these new schools. No teacher wanted to go to teach in a remote village. To address these problems, he encouraged the local youth – girls and boys – to attend teacher training College to get a certificate of education so that they could teach in a basic school.

Championing the Underdog: He was a supporter of the underdog and when he saw how women were treated in Africa he supported and encouraged them to better their lives. We had a text from one of his former school friends from Ballinafad schooldays, who described him as a great motivator and a very practical man. He was certainly that in his ministry as a missionary in Ghana. How well he motivated the people in a practical way to build a school always put up Wooden Pillars get the roof on and then let the people build the walls and put in floors.

Se wo furo dua pa a, obi be pia wo ho………..be pia wo to! Salt of the earth.

Fun: He always had a great sense of fun. Villagers loved to visit as he would welcome them and, if they had travelled a long distance, he would give them a cup of tea and a slice of bread and they would be so proud and happy. When someone would disappoint him or let him down by not turning up on time or maybe not turning up at all he would use a custom Nsa – Ka and tell them he could not greet them until they rectified the situation. He would even admonish me also, right up to recently. A few times when he and I returned from visiting Galway, I would park in the house next door to Blackrock Road [Feltrim] and Michael would have to walk through the grounds to get to St Theresa’s where he lived. He would make the sign that he was not happy but he would always appreciate when I would leave him at the Door of St Theresa’s.

I know I was very lucky to have Michael as my first Parish Priest in Ghana because he taught me everything about Missionary work and how to go about it in a loving way. People loved him and he loved them. He always respected their customs and treated them with dignity and respect. He was a great Missionary. I have no doubt he is now enjoying Peace and Love and all the good things about Heaven where he is meeting his brother nephew and brother in Law. May the gentle soul of Michael rest in Peace.

Read Obituary of Fr Michael Nohilly here.

Read the Homily of Fr Seamus Nohilly SMA at the Funeral Mass.

Apologies for the delay in publishing this homily which were due to circumstances beyond my control. Fr Martin Kavanagh SMA

Month of the Holy Souls – November 2022

November, beginning with the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls, is traditionally the month in which the Church remembers the dead and in a special way we are invited to remember our family and friends who have died, especially those who have passed away in the last twelve months.

Our Dromantine and Wilton communities hosted our deceased members’ relatives and friends at Memorial Masses last September.

The SMA Claregalway community are hosting those in the West of Ireland on Sunday, 13 November, in the SMA House in Claregalway. The Mass is scheduled to begin at 3pm.

During the month of November, we celebrate Mass each day in SMA Blackrock Road, Cork, for all those who have sent in the names of their deceased family members and friends asking that they be remembered during this special month.

From 2 – 10 November, that Mass will be celebrated at 6pm in our public church on Blackrock Road. On the other days it will be celebrated in the Community Chapel.

Click here to view the Blackrock Road webcam.

 

Fr Michael Nohilly SMA [RIP] – Funeral Mass Homily

Fr Michael Nohilly SMA died peacefully in the Cork University Hospital [CUH] on Tuesday, 27 September 2022, aged 76 years.

Fr Seamus Nohilly SMA, a brother of Fr Michael, was the Principal celebrant and preacher at the Funeral Mass which took place in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork on Friday, 30 September 2022. The principal concelebrants were the SMA Provincial Leader, Fr Malachy Flanagan and the Provincial Councillor, Fr Anthony Kelly. After the Funeral Mass, Fr Michael was laid to rest in the adjoining SMA community cemetery.

The Mass readings were from Isaiah 60:1, 19-20; 2 Timothy 4:5-8 and John 11:17-27. The following is an edited version of the homily preached by Fr Seamus.

When the final years of a person’s life is characterised by serious illness and suffering – in Michael’s case there were some 11 years of it – we tend to let that experience define his or her life. In these words of Appreciation and Thanksgiving, while I will reference this reality of that segment of his life at the end, I will dwell more on what happened before that in Michael’s life.

Apart from the positive influence of our parents and family I mention two very formative influences in his life from his young days.

  1. The boys in our family went to what was known as the Monastery School in Cummer, now Corofin parish in Co. Galway for national school. It was so called as the Franciscan Brothers taught there. This most human of Religious Orders had a number of these education establishments, mostly in Counties Mayo, Roscommon and Galway. Unconsciously and indirectly the Brothers would have sown youthful vocation seeds in those so inclined.
  2. We are from a farming background. Michael, during holiday time from College and Seminary, would have done a lot of work not only in our own farm but in those of our neighbours as well. He was never afraid of hard work and in the very limited mechanised farming of the 1950’s and 60’s much of that work was done manually and on one’s knees. Looking back now I have no doubt that this experience on the land was very good preparation for the rough and tumble of missionary life in Africa. When I went to the missions first, the seasoned missionaries had a great word for a quality that would help greatly in being a fruitful missionary. You won’t find it in any Dictionary – it was stickability – working on the land back then helped greatly with this quality.

Michael did his secondary education in the SMA College at Ballinafad, some eight miles from Castlebar – a town and its environs that was to play a big part in his life later on. Having decided he would try out his vocation further he went to our Society’s Spiritual Year House, in Cloughballymore near Ballindereen and Kilcolgan in South Galway – now Blake Manor Nursing home. This was followed by his Seminary Studies and Formation in Dromantine, some six miles from Newry. His final year of studies was completed in Maynooth as we transferred our Seminary there in the early 1970’s. He was ordained in Corofin Church by the late Archbishop Joseph Cunnane of Tuam – so his death came some 9 months short of the Golden Jubilee of his Ordination – not to be.

Around 1973 the SMA Irish Province – which up to then largely sent their personnel to Nigeria and Liberia – diversified. Now we went also to places like Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa – in the latter place Michael did some years in parish parish work. Ghana was the first  country he was assigned to – in 1973 – together with his good friend and classmate, the late Fr. Vincent Glennon. Together with two seasoned Missionaries who had worked in Nigeria they pioneered the new venture in a very rural diocese called Sunyani, north of Kumasi, towards the centre of Ghana. It was there in parishes like Mim and Dorma Ahenkro that he had some of his best years in pastoral, parish ministry. He got on very well with the people, as he did in all subsequent parishes in which he served.

Michael was someone who did not get very many lucky breaks, health-wise. The first of these came some 8 years in Ghana, when the country hit a real low, both economically and politically.  I recall 1981 being a real “Annus horibilis” when there were literally empty shelves in shops and stores – provisions that would have supplemented the produce of the land. It was little wonder that he and others became subject to some tropical sickness – especially hepatitis. Thankfully he and the others and the country itself saw their fortunes greatly improve – but that austerity left its mark on him.

After finishing in Africa in the mid 1990’s he decided to continue his missionary priesthood back in Ireland. Thanks to the recently retired Archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, who is here with us this afternoon, Michael worked in 4 parishes in the Archdiocese, over an 18 year period – first, for a short time, in Annagdown, famed as Anach Cuan, part of Corrandulla parish near our Claregalway SMA House; then for a good number of years in Breaffy outside Castlebar, then for some 4 years in Moylough, Co. Galway and finally back to another neighbouring parish of Castlebar, Park & Crimlin.

It was in the latter parish that he suffered a stroke in early 2011. While he recovered sufficiently to resume ministry in the parish it soon became apparent to him that he could no longer continue as his speaking and hearing were badly affected – conditions that deteriorated further in the 2011-2014 period. He lived for a while in our Claregalway House but soon he transferred to our St. Therese’s Nursing Unit, attached to our Blackrock Road House, here in Cork City, as it was deemed that he needed regular nursing care and supervision – and lest I forget later, on behalf of our family I wish to express sincere appreciation to the present staff and to staff that have moved on in recent years and to the leadership of our House there and to the Province for the care Michael received, which I know was not easy given the communications difficulty that he had.

All this was the action or activity part of his life. However, more importantly for all of us from a faith point of view is the person we have become over the years: each one’s unique personality and individuality. It is our personhood that is given to us in seed form, through the cooperation of our parents, that one’s calling to develop and mature for whatever number of years God grants us in this life and it is this personhood that we bring with us into the hereafter. And heaven then is the full flowering, full maturation, full harvesting of this same seed of life or personhood.

The seed of Michael’s life that we saw and sensed here on earth had many noble qualities and giftedness – he was genuine, kind, thoughtful and generous. Among us siblings he was probably the most daring, the more enterprising, more willing to take risks – aspects which by and large added to the person he was.

On the sporting side of life he was quite a good footballer. The sport that he excelled himself in was cross-country running – something for which he and the Nohilly stature were not ideally suited! That Michael did so well in this is a testament to his sheer doggedness, will power and determination to succeed. Later in life he took up golf and in spite of never having great sight he won a few trophies in his time, among which was the winner of the annual SMA Golf Competition more than once. It was from watching golf on TV that he got most satisfaction from in recent years when his hearing was badly impaired.

Let me conclude with that final decade of his life. When our father died in July 1980 our then Parish Priest in Corofin was in hospital, dying with very severe cancer. He died exactly a week after our father. I had the opportunity to visit him during that week. While in severe pain he was still lucid and I remember well one of his last sentences to me – “I can now see more clearly that suffering is part of the divine plan”. No doubt he would have preached about this several times in his long ministry – now he experienced it personally and intimately.

We often say that when someone has had a lot of suffering and hardship in their life that “they have their purgatory over them”. Purgatory is not an easy teaching to grasp as it takes place outside of time as we know it. Purgatory does not mean that God limits or withholds his forgiveness and acceptance of us when we die. No, the purification or conversion that may be needed when we die is from our side – as even when one strives to live a good and decent life there may be a residue of selfishness and darkness/shadow that needs conversion in order to be in the company of God for all eternity. That, as I say, takes place outside of time as we know it. And if there is truth in the claim that one can have one’s purgatory done in this life then we can confidently hope and pray that Michael is already on the express journey, with no stops, to the pearly gates of heaven – into the warm embrace of the God he endeavoured to love and serve in his life time.

To lead into some prayers of Intercession let us ask the Intercession of two saints for Michael and others:

  • St Therese of Lisieux – whose feast comes up on Saturday, October 1st
  • and St Charles – and I quote from the final part of his prayer

          “O Lord into your hands I commend my soul.
            I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
            For I love You Lord and so need to give myself
            Into your hands without reserve and with boundless confidence
            For You are my father”.

Fr Seamus Nohilly, SMA

A Mission Sunday Homily – by Fr John Horgan SMA

Fr John Horgan SMA worked in Africa as a Missionary for many years. He is now 89 years old and a member of the SMA Community living in Wilton, Cork. Below is the text of the homily he preached during the community Mass on Mission Sunday 23rd of October, 2022. 

Mission Statements: In recent years ‘mission statements’ have become fashionable. Almost every organisation whether it is a club, a society, or a hospital or a church has its own mission statement and that helps greatly to focus on what they are about. Our annual World Mission Sunday is an opportunity for each of us to rethink what is mission the Catholic church & the SMA and how is our commitment to the mission of the Church as SMAs.

The mission of the Church is to continue the Mission of Christ and we as SMAs play our part in that mission; I will treat the mission of the Church under four headings
i) Worship & Prayer,  
ii) Being an Inclusive,  Welcoming Community.
iii) Proclaiming the Word of God &                                                                
iv) Promoting Human Wellbeing & living life to the full.

Worship & Prayer were a central part of Jesus’ life & work. He worshipped in the synagogue; he prayed regularly alone & with others; he prayed at all significant moments in his life; he preached on the importance of persevering in prayer & taught his disciples to pray.  Continuing the mission of Jesus, the Church is called to be a community that celebrates its faith in both liturgy & prayer.

Our worship includes our celebration of the Eucharist & sacraments & other significant moments on our life’s journey; it also includes the various forms of prayer we use; the Divine Office, Lectio Divina, private prayer & praying in a group, retreats and novenas. In a word, worship refers to all we do as a community to publicly express our faith in God & celebrate God’s presence in our lives.   

On Being an Inclusive Welcoming Community; We are called to witness to our faith by the way we as a community live our lives. Christian witness means striving to create a sense of welcome and belonging in our house community & in our parish or wherever we work, striving always to be a community in which all are welcomed, valued and feel they truly belong. A large section of the 2019 Provincial is devoted to ‘Thinking & Acting Inclusively’.

Proclaiming the Word: Jesus proclaimed the Word of God in his teaching particularly in his teaching on the kingdom of God; and in his actions, especially in his fellowship meals, which were a big feature in his life so much so he was accused to socialising and eating with sinners. He was inviting people to know and understand God in a new way. As a church & as an SMA community we continue the work of Christ by offering people an opportunity to explore & develop their faith & come to a deeper relationship with God in their own lives.

Promoting Human Wellbeing & Flourishing: Jesus said, ‘I have come that they may have life and have it to the full’ (Jn. 10:10) Jesus put human wellbeing &human flourishing at the heart of his ministry for example in Luke’s gospel Jesus heals the sick and casts out devils fulfilling his mission of liberation as he announced in his mission statement in Luke chapter four, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to captives & recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’. (Lk. 4;18-19). We also are called to be people who work for justice both nationally and globally.

In fact Justice has been central to the ethos of the SMA from our Founder’s personal commitment to Justice in caring for the poor, the sick and the abandoned. Justice issues have featured strongly in both General & Provincial SMA Assemblies in recent years. Integrating Justice is one of the Central Issues in our 2019 Provincial Assembly.  Our justice Strategic Plan of June this year prioritises 3 areas; i) action and advocacy on behalf of Africa & peoples of African Descent, ii) Human trafficking & iii) Promoting Care for Creation. 

It is fitting to express our gratitude to the SMA Justice Office for the hard work they put into producing the regular Justice Briefings. These briefings now numbering 46 are an important contribution to our SMA justice outreach.

Retirement Nor are we to sit on our hands and let the world go by because we are retired. The Provincial Assembly of 2007 reminded us that we are still missionaries in retirement. It said: “those who are adapting to the reality of ageing and retirement from full active ministry, continue to participate in the mission of the Society, through their wisdom, prayer and fraternal support”. And the SMA Policy on Retirement offers 5 helpful attitudes to cultivate in retirement:

  • Learning to accept ourselves in the conditions we find ourselves
  • Keeping mentally & physically active
  • Generosity being open to giving & receiving; contributing to the vitality of the Province, through prayer and by being a loving & caring person available to doing what we can & having an interest in the affairs of the Society.
  • Accepting the Cross in the diminishment that the ageing process brings
  • Being grateful realising how God has blessed us and blessed others through us.

We are never too old to be missionary.

Age is a quality of mind,   
if I have left my dreams behind 
if hope is cold,       
If I no longer look ahead,
If my ambitious fires are dead
then I am old.  (Anonymous) 

 

COP27

The UN Climate Change Conference (the official name for climate Conferences Of Parties) has happened every year since 1995. These two-week long gatherings are a space for world leaders, politicians, experts and a whole host of other people to discuss the climate crisis on a global level. The conferences bring together those that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – an international environmental treaty addressing climate change – 30 years ago.  All the signatories to this treaty as well as Palestine, the Cook Islands and Niue along with the Holy See as an observer of the treaty may attend.

Controversy always accompanies the COP events and we have become familiar with the stand-offs and last day over-runs as countries with vested interest try to water down final agreements.  This year controversy also surrounds the location of the event in Egypt, due to its poor human rights record and sponsorship by Coca Cola, a major polluter that produces 120 million throw-away plastic bottles each year.

Nick Humphries wikimedia commons

The 27th COP is being hosted in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt from the 6th to the 18th of November 2022. Identified as an ‘African COP’ in reference to its location as well as the expectation that African countries’ exposure to some of the most severe impacts of climate change will be front and centre of the discussions.   More than 90 heads of state have so far confirmed their attendance at COP27 along with representatives from around 190 countries.  In addition, thousands of people from NGO’s civil organisations and the press are expected to be present.

Last year’s COP had, at best, a few bright spots but failed in achieving its two major aims, i.e. renewing targets for 2030 that would align with limiting warming to 1.5℃, and an agreement on accelerating the phase-out of coal. This was scuppered by India in an 11th hour intervention.  These left the predicted rise in temperature at 2.4 degrees by 2030, well above the hoped-for limit of 1.5 degrees.

COP27 will hope for greater success by focusing on climate finance and climate adaptation in an attempt to break through on some of the issues that have been kicked-down the road or avoided over the years.  In the first week Government representatives will attempt to tackle some of the most difficult issues, including finance, decarbonisation, adaptation and agriculture.  During the second week issues such as gender, water and biodiversity will be on the Agenda.  For an overview of the calendar click here.

Credit rawpixel.com U.S. Forest Service CC

This year climate finance will be a key topic of discussion. This has been a long-running issue throughout previous COPs. The pledge of $100bn per year to poorer nations, for climate change adaptation and mitigation.  This was initially promised in 2009, to begin by 2020 and it has not happened. Another emerging and divisive finance issue that we are likely to hear a lot more about during the Conference and in the coming months is compensation for “loss and damage” i.e. for the destructive impacts of climate change that cannot be avoided either by mitigation (avoiding and reducing greenhouse gas emissions) or adaptation (adjusting to current and future climate change impacts).

Flooding in the Swat Valley, Pakistan, 2022

The Paris Agreement of COP21 – which set legally binding carbon targets was welcomed as a sign of great hope that the issue of climate change would finally be addressed however, since then progress has not be as rapid as was hoped for.  Most recently, the failure of COP26 and the Covid-19 pandemic have diverted world attention away from addressing climate change.  The latest IPCC Report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has also shown that many countries are failing to meet set targets and that carbon emissions continue to increase.  This year there are also fears that the conference will be overshadowed by other world events – especially the on-going war in Ukraine, the energy and food crises.

We have seen the worldwide severe weather events of the Summer and Autumn of 2022.  Record breaking heatwaves, wildfires and floods spread over many countries, on all continents, causing great destruction, loss of property and life.  The reality of climate change and the urgent need for action to mitigate it have never been clearer.  Let us hope that this COP will be decisive and have a positive result.   In the past COP events have been billed as “the last chance saloon,” as “crucial,” and events at which “the can cannot be kicked down the road.”  This time, this is truer than ever before.  Time is really running out.

I am urging leaders at the highest level to take full part in COP27 and tell the world what climate action they will take nationally and globally.
Antonio Guterres UN Secretary-General

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

Reinhardhauke, CC BY-SA 3.0

31 October 2022

Wisdom 11:22-12:1                         2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2                         Luke 19:1-10

Theme: Surprised by Jesus

Today’s gospel reading is one of my favourite bible stories. Narrated by Luke with dramatic flair and an economy of words, it is a heart-warming story with a happy ending. It features Jesus, a comical little man, a sycamore tree, and a murmuring crowd. Luke begins by setting the scene of the action. Jesus is on the final stage of his journey to Jerusalem to complete his messianic mission [to be crucified and Rise again]. He is passing through Jericho, a prosperous ancient city in the Jordan valley on the trade route from Jerusalem to the East. A large crowd of people have turned out to meet him.

Luke next introduces us to the main protagonist in the story, Zacchaeus. Luke informs us that ‘he was one of the chief tax collectors and a wealthy man’ (Lk 19:2). He is anxious to see Jesus but is hampered by the crowd and his lack of stature (cf. Lk 19:3). Although despised by his fellow Jews because of his profession in the service of an occupying power [Rome], Zacchaeus had probably heard that Jesus had a soft spot in his heart for tax collectors and sinners. He was reputed to be ‘a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Mt 11:19) and he even chose one of them to be among his closest companions. So, casting decorum aside, Zacchaeus runs ahead of the crowd and climbs a sycamore tree, and waits there to see Jesus as he passes by. 

The highpoint of the story comes when Jesus spots Zacchaeus and changes his travel plans. Jesus looks up at him, calls him by name, and invites himself to stay at his house: ‘Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I am to stay at your how today’ (Lk 19:6).  Probably for the first time in his life, Zacchaeus meets a fellow Jew who treats his with respect and kindness, instead of ridicule and derision, and he becomes a new man. He hurries down from the tree and welcomes Jesus joyfully (cf. Lk 19:6).

Luke next turns our attention to the murmuring crowd, thereby injecting an element of dramatic tension into the scene. When the crowd see what is happening, they all begin to complain, shocked that Jesus has decidedto stay at a sinner’s house (Lk 19:7). We should not be too surprised at the reaction of the crowd. As many of the psalms make clear, law-abiding Jews sought to avoid the company of sinners and certainly would not be seen eating with them (a  sign of acceptance and friendship). The scene could have turned ugly, but Zacchaeus, emboldened by the words of Jesus, stands his ground and does not allow himself to be intimidated by the crowd. Manifesting a generosity of spirit far in excess of what the Law required, he offers to give half his considerable wealth to the poor and repay anyone he may have cheated fourfold. The story ends with Jesus affirming the new status of Zacchaeus as a re-born son of Abraham. He also confirms his own messianic mission of mercy: for the Son of man has come to seek out and save what was lost (Lk 19:10).

The story of Zacchaeus always brings to my mind an unforgettable experience I had while on a thirty days retreat with the Jesuits at St. Bueno’s Spirituality Centre in Wales, in 1995. One day, my Retreat Director invited me reflect on the story of Zacchaeus for my first hour of prayer/meditation. Following my prayer, I met with my Director and told him how happy I felt during my prayer-time and how impressed I was with the courage of Zacchaeus. I was rather taken aback when my Director remarked that I seemed to be an observer rather than a participant in the scene described by Luke, and asked me to spend another hour meditating on the same passage. This time, he suggested, that I put in myself in the place of Zacchaeus and imagine Jesus looking at me. After a difficult hour of prayer, I went again to my Director and he asked me, ‘How did Jesus look at you?’  I had to admit to him that, much as I tried, I couldn’t see the face of Jesus at all. In truth I did not feel comfortable trying to imagine how Jesus would look at me.

My Director then asked me to spend another hour of prayer on the same text, but first to read very slowly chapter 15 of Luke’s gospel (the great parables of God’s mercy, including the parable of the prodigal Son). Finally, during this third hour of prayer, I was able to ‘see’ Jesus looking at me with a smile on his face and gentle reassurance in his eyes, and to absorb that look of love. I knew then how Zacchaeus felt when Jesus looked up at him. That for me was the breakthrough moment of the entire retreat, the moment I realised that Jesus loved and accepted me, flawed and weak as I was. I was no longer afraid of Jesus, and felt strongly affirmed in my calling as a missionary priest. There have been a few times since then when I felt close to God but never as palpably as that moment.

The example of Zacchaeus reminds all of us that we should not let anyone or anything deter us from striving to see Jesus and welcome him into the house of our heart. He wants to be our guest and to shower on us the blessings of salvation for he is the embodiment of divine mercy and compassion. He is the human face of the eternal God, who, as the first reading reminds us, loves all that he has made and is merciful to all (cf. Wis 11:22-24).

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, October 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Sunday Homilies – MISSION SUNDAY – Year C

Homily for the 30th Sunday of Year C

Readings:  Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18; Second Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Gospel: Luke 18:9-14

Theme: Called to be joyful witnesses of Christ

Although you would never guess it from the results of the Irish synodal consultation, mission is the reason for the Church’s existence. The great  Swiss theologian, Emil Brunner, expressed this in a memorable image  when he wrote that ‘the Church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning’.

The Church’s mission is the responsibility not just of priests and religious but of the entire people of God. By virtue of their baptism, all the members of the Church are called to be missionaries and to witness to Christ.  In his Message for World Mission Sunday 2022, Pope Francis states that we are sent by Jesus ‘not only to carry out but, above all, to live the mission entrusted to us; not only to bear witness but, above all, to be witnesses of Christ’. Francis is here echoing the words of Pope Paul VI in his famous Exhortation on Mission, Evangelisation in the Modern World (1975). Insisting ón the primacy of witness, he wrote: ‘For the Church, the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life…The men and women of today  listen more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if they do listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses’ (EN 41).

We are called not just to be witnesses to Christ but to be joyful witnesses.     The emphasis ón joy is essential. In the past Christianity has often been presented as a rather grim and joyless affair, placing heavy emphasis on guilt and failure. But the realities of sin and failure are not the centre piece the Christian story but rather the redeeming love of God who forgives, heals and makes new. And it is this experience of love that is the source of our joy and  that enables us to give ‘joyful witness’.  However, this joy which we are called to share with others, is not to be identified with the false jolity of those who ignore the reality of suffering in the world around them or avoid pain in their own lives – the joy of those who cannot endure any sorrow. To the contrary, it is a joy that enables us to bear peoples’ pains and sorrows. We witness to this joy not so much by what we say as by what we are or, better still, by what the experience of God’s tender and constant love has made of us.

While all baptised members of the Church are called to bear witness to Christ and the Gospel of love, whereever they are, there is also within the Church a special calling to mission outside one’s own cultural or national setting. Down through the centuries the Church’s mission to the nations was carried out by the members of missionary congregations and societies, ready and willing to embark upon a courageous outreach to  peoples and cultures outside their homelands. Irish missionaies and their supporters have made, and continue to make, an outstanding contribution to this missionary outreach.  Without the inspiration and leadership given by these women and men, the missionary impulse of the Church would have gradually diminished and died out, and the Church would have never realised its essential vocation to bring the Good News to the ends of the earth. On this day, Pope Francis asks us to remember with gratitude the many missionaries who gave their lives so that others might experience the love of God incarnate in Christ.

 

Today, no less than in the past, missionaries prepared to leave their homelands to bear witness to Christ beyond the existing frontiers of the Church are vital for the health of the Church’s missionary vocation. Rejecting the idea the era the mission to the nations is over, Pope John Paul II, stated, to the contrary, that it is ‘still in its infancy’. And he went ón to urge the members of missionary orders and societies to renew the grace of their specific charism and to undertake ‘new and bold endeavours’  to bring the gospel of Christ to places and  cultures which have yet to experience it (The Mission of the Redeemer 66).  Pope Francis in his Message for World Mission Sunday, endorses this call, stating that ‘the Church must constantly keep pressing forward, beyond her own confines, in order to testify to all the love of Christ’.   

The Church’s missionary outreach is a great act of love.  Its purpose is not to transplant the Church as it exists in Ireland to new places,  but to bring about ‘a new creation’, one that respects the culture of the people. Missionary activity is  a two-way process of giving and receiving in freedom and in love.  Missionaries nurture the seeds of the God’s Word already present in the lives and cultures of the people among who they work, so that these seeds may come to full flowering in the light of the Gospel of Christ. In this way, the Catholic Church becomes what it is called to be – truly Catholic and universal. I end with the fervent prayer of Pope Francis:

 ‘Would that all of us in the Church were what we already are by virtue of baptism: prophets, witnesses, missionaries of the Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to the ends of the earth! Mary, Queen of the Missions, pray for us!

Fr Michael McCab SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

16 October 2022

Exodus 17:8-13                    2 Timothy 3:14-4:2                    Luke 18:1-8

Theme: Perseverance in Prayer

I find it hard to think of Jesus as a pessimist, but the final statement at end of today’s gospel does suggest that he wasn’t too sure if he would find any faith on earth when he returned at the end of time. When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Lk 18:8). While this statement does not reflect the general mind-set of Jesus, it does show that, at times, he could be frustrated at the lack of response to his message and ministry. He was human, after all – as well as divine.

Prayer is the main topic in our readings today. It is a topic that looms large in the teaching and ministry of Jesus. When his disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, he gave them that wonderful prayer, the ‘Our Father’ (cf. Lk 11: 2-5). St Luke tells us that Jesus often went off into the hills alone to pray, sometimes spending the whole night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). He instructed his disciples not to be trying to impress others when they pray, but to pray in secret:  ‘But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you(Mt 6:6).

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus encourages his disciples to persevere in prayer and not lose heart. Easier said than done, you may say! Jesus is referring especially to what we call ‘prayer of petition’ (asking God for things). It is perhaps the most common kind of prayer. When we bring our needs and the needs of others to our heavenly Father, we are responding to the explicit instruction of Jesus: Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you(Lk 11:9).

Jesus illustrates his message with a rather droll story about a corrupt and heartless judge, and a poor widow, who pesters him, insisting on getting what is hers by right. The judge eventually relents and accedes to her request, not because of any concern for justice, but because he wants to be left in peace! Jesus is not comparing God to the corrupt judge. He is contrasting them. What he is saying is that, if a corrupt judge is eventually moved to grant the plea of a persistent widow, how much more swiftly will our infinitely just and loving Father respond to the prayers of his beloved children?

We may not always receive what we ask for in prayer, but God always answers our prayers, though it may be only in retrospect that we realise and appreciate his response. In the prayer of petition we are not trying to put pressure on God to get him to change his mind. We are presenting ourselves to our heavenly Father just as we are, with our needs and concerns, and trusting in his providential care, to grant us what we really need. The Dominican theologian, Herbert McCabe, warns us about not trying to be sophisticated when we pray. We should come before God, like children, as honestly as we can. ‘It is no good pretending to yourself that you are full for high-minded aspirations. You have to wait until you are. If a child is treated as if she were an adult, she will never become an adult. Prayer is the way in which our Father in heaven leads each of us by different paths to be saints, that is to say, to be with him.’ The American poet, Mary Oliver, says the same thing in her short poem entitled, Praying:

‘It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.’

Our first reading from the Book of Exodus illustrates the importance of supporting one another in prayer. It recounts the story of how Moses turns to prayer when his people are attacked by a hostile tribe, the Amalekites. While the battle rages, Moses stands on a hilltop praying with outstretched hands. He knows that only God’s power can save them. When Moses grows weary and his arms begin to flag, his companions come to his help, keeping his arms raised up: ‘But Moses’ arms grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him and on this he sat, with Aaron and Hur supporting his arms on each side’ (Ex 17:12). What a lovely image of how we can sustain one another in prayer, especially when our hearts grow weary and we feel we are losing the battle.

Here in this Eucharistic community we have come together as the Body of  Christ, not just to bring our personal needs and concerns before the Lord, but also to hold up one another’s hands and sustain one another in prayer and in the struggle of life. The terrible tragedy in Creeslough, Co Donegal, is a wonderful example of how – in the midst of such utterly indescribable heartbreak and grief – a community has gathered together to hold each one in prayer as well as through practical signs of support. There are indeed times when our hearts grow weary, when our energy flags, and like Moses, we can no longer stand alone. It is then that the quiet, unobtrusive prayer of others become the needed oxygen to keep the weakening flame of our own faith alive.  So, to borrow the words of the popular R.E.M. hit song, Everybody Hurts:

Don’t throw your hand
If you feel like you’re alone
No, no, no, you are not alone
Hold on, Hold on, Hold on.

Michael McCabe, SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

OCTOBER | For a Church Open to Everyone – the Pope’s Prayer Intention

We pray for the Church; ever faithful to, and courageous in preaching the Gospel, may the Church be a community of solidarity, fraternity and welcome, always living in an atmosphere of synodality.

  • In The Pope Video, Francis invites the members of the Church to listen to each other in their diversity and to open the doors to those who are outside.
  • After having completed the first year of the synodal process, and beginning the next stage, the continental stage, the Pope reminds us that the Synod “is not a poll”: “It’s not about gathering opinions, nor holding a parliament,” but about really listening.
  • Francis asks that we listen “to the protagonist, the Holy Spirit” and thus, getting closer to God’s style, become a place of solidarity, of fraternity, and of welcome. 

Text of Pope Francis Message – October 2022
What does it mean “to synod”? It means walking together: syn-od. This is what it means in Greek: “to walk together” and to walk on the same road.
And this is what God expects of the Church of the third millennium –that it regain its awareness of being a people on the road and of having to travel together.
A Church with this synodal style is a Church that listens, that knows that listening is more than just hearing.
It means listening to each other in our diversity and opening doors to those outside the Church. It’s not about gathering opinions, nor holding a parliament. The synod isn’t a survey; it’s about listening to the protagonist, the Holy Spirit. It’s about praying. Without prayer, there will be no Synod.
Let us take advantage of this opportunity to be a Church of closeness, which is God’s style –closeness. And let us give thanks to all the people of God who, with their attentive listening, are walking the synodal way.
Let us pray that the Church, ever faithful to the Gospel and courageous in preaching it, may live in an increasing atmosphere of synodality and be a community of solidarity, fraternity, and welcome.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gospel_of_John_Chapter_9-11_(Bible_Illustrations_by_Sweet_Media).jpg

Homily for the 28th Sunday of Year C

Readings: 2 Kings 5:14-17; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19

Theme: Gratitude and Godliness.

I recall my granny telling us as children, when she was trying to get us to wash our hands before sitting down to eat, that ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’.  Whatever about the truth of that motto, I am certain that gratitude is godliness. In the words of Isaak Walton, ‘God has two dwellings – one in heaven and the other in a thankful heart’. The great Roman Statesman and Scholar, Cicero, regarded gratitude as ‘not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others’. Two of our readings today feature striking examples of gratitude. In our first reading we have Naaman, a Syrian Army General, who is cured of leprosy through the intervention of the prophet, Elisha. He goes back to the prophet to express his gratitude. The gospel recounts Jesus’ cure of ten lepers, one of whom – a Samaritan –  returns to give thanks.  

Both examples take us by surprise. They manifest the spirit of God present and active in unexpected people and places.  Naaman is a Gentile, a citizen of Syria, a nation hostile to, and hated by, the Israelites. Yet, in his time of dire need, and on the advice of an Israelite maidservant, he seeks out a prophet from Israel, Elisha. Then, humbly obeying the prophet’s command, he bathes himself seven times in the river Jordan – a river in Israel – and is cleansed of his leprosy. We are told that ‘his flesh became clean once more like the flesh of a little child’ (2 Kgs 5: 14). With a heart full of gratitude he returns to Elisha and gives thanks to the God of Israel in words that manifest a spiritual transformation as well as a physical healing: ‘Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel’ (2 Kgs 5:15).

The central character in our gospel reading is a grateful Samaritan. He is one of ten lepers healed by Jesus while on his way to Jerusalem to suffer and die.  The point of the story is that this despised ‘foreigner’ is the only one who returns to thank Jesus and give praise to God. ‘Realising he had been healed,  [he] turned back praising God at the top of his voice, and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him (Lk 17:15-16). This is the second time in Luke’s gospel that a Samaritan is presented to us as a model of godly behaviour. The first time is in the familiar story of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus acknowledges that the healing of the Samaritan leper is more than skin deep. He is made whole in body and spirit.  Hence, Jesus says to him: ‘Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you’ (Lk 17:19). What a great tribute to the faith and godliness of a derided heretic!

Both Naaman and the grateful Samaritan show that genuine gratitude flows from hearts attuned to the presence and action of God’s spirit, faith-filled hearts, appreciative of the gifts they have received from God and others. Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us truly grateful, as was the case with Naaman and the Samaritan. When things are going well, we can easily take our blessings for-granted. Like love, we may have to learn gratitude the hard way and by practice.

A few weeks ago, I watched a delightful movie about finding true love.  Entitled Love comes softy, it is set in the far west region of America in the 19th century and tells the story of a young woman, Marty, who re-discovers love after the tragic death of her husband, Aaron.  She enters a marriage of convenience with a recently widowed rancher, Clark, who is struggling to care for his young daughter, Missy.  Towards the end of the movie, Marty realises that she has come to love Clark. In his response, he says to her: Love isn’t always fireworks. Sometimes it comes softy’. Gratitude can be like that, too, coming slowly and softly. When I was a young lad, I took for-granted all I had received from others, especially from my Mum and Dad. Only much later in life did I come to realise and appreciate the sacrifices they made for me and to be truly grateful. Wilferd A. Peterson describes thanksgiving as an art,  the art of thanks-living. I will end this homily with an abbreviated version of his reflection:

‘The art of thanksgiving is thanks-living. It is gratitude in action.

It is thanking God for your talents and abilities by accepting them as obligations to be invested for the common good.

It is thanking God for all that other have done for you by doing things for others.

It is thanking God for opportunities by accepting them as a challenge to achievement.

It is thanking God for beauty by helping to make the world more beautiful.

It is thanking God for inspiration by trying to be an inspiration for others.

It is thanking God for health and strength by the care and reverence you show your body.

It is thanking God for each new day by living it to the fullest.

It is thanking God by giving hands, arms, legs, and voice to your thankful spirit.

It is adding to your prayers of thanksgiving, acts of thanks living.’

So, we pray in the words of William Shakespeare: ‘O Lord, who lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness’. Amen.

 

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

 

SMA International News – October 2022

Welcome to the October bulletin of the SMA International News.  This month we have stories from Burkina Faso, Ireland and Benin Republic. 

  • We hear a report from Fr Francis Rosario SMA on the International Congregation for Ongoing Formation (ICOF) programme following his visit to Burkina Faso.
  • Then we go Ireland and hear about an International Day held in the SMA Parish in Wilton early in September. This was a day that saw people from diverse backgrounds & cultures come together to celebrate and show solidarity for the people of Ukraine. 
  • Our final report is from Benin – a report of the meeting of the SMA-OLA Commission on Common Spiritual heritage.

This Bulletin then ends with a roundup of news from the SMA Generalate in Rome. 

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

Dsaikia2015, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Homily for the 27th Sunday of Year C

Readings: Habakkuk 1:2-3;2:2-4, 2 Timothy 1:6-8,13-14; Luke 17:5-10

 ThemeFaith and Service

Our readings today invite us to reflect on the themes of faith and service and the relationship  between them. The first reading from Habakkuk, one of the lesser known Old Testament prophets, is a heart-felt lament directed to God.  It reflects the distress of the prophet at what is happening to his country and his people. ‘How long, O Lord, am I to cry for help while you do not listen, to cry  “Violence” in your ear while you do not save? (Hab 1:2). Why this cry of anguish? What is the cause of the prophet’s grief? Unfortunately, we know very little about Habbakuk – when or where he was born or when he died. Most biblical scholars date his prophecy around the year 612 BC. This was the time when the Israel was invaded by its powerful neighbour, Babylon, leading to massive destruction, chaos, and terrible suffering for the people. We see a similar scenario today with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Habbakuk asks why the Lord, the God or Israel, allows this unspeakable evil to be visited upon his chosen people, the people he had loved into existence.  ‘Why do you make me see wrong-doing, why do you countenance oppression?’ (Hab 1:3). The Babylonians’ attack on Israel leads Habakkuk to question his faith in God’s promise that he would always be Israel’s God and stand by his chosen people – a promise movingly expressed by the prophet, Jeremiah: ‘I have loved you with and everlasting love; therefore, I am constant in my love for you’ (Jer 31:3). Despite his anguish, Habakkuk does despair or abandon hope. He decides to keep watch and wait for the Lord’s response. When it comes, this response does not really address Habakkuk’s question. He is simply told not to lose heart, but to continue to trust in God and his promise to secure justice for his people: ‘You see, anyone whose heart is not upright will succumb, but the upright will live through faithfulness’ (Hab 2:4). Sometimes there is no easy answer to the injustices innocent people suffer at the hands of powerful but unscrupulous foes. They are called to a faithfulness which is nothing short of heroic.

In our gospel reading from Luke, the Apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith. Their request may well reflect, not so much the feelings of the contemporary disciples of Jesus, but rather the doubts and fears of the early Christian communities for whom Luke was writing.  As a minority group within the powerful and hostile Roman Empire, they must have feared for their very survival. What future could they have in such an environment?  The anguished cry of Habakkuk surely resonates with minority Christian communities, decimated by persecution –  a constant feature of the Church’s history. It is estimated that, at this moment, 340 million Christians, one is every eight, suffer persecution because of their faith. They can readily identify with the experience of Habakkuk and with the Apostles’  request of Jesus: ‘Increase our faith’ (Lk 17:5).

The faith the apostles asked for, and the faith we, too, need, is not primarily a better knowledge of Christian doctrine or the teachings of the Church. It is something more important. It is trust and confidence in the presence of God, especially when things go wrong and God seems far away. It is a resolute conviction that God will never abandon us. Being a Christian and taking the Gospel seriously is, as the German Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, reminds us, ‘a costly grace’.  Yes, God has promised us his loving care, but he has never promised a life free of pain, difficulties, suffering, or even violent death. After all, as St Paul reminds us, ‘he did not spare his only Son, but gave him up for us all (Rom 8:32).

The second theme that emerges in our gospel reading and in the second reading is the theme of service:  the kind service that does not seek any recompense; the kind of service that is based, not on a contract with an employer, but on a relationship of unconditional trust and love. Jesus uses the example of the service of a slave, but a better example is that of Jesus himself. At his last Supper with his disciples, he said: ‘I am among you as one who serves’ (Mk 22:27), and, to show what he meant, he washed his disciples’ feet  – the action of a slave. And he commanded us, his disciples, to do likewise.

Our second reading reminds us that our service of others is a response to a gift of God’s Spirit. This gift ‘is not a spirit of timidity’,  but ‘the Spirit of power and love and self-control’ (2 Tim 1:7). So, we must ‘never to be ashamed of witnessing to the Lord’ (2 Tim 1:8), even if this means being considered out of step with the dominant spirit of the times in which we live. Rather, we must ‘fan into a flame the gift we received’ (2 Tim 1:6) for the service of God’s reign in our world. I will end this homily with a beautiful Eucharistic prayer, said in time of need or distress, which expresses very well the meaning of Christian service.

‘Open our eyes to the needs of all. Inspire us with words and deeds to comfort those who labour and are overburdened. Keep our service of others faithful to the example and command of Christ. Let your Church be a living witness to truth and freedom, to justice and peace that all people may be lifted up by the hope of a world made new. Amen’

Michael McCabe SMA

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.  

World Day of Migrants and Refugees – Sunday 25th September

PRAYER
Lord, make us bearers of hope,
so that where there is darkness,
your light may shine,
and where there is discouragement,
confidence in the future may be reborn.
Lord, make us instruments of your justice,
so that where there is exclusion, fraternity may flourish,
and where there is greed, a spirit of sharing may grow.
Lord, make us builders of your Kingdom,
together with migrants and refugees
and with all who dwell on the peripheries.
Lord, let us learn how beautiful it is
to live together as brothers and sisters.
Amen

The last Sunday in September of every year is a day when Catholics worldwide are called upon to remember those displaced by conflict and persecution.

“Building the Future with Migrants and Refugees” is the theme chosen by the Holy Father for the 108th World Day of Migrants and Refugees (WDMR). Pope Francis highlights the commitment that we are all called to share in building a future that embraces God’s plan, leaving no one behind. It is an occasion to express concern for different vulnerable people on the move; to pray for them as they face many challenges; and to increase awareness about the opportunities that migration offers.

We remember the difficult journeys that people have to make, and how hard it can be to start again in a new country. We also remember the gifts of all the different cultures and how they have enriched our lives. Pope Francis calls this “beautiful diversity”. In his letter for the World Day, he asks us to build the future together with migrants and refugees, a place of inclusion and harmony in which they are recognised and valued for the contribution they make and the talents they bring.  Click here to read the full text of this letter. 

View the Video, Building the future with Migrants and Refugees: A future to build together,  via the play button below

 

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

Homily for the 26th Sunday of Year C

Readings: Amos:  6:1, 4-7;1 Timothy 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31

 Theme: Indifference to the plight of the Poor

Today’s readings, like those of last Sunday, invite us to continue our reflection on the dangers of riches. In our first reading, the prophet Amos vividly describes and roundly condemns the self-indulgent life-style of the wealthy. ‘Lying on ivory beds and sprawling on their divans, they dine on lambs from the flock and stall-fattened veal’ (Amos 6:4). He identifies their basic sin as indifference. They do not care about the afflictions of the poor or about the imminent attack on the land of Israel by a foreign power [Assyria] as long as they can live in the lap of luxury. ‘About the ruin of Joseph, they do not care at all’ (Amos 6:6). The prophet reminds them that their wealth will not save them from impending disaster. ‘They will be the first to be exiled; the sprawlers’ revelry is over’ (Amos 6:7). Diplomacy was not Amos’s strong point!

In the gospel reading from Luke, Jesus recounts a familiar rich man/poor man folk tale, adding fresh and telling differences. In the story as told by Jesus, the poor man has a name, Lazarus, which means ‘God will help’, whereas the rich man has no name. Usually, it is the poor who are nameless, while the rich have names, glamour, fame and fortune. Furthermore, the fortunes of Lazarus and the rich man are reversed. The final destiny of Lazarus is to be ‘carried away by the angels to the bosom of Abraham’, whereas the rich man ends up ‘in torment in Hades’ (Lk 16:22-23). Like Amos, Jesus pinpoints indifference as the basic sin of the rich man. Cushioned by his lavish life-style, he is utterly oblivious to the presence of the poor man at his gate, starving and ‘covered with sores’ (Lk 16:20). He fails to see Lazarus as a fellow human, a brother, in dire need. The worlds of the rich and poor can exist side by side but never meet.

Indifference is the cardinal sin of those whose wealth blinds them to the sufferings and deprivations of the poor. It should be counted among the capital sins as it lies at the root of so many other sins of neglect. As Elie Wiesel, a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, wrote: ‘The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.’  Indifference is truly a deadly sin – a sin from which it is almost impossible to recover. And yet, recovery is possible, as Shakespeare’s King Lear illustrates. As an old man, Lear is driven from his comfortable palace by his ungrateful daughters, and finds himself on an exposed and barren heath in the midst of a frightful storm. At the mercy of the elements, he comes to identify with the sufferings of the poor, whom he had never noticed before. For the first time, he begins to feel compassion for them and wishes to share his wealth with them.  He says:

 ‘O, I have ta’en too little care of this!
Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.’

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is particularly relevant to our time, when the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow. The growing concentration of the world’s wealth in the hands of a few billionaires has been highlighted by Oxfam. Closer to home,  a 2022 report from Social Justice Ireland stated that, despite the existence of a comprehensive social welfare system, the gap between the rich and poor in Ireland has increased over the past few years. We are all aware that the recent dramatic increase in the price of gas and basic foodstuffs is having dire consequences for every one, especially the poor. Many will be unable to make ends meet. We may say that this is a problem for the Government to solve but it must be our concern, too. We cannot be indifferent to the poverty around us. We are our sisters’ and brothers’ keepers. As St John Chrysostom, that great champion of the poor, reminds us, we cannot celebrate the presence of Christ in the Eucharist without serving him present in the poor: ‘Do not pretend to honour Christ in the Church while you neglect him outside where he is cold and naked’.   So, let us ask the Lord today to make us more aware of his presence in the poor and to open our hearts in response to their needs.

I will end this homily with an apt reflection on the true purpose of wealth from the pen of Fr Flor McCarthy, SDB:

A week ago the sycamore tree was loaded with gold.
However, instead of sitting back and enjoying it,
it began to give it away.
At first it was just a leaf here and a leaf there,
whenever the wind asked for a contribution.
But soon it was giving it away in fistfuls,
without being asked,
and without a thought for a wintry tomorrow.
Wealth is judged,
not by the amount that is accumulated,
but by the amount that is given away.
The only wealth that is worth having is the wealth of the heart.
To close one’s heart is to begin to die;
to open it is to begin to live.

Michael McCabe  SMA

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.  

National Novena in honour of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus 2022

St. Thérèse of Lisieux: "I am seeking only the truth."

Friday, 23rd September to Saturday 1st October 2022 at 7.30pm each evening
(7.00pm on Saturday)

Once again we are preparing to host our annual SMA Novena in honour of St Thérèse at St Joseph’s SMA Church, Blackrock Road, Cork. Most of us have prayer-needs in our lives and this Novena is a good time to present them to the Lord through the intercession of St Thérèse. She promised before she died that “I will let fall a shower of roses; I wish to spend my heaven in doing good upon the earth.” Perhaps one of her roses is for you this year! We have a range of speakers for Novena 2022 so we encourage you to join us at the Church or by Webcam to hear the messages they will share with us.

Below is the schedule of Dates, Celebrants, speakers and Themes. 

We invite you to join us in St Joseph’s SMA Church Blackrock Road, Cork  or via Webcam from wherever you are.  To join via webcam, click on the image of St Thérèse in the top of this Website’s homepage – this will be visible from the 23rd of September.

DATE

CELEBRANT

SPEAKER

THEME

Fri 23rd Sept 7.30pm

Fr Pat Kelly SMA

Fr Pat Kelly

Introduction

Sat 24th Sept 7.00pm

Fr Aodhán McCrystal SMA

Gerry Forde
SMA Justice Officer

Care for Creation

Sun 25th Sept 7.30pm

Fr John Bowe SMA

Ber Mulcahy

Multi-faith, Multi-Cultural Ireland

Mon 26th Sept
7.30pm

Fr Gus O’Driscoll SMA

Ciarán O’Driscoll

Addiction

Tue 27th Sept 7.30pm

Fr Jerome Sassou-Anoumou SMA

Sr Janet Nutakor OLA

The changing face of Mission

Wed 28th Sept 7.30pm

Fr John O’Brien SMA

Margaret Basteed

L’Arche Cork

Thu 29th Sept 7.30pm

Fr Colm Nilan SMA

Fr Colm Nilan SMA

“What can bring us happiness? Many say”  Psalm 4

Fri 30th Sept 7.30pm

Fr Eamonn Finnegan SMA

Fr Eamonn Finnegan SMA

The Anointing of
the Sick

Sat 1st Oct 7.00pm

Fr Michael McCabe SMA

Fr Michael McCabe SMA

St Thérèse and Mission

 

 

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

Homily for the 25th  Sunday of Year C

Readings: Amos 8:4-7; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13

Theme:You cannot be the slave both of God and of money’ (Lk 16:13)

Money makes the world go round’. So sang Liza Minnelli in the popular 1972 musical, Cabaret. Certainly money features strongly among the most prominent of human concerns. According to Daniel Kahneman, ‘Money may not buy you happiness, but the lack of it will certainly buy you misery’. Money – its uses and abuses –  is the main theme of our readings today.

Our first reading from the prophet Amos, underlines the abuses to which greed for money gives rise.  Amos lived in the eighth century BC, one of those rare periods when Israel was relatively peaceful and prosperous. Ideal opportunities for trading had triggered ‘an economic miracle’, leading to undreamed of riches for some people.  Behind this success story, Amos sees a world of injustice.   Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, who mercilessly exploit the many poor farmers and labourers. The wealthy commercial barons and merchants cannot wait for the Sabbath to be over before continuing their lucrative but dishonest business: cheating on weights and measures, tampering with scales, inflating the value of goods and deflating the value of money. What they are doing is ‘buying up the poor for money’ (Amos 8:6). How frighteningly contemporary all this sounds! Fearlessly, Amos castigates whose who engage in such practices,  ‘who trample on the needy and try to suppress the poor’ (Amos 8:4). He tells them that God ‘will not forget a single thing you have done’ (cf. Amos 8:7).

The responsorial psalm underscores the message of Amos and reminds us that God is on the side of those exploited by the rich and powerful, and will intervene on their behalf: ‘From the dust he lifts up the lowly, from the dung-heap he raises the poor to set him in the company of princes, yes, with the princes of his people’.  This affirmation echoes the familiar words of Mary’s Magnificat: ‘He casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly. He fills the starving with good things, sends the rich away empty’ (Lk 1:52-53). 

In our gospel reading from Luke, Jesus refers to money as ‘tainted’ but instructs his disciples to use it ‘to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, you will be welcomed into the tents of eternity’ (Lk 16: 9).  Certainly, Jesus is not saying that we can buy our way into heaven!  Indeed, the message of the gospel seems, at first glance, rather puzzling and even disconcerting. Jesus tells his disciples a parable about a dishonest but shrewd steward who, having squandered his master’s property, takes immediate steps to secure his own future.  He uses his position to buy favours from his fellow servants who happen to owe his master money, so that they will be obliged to help him when he is sacked. And he does this by cheating his master.

The behaviour of this unjust steward is self-serving and reprehensible, and Jesus is not putting him forward as an example to be followed, but rather as a lesson from which we may have something to learn.  And the lesson to be learned is that, in our service of God and his reign of love and justice, we must be as decisive as the steward was in the pursuit of his own interests. But instead of acting dishonestly, like him, we must take those actions that serve God’s purposes and that lead to a more human and just world and thus win us eternal life. Service of God is incompatible with service of wealth. We ‘cannot be the slave both of God and of money’ (Lk 16;13).

The abuses to which money gives rise are all too evident in our world today, creating a society where the rich grow richer and the poor struggle for survival.  In the words of Pope Francis, ‘the worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy that is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal’. The Pope deplores the tyranny of an unbridled capitalist system built on competitiveness, where there are some winners but many losers. The gross inequality created by this system is shocking and an abomination in the sight of our munificent Creator. Over the past two decades alone the wealth of the ten richest persons in the world has doubled while the income of 99% of humanity has reduced. Today 1% of the world’s population have twenty times more global wealth than the bottom 50%. No wonder that Pope Francis is calling  ‘for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce, in its turn, an economy that benefits everyone. Money has to serve, not to rule’.

Today’s gospel speaks about stewardship. A steward is a person who is given responsibility to handle the goods and property of his/her employer. In the words of Joyce Meyer, ‘We must remember that we are stewards of what God has provided for us, not owners’. We have no absolute right to anything we have. So the question that should concern us is not the question asked by Rod Tidwell in the 1996 movie, Jerry Maguire:Show me the money?’   It is rather the question: ‘How well am I using the resources the Lord has provided me with for his service and the service of others?’  Am I using them to make the kind of friends Jesus refers to in the Gospel – friends who will welcome me ‘into the tents of eternity’ (Lk 16:9)?

 

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

 

INTERNATIONAL DAY – SMA Parish Wilton supporting Ukraine through SMA Poland.

Wilton SMA parish, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, has responded very positively to the plight of the Ukrainian people.  Parishioners collected funds to support the SMA Fathers in Poland who have provided accommodation to Ukrainian refugees in their seminary buildings.  It was a generous gesture by our SMA brothers in Poland and we were happy to support them.  In total the parish raised €26,000.

On Sunday 4th September the parish organised an international day where the Ukrainian community were invited to participate in a day when the parish celebrated the international nature of the parish.  We were delighted to host members of the Indian, Pilipino, Eritrean, Polish, Portuguese, and Irish communities as well as the Ukrainian community.  It was a great day. 

Click on the play button below and then scroll down to view the Gallery below.  The short video and photos will give a flavour of the day.  

PHOTO GALLERY  Click on the first photo below then scroll through the Slide show.

 

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

Homily for the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Year C

Readings: Exodus 32: 7-11,13-14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-32

 Theme: The Embrace of a Forgiving God

 The God of Jesus Christ is above all a God who forgives. This is shown supremely in Jesus’ death on the Cross, when he prays to his Father to forgive those who are crucifying him. What an extraordinary act of forgiveness! And it comes at the climax of a life and ministry in which Jesus constantly proclaimed and witnessed to God’s mercy and forgiving love. The American poet, Robert Frost, expresses this fundamental truth of the Gospel memorably in the following lines from his poem,     A Masque of Mercy:

      ‘Christ came to introduce a break with logic

     That made all other outrage seem as child’s play:

     The Mercy on the Sin against the Sermon.

     Strange no one ever thought of it before Him.

    Twas lovely and its origin was love.’

The God revealed in the ministry of Jesus is a God who not only forgives, but who delights in forgiving – a God who reaches out to the sinner; a God who actively seeks out the lost; a God who loves the company of sinners.  It was this extraordinary witness which led him into conflict with the Jewish leaders, the scribes and the Pharisees, who prided themselves on their strict observance of the law and looked down on those who were not like themselves – the uneducated, the morally week, the tax collectors, the public sinners, the prostitutes. The Pharisees were scandalised by the strange behaviour of Jesus – not only his mingling with public sinners and talking to them, but even eating with them. ‘This man’, they said, ‘welcomes sinners and even eats with them’ (Lk 15:3).

In today’s gospel reading from Luke Jesus responds to this criticism and seeks to correct the mistaken image of God as a harsh task-master. His response is conveyed in three beautiful stories illustrating God’s attitude towards sinners – the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal Son.  The image of God that emerges from these parables is that of an utterly compassionate and merciful Father who, far from feeling offended or angry with those who have strayed away from his household, is prepared to go to any lengths to bring them back. He doesn’t even wait for them to show signs of repentance, so overjoyed is he to have them back.

Let us take a closer look at the familiar parable to the Prodigal Son. The behaviour of the younger son is certainly egregious. In leaving his father’s house, he is abandoning his family and religion. With good reason, he wonders if his father can forgive him. Certainly he does not expect to be accepted back as a son and is prepared to be treated as a hired servant. What happens in the story is quite astonishing. Not only is the prodigal son not reduced to the status of a hired hand, he is not even given time to say how sorry he is. From afar, his dad sees him coming, rushes out to meet him, throws his arms around him and weeps tears of joy now that his son, whom he has never stopped loving, is back safe and sound. 

You can imagine the impact of this reception on the younger Son. He knew he had broken his dad’s heart when he left home. On his return, he hoped simply to get a place to lay down his head and have some proper food to eat. Imagine his reaction when he sees his dad running to meet him with tears streaming down his cheeks. His dignity as son is immediately restored and a great party held in his honour. In his wildest dreams he could never have imagined such a reception. His heart expands with gratitude and joy and begins to heal from the trauma of his long sojourn among the swine in a distant country.

But what about the elder brother? Let us for a moment try to see things from his point of view. He had remained at home. He had worked hard and wanted acknowledgement of his loyalty and good behaviour. His dad seemed to be taking him for granted. Apparently, he had never held a party for him – I doubt this!  When he sees his Father running out to meet his dissolute and wayward brother, he feel (understandably) aggrieved. And, when he hears the joyful sounds coming from the party his father is hosting for this younger brother, he is consumed with anger. It seems to him that he had been wasting his time staying at home and trying to do everything to please the Father.  Unfortunately, the elder son did not know his Father, even though he had been living with him. He had kept his distance all along. He didn’t want anything to change his perception of him as an upright but demanding man who expected nothing less than complete loyalty. So, when invited by the Father to share in the celebrations for the younger son’s return, he can’t join in.

This familiar parable challenges us to take a closer look at our image of God and how we relate to him. Do I believe that God is like a doting father who sees his lost son from afar and goes to meet him, totally oblivious of the utterly wasteful way he has lived his life. Would I gladly join in the party to celebrate the prodigal son’s return or be a ‘party pooper’ like the elder brother in the parable?

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.  

SMA International News – September 2022

Welcome to the September bulletin of the SMA International News.  This month we have stories from, Ireland, Ivory coast and Zambia.

We hear about the continuation of the SMA Summer Camps in Dromantine, this year it consisted of two weeks for boys and two weeks for girls during the month of July. 

Then we go to Ivory Cost and hear of the work of Fr Michel Savadogo SMA, Director of the Shalom network for conflict transformation and reconciliation, which encompasses many West African countries.

Our final report is from Zambia, from SMA House Kabwe we hear about the formation of SMA students through a video that they themselves produced with the support of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola.

 

FOOD FOR OUR FAITH JOURNEY – Part Six

We continue with the sixth in our series of articles under the heading of Food for our Faith Journey.  This week the focus is on Love the central tenet of Christianity 

As in the previous episodes, this one also contains three items:

  • To inform us –  a video reflection written and recorded by Fr Michael McCabe SMA on the theme of Love..  
  • To raise our minds to God – A video Prayer to God our Creator. 
  • To inspire us – a quotation from St Therese.   

LOVE
Fr Michael McCabe SMA

A Prayer to the Creator

 

Blind Children Living with Dignity and Freedom in Niger Republic

A blind student at Sebeta School Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch, Flickr CC

“Our appeal was followed by all, the children and young people and their families”, Fr Raphael Casamayor SMA told FIDES about the recent initiatives organized for the blind children of the Catholic mission in Dosso, Niger Republic. “The goal was to offer educational opportunities that meet their needs: the children should learn something together that can help them with their independence,” explained the missionary. “A blind person lives in the dark, but this does not mean that he / she must constantly depend on others, they can make additional efforts to develop their own mobility and also to learn a trade”.

The project, supported by the Zankey Annuura Association, was launched on July 18th. “It was the first time that something like this was done in Dosso after a long period of planning and preparation”, Fr Raphael explained. “We picked up the children very early and met in the former library of the Catholic Mission, with large rooms that catered to our needs. After a small snack, the activities began with exercises and activities that lasted all morning and continued in the afternoon, after lunch”. The Mayor of Dosso also took part in some of the activities, accompanying the children as they practiced walking with the white canes typical of the blind, recognizing objects, navigating the city and crossing streets. “We were thrilled when the mayor, along with our group, explained to motorists the meaning of the raised white stick and their obligation to stop. He told us that this gesture should be included in the Highway Code and that it would raise awareness in driving schools”.

In this context, Father Casamayor also appeals to the country’s institutions and urges the government to invest in the education of the disabled without discrimination. “A life of dignity and freedom is the fundamental goal we aspire to for our young people. These people, who are certainly among the most disadvantaged and marginalized in this country, deserve to have a dignified and respected place in society”. (RC/AP)

With thanks to Agenzia Fides, 30/8/2022

Read also about St Martin’s Ministry to the Deaf – an initiative of the SMA Ghana Province.

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

4 September 2022

Wisdom 9:13-18                    Philemon 9-10,12-17                    Luke 14:25-33

The Cost of Discipleship

The Jesus we meet in today’s gospel is far from the ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ of our childhood prayers. Instead, we meet the tough, uncompromising prophet of God’s kingdom. Jesus pulls no punches when spelling out the conditions he requires of those who wish to be his disciples: ‘If anyone comes to me without turning his back on his father and mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and sisters, indeed his very self, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not take up his/her cross and follow me cannot be my disciple (Lk 14:25-26).

It is well to recall the context in which Jesus made these statements. He had set his face resolutely towards Jerusalem and was well aware of the fate that awaited him there: rejection, betrayal, and death on a cross. And he wanted his disciples to be under no illusions about what lay ahead of them if they continued to follow him. It is clear that many (perhaps all) of them entertained expectations of earthly power and glory (cf. Lk 22:24-30). It is also clear that his words made little impression on them until after his death and resurrection. Only then, enlightened and empowered by the Spirit, did they fully embrace the challenges of being disciples of their crucified and risen Lord.

But what about us, the disciples of Jesus living in the 21st century? Surely Jesus does not expect us to take these harsh demands seriously. They seem altogether preposterous, completely out of kilter with the dominant values of our time and culture – security, comfort, human flourishing, and the support of family and friends.  Indeed, we may feel inclined to respond to Jesus in the words of American tennis legend, John McEnroe: ‘you cannot be serious’.  But Jesus is being very serious, and he did intend his words to be taken to heart by those who wished to follow him. There is no way of interpreting his blunt words to make them less challenging and more acceptable that is not simply escapist. Certainly, the intention of Jesus was not to make us miserable. As he himself tells us, he was sent by the Father to bring us life in its fullness (cf. Jn 10:10). He came to teach us how to love, and live as children of an infinitely compassionate and loving Father. But there is a price to pay if we wish to follow Jesus and imitate his example of a love that remained  steadfast and true to itself even in the face hostility and rejection. In the words of American poet, T.S. Eliot, genuine discipleship ‘costs not less than everything’ (Little Gidding).

The famous Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, got it right when he stated in his popular spiritual classic, The Cost of Discipleship, that the call to discipleship inevitably involves the cross: ‘The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life; it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls us, he bids us come and die.’ Bonhoeffer was writing from personal experience. His fidelity to his Christian convictions led him to the ultimate sacrifice of his life. His involvement in a small Protestant resistance movement and conspiracy to defeat Hitler led to his incarceration and death by hanging in Flossenbürg concentration camp. Bonhoeffer describes discipleship a costly grace. ‘It is costly because it calls for obedience; it is grace because it calls for obedience to Christ. It is costly because it may cost us our lives; it is grace because only thus are we brought to new life.’ 

Today’s gospel message it not only profoundly counter-cultural; it falls within the category of things that lie beyond the grasp of our limited human understanding, as our first reading from the Book of Wisdom states. ‘Who can know the intentions of God? Who can divine the will of the Lord’  (Wis 9:13). The wisdom of the cross is a wisdom that is written ‘in the heavens’ (Wis 9:16). It is not the calculating wisdom of the worldly wise, but rather, as St Paul reminds us, ‘God’s foolishness [which] is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness [which] is stronger than human strength’ (1 Cor 1:25). Like Bonhoeffer, Paul is speaking from personal experience. In our second reading today from his Letter to Philemon, he refers to himself as ‘an old man… still a prisoner of Jesus Christ’ forced to wear chains (Phil 9). Far from making him embittered, Paul’s years in prison matured him as a disciple and apostle of Christ, enabling him to imitate more closely the tender and compassionate love of his Master, as this short reading clearly illustrates.

Our following of Jesus today may not lead to physical death or to imprisonment but, if it is genuine and not just wishful thinking, it will involve the cross in one form or another. For those living in a post-Christian secular culture, perhaps the word of the British journalist, Philip Toynbee, are apposite: ‘Those who are trying to live Christian lives today are faced, not with martyrdom, not even with hostility, not even with contempt. The are faced with the deadly indifference of their fellow men and women, lightened only by an occasional burst of amused curiosity’. So, let us pray in the words of St Richard of Chichester for the grace ‘to see Christ more clearly, follow him more nearly, and love him more dearly, day by day’.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.  

SHALOM Empowerment Center addresses violence against women and children

The Shalom Centre for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation (SCCRR) is based in Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa. Founded in 2009 by SMA Father Padraig Devine, its aim is to help in resolving conflicts and to bring about reconciliation. SHALOM seeks to do this by promoting non-violent social transformation, integral human development and respect for local culture, traditions and justice.

A recent initiative addresses violence against women and children.

Responding to Shalom-SCCRR’s launch of Shalom Empowerment Center (SEC), aimed at transforming the lives of vulnerable and marginalized women and children in the extremely poor urban informal settlements, Mrs. Lucy Mukunjura, “The adverse life events and slum living conditions characterized by dire poverty, insecurity and violence, exposes women and children to shameful and stigmatizing conditions rendering them vulnerable and destitute. This calls for effective strategies and interventions to help them prevent and respond to the violence against them. The need for social support to women and children living in the informal urban settlements (slums) can therefore never be over-emphasized.” 

Violence against women and children is a complex social problem in Nairobi’s urban informal settlements (slums). Exposure to various forms of harm and living in fear prevents women from fully realizing their potentials, reducing their wellbeing, and also reducing their contribution to the development of society. Like most urban slums in the world, women and children in Nairobi’s slums suffer a number of challenges, including fewer educational and economic opportunities, limited access to reproductive health services, poor representation in decision-making and high rates of violence. The latest survey by Trends and Insights for Africa (Tifa), shows that women are the majority victims of domestic violence at 52 percent followed by men at 37 percent and children at 36 percent. The survey conducted between September 24 and October 2021, shows that women continue to suffer from violence despite well-intentioned government efforts to end the vice.

Thousands of women and children in the urban informal settlements where the Shalom Empowerment Center (SEC) addressing violence against women and children works, suffer from violence of many forms — sexual violence, child and/or forced marriage, sex trafficking and rape – which are global public health problems of epidemic proportions. Lack of empowerment keeps women away from overcoming subjugation of violence. The negative consequences resulting from this violence include exposure to depression and suicidal tendencies, mental health issues, unstable family relationships, experiencing physical and psychological violence, risk of miscarriage and having low birth weight infants and delayed onset of prenatal care.

Shalom staff visit a family in Kibera as part of the community outreach aimed at engaging women to identify appropriate interventions

The cost and consequences of violence against women last for generations. Children who witness domestic violence are at increased risk of anxiety, depression, low-self-esteem, poor school performance, among other problems that harm their well-being and personal development. Mrs. Fransica Mbula, a health worker from Riruta underpins this by noting that, “Women and children in the informal urban settlements have undergone a lot of abuse and pain but they chose to live in their abusive conditions as they are not empowered on how to address these forms of violence.”

The establishment of the Shalom Empowerment Center (SEC) was born from an experience of the arduous and protracted social challenges that the organization has witnessed women, children and families face on a daily basis in the urban slum settings of Nairobi. Ms. Ilhan Ali Salah, in endorsing the center said, “In my short experience of the Shalom Empowerment Centre project, I can attest to the importance of this centre and its need for the vulnerable communities in the urban informal settlements and encourage support for the centre from all over the world.” The SEC is a high priority institution within the structure of the Shalom-SCCRR’s vision, mission and interventions that seeks to promote protection and respect for the human rights of women and children.

Peacebuilding training session in Kawangware

Shalom Empowerment Center (SEC) is committed to addressing all forms of manifest and structural violence inflicted on human life through research, training, development, and transformation of relationships for long-term conflict prevention and management. Since our inception, the SEC has been engaging influential women and youth leaders from 10 informal urban settlements or slum areas within Nairobi. In the past six months, the center has trained over 400 women leaders and 100 youth leaders as a basis for enabling them to be agents of transforming the key drivers of violence against women and children in their localities.

The capacity building is empowering the women and youth with analytical skills and peacebuilding techniques essential for conflict transformation and reconciliation within their conflict environments. Women have been empowered through trainings on paradigms of conflict analysis, conflict transformation, and women’s role in peacebuilding. These trainings have been key in enabling the women to develop frameworks for the prevention and transformation of emerging violent situations among communities.

Appreciating the work of the Shalom Empowerment Center (SEC), Mrs. Elizabeth Odour from Mathare noted that, “women in the informal urban settlements have really bore the brunt of manifest violent conflict and they are not given an opportunity to participate in the transformation of these conflicts.” She lauded Shalom Empowerment Center (SEC) for the availability of a center where women are empowered with the analytical skills that will see the vulnerable and marginalized women from these locations play a crucial role in overcoming subjugation of violence in their conflict environs.

Ms Esther Kibe meeting women from marginalised commuities in Northern Kenya

Ms. Catherine Maina, a para-legal and community leader from Mathare appreciated Shalom Empowerment Center’s (SEC) unique approach that sets out to establish the root causes, as distinct from just dealing with the symptoms, of conflict in specific target project areas. This, she underscores has been achieved through the tremendous rigorous work done by Shalom Empowerment Center’s (SEC) team of highly qualified peace practitioners.

Shalom Empowerment Center (SEC) actively trains and engages hundreds of women and men influential opinion shapers in working towards breaking the vicious cycle of conflict in the urban informal settlements of Nairobi. Since its founding, the organization has focused on addressing issues of women’s right to their dignity, safety and security. We believe that social protection systems and formation institutions for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls are needed to ensure that the lives and dignity of women and their children are esteemed,

Fr Ollie Noonan SMA planting a tree of life with Fr Padraig Devine SMA, Fr Eugene Kubasu and Patrick Kimani

valued, and protected. Going forward, the Shalom Empowerment Center (SEC) hopes to establish similar empowerment centers in the Northern part of Kenya that will be addressing the different forms of violence facing the vulnerable and marginalized women and children from those regions.

The project is committed to empowering women and children to be significant architects of their own security and development whereby their human rights and dignity are respected and honoured. We focus on the unique needs of women, children and families in Nairobi’s urban informal settlements, recognizing their exposure to violence — manifest and structural, while ensuring that support is available.

SEASON OF CREATION 2022 – 1st Sept to 4th Oct

The Season of Creation begins on 1 September, World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, and ends on 4 October, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology.  It is a time set aside by Christians all around the world to listen and respond together to the cry of Creation: “It is a special time for all Christians to pray and work together to care for our common home.

Originally inspired by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, this Season is an opportunity to cultivate our “ecological conversion”, a conversion encouraged by Saint John Paul II as a response to the “ecological catastrophe” predicted by Saint Paul VI back in 1970.” Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, 1 September 2022.  Read full text of Pope Francis message HERE

 

The burning bush is the symbol for the Season of Creation 2022.
The wildfires in 2022 are a sign of the devastating effects that climate change is having on our planet. Creation cries out as forests crackle, animals and people are forced to flee the fires of injustice that we have caused.

The fire that called to Moses on Mt. Horeb did not consume or destroy the bush. He was told to remove his sandals, for he was standing on holy ground in God’s presence. May this symbol move us to remove the “sandals” of our unsustainable lifestyles that disconnect us from creation and our Creator. May we contemplate our connection to the holy ground where we live, and listen for the voice of creation.’

This year’s theme, “Listen to the Voice of Creation”  is a reminder that we need to pay attention and be aware that, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. (Ps 19: 1-4) Creation never ceases to proclaim, but do we listen?  

The Season of Creation is a time when we can make sure that we do listen. In prayer we lament the individuals, communities, species, and ecosystems who are lost, and those whose livelihoods are threatened by habitat loss and climate change. In prayer we center the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor and we reflect on the fact that we are co-creatures, part of all that God has made and that our wellbeing is interwoven with the wellbeing of the Earth.

In this season we, as individuals and communities, are invited to participate  through prayer, sustainability projects, and advocacy:

Prayer: Host or participate in a prayer service that unites Christians to care for our common home. 

  • Sustainability: Become involved in raising public awareness of and witnessing to care for creation in our communities through the changes we make and the example of caring for creation that we give each day.
  • Advocacy: Raise your voice for climate justice by participating or joining an ongoing campaign, such as the movement to divest from fossil fuels or a local project in your area. In the coming months inform yourself more by following the issues and events  leading up to COP27, to be held in Egypt, November 7-18 2022. Consider writing to or speaking with your government representatives or negotiators on issues that will protect creation.

2022 Season of Creation Prayer

Creator of All,

From your communion of love your Word went forth to create a symphony of life that sings your praise.

By your Holy Wisdom you made the Earth to bring forth a diversity of creatures who praise you in their being. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.

You called human beings to till and keep your garden. You placed us into right relationships with each creature so that we could listen to their voices, and learn how to safeguard the conditions for life. But we turn in on ourselves and away from our co-creatures.

We close our ears to the counsel of our fellow creatures. We fail to listen to the cries of the poor and the needs of the most vulnerable. We silence the voices of those who hold the traditions that teach us to care for the Earth. We close our ears to your creative, reconciling and sustaining Word that calls to us through the Scriptures.

We lament the loss of our fellow species and their habitats that will never speak again. We grieve the loss of human cultures, along with the lives and livelihoods that have been displaced or perished. Creation cries out as forests crackle, and animals alike flee the fires of injustice that we have lit by our unwillingness to listen.

In this Season of Creation, we pray that you would call to us, as from the burning bush, with the sustaining fire of your Spirit. Breathe upon us. Open our ears and move our hearts. Turn us from our inward gaze. Teach us to contemplate your creation, and listen for the voice of each creature declaring your glory. For “faith comes from hearing.”

Give us hearts to listen for the good news of your promise to renew the face of the Earth. Enlighten us with the grace to follow the Way of Christ as we learn to walk lightly upon this holy ground. Fill us with the hope to quench the fires of injustice with the light of your healing love that sustains our common home.

In the name of the One who came to proclaim good news to all creation, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

 

 

FOOD FOR OUR FAITH JOURNEY – Part Five

Welcome to the fifth part of Food for our Faith Journey.  This week’s focus is on the role of Mary as a mother and as a model for believers

Included below are: 

  • To inform us –  a video reflection on the Eucharist written and recorded by Fr Michael McCabe SMA. 
  • To raise our minds to God – A video Prayer for Others, thinking of those who accompany us through life’s journey and asking protection for all.   
  • To inspire us – a quotation to motivate and strengthen the efforts we make to live our Faith.   

MARY MOTHER & MODEL
Fr Michael McCabe SMA

Prayer for Others 

“Mary’s greatness consists in the fact that she wants to magnify God not herself.”
Pope Benedict XVI

 

 

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

28 August 2022

Ecclesiasticus 3:17-18                         Hebrews 12:18-19,20,28-29                         Luke 14:1,7-14

Theme: The Virtue of Humility

Today’s readings are all about humility. Our first reading from the Book of Ecclesiasticus tells us that the Lord ‘accepts the homage of the humble’ (Ecc 3:20). Therefore, ‘the greater you are the more you should behave humbly’ (Ecc 3:18). Truly great people are humble enough to listen to others and learn from them. The haughty who think they have nothing to learn from others are simply incurable fools. In our gospel reading from Luke, Jesus contrasts the behaviour of the proud fool who grabs the seats of honour at a party, and is ignominiously demoted, with the humble person who takes the lowest place and is promoted to a higher position. The gospel ends with the familiar saying of Jesus: ‘Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted’ (Lk 14:11).

According to the poet, T.S. Eliot, ‘humility is the most difficult of all virtues to achieve; nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of self’. I agree with the first part of Eliot’s statement but not with the second. Yes, it is difficult to have true humility, but not because we think well of ourselves. To think well of ourselves is a healthy desire. The problem for many of us is that we suffer from a poor self-image. We tend to put ourselves down, at least, in our own minds. Marianne Williamson is ‘on the ball’ when she says that ‘It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ True humility is not about playing small out of fear of the gifts God has given us. It is rather the honest acceptance of who and what we are as children of God, created in his image and likeness. As St Paul reminds us, ‘We are God’s work of art’ (Eph 2:10). And how could God create anything that was not awesome? Yes, we are awesome creatures of a loving God who formed us with infinite love and care. True humility is recognising and accepting the wonder of our being, and of our giftedness. As the famous spiritual writer, C.S. Lewis stated: ‘Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less’.

What then are we to make of Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees about their behaviour when invited to a feast? He had noticed how they chosethe places of honour (Lk 14:7). We could be forgiven for thinking that the reason for this behaviour was their high opinion of themselves, but this is not the case. They chose the seats of honour because they wanted others to think highly of them, which is not the same thing. The desire to appear important in the eyes of others betrays an insecurity that comes from not really appreciating oneself. Those who have a genuine appreciation of their own worth do not need to put themselves ahead of others. Freed from that destructive desire, they can allow others to let their lights shine. They have no problem taking a back seat when invited to a feast.

What Jesus is challenging is the Pharisees’ selfishness and small-mindedness. They are ‘full of themselves’ and want to appear important because they do not have a true sense of their own worth as creatures of a loving God. Therefore, they look for, and need, the approval of others. We can sometimes behave like that too. We can feel so insecure about our own giftedness that we are always seeking the approval of others. Jesus calls the Pharisees (and us) to a higher standard of behaviour, the kind of behaviour that only truly free persons with a healthy self-image can practice: ‘When you give a lunch or a dinner do not ask your friends, brothers, relations, or rich neighbours, for fear they repay your courtesy by inviting you in return. No! When you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. That they cannot repay you means that you are fortunate because repayment will be made to you when the virtuous rise again (Lk 14:13-14). This is the kind of behaviour that truly humble people practice – behaviour based on seeing the needs of others and tending to them. Let us, then, take up the challenge of Jesus and live our lives in humble service of others, especially those who cannot repay our love. I will end with the full text of Marianne Williamson’s inspiring reflection to which I already referred.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.  

Fr Maurice (Mossie) Kelleher SMA – Obituary

Fr Maurice Kelleher, SMA, passed away peacefully in the St Theresa’s Nursing Unit, SMA House Blackrock Road, Cork on Wednesday, 10 August 2022. His sister Carmel, his brother-in-law Fred and some SMA confreres were with him in his final hours.

Known to most as Fr Mossie, he was the eldest of eight children born to Tim and Rita [née Manning] of Dunmanway, Co Cork. Mossie was born in London and, due to the Second World War, his father sent his wife and young son home to Dunmanway. In time, he also returned to Ireland. Mossie made his First Holy Communion and Confirmation in Dunmanway. Mossie attended St Patrick’s Primary School (1945-1950) and St Ronan’s Secondary School, Dunmanway (1951-1956).

Funeral Mass of Fr Mossie led by Fr Eamonn Finnegan SMA, Vice Provincial

A friend of his uncle was the late Fr Denis O’Donovan SMA, also from Dunmanway, and meeting him influenced the young secondary school student to join the African Missions in Cork. As he replied to a question posed to him on the occasion of his Golden Jubilee: “from an early age I had an interest in priesthood – I knew some inspiring local priests. But from reading the African Missionary (the SMA magazine) and knowing Fr O’Donovan I saw Africa as a challenging place and I had a sense of adventure!” And how Mossie loved challenges and opportunities to do new things and go to new places. And so, in September 1956, he entered the SMA Spiritual Year programme at the SMA Novitiate, Cloughballymore, Co Galway and became a member of the Society on 25 June 1957. With his academic qualification, he was then sent to study at UCC, living in the SMA House, Wilton, Cork. After gaining an Honours BA from UCC in 1960, he transferred to the SMA Major seminary in Dromantine, Newry, Co Down. Along with nine classmates (including fellow Corkmen, Fr Denis Collins and the late Fr Owen ‘Fra’ Sweeney) he was ordained a priest in the Cathedral of St Colman and St Patrick, Newry, on 18 December 1963 by Bishop Eusibius Crawford OP, a native of Warrenpoint, and recently ordained a bishop in the Solomon Islands, in the Pacific Ocean.

The young enthusiastic missionary was appointed to western Nigeria, setting sail from Liverpool on the MS Apapa to the sounds of the Beatles songs – She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah – belting out from a radio at the quayside. The swinging sixties were being left behind for the tropical heat of West Africa. After the initial six-months Tyrocinium programme (learning about the local customs and Yoruba language etc.), Mossie was appointed as the Editor of the weekly Catholic Independent which, at that time, was the national Catholic paper in Nigeria. He was also a member of the Loyola College teaching staff and this began what was to be a recurring theme in his missionary life: working with youth and the formation of the laity, both in Nigeria and Ireland. Mossie endured bouts of ill health which interrupted his missionary life and the first of these saw him returning to Ireland in June 1973. During his convalescence, he was appointed for one year as the Director of the SMA Sacred Heart College, Ballinafad, Co Mayo.

Burial in the Cemetery at St Josephs Church, Wilton.

From 1974 to 1980, Fr Mossie was the Dean of the SMA Formation House in Maynooth, Co Kildare. Recognizing how important it was for the SMA seminarians to be able to properly prepare and deliver homilies / talks, Mossie began what became known as the SMA Student Retreat team, bringing students to help him with his schools Retreat ministry. Mossie was very good at interacting with young people, girls and boys. Many invitations to give school retreats had to be turned down as both Mossie and the seminarians had to concentrate on their own responsibilities, preparing for missionary priesthood. In 1981, Mossie returned to Ibadan as Director of the Diocesan Lay Apostolate Centre, the only one of its kind in the entire country.

The Centre ran courses for 25 different groups in the diocese. Fr Mossie organised courses for youth leaders (those between 14 and 25 years of age) over a six months period. During each course (with 25 attendees from both urban and rural parts of the diocese), self-improvement, basic knowledge and leadership skills were dealt with, all with the aim of developing skill sets in the participants which they, in turn, could impart in their own parishes. A Youth Congress with the theme Youth are the Hope of the Church,  attracted over 400 participants: “Every aspect of the congress was organised by the youth leaders. I could not possibly have attempted it on my own“, Fr Mossie admitted. This included finding accommodation and feeding all the participants. When, in 1987, Fr Mossie was recalled to Ireland, there were 27 Youth groups scattered throughout the diocese. These groups help train young people for the jobs market as well as organizing drama and cultural events. When leaving Ibadan, Fr Mossie paid tribute to the Irish lay volunteers who helped organize the Centre courses etc. His greatest joy was to be succeeded by a Nigerian fulltime lay organiser. He returned to Ireland to be part of the SMA Vocations team, based in Wilton, Cork.

Fr Mossie kept up to date theologically, pastorally and with the changing face of the Church. He undertook a Sabbatical break in 1991 / 1992 – part of it a period of prayer and reflection with the Benedictine Community in Glenstal and a renewal programme in Jerusalem.

After his Sabbatical, he was appointed Parish Priest of St Joseph’s SMA Parish, Wilton, succeeding his classmate, Fr James O’Kane SMA. Fr Mossie had a heart attack during his time as PP but, by the grace of God, he was saved due to the immediate intervention of a number of CUH staff who were in the Hall under the Parish House doing a Coronary Care refresher course. In 1998, he moved to Dromantine as Director of Retreats and Laity Formation. For the next seventeen years, he served in different capacities in Dromantine, some of his roles overlapping with others: Vice Superior, Founder and Coordinator of the SMA Lay Association (SMALA), Conference Centre Team member.

In 2015, Fr Mossie had his final appointment, as Resource Person to the Wilton and Blackrock Road SMA communities and Parishes. He continued to lead some Retreats and Recollections for different groups in the country. Over the years, he also gave Retreats in South Africa, Uganda as well as visiting our missionaries in Zambia, accompanied by 5 SMALA members.

Mossie was catholic in all his sporting interests – cricket, hurling (he won a medal with his beloved Doheny GAA club, Dunmanway), Gaelic football, athletics, soccer – initially a West Ham supporter he, in recent years, transferred his loyalties to Liverpool because his nephew Caoimhín Kelleher plays as a goal-keeper for the famous Reds! But, most of all, Mossie loved golf! And was no mean player right up to the curtailment brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic. Once things opened up again, Mossie’s health was beginning to decline and so he was unable to return to the fairways of Cork and beyond!

Asked what gave him the greatest joy after 50 years of priesthood he wrote: “the joy I got from a diversity of ministries – as teacher, formator, parish work, retreat work and the joy of working with lay people, both in Africa and Ireland…” 

Preaching at a Mass for the happy repose of Mossie’s soul, his very good friend and classmate, Fr Denis Collins, reminded us that a great feature of the man was that he could laugh at himself and things that happened to him and even blunders he made in all innocence. More often than not, Mossie would himself tell us of them! And share in the laughter afterwards.

I want to conclude with the words of a song Mossie had in his Golden Jubilee booklet, which echo the man and priest so many of us knew:

Thank You for Your faithfulness, Your strength, and Your love,
For gifts of special places, and for friends.
Thank You for drawing me ever closer to You.
Be with me on the road that lies ahead.

You and I, Lord, we share life.
Together we have been, and we will be.
My life is Yours, Lord.
I am open to the mysteries and wonders of Your love.

Fr Mossie, may you share eternal with the God you served so faithfully and well.

Níl sa bhás ach múchadh an choiníl roimh gile na gréine ag éirí – Death is but the snuffing of the candle before the brightness of the rising sun.

To read the Homily of Fr Noel O’Leary, Leader of the Wilton SMA Community, at Fr Mossie’s Funeral Mass click here.

Fr Maurice [Mossie] Kelleher SMA – Funeral Mass Homily

The Funeral Mass for the late Fr Mossie Kelleher’s took place on Friday, 12th August 2022, in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork City. His burial took place afterwards in the SMA Community cemetery. Fr Eamonn Finnegan, SMA Vice Provincial Leader, was the Principal Celebrant and the SMA Wilton Community Leader, Fr Noel O’Leary, was the Homilist. As well as a very large congregation of family, parishioners and friends, over 40 SMA confreres concelebrated the Mass.

The death and life of each of us has its influence on others”. A very challenging line, one could be frightened by it or comforted by it. Frightened in that we so often procrastinate and never get around to doing what we intended to do and time can pass us by. Or we feel we do not have enough time and keep thinking of all the things we should be doing and again time passes by. Or we take things in our stride and do what we can to the best of our ability and let God do the rest. And so often this can influence the final days of a person. I have so often come across people full of regrets of all that they feel they should have done or what they should not have done or what they missed out on.

I say all this in the light of the experience for many of us with Mossie over the last few weeks and especially this past week. It was a case of making up his mind and very much at peace with it. He, with the help of his sister Carmel and other family members shared what he wanted and was very matter of fact about it. He was very much at ease and expressed his gratitude for his life and the many blessings he received and the care and love that he received. He was a man that was very much at peace with His God and with himself.

He very much loved his family and kept up to date with his nieces and nephews and their lives and his eyes would light up with pride as he spoke of them and of the new generation coming up. Very proud of his roots in Dunmanway and loved to tease me when the Doheny’s were doing well and asking me of the Bantry Blues.  Needless to say we kept up a very long tradition of healthy bantering between the two tribes.

His love for his family was very evident and he proudly shared the chocolates he received with the community and with great pride, telling us what part of the world they came from. His arm didn’t need twisting to go on an outing with his family.

He loved sports and was a keen hurler in his young days. His brother shared with me that he seemed to take on a new character when he was on the pitch. Never shied away from tackling where needed and very competitive. For many years he played many games of golf with his confreres and friends. He spoke proudly of the Golf Fraternity that was set up here in Wilton parish and every year, a tournament was organised where they continued the camaraderie and competitiveness on the course. He loved social gatherings and was always ready to give a song or two. He loved company and drew energy from having people around him.

He was involved in different ministries throughout his priestly life. Beginning with Editor of Catholic Paper in Ibadan Nigeria just months after arriving in Nigeria as a newly ordained priest in 1964. From there he was teaching in Loyola College in Ibadan for seven years. He was brought back to Ireland to teach post in SMA College in Ballinafad, Co. Mayo for the final year of that College. He was then involved with the initial formation of SMA seminarians in Maynooth for 5 years. Back to Nigeria for five years, mainly working with youth and Lay ministry. He served as Wilton Parish Priest from ’92 – ’98. He then transferred to our Retreat and Conference Centre in Dromantine, Co. Down – responsible for Lay Apostolate work and Retreat Ministry. And from 2015 until recently, he was the Resource Person to our SMA Parishes and SMA Communities, living again in the Wilton Community. He was very well known through his retreat ministry throughout Ireland and which also took him to South Africa and Uganda.

Many of us that passed through Maynooth benefited by the retreat programme that he set up while he was based there and was kept up for many years long after he left. I first met Mossie when I was a 1st year student in Maynooth and one could see that he enjoyed retreat ministry and going around to schools and religious communities. I would say he found it difficult his role as Dean in Maynooth where it was expected of him to correct and reprimand. This did not come easy to him and needless nor did his students make it easy for him. But he managed to live to tell the tale. Up to last year, he always looked much younger than his years and thrived when working with young people and groups of the laity. He had great variety in his ministry and can safely say that he brought his positive outlook in life with him which endeared him to so many. He had a very wide circle of friends and cherished his friends and they him.

Some of Fr Mossie’s family at the graveside in Wilton

He loved his time here as Parish Priest and many remember him fondly. Some of the staff shared many stories as he was a great one to share stories with them. The ladies in the parish responsible for decorating the altar informed us that Fr. Mossie’s favourite was yellow. That is why we have this beautiful arrangement of yellow flowers decorating the sanctuary today. Well done and thanks to the flower ladies. Yellow is also the Papal Colours. I wonder is that saying anything to us.

Our first reading speaks of a time for everything, God has made everything suitable for its time. Mossie would have lived this out in his different ministries. He very much went with the flow.

The words of Jesus: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me”. Mossie’s faith was important to him and he lived it out in his daily life and his interaction with people, not setting himself apart but rather very much at ease and making the other at ease. It is so easy to get ourselves anxious and worried about what might or might not happen and losing sight of the present moment. And, certainly we are living in a world where so many are rushing around and not being able to enjoy the present moment.

Many of you are familiar with the story of Alfred Noble, the Swedish inventor and business man who died in 1896. An obituary appeared in a newspaper on him even though he was still alive. It was a double shock for him, the fact that he was still alive and what they wrote about him was not the way he wished to be remembered. In his will, he left the bulk of his vast fortune to be placed in a fund in which the interest would be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on humankind.

I began this homily with the first line of our 2nd reading today; “The death and life of each of us has its influence on others”. I shared on how Mossie may have touched many of us. Now, the challenge is for each of us to ask ourselves how we touch others and like Alfred Noble, wishes not to be remembered by.

At funerals I often have said that the greatest gift that we can give to our loved one is to cherish what touched us most and put it into practise in our own lives.  And take on board the words of Jesus “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, and believe also in me.

Noel O’Leary SMA

FOOD FOR OUR FAITH JOURNEY – Part Four

Welcome to the fourth episode of Food for our Faith Journey.  As in previous weeks it contains three items that we hope will provide food for thought and encouragement as we strive to walk in he way that Jesus taught us. 

This week’s focus is on the Forgiveness and Love that we need to receive from God and give to others if we are to follow the path of Christian life walking humbly with our God 

Included below are: 

  • To inform us –  a video reflection on Forgiveness and Love  written and recorded by by Bishop Noel O’Regan SMA. 
  • To raise our minds to God – A silent video meditation, an opportunity for us to contemplate God’s unending forgiveness and love for each one of us and to reflect on his call for us to go and do the same to others.   
  • To inspire us – a quotation to motivate and strengthen the efforts we make to live our Faith.   

Forgiveness and Love
Bishop Noel O’Regan SMA

Beauty of Nature June 2020 
A silent prayer

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.”
Colossians 3:13

“To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.”
Robert Muller 

 

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

21 August 2022

Isaiah 66:18-21                    Hebrews 12: 5-7, 11-13                    Luke 13:22-30

Entering the Kingdom of God through the narrow gate

There is a double-edged message in today’s readings. On the one hand, we are told that the blessings of God’s kingdom are for all peoples, not just a select few. On the other hand, we are warned not take for-granted that we are ‘on the inside track’ and have a pre-booked place at the royal banquet. Rather, we should try our best to enter ‘by the narrow gate’ (Lk 13:22), that is, to keep our minds and heart focused on Jesus and follow his example.

Our first reading from the prophet Isaiah presents us with an appealing image of the restored Temple of Jerusalem as a centre of pilgrimage for all the peoples of the world: ‘I am coming to gather the nations of every language. They shall come to witness my glory’ (Is 66:18). This image reflects an inclusive vision of salvation which counters the often exclusive attitudes of religious groups who imagine that they, and they alone, are assured of salvation. In the past, Catholics were accused of that attitude. However, as the Second Vatican Council clearly affirmed, God wills the salvation of all peoples. All are invited to share in the heavenly banquet: ‘And people from east and west, from north and south, will come to their places at the feast in the kingdom of God (Lk 13:29). Christ gave his life on the Cross not just for some, or for many, but for all. As the body of Christ and sacrament of the kingdom, the Church is called to be a welcoming, inclusive community, open to all peoples. Whenever its members adopt an exclusive mindset or display manifest bigotry they are betraying that vocation. 

In today’s gospel from Luke, Jesus is approached by a fellow Jew who raises a question about the number of those who will be saved: ‘Sir, will there be only a few saved (Lk 13:22) – not a question that Jesus was likely to answer. However, as with other questions of this kind, it provides him with an opportunity to clarify the nature of God’s Kingdom. This Kingdom does not operate by the standards of the world. It’s not who you know that matters, nor the number of brownie points you may have amassed that will impress God. In all probability the man who put the question to Jesus was convinced that only members of the Jewish race would be saved, and that, even among them, only those who were law abiding. The Pharisees with their strict observance of the Mosaic Law would be first to gain entry. Gentiles (pagans) would have had no chance, while sinners, prostitutes, and the rabble who knew nothing of the Law, would have had little hope. In his response to the question put to him, Jesus warns his listeners not to take their status as ‘heirs to God’s kingdom’ for-granted. They may be in for an unpleasant surprise when they knock at the door of the banquet hall and find themselves turned out while people they least expected are given entry. Don’t be surprised, warns Jesus, to find that ‘there are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last (Lk 13:30).

A few years ago a more personal form of the question posed in today’s gospel was put to Pope Francis during a question-and-answer session with youngsters in one of Rome’s parishes. A young boy, Emmanuel, wanted to know if his recently deceased dad, an unbeliever, was in Heaven. When the time came for him to pose his question to the Pope, the boy burst into tears and couldn’t speak. Pope Francis called him to come close to him and whisper his question in his ear.  When he came the Pope enveloped him in a big embrace. With their heads touching, the Pope and the boy spoke privately to each other before Emmanuel returned to his seat.

Then, Pope Francis, with the boy’s consent, shared the his question with the audience. This is what the boy said:  ‘A little while ago my father passed away. He was a non-believer who had all four of his children baptized. He was a good man. Is dad in heaven?’’ ‘God is the one who says who goes to heaven,’ the pope explained. He then asked the children to think about what God is like and, especially, what kind of heart God has: ‘What do you think? God has a dad’s heart. And with a dad who was not a believer, but who baptized his children and was a good man, do you think God would be able to leave him far from himself? Does God abandon his children when they are good?’ The children shouted, ‘No.’ ‘There, Emmanuel, that is the answer,’ the pope told the boy. ‘God was surely proud of your dad, and you should be too, because he was a good man who wanted what was best for his children.’

As Pope Francis reminds us, we should leave to God the question of who will go to Heaven. It’s not a question for us to answer. What should concern us is what God wants from us? What gateway is he setting before us? Perhaps, like the poet Robert Frost, we are being invited to opt for the road ‘less travelled by’  and that may make ‘all the difference’.

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.  

Fr Maurice [Mossie] Kelleher SMA, RIP

Fr Maurice Kelleher SMA , late of SMA House, Wilton, Cork, died peacefully in the St Theresa’s Nursing Unit, SMA House, Blackrock Road on Wednesday afternoon, 10 August 2022. He was in his 85th year. He was predeceased by his parents Tim and Rita [neé Manning], sisters Margaret Kelleher and Maura Murphy and his brother Ray.

Popularly known as Fr Mossie, he is deeply regretted by his sisters Phyllis [Sweeney] and Carmel [Stone], his brothers Denis and Barry, sisters-in-law Jackie Kelleher and Attracta Kelleher and his brother-in-law Fred Stone, nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, other relatives, friends, the people of the Archdiocese of Ibadan, Nigeria, and his confreres in the Society of African Missions.

Reposing in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork, T12 E436, from 10.45am – 11.45am on Friday, 12 August. Funeral Mass at 12 noon followed by burial in the community cemetery.

The Funeral Mass can be viewed on https://www.smawilton.ie/live/

Due to Covid, those attending the funeral are respectfully asked to adhere to all social distancing and sanitising guidelines, wear a face covering and avoid shaking hands.

Requiescat in Pace.

Full Obituary in due course.

FOOD FOR OUR FAITH JOURNEY – Part Three

Welcome to the third installment of Food for our Faith Journey.  This week’s focus is the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ’s permanent presence – the Bread of Life shared among us as food to unite us with Him and to strengthen us as we endeavor to walk with God by living our lives according to His will. 

Included below are: 

To inform us
–  a video reflection on the Eucharist written and recorded by Fr Michael McCabe SMA. 

  • To raise our minds to God – A video Prayer for an increase in faith asking God to to strengthen our belief and to strengthen us to love one another as you love us.   
  • To inspire us – a quotation to motivate and strengthen the efforts we make to live our Faith.   

Eucharist 
Fr Michael McCabe SMA

Prayer for an Increase of Faith

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From the Eucharist comes strength to live the Christian life and zeal to share that life with others.

Pope John Paul II

 

 

AUGUST | For Small Businesses – the Pope’s Prayer Intention

We pray for small and medium-sized businesses; in the midst of economic and social crisis, may they find ways to continue operating, and serving their communities.

“As a consequence of the pandemic and the wars, the world is facing a grave socio-economic crisis,” says the Pope, who points out that small and medium-sized businesses are among those most affected. According to statistics for 2021 from the World Bank, one in four companies lost half of their volume of sales because of the global pandemic. In addition, public assistance is weakest precisely where it is most needed: in poor countries and for small businesses. 

TEXT OF THE POPE’s MESSAGE
As a consequence of the pandemic and the wars, the world is facing a grave socio-economic crisis. We still don’t realize it!
And among those most affected are small and medium-sized businesses.
Stores, workshops, cleaning businesses, transportation businesses, and so many others.
The ones that don’t appear on the world’s richest and most powerful lists, and despite the difficulties, they create jobs, fulfilling their social responsibility.
The ones that invest in the common good instead of hiding their money in tax havens.
They all dedicate an immense creative capacity to changing things from the bottom up, from where the best creativity always comes from.
With courage, with effort, with sacrifice, they invest in life, creating wellbeing, opportunities, and work.
Let us pray for small and medium-sized businesses, hard hit by the economic and social crisis, so they may find ways to continue operating, and serving their communities.

                                                                                    Pope Francis – August 2022

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

Sunday, 14 August 2022

Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10                    Hebrews 12: 1-4, 8-19, 9-11                    Luke 12:49-53

Theme: Setting the world on fire: Jesus’ mission and ours.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus says: ‘I have come to bring fire on earth, and how I wish it were blazing already’ (Lk 12:4). Jesus was not a spiritual guru teaching timeless spiritual truths. He was the Messiah sent by God to finally establish his rule of justice, peace, truth and love, first in Israel and then, through Israel, among all nations. As manifested in his words and deeds, this would mean good news for the poor, healing for the sick, and liberation for the enslaved and oppressed. Jesus’ mission was to launch a revolution. He wanted to set the world on fire, but the fire he brought was the fire of an unquenchable and unconquerable love, not the fire of hated or division. His entire ministry, especially his outreach to the poor and marginalised, represented an absolute reversal of the scale of values which held sway in first century Palestine. He knew he would meet with opposition and even rejection from the upholders of the unjust status quo, the powerful religious and political elites of his day. It was this awareness that triggered his statement in today’s gospel that he had come not ‘to bring peace on earth…but rather division(Lk 12:50).

This blunt statements seems shocking, contradicting everything we know about Jesus. Nothing could have been further from his mind than to foment violence and division. He was no rabble-rouser as were so many revolutionaries before and after him. On the eve of his passion and death, when Peter took out his sword to defend him as he was being arrested, Jesus rebuked him sternly, saying, Put your sword back in its scabbard; am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?(Jn 18:11).  Jesus’ way of establishing God’s reign on earth was not the way of violence. He emphatically rejected the politics of violent revolution adopted by the Zealots (the IRA of his day). He also rejected the strident nationalism of the Pharisees which created all kinds of divisions among the people. He chose instead the path of redemptive suffering. His way was to turn the other cheek, to walk the second mile and, ultimately, to take up the cross. He defeated evil by letting evil do its worst to him, by suffering it in love and forgiving his enemies. Jesus wanted peace, but not peace at any price, not the false peace achieved by violence or by compromise, and he was willing to pay the price of being faithful to his kingdom mission to the bitter end.  

Our second reading today from the Letter to the Hebrews exhorts us to imitate the zeal, courage and fortitude that Jesus showed in the face of ‘opposition from sinners’ (Heb 12:3). As disciples of Jesus, we are called to continue his mission in the service of God’s reign. Like him, we will meet with opposition and even rejection. We may not have ‘to keep fighting to the point of death’ (Heb 12:4), but we cannot avoid the cross in one form or another. Our first reading recalls the suffering endured by the prophet Jeremiah during a time of great upheaval in Israel. Accused of undermining the morale of the people of Israel, he was condemned and thrown into a deep well where he would have died but for the merciful intervention of a foreigner (a Cushite), Ebed-melech. Despite persecution and continued threats to his life, Jeremiah remained faithful to his uncomfortable vocation as God’s spokesperson.

We have more recent examples of prophets who spoke ‘truth to power’, to borrow a phrase from Bayard Rustin, and suffered for it. The heroic witness of Archbishops Helder Camara and Oscar Romero is well known. Less well known is the witness of a young Irish priest who worked in the Vatican Diplomatic service for many years. His name was Kevin and, a few weeks ago, I had the privilege of reading a moving account of his life and untimely death, written by his brother, Jerome. Kevin worked in many countries, including hot spots like Syria, Argentina and Cuba. He was the secretary of the Papal Nunciature in Buenos Aires from 1976 – ‘79, years when thousands of people were ‘disappeared’ (tortured and killed) by the military junta that followed the collapse of the Peron government.

Kevin drew up lists of the missing and asked the army generals where they were. According to Robert Cox, an American journalist working for the Buenos Aires Herald at the time, Kevin came to be hated by the generals. They taunted him, dubbing him ‘the little red priest’. I am reminded here of the words of Helder Camara, ‘When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist’. But Kevin was not daunted. Speaking to a friend about his actions on behalf of the ‘disappeared’, he said: ‘Now I know why I became a priest.’ Finally, following an apparent attempt on his life, he was withdrawn from Argentina and given another assignment. Yes, there is no escaping the cross if we are to be faithful disciples of Jesus. But we should not lose heart but persevere ‘in the race we have started’, keeping our focus on Jesus ‘who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection’ (Heb 12:2).

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, August 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.  

FOOD FOR OUR FAITH JOURNEY – Part Two

We continue with the second in our series of articles under the heading of Food for our Faith Journey.  This week the focus is on the place of Prayer in Christian living – its central role in nourishing us and linking us to God, our neighbor and creation. 

As in the last week’s article, this one also contains three items:

  • To inform us –  a video reflection written and recorded by Fr Gus O’Driscoll SMA, giving and overview of Church teaching on prayer.  
  • To raise our minds to God – A video Prayer, recorded in the garden in SMA House, Blackrock Rd – a silent reminder that God walks with us as we travel through life. 
  • To inspire us – a quotation to motivate and strengthen the efforts we make to live our Faith.   

Christian Prayer
Fr Gus O’Driscoll SMA

Meditation Garden
A Silent Prayer

Prayer is not asking.
Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.

Mother Teresa

 

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

7 August 2022

Wisdom 18:6-9                    Hebrews 11: 1-2, 8-19                    Luke 12:32-49

Theme: ‘Fear not, little flock’ (Luke 12:32)

According to the nineteenth century French philosopher, Charles Peguy, ‘the faith that God loves best is hope.’ As our second reading today illustrates, it is this kind of faith that Abraham, our Father in Faith, models. On the basis of a divine promise, he and his wife Sarah, both of them well on in years, leave their homeland and embark on a dangerous journey to a distant and unknown land. ‘It was by faith, Abraham obeyed the call to set out for a country that was the inheritance given to him and his descendants, and that he set out without knowing where he was going. By faith he arrived, as a foreigner in the Promised Land and lived there as if in a strange country’ (Heb 11:8-9). 

This dynamic, forward-looking, image of faith is a far cry from the understanding of faith that I grew up with and that continues to inform my life, the kind of faith celebrated in that rousing hymn, Faith of our Fathers – faith as fidelity to a sacred tradition. Abraham’s faith was more about moving forward in trust than about holding on to something handed down. In the words of Samuel Johnson, his faith was ‘a triumph of hope over experience’. I believe that this kind of trusting, hope-filled faith, is particularly relevant for the time in which we live.

The image of faith as journeying forward in hope also surfaces in our first reading from the Book of Wisdom. This book was written in the first century before Christ to encourage the Jews living far from their homeland, and strengthen their faith in the future kingdom God held in store for them. The passage read today recalls the night God liberated their ancestors from slavery in Egypt and gave them the courage to set out on a journey into the desert in the hope of reaching the promised land. ‘That night had been foretold to our ancestors, so that, once they saw what kind of oaths they had put their trust in, they would joyfully take courage’ (Wis 18:6). It was this kind of courageous, joyful faith that nurtured the lives of our missionary forebears – men and women who spent their lives sowing the seeds of God’s Word in far flung regions of the globe, many of whom died without seeing the fruits of their labours.

The opening words of today’s gospel passage from Saint Luke recall Jesus’ touching appeal to his disciples not to be afraid but to to trust in the kingdom the Father has in mind for them: Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom(Lk 12: 32).  Fear, not doubt, is the opposite of faith. ‘Fear not’ is Jesus’ most frequent exhortation to his disciples. Fear can paralyse us, holding us locked in the past, unable to move forward. The faith Jesus is looking for involves letting go of those things we imagine will make our lives secure – our possessions. In today’s gospel, Jesus challenges his disciples to sell their possessions and give alms (cf. Lk 12:33).

The courageous, forward-looking, faith that inspired Abraham and the Israelites and that Jesus requires of us is never easy. In the anxious and uncertain time in which we live, it is particularly demanding. The kingdom of the Father – the kingdom of universal justice, peace and love – that Jesus proclaimed seems to be a long way off. Daily, the media confront us with horrific images of war, hardship, loss and grief. By human calculation, the future seems bleak. While the world teeters on the brink of ecological disaster, political and religious institutions are becoming increasingly polarised and unable to unite in addressing the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced.

At a time like this, we tend to hold on grimly to the familiar terrain of the past rather than embrace the unknown future. But our Christian faith calls to move forward with hope in our hearts. This is the faith that we celebrate in every Eucharist. In the Eucharist we recall and re-enact what Jesus did on the night before he died – how, in the face of betrayal, suffering and death, he took bread and wine, blessed them and shared them with his disciples. This was surely the greatest act of hope-filled faith the world has every known. Hence, as Timothy Radcliffe O.P., the former Master General of the Dominicans, reminds us, ‘the Eucharist is not a cheerful gathering of nice people who sing songs and feel good. It is an outrageous expression of hope in defiance of everything that could destroy it’ (The Tablet, 16 July ‘22, p. 13).

Our Christian faith calls us to continue to witness to this defiant hope, even when the familiar moorings of our world seem to be collapsing around us. Faith does not guarantee that things will always work out for the best, at least not in the way we might expect. We are reminded of the words of Václav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic: ‘Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out’. And to live by this hope-filled faith is to be fully alive. It is to live in every circumstance with a light in our eyes and a spark in our hearts. It is to become clear signposts, pointing ‘to a city founded, designed and built by God’ (Heb 11:10).

Michael McCabe SMA, cork, July 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.  

SMA International News – August 2022

Welcome to the August edition of the SMA International News which brings reports from: 

Italy: from where we hear about the collaboration between the SMA and OLA.  Recently SMAs and OLAs met in Bardello to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the OLA House there.

Cote d’Ivoire: news about ordinations to the Priesthood and Diaconate, presided over by the Papal Nuncio, Bishop Paulo Borgia.

Nigeria, from where we hear again about ordinations of four Priests and three Deacons.  The ceremony was officiated by Most Rev Gabriel Abegunrin, Archbishop of Ibadan.

World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2022 – 30th July

One minute Video to raise awareness that Human Trafficking has conquered cyberspace – click to view and to expand 

One minute Video to highlight the use of technology to detect, rescue and support victims

The theme of this year    The theme of this  year’s World Day Against Trafficking is:

“Use and abuse of technology” 

Technology is a tool that can both enable and impede human trafficking. With the global expansion in the use of technology – intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift of our everyday life to online platforms — the crime of human trafficking has conquered cyber space. The internet and digital platforms offer traffickers numerous tools to recruit, exploit, and control victims; organize their transport and accommodation; advertise victims and reach out to potential clients; communicate among perpetrators; and hide criminal proceeds – and all that with greater speed, cost-effectiveness and anonymity.

Technology also allows criminals to operate internationally across jurisdictions and evade detection with greater ease. Traffickers use social media to identify, groom and recruit victims, including children; e-mails and messaging services are used for the moral coercion of the victims; and online platforms allow traffickers to widely advertise services provided by victims.

Crisis situations can also intensify this problem. Criminals profit from the chaos, desperation, and separation of people – particularly women and children – from support systems and family members.  For people on the move, online resources can become a trap, especially when it comes to phony travel arrangements and fake job offers targeting vulnerable groups.

However, in the use of technology also lies great opportunity. Future success in eradicating human trafficking will depend on how law enforcement, the criminal justice systems and others can make use of technology in their responses, including by aiding investigations to shed light on the modus operandi of trafficking networks; enhancing prosecutions through digital evidence, to alleviate the situation of victims in criminal proceedings and to support survivors. Prevention and awareness-raising activities on the safe use of the internet and social media could help mitigate the risk of people falling victim of trafficking.

STATISTICS:  Given the hidden nature of human trafficking, it is almost impossible to understand the full scope and scale of the issue.
Amongst the most trusted sources for understanding, the global situation is the research by the International Labour Organization (ILO).  According to its latest report on forced labour:  There are an estimated 40.3 Million victims trapped in modern day Slavery.
– 24.9 million were exploited for labour.  – 15.4 million were in forced marriage.
– 71% of trafficking victims around the world are women and girls and 29% are men and boys. 
– 16 million (64%) forced labour victims work in domestic work, construction or agriculture. – 4.8 million (19%) persons in forced sexual exploitation.
– 4 million (16%) persons in forced labour imposed by state authorities.

Information Source:  https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/endht/index.html  
and https://trello.com/b/IKolsHsG/2022-world-day-against-trafficking-in-persons 

FOOD FOR OUR FAITH JOURNEY – Part One

Many SMA’s have, down through the years, worked in Northern Nigeria and learned Hausa, the lingua franca spoken among the different linguistic and ethnic groups who live in this part of the world. In the Hausa language, apart from the everyday word for food, there is a specific word meaning food for the journey, i.e. “Gurasa,”  – that which nourishes and sustains the traveller.  Each week over the coming few months we will publish a new article, like this one, under the heading of Food for our Faith Journey and we hope it will provide some sustenance as we travel with God on our own life journey.  

Each article will contain three items:

  • To inform us –  a video reflection on living the Catholic Faith, written and recorded by SMA Missionaries. These give a brief look at what the Church teaches about a particular topic.  
  • To raise our minds to God – A video Prayer, reminding us that He is with us, walking alongside us, as we travel through life. 
  • To inspire us – a quotation to motivate and strengthen the efforts we make to live our Faith.   

Reflection on Hope 

A Prayer to the Creator – from Fratelli Tutti

 

I plead with you!
Never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.

Saint Pope John Paul II

 

 

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

31 July 2022

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23                         Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11                         Luke 12:13-21

Theme: Make yourself rich in the sight of God

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity’ (Ecc 1:2). This statement from our first reading runs like a refrain through the Book of Ecclesiastes. We could be forgiven for thinking that its author – Qoheleth – must have got out on the wrong side of the bed when he penned that line. Indeed, it seems shocking to find such a pessimistic assessment of human life in the bible. It seems contrary to a healthy and balanced appreciation of earthly realities. Surely the struggle to transform the world by the work of our hands is, as all our recent Popes have stated, a valuable and essential dimension of human life.

Yet Qoheleth is echoing a common human experience of disillusionment with life. Many of you will be familiar with the poignant words of ‘Don’t Cry for me Argentina’ from the movie, Evita. This song expresses Eva Peron’s awareness of the emptiness of all the glamour and excess her privileged life had brought her: ‘And as for fortune, and as for fame/I never invited them in./They are illusions; they’re not the solutions they promised to be’. The poet W.B. Yeats offers a similarly sober reflection on life in the dystopian epitaph he composed for his gravestone in Drumcliffe: ‘Cast a cold eye/On life. On death/Horseman pass by’. The brevity of life and the certainty of death disclose the futility of much human striving for success. As the psalmist reminds us: ‘We take nothing with us when we die. Our wealth does not follow us into the grave’ (Ps 49:17).

Qoheleth’s bleak philosophy of life is certainly an antidote to the naïve optimism of those who believe that things will always turn out for the best. It also raises the question about the ultimate meaning of human life. Is there any enduring value or purpose that is worth striving for? In the words of Patrick Kavanagh, can we find ‘Something not sold for a penny/ In the slums of Mind’. This is a question and a quest to which Qoheleth does not provide a final answer. But there is an answer – the answer Jesus gives us in today’s gospel from Luke, namely to ‘make [ourselves] rich in the sight of God’ (Lk 12:21). That is the only goal worthy of our time and effort.

Jesus answer comes in response to a request to arbitrate a family dispute about inheritance which he refuses to do. Instead he issues the following warning against greed which he then illustrates with a parable about a rich farmer who decides to erect bigger barns to store his bumper crop. Unfortunately, the horseman of death pays him a call before he is able to enjoy the fruits of his labours. Jesus is not condemning industry and hard work – which are lauded in the parable of the talents – but rather greed and selfishness. The rich farmer is concerned only with himself and his desires: ‘What am I to do… I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them’ (Lk 17-18). Neither God nor neighbour enter into his calculations.

The parable of the rich, but foolish, farmer illustrates the fundamental flaw in the model of economic development at the heart of liberal capitalism. It’s motto is that ‘greed is good’; its catchwords are ‘more’, ‘bigger’ and ‘better’. It is fuelled by the relentless pursuit of wealth, even at the cost of destroying the beautiful planet we inhabit. The recent crisis in the golfing world, with several famous golfers abandoning their the PGA tour for the more lucrative LIV golf series, funded by Saudi Arabia, is just one instance of the cult of the golden calf which continues to thrive in our consumerist culture. This reminds me of the story about a schoolteacher teaching bible lessons to a class of ten year old boys. She asks the class: ‘Why do you think the children of Israel made a golden calf?’ After a few moments of silence, one boy puts up this hand and says, ‘Please Miss, it was because they didn’t have enough gold to make a cow’.

But how do we become rich in the sight of God and resist the blandishments of  the advertising industry? Our second reading today from St Paul’s Letter to the Colossians points out the way: ‘You must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is (Col 3:1). These things are the counter-cultural values of love of God, service of others, especially the poor, and respect for creation. The God of Jesus Christ is a God who sides with the poor and marginalised; he is the God who, in the words of the Magnificat, ‘fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty(Lk 1:53). Becoming rich in the sight of God is not something we can achieve quickly or easily. It requires us to reflect seriously and often on the life and death of Jesus and to follow his example of self-giving love. It requires, above all, openness to his Spirit. So let us, in response to the challenge of today’s readings, take to heart the words of Jimmy Mc Carthy’s haunting song, One Bright Blue Rose (a lovely symbol for Christ): ‘And it is a holy thing/And it is a precious time/And it is the only way…/It’s always been and so it goes/To ponder his death/And his life eternally.’

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, July 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

Sunday, 24 July 2022

World Day of Prayer for Grandparents and the Elderly

Genesis 18:20-32                    Colossians 2:12-14                    Luke 11:1-13

Theme: ‘Lord, teach us to pray’ (Lk 11:1)

Two weeks ago, on a balmy Sunday afternoon, I joined in the celebration of an open air Mass for the Dead in the cemetery of my home parish. As the graves were being blessed after Holy Communion, and while the Rosary was being recited, one woman was heard to remark as she left the cemetery, ‘I’m going. I’m prayed out of here.’  Jesus was not in favour of long repetitive prayers. To the contrary, he recommended that we keep our prayers short and to the point: ‘In praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him(Mt 6:7-8). In today’s gospel passage from Luke, when asked by one of his disciples to teach them to pray, Jesus gives them the wonderfully concise prayer we call the ‘Our Father’ (cf. Lk 11: 1-4). According to Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, the ‘Our Father’ is not only our best prayer but also our best summary of the Christian faith.

There is a beautiful Church on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem which commemorates the event described in today’s gospel. Known as the ‘Pater Noster (Our Father) Church’, the walls of its cloister feature the Lord’s Prayer inscribed on colourful ceramic plaques in over one hundred and fifty languages. In April 2008, I had the privilege of celebrating Mass in that sacred place along with a small number of priests and sisters – participants in the ‘Ecce Homo’ Biblical Formation Programme that Spring. After Mass I spent some time walking along the beautiful vaulted cloister, checking to see if I could find a Gaelic version of the Lord’s Prayer. To my delight I found that our native Irish language was included.

The ‘Our Father’ is not only the prayer Jesus taught his disciples and the model for all Christian prayer. It is, first and foremost, the prayer of Jesus himself to his beloved Father. Many beautiful commentaries have been written on the ‘Our Father’. Two outstanding ones that come to my mind are Pope Benedict’s commentary in his recent book, Jesus of Nazareth, and the commentary in The Catechism of the Catholic Church. This homily is not an attempt add another commentary. I simply wish to highlight three notable characteristics of the ‘Our Father’, particularly relevant for the times in which we live:
First, it is a prayer that liberates us;
second, it is a prayer that challenges us,
and third, it is a revolutionary prayer.

A Liberating Prayer

The ‘Our Father’ is a prayer that we, in Ireland, normally say standing up. And rightly so for it is a prayer which enables us to stand with freedom and dignity in a world where God’s will is far from being a reality. We can pray this prayer and can address God as ‘Father’ because we stand with Christ who has made us his brothers and sisters, God’s children. This means that, as St. Paul so eloquently tells us in Romans (chapter eight) nothing can separate us from the love of God. There is, indeed, much evil in our world, but with Christ we shall never be overwhelmed by it, since he has conquered not only the worst that humans can do, but especially the power of Satan. So we are liberated from anxiety because we stand and pray the ‘Our Father‘ with Christ, in whom we have a sure anchor in this turbulent, difficult, and at times nightmarish world.

A Challenging Prayer

The ‘Our Father’ is a prayer that challenges us to live and act as God’s children, to become in reality what we claim to be. We cannot truly pray the ‘Our Father’ unless we concern ourselves with the needs of others, unless we are willing to share our bread with the hungry, to forgive one another, and to seek God’s glory rather than our own. We cannot honestly pray the ‘Our Father’ unless we are prepared to struggle against the evil in the world and act so as to make God’s Reign a reality in the concrete circumstances in which we live. To put it in a nutshell, the ‘Our Father’ challenges us to let God act through us to bring about his Kingdom.

A Revolutionary Prayer

In the ‘Our Father’, the central petition is: ‘Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. To make this petition is to envisage the most revolutionary change imaginable in our world. It is to long for a ‘new creation’, a world where God’s dream for us is realised, where forgiveness is the first imperative in all our relationships, where the evils of division and structural injustice are radically excised. The world we pray for in the ‘Our Father’ is not just a better world; it is a world of transformed relationships; a world in which we live at one with ourselves, with God, with one another and with the earth.

To pray the ‘Our Father‘ with confidence, and to mean what we pray, requires courage and commitment. Indeed, we can only pray this prayer because we stand in that intimate place where our brother, Jesus, stands in relation to his Father. With Him, who has made himself one with us, we dare to address God, not as ‘Master‘, but as ‘Abba’ – ‘dear Father‘. 

Fr Michael McCabe, SMA, Cork, July 2022

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

17 July 2022

Genesis 18:1-10                    Colossians 1:24-28                    Luke 10:38-42

Theme:  Welcoming the Word of God

When we share, that is poetry in the prose of life.’ So wrote Sigmund Freud. The tradition of hospitality is a notable characteristic of all civilisations and cultures. Indeed, hospitality ranks among the most highly acclaimed virtues in the Bible. The examples of Elijah receiving hospitality from a poor widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17-18) and of Elisha being hosted by a wealthy Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:8ff) spring to mind. Today’s first reading from the book of Genesis illustrates the hospitality of Abraham, our father in Faith.  It describes how he welcomed three strangers into his tent with great kindness and generosity. On seeing them, he runs out to greet them and bows down in respect before them. Then he offers them water to wash their feet and invites them to rest while he and his wife, Sarah, prepare a lavish meal for them. One of these strangers happens to be the Lord himself and Abraham’s hospitality is rewarded with the good news that his wife, Sarah, will bear him a son: ‘I shall visit you again next year without fail, and your wife will then have a son’ (Gen 18:10). In welcoming strangers, Abraham and Sarah met their Lord and were abundantly blessed. In reminding us of the importance of hospitality, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews surely had in mind the example of Abraham when he wrote:  ‘Do not neglect hospitality, for through it, some have unknowingly entertained angels’ (Hebrews 13:2).

Today’s gospel reading features Jesus as the recipient of hospitality in the home of Martha in Bethany: ‘Jesus came to a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house’ (Lk 10:38). We are accustomed to think of Jesus as the great Giver, the one who came on earth ‘not to be served but to serve, and to give his life for the ransom of many’ (Mt 20:28). But Jesus, the fully human one, also needed the love and care of others. And he was able to receive it graciously. Some people are very good at giving, at spending their lives in the service of others, but not good at receiving from others. They don’t want to be in anyone’s debt, or to admit needing the love and care of others. But it is as important to be able to receive as to give. Giving and receiving are complementary and inseparable dimensions of love. In the prayer of St Francis, we pray that ‘it is in giving that we receive’ but it is equally true that in receiving graciously we also give and become a channel of God’s grace for others.

In the gospel story we have just heard, Martha, as the head of the house, is the one who welcomes Jesus and serves him. She is the epitome of the caregiver. She immediately begins setting the table and preparing a meal for Jesus. I have the impression that she was also a bit of a fusspot, overly anxious about making a good impression on her honoured guest. Mary, her sister, comes across as a more relaxed person, comfortable in her own skin, a good listener. Clearly, Jesus loved both of them very much. Along with their brother, Lazarus, they were among Jesus’ closest friends. However, there is no mention of Lazarus in today’s story and Jesus finds himself, a single man, in the company of the two sisters. Surprisingly, in light of the cultural customs of his day, he is quite at ease in the company of these women. In her own way, Mary makes Jesus welcome by sitting at his feet – the posture of a disciple – and listening to him. While Martha is preparing a meal for Jesus, Mary is allowing Jesus to nourish her with his life-giving word. She epitomises the receiving person. And when Martha complains to Jesus that, because of his conversation with Mary, she is being left ‘to do the serving all by herself’ (Lk 10:40), he chides her gently: ‘Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part’ (Lk 10:41). 

Sometimes the story of Martha and Mary has been interpreted to contrast the different vocations of the active and contemplative apostolates, with the latter being presented as superior to the former. I don’t think that this is the point of the story at all. Jesus is not downplaying Martha or her role of service. He reproves  her because she wanted Mary to  abandon him and help her with the serving. Martha failed to accept or appreciate the role of Mary in making Jesus feel welcome by listening to him. The importance of Mary’s example should not be lost on us as it was seemingly lost on Martha. Christian discipleship involves both prayer (listening to the word of God) and action (service of others). We are called to be both listeners to the Word and doers of the Word. And we will not be doers of the Word unless we are first listeners. Without prayerful listening to the Word of God, our activity, however well-intentioned, may not lead to the spread of the gospel or the growth of God’s kingdom in the world. God’s missionary purpose can only be gleaned from a profound listening to the voice of his Spirit. The example of Mary serves as a salutary antidote to our noisy, restless, hyperactive age, which, in the words of the poet, T.S. Eliot,

‘Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness,
knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Brings knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

JULY | For the Elderly – the Pope’s Prayer Intention

“We pray for the elderly, who represent the roots and memory of a people; may their experience and wisdom help young people to look towards the future with hope and responsibility.”  Pope Francis

  • The Holy Father invites us to pray that the experience and wisdom of the elderly may help young people to look towards the future with hope.
  • In his message, the Pope says that the elderly have “a great responsibility towards new generations.” 
  • For the elderly, “there are many plans for assistance, but few projects for existence,” Francis emphasizes in this video.

This month’s prayer intention coincides with the celebration of the Second World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, which will be celebrated on Sunday, July 24, in Rome as well as in all the dioceses around the world.

Text of Pope Francis message:
We cannot speak about family without talking about the importance of the elderly among us. There have never been so many of us in the history of humanity, but we don’t quite know how to live this new stage of life: there are many plans for assistance for the old age, but few projects for existence.

We elderly people often have a special sensitivity for care, for reflection, and affection. We are, or we can become, teachers of tenderness. And indeed we can! In this world accustomed to war, we need a true revolution of tenderness. We have a great responsibility towards new generations about this.

Let us remember: grandparents and the elderly are the bread that nourishes our lives, the hidden wisdom of a people. That is why we must celebrate them, and I have established a day dedicated to them. Let us pray for the elderly, that they may become teachers of tenderness so that their experience and wisdom may help young people to look towards the future with hope and responsibility.

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

10 July 2022

Deuteronomy 30:10-14                         Colossians 1:15-20                         Luke 10:25-37

Theme: ‘Go, and do the same yourself’ (Lk 10:37)

Today’s gospel from Luke recounts one of the best known and most loved stories in the Bible – the parable of the good Samaritan. Unfortunately, we are so familiar with this parable that it may not have the impact on us that it would have had on those who first heard it. At one level, it is an edifying story about an act of kindness to an unfortunate victim of violent robbery. Indeed, Jesus is challenging us to imitate the compassion and care shown by the good Samaritan to a fellow human being in dire need of help: ‘Go and do the same yourself’ (Lk 10:37). In the words of Glen Campbell‘s hit song, Jesus is calling on us to ‘try a little kindness and overlook the blindness of the narrow-minded people on the narrow-minded streets’.

I had a personal experience of such an act of kindness about eight months ago, when I had a nasty fall on the streets of Ballintemple, Cork City. Rushing to catch a bus, I tripped on the kerb of the footpath and fell on my face, causing some damage – it looked much worse than it was. I was immediately surrounded by people who saw my fall and reached out to help me. One young man with a medical background got off the bus as it was about to leave and administered first aid. Another woman called the Superior of our House in Blackrock Road, who phoned for an ambulance. Several hands then lifted me off the street and led me to a nearby pub, where I was given a refreshing cup to tea while awaiting the ambulance. Later, as I was recovering from the fall, one of the women who had come to my help called in to our house, inquired how I was, and left me a box chocolates. The kindness of these ‘good Samaritans’ made a deep impression on me, reminding me of the spontaneous kindness of people I had never met before in my life. Thank God for them! 

There is a deeper meaning to the parable of the Good Samaritan which emerges only when we look at the context in which Jesus told this famous story. Jesus is approached by an educated Jew, a lawyer, or expert in the interpretation of the Torah (the Law of Moses). We are told that he wants to ‘disconcert’ or ‘test’ Jesus. So he asks Jesus a question to which he knows the answer very well: ‘Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?’ (Lk 10:25). Jesus, aware of what was in the lawyer’s mind, responds by asking him a question: ‘What is written in the Law? What do you read there?’ (Lk 10:26). The lawyer, as we would expect, answers correctly, citing the double commandment at the heart of the Torah: love of God and love of neighbour. Our first reading today echoes this commandment, recalling Moses’ injunction to the people of Israel ‘to obey the voice of the Lord your God’ and keep his commandments (cf. Dt 30:10). Jesus acknowledges the lawyer’s answer, saying, ‘You have answered right. Do this and life is yours’ (Lk 10:28).

The lawyer might, then, have then gone on his way and we would never have had the story of the Good Samaritan. But he wanted to test Jesus further and also to justify himself. So he puts another question to Jesus: ‘And who is my neighbour?’ (Lk 10:29). This was a hotly debated question at the time of Jesus. For most Jews, their neighbours, whom the Law commanded them to love, were their fellow Jews, those who belonged to the Chosen People. Outsiders, like the Samaritan in the story, were not considered neighbours and were despised rather than loved. Jesus does not respond to the lawyer’s question with a definition of neighbour, as he (the lawyer) would have expected. Instead, Jesus turns the question on its head and, instead of answering it, tells a story which illustrates what being a neighbour means. And the unlikely hero of Jesus’ story, the model of neighbourliness, is not the Priest or the Levite, highly respected members of the Chosen People, but an outsider, a Samaritan.

In this story, then, Jesus is answering a question he was not asked, namely, who are God’s people? And the answer Jesus gives is: the good Samaritans of this world, the people who embody, in acts of loving kindness, the compassion and care of the God of love. In this story, then, Jesus is challenging the lawyer, as he is challenging us, to look beyond the narrow frontiers of our official Religious Traditions, with their divisions and exclusions, and embrace the universal reign of God’s love, from which no one is excluded. Indeed, the despised outsiders, the good Samaritans, may prove themselves more exemplary models of God’s faithful people, than those who consider themselves as ‘ saved insiders’. The lawyer in today’s gospel reading may not be far from the kingdom of God for, when asked by Jesus, he acknowledges that, of the three characters in Jesus’ story – the Priest, the Levite and the Samaritan – it is the Samaritan who proves himself a neighbour to the unfortunate victim of violent robbery. The reading ends with Jesus inviting him, as he is also inviting us, to imitate the example of genuine neighbourliness. So let us pray: Open our eyes to see the need of others and make us channels of your compassion and care for them. Amen.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

SMA International News – July 2022

Welcome to the July edition of the SMA International News which brings news from: 

Rome: We hear about the Plenary Council that took place early in June. 
Tanzania: About the Lulu and Tanga Projects that continue to support and enhance the lives of people. 
France:  We hear about an anniversary celebration that took place recently in Combres, to mark the 140th Anniversary of the beginning of evangelization in Ghana with the arrival of Fr Auguste Moreau SMA.

As usual, this bulletin concludes with a general round-up of SMA information. 

Homily – 163rd anniversary of the death of SMA Founder

Bp-de-Bresillac
Melchior de Marion Brésillac, Founder of the Society of African Missions (SMA)

On 25 June 1859, the SMA Founder, Bishop Melchior de Marion Brésillac died of Yellow Fever in Freetown, Sierra Leone. On 25 June last, the SMA community in Blackrock Road, Cork, gathered to celebrate this great servant of mission. Fr Jérôme Anoumou-Sassou, from Togo and now a seconded member of the Irish Province, preached at the community Mass. The following is an edited version of Fr Jérome’s homily.

Yesterday we celebrated the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; today we are celebrating the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Immaculate Heart of Mary is about the love of her Heart for Jesus, for God and her compassionate love for all persons. One of the ways Mary demonstrates this love is when the message of the angel came to her: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).

That was her answer. Like her, God constantly surprises us and he wreaks havoc with our plans. And God tells us: trust me, do not be afraid, let yourself be surprised, leave yourself behind and follow me!

Today let us all ask ourselves whether we are afraid of what God might ask, or of what he does ask. Do we let ourselves be surprised by God, as Mary was, or do we remain caught up in our own safety zone: in forms of material, intellectual or ideological security, taking refuge in our own projects and plans?

Do we truly let God into our lives? How do we answer him? These are important questions we should be reflecting on, on this feast day especially as we celebrate our Venerable Founder who gave his life for the mission 163 years ago. Our Founder gave his life totally to God and committed himself body and soul to the will of God.

Bishop Melchior de Marion Brésillac answered to God as Mary did. Right from the beginning of his journey towards priesthood and how he chose to be a missionary from the bottom of his heart. We see how he left home without saying goodbye to his own family and how he was passionate for the mission to Africa after he resigned from his office as a Bishop.

The life and the commitment of our Founder shows us today how we too must dedicate our own life to God and we have been doing it so far.

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” [Jn 12,24]. My brothers, we believe that Bishop de Brésillac and his first followers who arrived in Sierra Leone for the mission were that single grain of wheat that fell into the ground of Africa and died so that the Society of African Missions will flourish.

Bishop de Brésillac by his death gave birth to many SMA missionaries from the four corners of the earth. His life and death gave birth to SMA missionaries who brought the Good News of God’s love to people.

It is a great joy to see that the mission of SMA is moving positively even though in this part of the world, the lack of personnel is highly experienced. We followers should also consider that we are seeds that must die in order to become what we too are destined for.

What does this mean for me?

I must lose my protective covering and die to self—the false self—and allow the true self to grow. I must be rooted in God and respond to my environment—take in those things that encourage growth. I must lose the false knowledge of self—whatever keeps me from God.

What does this mean for our community?

We need to let go of our protective coverings—the familiar that holds us back. We need to move out into the unfamiliar in order to be available for whatever God wants us to be. We need to be open to new growth in new areas, new ways. We need to be open to the next step whatever it is as Bishop de Brésillac did all his life. Today, we from Africa are here for mission. Is it our own wish? I don’t think so, but it is the wish of God for us to be here and personally I’m very happy to be here.

One thing again we need to learn from the Bishop de Brésillac is his trust in people.

Quoting from the book “To prepare His Ways” written by Bishop Patrick J Harrington, SMA: On 1st January 1859, Bishop Melchior told his trusted colleague and friend that “only God knows all the pains and difficulties awaiting me this year, but by His grace, I think that I am ready to suffer all of them, all the trials of the tempest both physical and mental. And if the sea and the rocks were to make this year my last, you would be there to see that the work did not get shipwrecked too”.  (p. 368)

I hope that all of us have experienced in our life that we were trusted, in fact we dis everything possible not to fail in our work or project. That is what Fr Planque did to resist on all the winds around him so that the work started did not get shipwrecked when the Founder died.

We too should rely on people’s ability or capacity of doing things, we should trust without reserve and help one another to bring out the good things inside us.

As we celebrate the death of our Founder, we pray for his canonization as we say: Lord God you called Melchior de Marion Brésillac to serve you…

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/dove-peace-olive-branch-hope-7039341/

3 July 2022

Isaiah 66:10-14                        Galatians 6:14-18                        Luke 10:1-12,17-20

Theme: Sent as Ambassadors of Peace

Jesus invited his disciples not only to follow him, and learn from him, but also to share in his mission of proclaiming and witnessing to the Kingdom of God. In today’s gospel from Luke, Jesus nominates seventy-two of his disciples and sends them out ‘ahead of him, in pairs, to all the towns and places he himself was to visit’ (Lk 10:1). He gives them specific instructions about what they are to do and how they are to conduct themselves. Their mission is to heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God is very near to them (cf. Lk 10:9). They are to leave immediately and to travel light – without purse, haversack or sandals. They are to salute no one on the road (cf. Lk 10:4) and to rely on the hospitality of those who welcome them.  Above all, they are to be peace-bearers. ‘I am sending you out, he tells them, ‘like lambs among wolves’ (Lk 10:3), and ‘your first words’ on entering a house are to be ‘Peace to this house’ (Lk 10:5). Even if they meet with hostility or rejection, they are not let this disturb them but let their peace return to them.

The theme of peace looms large in the life and ministry of Jesus. Heralded by the Prophet Isaiah as the ‘Prince of Peace’ (Is 9:6), Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is accompanied by angels singing, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people on whom God’s favour rests (Lk 2:14). Among the beatitudes, Jesus’ Kingdom charter, he includes the peacemakers: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called children of God (Mt 5:9). And his final gift to his disciples on the eve of his  passion and death was the gift of peace: My peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid (Jn 14:27). We can truly say, in the words of the English philosopher, Francis Bacon, ‘When Christ came to the world, peace was sung; and when he went out of the world, peace was bequested.

The Kingdom of God and its peace was the central concern of the life and ministry of Jesus. It was the reason for which he lived, died and rose again. It is for that kingdom and that peace we pray in the “Our Father” when we say, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven’. The peace of God’s Kingdom is the fruit of God’s spirit at work in us, the outcome of his ultimate intention for his people and his world. It was for this peace for that the people of Israel longed and which, they believed, would take root in our world with the coming of the Messiah. It is in anticipation of this peace that the  prophet, Isaiah, in our first reading, calls on Jerusalem to rejoice and be glad: ‘Now towards her I send flowing peace, like a river, and like a stream in spate the glory of the nations’ (Is 66:12).

The Hebrew word for peace is ‘shalom’ and it has a much greater depth of meaning than we normally associate with the English word ‘peace’. It signifies not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of harmony and integrity in the life of the individual person, in society – a harmony that embraces the entire created world. Shalom involves openness, friendship, tolerance, goodwill, hospitality, reconciliation. It disposes us to reach out to others, to break down barriers of suspicion, fear, prejudice and bigotry. It includes the idea of wholeness, of being fully healed so that we are “at one” with God, with oneself, with others, and with all created things.

The promotion of peace is at the very core of Christian mission. Like the first disciples of Jesus, we are called and sent into the world to be ambassadors of peace. And also, like the first disciples, we must accept that our peace will not always be accepted. It may return to us like an echo of our own voice. In a world constantly torn by rivalry, anger and bigotry, we have the challenging vocation to be living signs of a love, expressed in kindness to everyone, that can bridge divisions and heal wounds. As Pope Francis had reminded us, in his recent encyclical letter, Fratelli Tutti: ‘The real antidote to the open hostility characteristic of age is not superficial tolerance but the virtue of kindness…. It is kindness that facilitates the quest for consensus; it opens new paths where hostility and conflict would burn all bridges’ (FT 204).

 So let us pray in the familiar words of St Francis of Assisi:

‘Lord,  make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
and to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.’

Michael McCabe SMA, June 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Fr John Flynn SMA – Funeral homily

The Funeral Mass for the late Fr John Flynn SMA was celebrated in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork on Friday, 24 June 2022. Fr Malachy Flanagan, the SMA Irish Provincial Leader, was the Principal Celebrant and he was assisted by Fr John Horgan, a classmate of Fr John and by Fr Gus O’Driscoll SMA who worked with Fr John in both Ghana and Philippines. Fr Gus gave the homily during the Mass.

Fr John’s sister Eliza Crotty and his brother Seamus accompanied by a number of Fr John’s nieces, nephews, a grandniece and two grandnephews as well as a large number of SMA priests along with OLA Sisters were in attendance for the ceremony. Fr John had two sisters, both now deceased, in the Congregation of the Daughters of Mary and Joseph (DMJ) and they were represented by Sr Joan Roddy. After the Mass, Fr John was laid to rest in the SMA community cemetery adjacent to the Church. Fr Anthony Kelly, who also worked with Fr John in Ghana, led a decade of the Rosary after Fr John’s body was laid to rest beside many other SMA missionaries who had toiled in many African countries.

Before the Mass, symbols of Fr John’s life were presented: a Prayer book and Rosary symbolising Fr John’s faith, which he learnt in the family home in Newtowncashel, Co Longford; a Yoruba carved crucifix reminding us of Fr John’s many years in Nigeria and Ghana; a Barong – a shirt worn in the Philippines for formal occasions and a family photo of Fr John with his four sisters and two brothers.

The readings at Mass were read by Fr John’s nieces, Catherine [Isaiah 25:6-9] and Mary [Romans 14:7-12]. The Gospel was taken from John 12:24-26 – the grain of wheat dies and so yields a rich harvest. Fr John’s grandniece and two grandnephews read the Prayers of the Faithful. The following is an edited version of Fr Gus’s homily.

When we refer to people who have lived a long life, people well into their 80’s and early 90’s, we have a lovely expression which says – “he / she lived to a ripe old age”. The important word in that expression is not “old age”, but “ripe”.  A person who has harvested well from the seeds that were planted in youth, in one’s early years. Old age brings infirmity, brings limitations; it calls for adjustments and some restrictions.

But old age can also bring the grace of acceptance of one’s condition and situation. It can bring an interior calm and serenity. One writer has described old age in terms of a strong river which calms down as it reaches the ocean. I think we can safely say that Fr. John Flynn “lived to a ripe old age”.

The idea of ripeness and harvesting is presented to us in the gospel reading chosen for this Mass – “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies  … a rich harvest”.

We are like seeds dropped by the hand of God into the field of life. Under his gaze, we break through the surface and open ourselves, as it were, to the sun and the rain. But as we open ourselves to receive, we must also open ourselves to give. Those who live for themselves will stagnate. Those who live for others will grow and bear fruit.  But to live for others means to die to self; and that’s the hard part!

Fr. John took on this teaching of Jesus in a very specific way in 1958 when he set sail for the coast of West Africa. He left the comforts of home and family and became a new seed dropped by God into the soil of Nigeria. There he went to work among the peoples of the mid-west. The area soon became engulfed in a civil war. John and his fellow missionaries had to face great dangers. One of his closest companions, Fr. Richard Wall, here with us in church today, can attest to the sufferings and violence endured at the hands of the military.

But they stayed with the people, and after a number of turbulent years, peace was restored.

In 1973, John was asked by his SMA Superiors to take up a new assignment in Ghana, further along the coast of West Africa. He formed part of a team of five who began a new mission in Ghana by the Irish Province, in the newly erected diocese of Sunyani. I joined that team four years later together with my ordination classmates Anthony Kelly and Michael Philipps. It was John who met us at the airport in Accra on that September evening in 1977, our first night on African soil. Even though Ghana was going through a difficult time politically and economically, and what we called “essential commodities” were in scare supply, it was an exciting time to be a young missionary. Essential commodities was Ghana speak for food, toiletries, the various essentials of life. We learned so much from the wisdom of John and the other seasoned missionaries – “a grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying ….”

Time doesn’t allow me to recount the many wonderful stories from that time, some serious, some humorous, all in the cause of spreading the gospel of Christ.

As is the lot in missionary life, one puts down roots for a period of time and then moves on again to another place. And so it was with John, taking up a new assignment in Rome as secretary to the Superior General, Fr Patrick J Harrington, and his Council. In preparation for this assignment, John took up the study of French. He became sufficiently competent to be able to translate some of the writings of our Founder from French to English. It showed once again John’s single-mindedness and clear focus.

Another new chapter opened up for John in 1991 when he took up the challenge of assisting in the development of the newly established Philippine Unit of the SMA. Once again, I followed his footsteps a year later when I took up an appointment in the formation ministry of our Filipino and Indian students in Silang, Cavite, south of Manila. Though I resided in the Formation Centre during the week, I went into Good Shepherd Parish each weekend to assist John and Fr. John McCormack, the parish priest.

Ten years later I took up full-time ministry in the parish, and I was able to see first-hand John’s great commitment to the parishioners. Among his many responsibilities, I pick out two for special mention – celebration of the Eucharist and Pastoral Care of the Sick and housebound.

Liturgy is very vibrant and enriching in the Philippines. Perhaps the annual highlight is the Filipino tradition of Simbang Gabi or Missa de Gallo, the Masses at Cockcrow. For nine days, beginning on 16th December, we rise about 3.30am. John was out the door by 4.00am to celebrate Mass either in the parish church or one of the chapels found throughout the parish, which were generally packed with parishioners; one of four masses in the parish at that time each morning. John did this for 20 years, right into his 80th year.

The other ministry to which John devoted himself to was in the pastoral care of the sick. I would say, it was this ministry above all else, which endeared himself so much to the people. And you can imagine that in a densely populated parish like Good Shepherd, there were many people who needed care. In 2008, we held a big celebration in the parish to acknowledge his 50 years of priesthood and his 78th birthday. For me, the most touching part of that evening was hearing the voices of the many sick people to whom he ministered. Members of the Pastoral Council had gone to their homes in the previous week to record their messages. One after another, their message was a simple one of gratitude – “Salamat Fr. John, Salamat Po!

John’s 20 years in the Philippines was perhaps the most enriching period of his life. He was much loved by the people. This has come through again in the many emails I have received in the past two days, messages and tributes attesting to his great kindness, his generosity of spirit and selfless dedication. I pass on those messages to you his family – to his sister Eliza, his brothers Seamus and Mike, nephews and nieces. 

John was pretty exhausted when he came home from the Philippines in 2011. All the “going-away” parties took their toll! Not to mention the long-haul flight from S.E. Asia to Dublin, a journey of about 17 hours. He was soon admitted to hospital for heart surgery.  But he recovered well, and was able to live out his remaining years in our SMA communities here in Wilton and Blackrock Road. The attention he received, particularly from the staff in St. Theresa’s Nursing Care Unit, brought him great comfort.

I believe this final 10 year period of his life was a time of much grace, of ripening. He was able to live with serenity, reflecting on his missionary life and his impending death. On more than one occasion I heard him speak of not being afraid to die. In the words of our 2nd reading today:

If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord, so that alive or dead, we belong to the Lord.

I believe he took on board those comforting words of St. John Henry Newman:

May the Lord support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.

Then in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging and a holy rest and peace at the last.

And he was able to understand the words of St. Paul to his young companion Timothy: The time has come for me to be gone. I have fought the good fight to the end, I have run the race to the finish, I have kept the faith.

And finally the words of Fr. Daniel O’Leary in his final book “Dancing to my Death”, written some months before he died: The day comes, in one way or another, for each one of us, when the pros and cons of our lives are weighed up, when the balance has changed, and we know, like Jesus did, that it is time to go. And he concludes by quoting from  First Corinthians 13 –“ for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we shall see God face-to-face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known myself by God”.

“John, Ar dheis Dé, go raibh d’anam dílis”.      

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

26 June 2022

1 Kings 19:16b,19-21                        Galatians 5:1,13-18                        Luke 9:51-62

Theme: The Demands of Christian Discipleship

The message of today’s readings might be summed up in the words of a popular Christian hymn, I have decided to follow Jesus. Based on an Indian folk song, the simple yet stark words of this hymn remind us of the radical choice involved in becoming a true disciple of Jesus:

I have decided to follow Jesus (x3),
No turning back, no turning back.
Though none go with me, still I will follow (x3)
No turning back, no turning back.
The world behind me, the Cross before me (x3).
No turning back, no turning back’. 

Our first reading recounts the prophetic call of Elisha. Elisha was a wealthy farmer who owned twelve yoke of oxen. He was ploughing his land when the Lord called him through the prophet Elijah. By throwing his cloak over him, Elijah was investing him (Elisha) with the same prophetic mission he himself exercised. Conscious of the dramatic implications of this call, Elisha requests that he be permitted to bid farewell to his parents: ‘Let me kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow you’ (1 Kgs 19:20). Following his farewells, he makes a clean and definitive break with his past. He slaughters his oxen, shares a final meal with his servants and leaves everything to accompany Elijah and ‘learn the ropes’ from him. For Elisha, responding to the prophetic call meant taking a leap of faith, making a radical commitment and having the courage to stake everything on God’s plan for him.

In today’s Gospel, Luke focuses our attention on Jesus’ total commitment to the mission entrusted to him by the Father. As he begins the final stage of his earthly journey, Jesus ‘resolutely takes the road for Jerusalem’ (Lk 9:51), well aware of the fate that awaits him there: rejection by the Jewish leaders, betrayal by his disciples, torture and death at the hands of the Roman authorities. But, for him, there is no turning back. He will be faithful to his prophetic mission to the end, no matter what the cost. Jesus also reminds his disciples that following him is no easy option. Those who wish to do so must ready to endure many hardships: ‘Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’ (Lk 9:58). Christian discipleship is not for the faint-hearted nor is it for those who want to have their cake and eat it. If we wish to follow Jesus we must choose him and his values over and above all others. Like Elisha, and all the great prophets, we are challenged to stake everything on God’s plan for us.

Jesus requires nothing less than a total and unconditional commitment from his disciples: ‘Leave the dead to bury their dead, your duty is to go and spread the news of the kingdom of God…. Once the hand is laid to the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God’ (Lk 9: 60,61). On the face of it, these demands seem harsh and even unreasonable. As with many sayings of Jesus, such as ‘plucking out your eye’ or ‘cutting off your hand’ if these should lead you to sin, they are not meant to be taken literally. What Jesus is underlining is the single-minded dedication and unswerving commitment in the service of the Kingdom that must mark the lives of his followers.

Ultimately, Christian discipleship is about love. But this is a costly love that entails being prepared to resolutely take the road to Jerusalem and accompany Jesus on his journey to the Cross. It was on the Cross that Jesus revealed the depth of his love for us. As the Fourth Eucharistic prayer states beautifully, ‘He always loved those who were his own in the world. When the time came for him to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, he showed the depth of his love.’ Nothing short of a total and consuming passion will enable us to accompany Jesus all the way to Calvary. However, we cannot generate this kind of commitment and summon up this ruling passion by own unaided efforts. Fortunately, as St Paul reminds us in our second reading, we have the gift of the Spirit to sustain us in our struggles to live as disciples of Jesus, but we must ‘walk by the Spirit, and not gratify the desires of the flesh’ (Gal 5:16).

The message of today’s readings is echoed in Pope Francis’ constant call to all members of the Church to become radical missionary disciples of Jesus,  reaching out in love to others, especially to those who live on the margins of society – the homeless, the migrants seeking safe refuge from situations of war and insecurity, the victims of human trafficking, among many others. Pope Francis exhorts us to imitate the example of Jesus and become passionate servants of God’s Kingdom of justice and love, truth and mercy in  our divided and uncertain world. He enjoins us to live lives of loving service in solidarity with the poor and oppressed, promoting all that is life-giving for others. Let us pray for the courage, generosity and humility to respond to the call of Christian discipleship, staking everything on God’s plan for us as individuals and as Church. Amen.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA

Fr John Flynn SMA [RIP]

Funeral Mass for the late Father John Flynn, SMA – click here to view the Mass which begins at 1pm on Friday, 24 June 2022.

Fr John Flynn died on 22 June 2022 last. His family and SMA confreres are mourning his death which took place peacefully in the St Theresa’s Nursing Unit, African Missions, Blackrock Road, Cork. John would have celebrated his 92nd birthday on 10 August 2022.

A native of Newtowncashel, Co Longford, at 17 years of age John left home to go to the SMA Sacred Heart College, Ballinafad, Co Mayo for his secondary education before going on to the SMA Novitiate in Cloughballymore, Kilcolgan, Co Galway. Vocations to the Religious life were strong in John’s family. Two of his sisters were members of the congregation, the Daughters of Mary and Joseph [DMJ]. John completed his Philosophy and Theology Studies at the African Missions Major Seminary at Dromantine, Newry, Co Down. He was ordained a priest on 18 June 1958 in the Cathedral of St Colman and St Patrick, Newry.

His first 28 years as an SMA priest were spent in Benin City Archdiocese [Nigeria] and Sunyani diocese [Ghana]. Serving in Asaba parish during the Nigerian Civil War, John was to witness terrible violence and the deaths of countless innocent people in the area. But he remained at his post serving the people to the best of his ability. During his years in Ghana, he was elected as the Society Superior by his Irish confreres.

In 1981, John undertook Further Studies in Rome gaining a Masters in Sacred Theology, magna cum laude. He returned to Ghana but, in 1986, the SMA Superior General, Fr Patrick J Harrington SMA, appointed John as his Anglophone Secretary at the SMA Generalate in Rome.

In 1991, after completing his mandate, Fr John took on the challenge of assisting the fledgling Philippines branch of the SMA. He spent the next 20 years ministering in the large urban Good Shepherd Parish, Las Pinas, Manila. Going there to “help out” for as long as he could he was a greatly-loved and respected pastor until ill health forced his return to Ireland in 2011. Our photo shows Fr John and a number of parishioners on the occasion of his 50th Golden Jubilee as a priest.

After recovering his health, John came to live in the SMA House, Blackrock Road where he was a gentle presence until the Lord called him home.

Fr John was the son of the late James and Kathleen [née Hussey] and is predeceased by his sisters, Sister Kathleen DMJ, Sister Lucy DMJ and Annie Mai [Casserly]. He is deeply regretted by his sister Liza [Crotty] and his brothers Mike and Seamus, nieces and nephews, relatives and friends as well as the people in Nigeria, Ghana and the Philippines where he endeared himself to one and all by his gentleness and graciousness.

Gratitude is the key to the Christian life. It is the key to happiness at every stage of our lives. Unhappy people are never grateful people but grateful people are happy people. In his letters Fr John always expressed gratitude to God for everything. As Fr Tim Cullinane SMA put it in his homily on the occasion of Fr John’s Diamond Anniversary, quoting the poet George Herbert: “O God, You that have given so much to me, give one thing more, a grateful heart.”

Fr John’s Funeral Mass will take place at 1pm on Friday, 24 June, in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork, followed by burial in the adjacent community cemetery. You can follow the Funeral Mass by clicking on the Wilton Parish website link

Rest in Peace Fr John.

Sufficiency, Not Growth: Towards a Safe and Sustainable Future – SUMMER SCHOOL 2022 – Videos

SPEAKERS

John Barry is Professor of Green Political Economy and the Director of the Centre for Sustainability and Just Transitions, a Queen’s University Belfast. 

Anne B. Ryan PhD believes that society’s civic capacity affects how ideas are taken up, how movements and ideas are sustained, and how a body of knowledge can grow, concerning just and ecological ways to live. She has published on the philosophy and practice of enough, on commons and commoning, basic income, feminism, discourse and reflective practice. 
Prof Sadhbh O’Neill (DCU) A lecturer in climate policy and politics at DCU’s School of Law and Government. Previous to this role, she was the policy coordinator for the Stop Climate Chaos coalition. Her expertise is in the field of climate policy and governance.
Tom McDonnell Phd is co-director of the Nevin Economic Research Institute in Dublin. He has co-responsibility for research programme and strategic direction.  He specialises in economic growth, economics of innovation, Irish and European economies, and fiscal policy. He has worked at TASC, NUI Galway, DCU and Maynooth University.
Dr Seán Healy SMA is CEO of Social Justice Ireland an independent social justice think-tank. For almost 40 years he has been active on issues of socio-economic policy in Ireland. Before that he worked for more than 10 years in Africa.  He has done work with the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the European Economic and Social Council and the United Nations and is a member of Ireland’s National Economic and Social Council for more than a quarter of a century.
Sr Colette Kane OP has, since 2014, been Director of An Tairseach, Organic Farm and Ecology Centre in Wicklow where she is she is part of the teaching staff delivering a bi-annaul course entitled, Exploring Spirituality in the context of: an expanding universe, an endangered Earth, and the Christian Tradition. She has a Masters in Ecology and Religion. 
Rachel Power is a PR and Communications professional specialising in Climate Change Communications.  In her home city of Cork she was Chair of Wilton Justice Group and is a member of the Management Committee of Cork Environmental Forum. She currently is studying for a Master’s degree in Climate Change – Policy, Media and Society at DCU. In 2018 Rachel trained with Al Gore to become a Climate Reality leader and in 2021 was appointed Volunteer National Coordinator to create and grow the Irish branch of Climate Reality Europe.
Colette Bennett is Economic and Social Analyst with Social Justice Ireland, prior to which she worked as a corporate law solicitor and also with a national debt advisory organisation in the areas of consumer debt policy, casework support and service delivery management. She represents SJI on a range of committees and groups and her research interest include, among other things, housing and homelessness; poverty and inequality.

The focus for the 2022 summer School was on the the current ecocidal and socially destructive system of unconstrained growth, profit and consumption. Is there another way for us to live together on this planet, and to use its resources more justly, wisely and sustainably? 

The Summer School aimed to provide interested individuals and groups with relevant, high-quality, evidence-based knowledge and insight on aspects of present environmental-socio-political matters in a faith context, in order to support their engagement with the public and secular sphere.

VIDEO RECORDINGS OF PRESENTATIONS

Beyond ecocidal growth: the end of more and the start of better. Prof John Barry. Click to view

Introducing Sufficiency: When Enough is Plenty. Dr Anne B Ryan Click to view

The end of more and the start of better – When Enough is Plenty – a conversation between  Prof John Barry & Dr Anne B Ryan Followed by a Q & A with the audience.  Click to view

What Sufficiency means for Ecology and the Environment. Prof Sadhbh O’Neil  Click to view

Changing the Development Recipe: Reframing Growth and Sufficiency. Dr Tom McDonnell.  Click to view

The social implications of sufficiency. Dr Seán Healy.
Click to view

What Would Sufficiency Look Like?
A conversation between Sadhbh O’Neil, Seán Healy and Tom McDonnell, followed by Audience Q & A. Click to view

WORKSHOP PRESENTATION: A New Framework for the 21st Century – Doughnut Economics.  Rachel Power Click to view

The Universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects – Ask the Beasts. (Thomas Berry and The Book of Job: 7). Sr Colette Kane OP Click to view

Roundtable Discussion. 
Panellists:
Dr Anne B Ryan, Prof Sadhbh O’Neil, Dr Seán Healy SMA. Dr Tom McDonnell, Sr Colette Kane OP & Prof John Barry.  Click to view

 

 

 

 

 

Nigerian Bishop sets the record straight for President Higgins

nigeria-shendam

On Pentecost Sunday last, the Catholic community of Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria were brutally attacked and many killed and injured. Newspapers were quick to speculate on who the perpetrators were, how many were killed or injured etc. Even some stated that the priest had been kidnapped which was completely false.

Ondo diocese, Nigeria, in the south-west of Nigeria, was evangelised by SMA missionaries. The original Owo parish founded several decades ago has now three parishes with many outstations attached to each one. A number of SMA priests who served in Owo are still alive, some retired and others still working as missionaries in other parts of Africa or here in Ireland. The late Bishop William Field SMA, born in Ballydehob, Co Cork, was appointed in 1958, the first bishop of the diocese. He had succeeded Bishop Thomas Hughes SMA [Hollymount, Co Mayo] who was the bishop of Ondo-Ilorin. Bishop Field retired in 1976, handing over to the first Nigerian Bishop of Ondo, Most Rev Dr Francis Folorunsho Alonge who in turn passed on the baton to the present bishop, Most Rev Jude Ayodeji Arogundade. Bishop Field died in 1988 and is buried in the SMA cemetery in Wilton, Cork.

Following the Pentecost Sunday attack, President Michael D Higgins issued a statement implying that climate change might have been a contributory factor in the attack. Bishop Arogundade issued a statement in order to set the record straight for the President. In it he paid tribute to the SMA missionaries who had worked in the diocese: “The first two bishops of the Diocese of Ondo were Irish men, the church building in which the attack took place was built by Irish missionaries and some of the people killed were baptised, confirmed and married by many venerable Irish missionaries,” he said. In a reply to the Bishop’s Statement, a spokesperson for the President said that he had “made no link in his statement between climate change and the attack itself. The President has utterly and unequivocally condemned the attack on St Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Nigeria and expressed his particular horror that such an attack could happen in a place of worship.”

As one religious living in Nigeria said: “It is too simplistic and indeed very painful to link the killings going on right now in Nigeria to climatic change. Anybody living in Nigeria today will consider that such a point of view is grossly disconnected from the reality on the ground.”

The Irish Association of Leaders of Missionaries and Religious of Ireland [AMRI] also issued their Statement which gives a broader picture of the situation in Nigeria where Christians are under constant threat of violence from Fulani herdsmen, kidnappers as well as Muslim fundamentalists. Muslims are also the victims of such wanton acts of violence and destruction of properties. 

It is an interesting fact that many years ago a Muslim chief in the Owo area was critically ill and in danger of death. He was treated at a hospital run by Irish members of the Sisters of St Louis. On his recovery, the Chief built a Church in the area and, in time, converted to Catholicism. It is sad that this terrible atrocity took place in an area where Christians and Muslims have lived in peace for decades.

The Nigerian Government of Muhammadu Buhari had done little to address the continuing attacks on the Nigerian people, particularly Christians living in Muslim-controlled States of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He is a former Nigerian Army Major General who served as the military head of state in Nigeria between December 1983 and August 1985, after taking power in a military coup d’état. He was elected Head of State in 2015.

Corpus Christi 2022 – Year C

19 June 2022

Genesis 14:18-20                    1 Corinthians 11:23-26                    Luke 9: 11b-17

Theme: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ (1Cor 11:25)

The importance of the Eucharist for the early Christian community is strikingly illustrated by the following story recounted by Timothy Radcliffe OP in his book, Why Go To Church? In the year 304 AD (a time when the Christians were being persecuted for their faith under the Emperor Diocletian), a number of Christians were arrested in North Africa for gathering together in the house of a Roman official to celebrate the Eucharist on a Sunday. When the Roman pro-consul of the area asked the official why he had allowed these people into his house, he replied that these people were his brothers and sisters. When the pro-consul insisted further that he should have forbidden them, he replied that he could not, and added these words: ‘Without the Day of the Lord we cannot live’

The Eucharist is the sacrament of Christ’s permanent presence with his people. In the Eucharist, Christ is present in the gathered community, in his word proclaimed, but, above all, in the bread and wine transformed into his body and blood shared among us. The importance of this sacrament expressed succinctly by the Second Vatican Council when it states that the Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of the Christian Life’ (LG 11).

During his earthly life Jesus promised his disciples he would not leave them orphans but would send them the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to strengthen and enlighten them. He also left them a memorial of his presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist. In the Eucharist Jesus is with us under the appearance of bread and wine. He becomes our food so as to enter into the most intimate possible relationship with us. What we eat becomes part of us. When we eat the body of Christ and drink his blood in the Eucharist, we become what Christ is. We are transformed into Christ. The Eucharist is thus the most intense form of his presence with us. However, Christ is present in the Eucharist as the One who has given his life for us.

The Eucharist is the memorial of the Last Supper. Jesus’ last act before his death on the Cross was to share a meal with those he had chosen – his Last Supper. In the course of this meal, as St Paul reminds us in today’s first reading, ‘the Lord Jesus took some bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup after supper, and said, “This Cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me”’ (1 Cor 11:24-25). The meaning of Christ’s last meal was inseparable from the sacrifice of his life on the Cross. This was his supreme act of love. Love is manifested in self-sacrifice. ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (Jn 15:13).   

The moment of communion in the Eucharist, when we eat the body of Christ and drink his blood, is the moment of greatest intimacy that can exist between Christ and us – a moment to be approached with reverence and pondered in silence. However, we cannot be in communion with the Lord without being in communion with one another. Communion must never become a private devotion. This recognition of the oneness of all who partake of the Body and Blood of Christ is expressed in several ways in the Mass. The common acknowledgement that we are sinners, the common responses, the songs of praise, the Gloria, the Creed,  the Acclamation of Faith, the Great Amen, and the Sign of Peace. We act as one body because we are made one body in Christ. St. Augustine used to say to the assembled congregation as he held up the Sacred Host: ‘See what you are and become what you see: the Body of Christ’. We are the body of Christ and we must also become the body of Christ for others. This missionary dimension of the Eucharist is highlighted in the concluding part of the Mass.

Every Eucharist ends with a sending out on mission: ‘Go in Peace to love and serve the Lord’.  We are called to carry the message of the Eucharist into the world. Just as Jesus Christ has become our Food, giving himself completely to us, so, too, we must give ourselves for the sake of the world. We are challenged to live the love we have experienced. We must become sources of nourishment for the world as Christ has become a source of nourishment for us. A contemporary hymn, based on a prayer attributed to St Theresa of Avila, expresses this imperative perfectly:

‘Christ has no body now but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ’s compassion must look out on the world.
Yours are the feet with which
He is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands with which
He is to bless us now.’

So let us pray that, as we are nourished and empowered by the body of Christ we receive in the Eucharist, we may become, by our touch, our words and our actions, channels of Christ’s compassionate and healing presence in our broken world!

Michael McCabe SMA, June 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Trinity Sunday 2022 – Year C

12 June 2022

Proverbs 8:22-31                    Romans 5:1-5                    John 16:12-15

SMA SUMMER SCHOOL 2022
Sufficiency not Growth – Towards a Safe and Sustainable Future

Online:
Sat 18 June and the morning of Sun 18 June
For more information and to Register
CLICK HERE

The Trinity is the defining doctrine of our Christian faith, the central statement about thekind of God we believe in. We are baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19). We begin our formal and informal prayers with this Trinitarian formula. The great Eucharistic prayers of the Mass end with the beautiful Trinitarian prayer: ‘Through him (Jesus), with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is Yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever’. The Trinity is not just a dogma of our faith, or a formula to be recited in our liturgy, but the dynamic core of our Christian way of life.

Yet, for many people the doctrine of the Trinity, of three persons in One God, has often been presented in a way that is abstract, complicated, and unrelated to our  everyday lives. This was brought home to me by an experience I had when I was working in Liberia in the 1980’s. The Local bishop had asked me to review a new catechism for use in his diocese. On reading it, I was surprised to find that  its author had omitted the doctrine of the Trinity. I mentioned this to the Bishop who asked me to raise the issue with the author. This I did and he said: ‘I decided it was best to leave out the Trinity. It’s far too complicated, too abstract, for the local people to understand, and anyhow it will make no practical difference in their lives.’ I suggested that he should refer to the Trinity, using the language of the Bible, that the people were familiar with, rather than the language of Philosophy.

The Triune God, as revealed in the Bible, is not some remote, eternal, immutable being, but a God who come close to us: the birthing God of creation; the Spirit God drawing life out of chaos and enabling a universe of creatures to evolve and flourish; God, the Word incarnate, taking on and reshaping our human history. The God of the Bible is the God who is gloriously present everywhere and in everything, the God who makes all things great, intimately connected to one another, and of eternal significance, as the poet Elizabeth Barret Browning acknowledges in her poem Aurora Leigh:

‘And truly, I reiterate, nothing’s small!
No lily-muffled hum of a summer bee,
But finds some coupling in the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch but implies the Cherubim;
And (glancing at my own thin, veined wrist),
In such a little tremor of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;’

God’s closeness to us is particularly manifest in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. In him we meet a God who goes in search of men and women and rejoices when a lost son finds his way back to the house of his Father. The God of the Bible is a God of love, who cares for all creatures from the smallest to the greatest, a passionate and compassionate God, capable of being deeply moved by the sufferings of his creatures. This is the God who is Father, Son and Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is profoundly relevant to our everyday lives for it is ultimately about what it means to be human persons created in the image of this God of Love.

To be human means to be like the God who created us, the God in whom all creatures live and move and have their being, and who are intimately connected with one another. It means to live in relationships of love and respect not only for our fellow humans, but for all God’s creatures with whom we share the gift of life. We are called to participate fully in the Trinitarian communion of Father, Son and Spirit through our loving communion with one another and, indeed, with all creation. And, as members of the Church, we are called to be witnesses of this awesome destiny in a world thirsting for love. I will end with a short reflection, written by Michael Fitzgerald, MAfr, and Rene Dionne, MAfr. It is entitled ‘A God Who Sends Forthand it conveys in clear simple language the meaning and significance of today’s great feast.

God sent his Son.
The Eternal Word, spoken by the Father from all eternity and present in all things from the first moment of creation, was translated into the language of human experience. People saw and heard and touched God on earth.
The Father and Son sent their Spirit.
The Church was born of that Spirit,
and its mission begins.

The Spirit impels,
The breath of God quickens,
making us witnesses for Christ,
sharers in his mission of redemption and mercy,
empowering us to “renew the face of the earth”.

Movement.
Timeless movement of three-Personed God.
Inexhaustible movement of love
in which it delights to catch us up.
“Go forth… I send you… Fear not,
I am with you.”

We are sent.
We are gift that is given.
We are the imprint of his presence.
We are grace.

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

St Ciaran’s College, Ballygawley, makes a difference

The Peregrini (Pilgrims) Movement from St Ciaran’s College, Ballygawley, Co

Peregrini is from the Latin for pilgrim, which refers to going on pilgrimage to move from our vision of the world and discover something new.Peregrini is from the Latin for pilgrim, which refers to going on pilgrimage to move from our vision of the world and discover something new.

Tyrone, have been visiting Zambia since the 1990’s, meeting many Irish SMA priests working there. It is a missionary outreach of the College’s Religious Education Department, under the guidance of Tyrone all-Ireland Senior Football star, Pascal Canavan.

During these annual visits, the students and staff from St Ciaran’s teach English, Maths etc. to the school children and also help with some basic building work (painting classrooms etc.).

Mulenga has an estimated 26,000 population, 50% of them under 15 years of age. Living conditions are very challenging, with many basic amenities in short supply: education, job opportunities, medical care, food, shelter, etc. The parish is made up of six Small Christian Communities who send members to the Parish Council. Through the Christian communities the Parishioners discuss and decide on what they issues they want to address in order to build a better future for all. Their first project was the construction of St Ciaran’s PreSchool, which opened in January 2012.

The Zambian people are deeply spiritual and, for them, one of the most important things they wanted was a place to worship God. And so, after six long years, their Holy Trinity Church was blessed and opened on 25 May 2013. Prior to that, they gathered for prayer and to celebrate the Mass in the PreSchool.  
The idea of having an SMA Centre goes back to the first Peregrini visit in 2009. Conscious of the need to foster spiritual, cultural and social values among the young people, they offered to help with improving educational and other opportunities in Mulenga. And, over the last 13 years, they have been the essential cog in making this ‘idea’ a reality.

The Mulenga youth rose to the challenge and, since 2016, under the supervision of qualified builders, they completed the building in time for its official opening last Easter Monday. Some of those involved in the construction work have acquired basic construction skills which could open the door for job opportunities. The Centre, about 5kms from the parish church and preschool, has accommodation for 120 people, kitchens, meeting rooms, with most of the funding provided by the students, staff, parents etc. of St Ciaran’s College. It will also give poor people who couldn’t afford a holiday in hotels etc. an opportunity to have a few days away from their homes and have a time of relaxation, rest and some spiritual exercises.  

The furniture was funded through Direct Aid for Africa (DAFA); the BEIT Trust provided the solar energy system and the Irish Government funded a second-hand vehicle.
DAFA was founded by the late Barney Curley, better known for some famous betting coups, and over the last 20 years has transformed the lives of thousands of Africans, children and adults.

It is a fitting time for the opening as Easter Monday is often called ‘Galilee day’ because that is where the disciples were to meet the Jesus after His Resurrection. And the Lord Jesus brings each of us Life, Life to the fullest.

The Programmes presented by the Centre will be based on the principle of self-reflection and, to quote the philosopher Socrates: “an unexamined life is not worth living.” To achieve this, programme organisers will use participatory practise and reflection, to develop faith and a sense of well-being in the participants, aiming at the holistic development of the person so that they may achieve their full potential.

The Centre has created 5 jobs: Mr Bright Kalaba, a recently-qualified teacher who is awaiting his School appointment from the Education Ministry, manages the Centre and four other staff look after visitors, rooms, meetings, catering etc. It already had many bookings prior to its blessing and opening by the Bishop of Ndola Diocese, Most Rev Benjamin Phiri, on Easter Monday last, 18 April 2022.

SMA International News – June 2022

Welcome to the June edition of the SMA International News which brings news from:

Zambia:   We hear about celebrations to mark the tenth anniversary of Divine Mercy Parish in Ndola which was founded and has been administered by SMA’s since its foundation.
Rome: We hear from three of the participants in the ceremony of canonization of Charles de Foucauld who share with us their feelings about this occasion. 
Benin: Next we hear from Fr. Desire Tinvi who tells us about the preparatory year of students beginning their formation with the SMA in Tankossi, Benin Republic.

The Bulletin ends with information about events in, Kenya and Rome.

 

JUNE | For Families – the Pope’s Prayer Intention

We pray for Christian families around the world; may they embody and experience unconditional love and advance in holiness in their daily lives.
Pope Francis – June 2022

In this month’s video Pope Francis highlights that:

    • “Family love is a personal path of holiness”.
    • “There is no such thing as a perfect family,” and at the same time he reminds us that “God is with us.”
    • The Holy Father encourages Christian families to express their love in concrete gestures, to learn from mistakes, and to discover God’s presence at every moment.

 “Francis reminds us that the family is the place where we learn to live with differences, with those who are younger and those who are older. Encountering people who are different is a richness, not a threat. In today’s world it seems as if differences create confrontation when they should instead open new paths. The family is a place to learn to love, to live with differences, learning from mistakes, being aware that the Lord is present to help and accompany us. This experience of God’s presence is born from prayer; this is why it is important to pray for this intention of the Pope.”  Fr. Frédéric Fornos, S.J., International Director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network

TEXT OF THE VIDEO MESSAGE
The family is the place where we learn to live with one another, to live with young people and with those who are older.
And by being united —young people, the elderly, adults, children—, by being united in our differences, we evangelize with our example of life.
Of course, there is no such thing as a perfect family. There are always “buts.”
But that doesn’t matter. We shouldn’t be afraid of mistakes; we have to learn from them so we can move forward.
Let’s not forget that God is with us: in our family, in our neighborhood, in the city where we live, He is with us.
And He takes care of us. He remains with us at all times in the swaying of the boat tossed by the sea: when we argue, when we suffer, when we’re joyful, the Lord is there and accompanies us, helps us, and corrects us.
Family love is a personal path of holiness for each one of us.
This is why I chose it as the theme for this month’s World Meeting of Families.
Let us pray for Christian families around the world; may each and every family embody and experience unconditional love and advance in holiness in their daily lives.

 
 

 

Pentecost Sunday 2022 – Year C

5 June 2022

Acts 2:1-11;                    1Cor 12:3-7;                    Jn 20: 19-23

While it may not be quite accurate to speak of this day, Pentecost Sunday, as the birthday of the Church, it is certainly the birthday of the Church as a missionary community. Before the coming of the Spirit, the disciples of Jesus were a fearful, bewildered group, hiding in a safe house in Jerusalem, for fear of the Jews. They had neither the conviction nor the courage to begin the great mission entrusted to them by Jesus, their Risen Lord. Upon receiving the Holy Spirit, as promised by Jesus, they became a joyful and courageous missionary community, on fire with zeal, and eager to be Christ’s witnesses to the world. The readings today remind us of three important truths about the Church and its mission: that the Church is essentially missionary; that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of its mission; and that the goal of mission is to create a unity that embraces diversity. A few words on each of these points.

First, the Church is essentially missionary. Witnessing to and proclaiming the Gospel is the fundamental reason for the existence of the Church. All her members, all who are baptised in the Spirit, are called to be missionaries, not just priests and religious. If the Church ever stopped reaching out to others to witness and proclaim the Gospel of Love, it would cease to be the Church of Christ. In a recent homily, Pope Francis underlined this truth, reiterating one of the great themes of his pontificate: ‘I continue to dream of a completely missionary Church, and a new era of missionary activity among Christian communities… Indeed, would that all of us in the Church were what we already are by virtue of baptism: prophets, witnesses, missionaries of the Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to the ends of the earth! The great Protestant theologian, Emile Bunner, employed a biblical simile to express this truth when he wrote: ‘the Church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning. Mission is the fire of the Holy Spirit as today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles makes clear.

Second, the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of this mission. We, the members of the Church, are simply instruments in the hands of the Spirit and we are called to a task which transcends our human capabilities. Without the Spirit we cannot carry out the mission entrusted to us. We forget this truth at our peril, at the risk of becoming agents of an enterprise that has little or nothing to do with the the promotion of God’s Reign of justice, peace and love. Catholics have sometimes been accused of paying mere token respect to the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church. It is salutary to ask ourselves: Do we put more trust in our resources and expertise than in the action of God’s Spirit in our lives and in the lives of those among whom we work? Do we leave enough room in our various ministries for the Spirit, the ‘God of surprises’, the God who chooses the weak to confound the strong, the God whose light invariably enters through the cracks in our lives rather than through our successes and achievements? In the first Apostolic Exhortation of his Pontificate, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis reminds us that ‘there is no greater freedom than that of allowing oneself to be guided by the Holy Spirit, renouncing the attempt to plan and control everything to the last detail, and instead letting her enlighten, guide and direct us, leading us wherever she wills. The Holy Spirit knows well what is needed in every time and place’ (EG 280). 

Third, the goal of Mission is to create a unity that respects and embraces diversity. Pentecost reverses the confusion of Babel (Cf. Gen. 11: 1-9). On the day of Pentecost, as the first reading states, people of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Persians, Asians, Romans, Egyptians, Libyans, Cretans and Arabs) were gathered together for Jewish Harvest feast (Shavuot). Because they spoke different languages they were unable to communicate with one another. However, they were all able to understand the message of the Spirit-filled apostles. ‘Surely, they said, all these men speaking are Galileans? How does it happen that each of us hears them in his own language?’ (Acts 2:7-8). The miracle of Pentecost was a miracle of mutual understanding, a restoration of the unity humanity lost at Babel. Today we might ask ourselves what gift of the Spirit, what language do we need so that everybody can understand no matter what their ethnic or linguistic background? Yes, there is such a gift, such a language. It is the language of love. This is a language that all people understand and it is, to quote the words of Teilhard de Chardin, ‘the only force that can make things one without destroying them’.

I will end with a short prayer to the Spirit from the pen of Joyce Rupp.

‘When our world seems bleak, when we walk with sadness written on our soul, when we have days during which everything goes wrong…
Spirit of God, stir the energy of your joy within us….
Deepen in us the energy of your peace.
Create in us the energy of your kindness.
Renew in us the energy of trusting you…
You encourage us not to give up. You call us to open our minds and our hearts to receive your energizing, transforming radiance.
Make us receptive so that we will follow your loving movement within our lives. We trust in your powerful presence within us. Amen.’

Fr Michael McCabe SMA

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

SMA Novena – Address from Provincial and Homily from Knock Basilica

The Lamb of God – Jesus – is the focal point of the Apparition at Knock. It is as if Mary is saying in the Apparition: “look at my beloved Son”, crucified to show love for you. And Jesus wants us not only to be in relationship with him but to imitate him – as Mary told the servants at Cana in Galilee: ‘do whatever He tells you.’ So, because of our Baptism, we are called to imitate Christ in His love for the world. And though we will not be called to shedding our blood for Christ – though some Christians are – we are called to be missionaries – to tell others of the love of God and to show it in how we live our lives. 

Because of our baptism we are called to be missionaries. At the Closing Mass of the SMA Novena in honour of Our Lady, those who gathered in the Basilica as well as those who joined by webcam were first of all thanked for their support of the Missions but also asked to continue to pray and support the work of all Irish missionaries.

Below view a short address from the SMA Provincial Leader, Fr Malachy Flanagan and the Homily preached during the Mass by Fr Martin Kavanagh. 

Fr Malachy Flannagan’s Address  Fr Martin Kavanagh’s Homily 

NOVENA MASS – from Knock Basilica, Saturday 28th of May

The 2022 SMA annual Novena to Our Lady of Knock comes to its conclusion today at Knock Basilica. 

It can be viewed live, beginning with the Rosary at 2.30pm.  This will be followed by an address from Fr Malachy Flanagan, the SMA Provincial Leader at 2.50pm.   The Novena will conclude with Mass at 3pm.    

To view from 2.30pm CLICK HERE  

Feast of the Ascension 2022 – Year C

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Ascension_of_Christ_window.jpg

29 May 2022

Acts 1:1-11                    Ephesians 1:17-23                    Luke 24:46-53

Theme: Jesus, Ascended into heaven as Lord of all Creation

Today, the feast of the Ascension, marks an end and a beginning: the end or culmination of Jesus’ mission on earth and his return to the Father to reign as Lord of all creation; the beginning of the mission of the Church, empowered by the gift of the Spirit. Our readings today give us two accounts of the Ascension of Jesus, both from the pen of St Luke. The gospel reading recounts the final scene of Luke’s Gospel where Jesus gives his disciples a mission – to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins – and promises to send them the Holy Spirit. Then, he tells them to remain in the city (Jerusalem) and there await the gift of the Spirit. He finally blesses them before he withdraws from them and is carried up to heaven (cf. Lk 24:51).

In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Luke gives us a second, more elaborate, account of the same event. This account includes a revealing dialogue between Jesus and the apostles. They ask Jesus if the time has come for him ‘to restore the kingdom of Israel’ (Acts 1:6). This question shows us how far they were from understanding the life and ministry of their Master or the meaning of his death and resurrection. Their concern was still about the liberation of Israel from Roman occupation. In response Jesus does not reject or belittle their concern but gently reminds them that ‘it is not for them to know times or dates that the Father has decided by his own authority’ (Acts 1:7). He then reiterates the promise of the Spirit and highlights the universal scope of the mission he is entrusting to them: ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). The reading ends with the assurance from angelic messengers (‘two men in white’) that Jesus will again return as they have seen him go.

Our second reading today from St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians underlines the profound theological significance of the Ascension of Jesus. Jesus, ascended to the right hand of the Father, is now not only the conqueror of sin and death. He is the Lord of all creation, and all things in heaven and on earth, are subject to him: ‘every Sovereignty, Authority, Power or Domination’. God the Father ‘has put all things under his feet and made him, as the ruler of everything, the head of the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills the whole creation’ (Eph 1:21-23). During his earthly ministry Jesus was reputed to have taught with authority, unlike the scribes and Pharisees. Mark tells us that people ‘were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes…. He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (Mk 1: 20, 27).  Jesus words resonated with divine power and his actions manifested this power: healing the sick, casting out demons, stilling the storm, forgiving sinners. The authority of Jesus was not about imposing his will on others, but about overcoming the forces of sin and evil in the world, ushering in the reign of God, and communicating the “the fullness of life” (Jn 10:10).  Now, as the Resurrected and Ascended One, Jesus authority is supreme and all-embracing. In the words of one of the earliest Christian hymns, quoted by St Paul, he is the one ‘before whom every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’ (Phil 2:10-11).

It is as Lord of the universe that the Risen Jesus is sending his disciples to be his witnesses, to be his agents in extending his life-giving mission to the peoples of all nations. During his earthly life, Jesus’ mission was limited primarily to the Jewish people. Now its boundaries are expanded to include all humanity and the mission he confides to his disciples has universal scope. To his still fearful and confused disciples, this commission must have seemed overwhelming and even impossible. But Jesus assures them that they will not be alone. As risen Lord, he will be present to them in a new and more powerful way, through the Holy Spirit, a presence unbounded by time or space. Empowered by the same Spirit, we, too, like the first disciples, continue to be witnesses of Jesus to the ends of the earth – joyful witnesses confident that, as Paul reminds us, ‘nothing can now come between us and the love of God, made known to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord’ (Rom 8:39). I will end with a short refection on the Ascension from the pen of Fr Flor McCarthy SDB:

The day of the Lord’s triumphant return to the Father

is not a day for narrowness or sadness.

Rather it is a day for openness and joy.

Therefore, let us lift up our hearts.

Let us raise up our minds.

Let our spirits soar and be free.

For sin and evil and death have been overcome.

We know nothing of the mystery of the beyond.

All we have is his word: ‘Where I am, you too will be.’

Lord, you have kindled in our hearts the hope of eternal life.

Guard this hope with your grace,

and bring it to fulfilment in the kingdom of heaven’

 

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Laudato Si Week – “Listening and Journeying Together” 22 – 29 MAY

This weeklong global event will mark the seventh anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical on creation care and unite the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics to listen and respond to the cry of God’s creation. Catholics can rejoice in the progress we have made in bringing Laudato Si’ to life, especially the efforts being made through the Vatican’s new Laudato Si’ Action Platform, which is empowering Catholic institutions, communities, and families to fully implement Laudato Si’. 

SMA Justice Briefing No 46
Laudato Si’ – Seventh Anniversary 
CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Comprising nearly one-fifth of the world’s population organized in some 220,000 parishes worldwide, the Catholic Church can play a powerful role in solving the dual challenges of the climate emergency and ecological crisis. Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, interim Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, which sponsors Laudato Si’ Week, said: “As the purchasing of fossil fuels funds wars and further destroys God’s creation, our Holy Father is calling on us not to despair but to unite, not to lament this destruction but to take urgent action together. Let us come together as one global Catholic family committed to peace and caring for God’s creation in Laudato Si’ Week 2022.” The theme for the week is “Listening and Journeying Together.” The eight-day global event will be guided by the following quote from Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’: “Bringing the human family together to protect our common home” (LS 13)

In the years since the publication of Laudato Si, the reality of climate change, its human causes and urgency are now largely accepted – this was not the case in 2015.  Laudato Si contributed to this change and has had positive influence both inside and outside the Church.  Within the Church, it has reawakened awareness of the place of care for creation in living faith and, in the wider world, it has highlighted the injustice of climate change through its focus on integral ecology and linking the cry of the earth with the cry of the poor.  

In essence Pope Francis’ encyclical is a worldwide wake up call to help humanity understand the destruction that man is rendering to the environment and his fellow man.  In 2022 this wake up call is more relevant than ever, a fact make clear in the stark warnings of the recently published third Report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).   Speaking about the Report, Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General said that it is “a code red for humanityThe alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.”  

Laudato Si’ and the implementation of the changes it calls for are more relevant and more urgent than ever.  “All of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents.  LS14.   In this week let us:

  • Renew our commitment to the relevance of Laudato Si in addressing the ecological crises and in living our faith lives.
  • Reflect on how we as individuals and communities can bring Laudato Si’ to life in our communities, homes and churches.
  • Celebrate how Catholics are living Laudato Si’.
  • Encourage ecological action through advocacy and other initiatives like the Season of Creation.

To join in worldwide events organized by the LAUDATO SI ACTION PLAFORM  – Click on the link below and scroll through the list of events on each day during this week.    CLICK HERE

NOVENA TO OUR LADY OF KNOCK BEGINS

The annual SMA National Novena of Prayer in honour of Our Lady of Knock begins this evening,  Friday 20th of May.   

The theme of the Novena this year is “Behold, your Son!…. Behold your mother!”  (Jn 19:26,27)

Mass will be celebrated each evening at 7.30pm (7.00pm on Saturday 21st) at St Joseph’s Church Blackrock Road.   It may be viewed online via webcam and can be accessed by clicking on the Novena image – just like the one here – on the top of this website’s Homepage.  

The final Novena final ceremonies will take place at Knock on Saturday 28th of May.  This too will also be broadcast via this website.  

6th Sunday of Easter 2022 – Year C

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/dove-peace-olive-branch-hope-7039341/

22 May 2022

Acts 15:1-2,22-29                        Apocalypse 21:10-14                        John 14:23-29

‘My own peace I give to you’ (Jn 14:27)

Growing up in Ireland in the 50s, our family was fortunate to have had a rather large radio. After returning from school, I loved to listen to the latest pop music on Radio Caroline. I remember my disappointment when the battery went flat and the music stuttered to a stop. However, my Dad’s reaction was one of relief. He would say: ‘Oh peace, blessed peace!’ The longing for peace is one of the deepest desires of the human heart. 

Towards the end of the 19th century, the poet William Butler Yeats was living in the busy noisy metropolis of London. He felt homesick and lost, unable to connect with what he called his ‘deep heart’s core’. He longed to return to his homeland and live in a more peaceful ambience – a longing he expressed in this famous poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

For Yeats peace was synonymous with escape from the hustle and bustle of city life and retreat to a remote island where he could live in communion with nature.

As we see in today’s gospel reading, peace was a key element in the message of Jesus.  Our reading is part of Jesus’ final discourse to his disciples, on the eve of his death and return to his Father. Peace is his parting gift to them: Peace I leave you; my own peace I give you. A peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. So do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid (Jn 14:27). The theme of peace looms large throughout the life and ministry of Jesus. His constant concern was to free people from fear and anxiety and bring them lasting peace: ‘Fear not… Do not worry… Be not afraid it is I (Mk 6:50); ‘Go in peace your sins are forgiven’ (Lk 7:50). When he sends his disciples out on mission he tells them: ‘When you enter a house say, “Peace be to this house’” (Lk 10:5). Appearing to his frightened and confused disciples after his resurrection, and before commissioning them, his first words are: ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me so I am sending you’ (Jn 20:21). However, the peace Jesus offers his disciples – and which he also bequeaths to us – is not the peace Yeats longs for – an escape from the trials, difficulties and responsibilities of life. It is, instead, ‘a peace the world cannot give’, a peace that comes as a gift of the Spirit; it is a peace that empowers us to be agents of God’s reign of justice and love, and enables us to endure all kinds of trials and tribulations. The peace of Jesus is an enduring peace that no one can take away from us.

Our first reading today, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, shows that the peace Christ bequeathed to his disciples did not render them immune from disagreement and conflict. It describes the first major controversy of the early Church and tells us how it was resolved. The issue in question concerned the Jewish rite of circumcision. This was a requirement of the Mosaic law for all male Jews and a sign of their identity as ‘God’s covenanted People’. The first Christian converts were circumcised Jews. They did not see themselves as founders of a new religion but rather as members of a movement within Judaism centred on Jesus Christ as the true Messiah. As the Jesus movement spread outside Jerusalem, especially in Antioch, it attracted increasingly large numbers of Gentiles. The question arose as to whether or not these new converts should also be circumcised. The issue was hotly debated with some Jewish converts, who had been members of the Pharisee party, insisting on circumcision, contrary to the view of Paul and Barnabas: ‘Unless you have yourselves circumcised in the tradition of Moses you cannot be saved’ (Acts 15:1).

The issue was finally resolved at a meeting of Paul, Barnabas, and some members of the Christian community at Antioch with the Apostles and elders of the Church in Jerusalem. The meeting was known as the Council of Jerusalem and took place around the year 50 AD. The Council decided unanimously that Gentile converts to Christianity should not be obliged to be circumcised or to observe the rites of the Mosaic law, with the exception of some particularly sensitive practices for Jewish members of the Christian community. Given the context of the time and the fact that the leaders of the Christian Community in Jerusalem were themselves circumcised Jews, this was a remarkable decision, resolving a conflict that could have split the early Church. As Luke’s account makes clear, this decision was the fruit of a discernment, guided by the Holy Spirit. ‘It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves’ (Acts 15:29). It was a decision that not only ensured the unity and peace of the early Christian Community but paved the way for the spread of Christianity to the ends of the earth.

Let us pray for the peace of Christ, the gift of the Spirit, to empower us as it empowered Jesus’ first disciples, to continue to proclaim the Gospel of love and peace with courage and equanimity in our violent and confused world.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, May 2022

SMA National Novena of Prayer 2022

The annual SMA National Novena of Prayer in honour of Our Lady of Knock takes place from Friday 20th to Saturday 28th of May 2022.  A Novena Mass will take place at St Joseph’s Blackrock Road each evening at 7.30pm (7.00pm on Saturday 21st).  The final Mass of the Novena will be at Knock Basilica at 3pm on Saturday 28th of May.   The theme of the Novena this year is “Behold, your Son!…. Behold your mother!”  (Jn 19:26,27)

The Mass each evening will be available via the Blackrock Road Parish Webcam on www.sma.ie  

The final Mass from Knock can also be accessed by webcam via www.knockshrine.ie 

To facilitate easy access to the webcams a Novena Mass button will be placed on the top of the Homepage of this website. 

The celebrants and preachers for the Novena are: 

Friday 20th May  Fr Joe Egan SMA
Saturday 21st May  Fr Joe Egan SMA
Sunday 22nd May   Fr Pat Kelly SMA
Monday 23rd May  Fr Colum O’Shea SMA
Tuesday 24th May  Fr Gus O’Driscoll SMA
Wednesday 25th May  Fr Gus O’Driscoll SMA
Thursday 26th May Bishop Tim Carroll SMA
Friday 27th May  Bishop Tim Carroll SMA
Saturday 28th May (Knock Basilica)

Fr Anthony Kelly SMA  (Celebrant) 

 

Behold, your Son!…. Behold your mother!” © Don-Sniegowski.-Flickr-CC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Due to on-going concerns about the pandemic buses to Knock are not being organized this year.  If people wish to travel to Knock by car they are welcome to attend the Mass. 

 

Cost of living: the poorest are suffering the most

Fr Seán Healy SMA, CEO Social Justice Ireland

In an interview with Vatican Radio, SMA Father Seán J Healy has reminded Irish politicians that society will be judged by how it deals with and treats its most vulnerable.

Every day we read headlines about increasing food and energy costs, hitting the poorest the most as many of them are already struggling to survive below the poverty line. Fr Seán says that we’re “looking at a situation where people didn’t have much leeway before the current crisis came along and before the cost of living started to rise. They were already living in poverty or else they were living on the edge of poverty.”

In his interview with Vatican Radio, Fr Seán, CEO of the independent think-tank Social Justice Ireland (SJI), said that the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and the more recent unjust war on Ukraine by President Putin, shows us how interdependent we all are. And consequently, what happens when something interrupts this interdependence.

Click HERE to read and listen to Fr Sean’s interview.

5th Sunday of Easter 2022 – Year C

15 May 2022

Acts 14:21-27                    Apocalypse 21:1-5                    John 13:31-33,34-35

Just a week ago we celebrated Vocations’ Sunday and reflected on the call to imitate Jesus, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. Today we are invited to reflect on the fundamental vocation that underpins and unites all vocations in the service of the Lord: the vocation to love. In the gospel reading from John, Jesus commands his disciples to ‘love one another as I have loved you’ (Jn 13:34). A tall order you might say! However, it is clear that the early Christian community took Jesus’ words to heart. This is illustrated by the testimony of a second century philosopher, Aristides. Writing to the Emperor Hadrian in defence of the Christians he states that: ‘Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If one member of the community has something, he gives freely to those who have nothing…. There is something divine in them.’ 

The great Church historian, Adolph von Harnack, also noted this extraordinary witness of the Early Christians when he wrote: ‘The new language on the lips of Christians was the language of love. But it was more than a language, it was a thing of power and action.’ As the testimony of Aristides shows, their love was not mere words or pious gestures, but a practical love, expressed in deeds of caring service – service especially of the poor and those most in need. It was the kind of love Augustine referred to when he wrote: ‘It has hands to help others. It has feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of people. That is what love looks like’. Through their experience of the Risen Christ and the outpouring of his Spirit, the first followers of Jesus had left behind the darkness of night and emerged into the dawning light of God’s love. Thus their lives were changed utterly, and something beautiful was born.

Unfortunately, in contemporary discourse, as Pope Benedict XVI pointed out in his first encyclical letter, God is Love, love has become a much debased and overused word. It is even used to cover up what is the very opposite of love – domination and exploitation, and the abuse of others for one’s own pleasure. The love Jesus commands his disciples to practice is, in the words of von Harnack ‘a thing of power and action’,  a reflection and expression of the divine energy that brought the universe into being. It is a love that is ever faithful and constant. The only adequate measure of this love is the enduring love of God the Father for all his children: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love and am therefore constant in my affection for you’ (Jer 31:3). 

There are many kinds and forms of love. Pope Benedict XVI distinguishes three main kinds of genuine love: eros, the spontaneous attraction that tends towards union; filia, the mutual love that exists between friends; and agape or self-less and self-sacrificing love, supremely manifested in the life and death of Jesus Christ. While these three loves may be distinguished, they must not be separated. Writing about erotic love, Louis de Bernières, states that ‘Love is not breathlessness. It is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away… Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two’ (from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin). 

The qualities of all genuine love are enumerated by St Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians: ‘Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous, boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes (1 Cor 13:4-7).  These qualities make love seem very attractive but true love is also demanding. It challenges us to constantly go beyond ourselves, to respond to the needs of others, particularly the most vulnerable. It is when we forget about ourselves and reach out to others that, paradoxically, we discover our true selves. Brian Keenan, reflecting on his experience as a hostage in Beirut for four years (1986-’90) states that ‘It is only when we reach out beyond ourselves, to embrace, understand, and to finally overcome the suffering of another that we become whole in ourselves. We are enlarged and enriched as another’s suffering reveals us to ourselves, and we reach out to touch and embrace.’

True love summons us to leave our comfort zones, to give our time, our energy, our talents, and, indeed our very selves, to others. And to do this not just when we feel in good form good or for a short time, but to do it in season and out of season, in good times and bad, until, in the words of St Paul, our life has beenpoured out like a libation  (2 Tim 4:6). This kind of selfless, enduring love demands the best of us and brings out the best in us. It is our fundamental vocation. It is for this that we were made. In the words of the poet, William Blake, ‘…we are put on earth a little space,/That we may learn to bear the beams of love’.  Lord, teach us how to love one another as you love us.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, May 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

A Letter from Poland – THANK YOU

Fr Grzegorz Kucharski, Superior of the SMA Polish Province

Prowincja Polska Stowarzyszenie Misji Afrykańskich 
Borzęcin Duży, POLSKA

Dear Superiors of the various units of the Society of African Missions, dear parish priests of SMA parishes throughout the world, dear friends of the SMA, dear men and women of good will. 

We are already living in the Easter dynamic and the joy of the Risen Christ radiates on many faces. In a special way, having the war refugees from Ukraine in two houses of the Society of African Missions (SMA) in Poland, we will have a unique chance to live the Easter time this year, in 2022, for a second time. Most of our guests are Orthodox Christians who  celebrated Easter with the diverse traditions of the Ukrainian people. However, this Easter was difficult to celebrate. The fathers of the families that currently live with us, are participating in war. Children have not seen their dads for a long time, wives their husbands and brothers… All the joy of Easter is overshadowed by this sad reality of a war that they never wanted and a conflict that they did not provoke. 

In our two houses, today, we are providing hospitality for 129 people: 98 at the African Missions Center (CMA) in Borzęcin Duży and 31 in Piwniczna Zdrój. More than half of them are children. Since their daily lives are already regularized in a certain way, we are trying to encourage them to find employment that could give them some income. It would also guarantee them an effective occupation so as not to think all the time about the war that has been taking place just behind our borders. It’s not always easy. Many of them think that the war will end soon, and they will be able to return to their homes as soon as possible. Living in this dynamic, they consider their stay in Poland only as a temporary thing hoping for an imminent return to Ukraine. Even if the war continues, we already had two families who have decided to return home. Other families have taken their place in our structures. However, the vast majority of families remain in our houses waiting for clear signs of the end of the war in Ukraine. The children are already integrating well into our schools. Some are starting to speak more and more Polish and we ourselves understand more and more the Ukrainian language. Friendships are forged during these events that are the most important humanitarian crisis in the contemporary history of humanity. 

We continue to remain open to any support and collaboration from other SMA units. For this reason, on April 4, 2022, thanks to the help of the Province of Spain, we welcomed in the CMA in Borzęcin Duży, Maria Gracia from Grenada, a doctor who helps us to manage health issues at the CMA. Another volunteer, Stefania, from Italy, came on April 18, 2022 to assist us. On the same day, a team from the SMA Media Center in Rome came to make a video report on our daily life in the company of the war refugees from Ukraine. In the near future, the SMA Media Center will share with you the results of their work. In this way, you will be able to see and understand better the reality of our daily life, with our joys and our challenges. 

Remaining in Easter joy and sharing it with you, I would like to share with you my cordial and fraternal greetings. On behalf of the Ukrainians families that we have welcomed into our SMA houses, I would also like to convey to you my sincere gratitude and appreciation for all kinds of support received from you. 

 

Father Grzegorz Kucharski SMA, Provincial Superior 

 

Fr Owen McKenna SMA – Funeral Homily

Fr Eoin McKenna SMA

Fr Owen McKenna died peacefully on Monday, 2 May 2022, in the Bon Secours Hospital, Cork. His Funeral Mass took place at St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork on Thursday, 5 May with the SMA Provincial Leader, Fr Malachy Flanagan, as the Principal Celebrant and a number of other SMA priests concelebrating, including a number of classmates.

Fr Joe Egan, Leader of the SMA community in Dublin, where Fr Owen lived for 18 years, preached the homily drawing on Readings from Isaiah 52:7-10, Romans 10:9-18 and Luke 24:13-16, 28-35 (The Emmaus Story).

Ms Niamh Roe was the Organist / Soloist and Fr Colum O’Shea SMA was the MC. The following is an edited version of Fr Joe’s homily.

Fr Joe Egan SMA preaches during the funeral Mass of Fr Eoin McKenna SMA

In the second reading of today’s Mass, an extract from St Paul’s Letter to the Romans, that great missionary provides us with the raison d’être of the missionary calling. Faith comes from what is preached, and what is preached comes from the word of Christ; but people will not believe in Christ unless they get a preacher, and they will never have a preacher unless one is sent, so that the footsteps of those who bring good news are truly a welcome sound. In a world where there is more than enough bad news to cope with, the bearers of good news are always welcome.

While Paul’s reflections on the missionary ideal are of immense importance, they also have to be counterbalanced by the realism that is evident in his other writings about his actual missionary experiences. In his second letter to the Corinthians, for example, he outlines some of the travails he endures in the service of the Gospel: floggings and beatings and imprisonment; dangers facing him in open countryside and at sea; threats posed by brigands and even by his own people; hunger and thirst and, on top of everything else, his anxiety and worry arising from the responsibilities he has to the communities he established. In reflecting on Paul the missionary, then, both these aspects must be taken into account – his idealism, on the one hand, and the difficulties he experienced while trying to live the vision, on the other.

Paul’s idealism and realism are worth recalling today as we mark the passing from this life of one who was a missionary to the depths of his heart and who sought to live by the same values in contemporary times. Though the world has changed enormously over the 2,000 years or so since Paul lived and wrote, the struggle for each of us to practise what we preach, to translate our idealistic vison and values into the experiences of daily life remains as challenging as ever. Just as with every aspect of Christian life, that is also true of the missionary life, as I and other SMAs know only too well from experience.

Back in 1980, five newly-ordained SMA priests – yours truly included – went to Nigeria with an idealism reflective of St Paul in the first reading. It wasn’t long before that idealism was tested by the harsh reality of experience when we found ourselves in rather spartan conditions struggling to learn the local language in what was then a fairly isolated location. There our eyes were gradually opened to a very different way of life from what we had grown accustomed to here in Ireland. In that new context, every encounter was an eye-opener and even the smallest chore was both an adventure and a huge struggle because of the sweat that had to be expended even when doing absolutely nothing in the tropical humidity and heat. There was the hassle, the red tape of every sort when dealing with officialdom, and the wrangling and bartering that were routine in the marketplace and almost a precondition for encountering others in any sort of pastoral way. And, of course, there was no shortage of health issues; for having been vaccinated to the hilt before leaving Ireland and alerted to the ever-present threat posed by malaria, we were only too well aware that every fly might be a mosquito in disguise, while any creature crawling on the ground might be a scorpion or snake in search of a tasty snack. In those circumstances, it was easy for one’s imagination to run wild, racing between ‘culture shock’, on the one side, and hypochondria, on the other. Any yet, in spite of everything, it’s fair to say that we enjoyed practically every minute of the experience, for two reasons basically: the camaraderie, sense of care and solidarity made possible by the priests and sisters (St Louis Sisters in Ondo and Ekiti, OLA Sisters elsewhere) who welcomed us, and the extraordinary hospitality and zest for life of the Nigerian people, mostly Yoruba, with whom we worked.

Looking back on those days now from a vantage point four decades on brings a certain nostalgia for the innocence and simplicity of it all. Looking back also brings a heightened sense of the dramatic nature of much of what unfolded; for dramatic it certainly was, at times even Shakespearean in scope, as crisis precipitated crisis and events unfolded both locally and nationally on the vast stage of Nigerian life in a manner that showed how insular our lives really had been up to then. For us neophytes making our entrance, stage-fright was always a danger and humility in the face of it was the most appropriate option. In that context, it was providential that one of our guides, one of the central actors in the drama in which we found ourselves, was a McKenna.

Back in 1980, Owen McKenna was one of the larger-than-life missionaries who welcomed us with open arms into the Diocese of Ekiti as we struggled to come to terms with our new surroundings and all the challenges it posed. By that stage, Owen was an old hand, having been in Nigeria since 1962, when he had undertaken a similar process of initiation into African life. In the years since then, he had worked in parishes and schools across the dioceses of Ondo and Ekiti, making a significant contribution to the growth of the church and the education of the young in so doing. In all his work, his preference was to be on the margins, for there he seemed to be most at home; though one qualification should be added – for a time, along with some others, he had to bear a title more reflective of the ecclesiastical establishment: Canon Owen.

Physically imposing but also sensitive to the needs and vulnerabilities of others, his heart was as big as they come, and being a McKenna, it was no surprise that he had a powerful sense of playfulness, equipping him with a repertoire of tricks and a flair for the dramatic. He was extremely generous, making us feel at home when we longed be elsewhere. With his warm-hearted hospitality, he helped us find our feet in situations where life at times was difficult and stressful; and with light-hearted humour, he encouraged us and made us feel at ease, combining pastoral sensitivity in his relationships with practical know-how as he put his love for gadgets to good use in a context where repairing things and recycling were the order of the day; for, in a context of widespread poverty and need, nothing was ever wasted – though sometimes we would have preferred otherwise when observing a rather dodgy-looking vehicle speeding towards us along the laterite roads which abounded in the region. Navigating that terrain even in a perfectly functioning car could be dangerous at times; that had become quite clear in 1976, just a few years previously, with the loss in a car accident of one young SMA, Michael Brennan, with whom we had lived as students. His death weighed heavily on Owen, and so we hope and pray that their reunion – along with all those from that era who are no longer with us – will add to the rejoicing in heaven this day.

A major change of scene occurred in Owen’s life in 1985 when he returned to this side of the world. Over the intervening decades, Ireland had changed too, and finding his feet in the changed landscape had its challenges. Owen’s rich missionary experience was invaluable in the pastoral situations in which he now found himself: first in the SMA Parishes at Wilton and Blackrock Road and then eventually in Dublin where he came to reside in 2003 and where he served as Bursar for many years. In acknowledging his contribution during those years, his work as Chaplain to the Scouts in Cork should be mentioned, while in Dublin, it is appropriate to signal his commitment to the Dominican Sisters at Muckross Convent in Donnybrook, and to the faithful community that gathered in the chapel at Dunnes Cornelscourt, up to the time Covid-19 struck. Of course, always in the background were his family, to whom he was keenly devoted and, apart from when unavoidably absent – most recently because of the pandemic restrictions – he was at most of the special occasions in their lives – baptisms and weddings, anniversaries and funerals.

A journey that began here in Cork 86 years ago comes to an end today as we lay Owen to rest. That journey was incredibly rich and eventful; and, as I have already implied, it can be understood almost like a drama, a play in several acts with numerous scenes. Yet the narrative underpinning it all is one with which we are all familiar, because it is captured in the Gospel of the Mass – the disciples journeying with Jesus on the way to Emmaus. For, as with those disciples, throughout his life, Owen journeyed with Jesus, conversing with him in prayer, listening to Jesus’ words and allowing them penetrate deeply into his own heart; then translating those words into action in order to reach out and introduce the Son of God to others, so that they too could come to know and follow him.

For Owen, that work always culminated in the Eucharist; for it is there, by partaking of the bread sacramentally consecrated by Jesus, we can bring all our own experiences and endeavours to him, so that he might integrate them fully into the kingdom that he has established and our lives may be utterly transparent to his divine life in union with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Having exited the stage of this life just a few days ago in the company of some of his close family, we now pray that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit will welcome him into the heavenly family of Mary and all the saints who are gathered in eternal worship. As we formally bid adieu to Owen, may his journey of faith and love in the company of Jesus here on earth come to perfect fulfilment; may he now be reunited with all his loved ones in the kingdom of God, and may the rich legacy of his missionary life continue to bear abundant fruit for that kingdom in the years ahead. Amen.

Joe Egan SMA – 5th May, 2022

4th Sunday of Easter 2022 – Good Shepherd Sunday

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/46084209975

8 May 2022

Acts 13:14, 43-52                    Apocalypse 7:9,14-17                    John 10:27-30

My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me’ (Jn 10:27)
Vocations Sunday

Today, Good Shepherd Sunday, we are invited to reflect on the meaning of God’s call and to pray for vocations to the service of the Church and its mission. To help us reflect on the meaning of vocation – a call to love and serve others – the Church, in today’s Gospel, presents us with the figure of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

The earliest representations of Jesus date from around the middle of the third century AD. They are to be found on the walls of the catacombs in Rome. They depict Jesus as a young boy with a sheep across his shoulders, clearly symbolizing Jesus, the Good Shepherd. These images were not meant to be portraits of Jesus, but rather symbolic representations that only Christians would understand and appreciate. We must remember that this was at a time when Christianity was a proscribed religion and Christians were being persecuted for their faith. Any form of explicit Christian art was expressly forbidden. This ancient image of Jesus offers us a window into the faith of the early Christians. It shows the profound significance for them of the figure of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

Our Gospel reading today is taken from St John’s Gospel, chapter 10. It is part of a lengthy discourse in which Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd, who knows his sheep and cares for them so much that he will lay down his life for them (cf. Jn 10: 1-29). In biblical times there were two kinds of shepherds. There was the hired hand for whom looking after the sheep was no more than a job. He would move from one flock to another depending on the conditions of service, but would never dream of risking his life for the sheep. If he saw wolves or thieves coming, he would flee for dear life and leave the flock to the mercy of the marauders. Then there was the shepherd-owner of the flock who stayed with the same flock all his life. He knew every sheep in his flock individually. When I was a young lad, growing up on a small farm in Cavan (more than 60 years ago), this was the kind of intimate knowledge farmers had of the animals they cared for. The Shepherd owner could call each sheep by name and could tell the life story of each one – when and where it was born, the difficulties it had gone through, its temperament and particular traits. If attacked by wolves or thieves, he would not hesitate to fight to protect his sheep and even risk his life for them.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd par excellence. He knows us, whom he calls ‘my sheep’, intimately, indeed far better than we know ourselves: ‘I know them and they follow me’ (Jn 10:27).  In the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day, knowing was not seen as a merely intellectual activity. For Jews, the organ for knowing was the heart. In fact, it is the same knowing that is used to describe the relationship between a husband and wife. Yes, Jesus knows us by heart, that is, with a knowledge that is inseparable from his eternally self-giving love. In John’s gospel, Jesus summarised his mission in one short, heart-warming, sentence: ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (Jn 10:10). And this life is eternal life: ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never be lost (Jn 10:28). Jesus fulfilled this mission ultimately by laying down his life for us, his sheep. 

This sacrificial dimension of Jesus’ mission is highlighted by John. Four times in his Good Shepherd discourse Jesus states that he freely lays down his life  for his followers (cf. Jn 10:11,15,17 and18). In a culture in which leaders ‘made their authority felt’ and insisted on others not only serving them, but doing so obsequiously, Jesus modelled a leadership of loving service without conditions or limits. ‘Having loved those who were his own in the world, he loved them to the end (Jn 13:1).To illustrate what it meant to be a ‘Good Shepherd’ and give one’s life in the service of others, he washed his disciples’ feet – the action of a slave! And he expected his followers to emulate his example: ‘I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you(Jn 13:15). 

The Good Shepherd is Pope Francis’ favourite model for priests and all Church leaders. He calls on priests to model themselves on Christ, the Good Shepherd, and to bring the healing power of God’s grace to everyone in need, to stay close to the marginalized, and to be ‘shepherds living with the smell of the sheep’. He contrasts Church leaders who care deeply for those entrusted to their care with those who are just going through the motions, those motivated more by concern for themselves and their privileges than by the needs of those they serve. When people see that their leaders are prepared to pour out their lives in loving and caring service, they, too, will be inspired and empowered to serve one another in love. So we pray:

Jesus, Good Shepherd, as you called your disciples, you call us now.
Open our ears to listen to you calling;
Open our eyes to see you;
Open our hearts to your love. 
And loving you, our servant King, let us love and serve one another. Amen

Michael McCabe SMA, May 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Fr Owen McKenna SMA [RIP]

Fr Eoin McKenna SMA

Fr Owen McKenna died peacefully in the Bon Secours Hospital on Monday, 2 May 2022. He was an SMA missionary for over 60 years, having celebrated his Diamond Jubilee of Priestly Ordination last December.

Fr Owen was born in Capwell Road, Cork City in 1935. After primary and secondary schooling he began his formation with the ‘AFS’ – as they were commonly known in Cork – by going to the SMA Novitiate at Cloughballymore, Kilcolgan, Co Galway, becoming a member of the Society in 1955. He was influenced in joining the SMA by another SMA seminarian, now Fr Bill Ghent. After completing his theology studies in the African Missions, Dromantine, Newry, Co Down, Fr Owen was ordained a priest on 10 December 1961.

Along with many of his classmates, Fr Owen was appointed to the Irish Province’s mission in Nigeria. After some months learning about the local culture and customs of the Yoruba people, Fr Owen was appointed to the teaching staff of Stella Maris College, Okitipupa, Ondo State. Owen spent 12 years in the teaching ministry in Ondo diocese, under the leadership of Bishop William Field SMA (from Schull, Co Cork) and later Bishop Francis Folorunsho Alonge. In 1972, Ondo was divided with the creation of Ekiti diocese, under the leadership of Bishop Michael Olatunji Fagun. In Ekiti, Fr Owen taught in Annunciation College, Ikere-Ekiti. His final years in Nigeria were spent as Administrator of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Ado-Ekiti. When Ekiti diocese was created the Catholic population was less than 5%, in an area of 2,269 sq miles (about the size of County Mayo). The latest Vatican statistics put it at 14%, more than 420,000. From 6 Nigerian priests in 1980, Ekiti today has more than 90. The Lord has certainly blessed the work of Bishop Fagun and his successor, Bishop Felix Femi Ajakaye (appointed 2010), the catechists, laity, religious and priests of the diocese. All glory and honour to God!

Fr Owen left Nigeria in 1985 and, for three years, he served in St Joseph’s SMA Parish in Wilton, Cork. In 1988, he transferred across the city to the second SMA parish in Cork, to Blackrock Road where he served for 14 years, many of them as a greatly-loved Parish Priest.

After a well-deserved Sabbatical break in 2002, Owen was appointed the Bursar of the SMA House in Ranelagh, Dublin, where he spent 12 years before retiring in 2015. For most of those years he was also the Vice Superior of the community. Owen continued his ‘priestly’ work, and for many years he celebrated Mass every week in the Oratory in Cornelscourt Shopping Centre, Cabinteely, as well as Sunday Mass in the Dominican Convent, Donnybrook and in local parishes when requested. After retiring, he remained in Ranelagh until December 2021 when he came to St Theresa’s Nursing Unit, SMA House, Blackrock Road, Cork to recover from an injury to a foot.

For some years, Fr Owen struggled with health issues. He was hospitalised last week and, with his niece Miriam, nephews Owen and Joe, and Fr Aidan McCrystal SMA with him he returned home to God last Monday afternoon.

Owen was predeceased by his parents John B and Winifred E McKenna, his brother John and his sisters Mary (Shinkwin) and Jacqueline (Sheehy), his sister-in-law Marie McKenna and brother-in-law Pat Sheehy.

He is sadly mourned by his brother-in-law Joseph Shinkwin, nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, other relatives, friends, the people of the Dioceses of Ondo and Ekiti, Nigeria, the parishioners of the SMA Wilton and Blackrock Road parishes, Cork, and the worshippers in the Oratory of the Cornelscourt Shopping Centre, Cabinteely, Dublin as well as his confreres in the Society of African Missions.

Fr Owen’s Funeral will take place in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork, on Thursday, 5 May, followed by burial in the adjoining SMA community cemetery.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

SMA International News – May 2022

Welcome to the May edition of the SMA International News which brings news from:

Ireland: where the parishioners of the SMA parish of Wilton, seeing what is happening in Ukraine, decided to make a contribution to alleviating the suffering of refugees fleeing the war.

Liberia: Fr. Jean Tayoro SMA  shares with us the reality of the people of Gayahill, an outstation of the parish of Mugaga, located in Klay town, forty kilometres from Monrovia.

France:– We go to Lyon where Fr. Anicet Seneganambi SMA shares with us regarding his pastoral work with the prostitutes.

The Bulletin ends with information about events in the SMA General House in Rome.

 

The Easter cross carried by a people suffering from famine, lack of medicine, violence and insecurity

Father Rafael Marco Casamayor, SMA

“We, the Christians of Dosso, form a small, very small, minority community in a predominantly Islamized society. We are happy but also fragile in the face of the diversity and multiplicity of colours in our fellow human beings”, says Father Rafael Marco Casamayor, SMA, at the end of the Easter celebrations in their mission in Dosso, Niger Republic.

“We Christians spent a good part of Lent together with the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan”, explains Father Rafael. “These are things that unite us, that help us go beyond our existence and get closer to God, even if the projection is very different.”

“We celebrated the Stations of the Cross on Lent Friday at sunset, when people finished their work. We gathered in the great space of the mission and we followed the path of Jesus’ passion. It is the cross carried by my people who suffer from famine, lack of medicines, violence and insecurity,” continued Father Rafael.

“I also think of the blind children of Gaya whom we carry in our arms and in Dosso, whom we hold by the hand, and the street children in Niamey. It is they who light our way, because with them we take up the cross that becomes love”.

Copyright: © Damian P. Gada, CC, Flickr

At the end of the Way of the Cross, the faithful collected donations for the needy and the proceeds of the collection were used to buy food and hygiene items to be distributed to the patients of the ‘La Madre y el Niño’ (The Mother and the Child) hospital in Dosso.

Taken from an article published by FIDES, the Vatican News Agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, 28 April 2022

It is a well-known fact that the Niger Republic is one of the most challenging countries for Catholic mission work. According to official data the population of the country can be counted as follows: 93% Muslim, 7% Animists and 0.4% are Christians (Association of Religions, Nov 2012). Niger is fifteen times the size of Ireland and the Sahara desert covers 80% of the country.

When Monsignor Oswald Waller SMA was appointed as the Prefect Apostolic of Shedam in Nigeria (1911) he vowed to “prepare the ways of the Lord by preaching the Gospel” all the way to Zinder (in Niger). Eight years later the first Catholic priest visited Zinder. SMA priests looked after Zinder, visiting from their missions in Nigeria, to the south. At the same time, the city of Niamey was cared for by SMA’s coming from Dahomey [modern-day Benin Republic]. Read more about the history of the Nigerien Catholic Church here

3rd Sunday of Easter 2022 – Year C

1 May 2022

Acts 5:27- 32, 40- 41               Revelation 5:11-14               John 21:1-19

Theme: ‘Do you Love me?’ (Jn 21:15)

Today’s gospel from John gives us a detailed and moving account of ‘the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples after rising from the dead’ (Jn 21: 10). The setting for this appearance of the Risen Jesus is by the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee, about eighty miles from Jerusalem. The disciples have left the safe house in Jerusalem but not yet embarked on the mission Jesus gave them on the evening of the first day of the week following his resurrection (cf. Jn 20:23). Instead, they have returned to the homes they had left behind to follow Jesus, and resumed their former occupation – fishing.

As usual, it is Simon Peter who takes the initiative. He announces to his companions that he is going fishing. They agree to join him. Surprisingly, after fishing throughout the night – the optimum time for fishing – they catch nothing and head for the shore with empty nets. In the stark words of John, ‘that night they caught nothing (Jn 21: 3). We can imagine how they must have felt – tired and weary, frustrated and dispirited. It is at this moment, when their hearts are as empty as their nets, that the risen Jesus makes his appearance, standing on the shore. John tells us that, at first, the disciples ‘did not realise it was Jesus’ (Jn 21:5). Jesus addresses them as  ‘friends’, asking them, probably with a smile on his face, if they have caught anything. When they answer ‘No’, he says ‘Throw the net out to starboard and you’ll find something(Jn 21:6). Taking Jesus at his word, they drop the net and catch so many fish that they cannot drag in the net.

This scene is reminiscent of the story of the miraculous catch of fish in Luke 5:1-11, which results in Peter, James and John becoming followers of Jesus. However, whereas Luke’s story occurs early in Jesus’ Ministry and leads to the calling of the disciples to become disciples of Jesus, John’s account is set in a post resurrection context and has Eucharistic connotations. When the disciples eventually come ashore with their exceptional haul of fish, Jesus invites them to join him for a breakfast he has prepared for them. During the meal Jesus, whom the disciples now recognise as ‘the Lord’, ‘took bread and gave it to them and the same with the fish (Jn 21:13). There are echoes here of Luke’s account of the meeting of two disciples with the Risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus and how they recognised him ‘in the breaking of the bread(Lk 24:35).

There are other details in John’s account that are highly significant. The Risen Jesus comes to his disciples just after daybreak. The dark hours and fruitless labour of night-time have given way to the dawn of a new day, offering new hopes, new possibilities. Darkness does not win. The light always prevails. Reflecting on a protracted experience of failure as a poet, Patrick Kavanagh asks the question: ‘Is there music playing behind the doors of despair?’  There are moments in our lives when, like Kavanagh, we may feel overwhelmed by a sense of failure, and wonder if there will be a new dawn for us. Today’s gospel reading reminds us that it is precisely at such moments that the Risen Jesus comes to us, challenging us to trust in his word, as the disciples did. No matter how dark and hopeless our world, or the circumstances in which we live, may appear, with our Risen Lord, ‘there is always light if we are brave enough to see it’, to borrow the words of the young American poet, Amanda Gorman (from her poem, The Hill we Climb).

In the final part of today’s reading we see the Risen Jesus confirming Peter in his role of leadership among the disciples. Following his threefold denial of Jesus (cf. Jn 18:17, 25-27), we might well consider Jesus fully justified in transferring the role of leadership from Peter to John, the faithful and beloved disciple. But he doesn’t do that. He does not think like us. Neither does he ignore Peter’s egregious failure to stand by him in his darkest hour. Instead he gives him the opportunity to profess his love for him. ‘Do you love me?’ he asks Peter, not once but three times – one question for each of Peter’s denials. Three times Peter gives the same answer, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you’ (Jn 21:16). Undoubtedly, Jesus did know that Peter loved him. He knew and understood Peter far better than Peter understood himself. He knew his strengths and weaknesses. It was for Peter’s sake that Jesus asked him to express his love three times. With each question and answer Jesus is drawing Peter away from his past failures and freeing him to take up his new role as leader of the renewed community of disciples. ‘Feed my lambs; feed my sheep(Jn 21: 16-17).

The story of Peter’s confirmation as leader of Jesus disciples shows us that the way Jesus works is through forgiveness and reconciliation. It also reminds us that the Church is not a community of perfect disciples but, in the words of N T Wright, ‘a society of forgiven sinners repaying their unpayable debt of love by working for Jesus’ Kingdom in every way they can, knowing themselves to be unworthy of the task’ (Simply Jesus, p. 221). As we join with Peter in professing our love for Jesus, let us never forget that we carry the treasure of the gospel in ‘earthen vessels’  and that, no matter how often we fail, Jesus never withdraws his love from us.

Michael McCabe SMA, April 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Peace be with you – Divine Mercy Sunday homily of Pope Francis

Mazur, catholic news.org.uk CC

For the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, Mass was celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica on Divine Mercy Sunday, 24 April 2022. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, presided over the Mass, which saw Pope Francis participate and deliver the homily in which he reflected on  Jesus’ post-Resurrection exhortation to His disciples: “Peace be with you.”

The Pope focused on the three times Jesus spoke the words “Peace be with you” to the disciples after His death and resurrection. He said that Christians find that those words of God’s mercy “give joy, then grant forgiveness, and finally offer comfort in every difficulty.”

Filling us with joy

The first time Jesus spoke those words on the evening of Easter (John 20), said the Pope, the disciples were filled with joy.

As they huddled in fear three days after Jesus’ death, the disciples were “burdened by a sense of failure” after having abandoned their Master and even denied Him in His tragic hour.

In this condition, said Pope Francis, they should have felt shame at seeing Jesus’ face.

Yet, His greeting of peace made them turn their attention “away from themselves and towards Jesus.”

“Christ did not reproach them for what they had done, but showed them his usual kindness. And this revives them, fills their hearts with the peace they had lost, and makes them new persons, purified by a forgiveness that is utterly unmerited.”

The joy brought by Jesus, added the Pope, cuts through our own failings and helps us embrace God’s mercy and the joy of being forgiven.

Jesus offers us “a joy that raises us up without humiliating us.”

Granting us forgiveness

Pope Francis then reflected on the second time Jesus said “Peace be with you,” after which He adds “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

After having received God’s forgiveness, said the Pope, the disciples are made “agents of reconciliation” in order to dispense “the mercy that they themselves have received.”

“Today and every day, in the Church forgiveness must be received in this same way, through the humble goodness of a merciful confessor who sees himself not as the holder of some power but as a channel of mercy, who pours out upon others the forgiveness that he himself first received.”

Jesus, said the Pope, has made the entire Church a “community that dispenses mercy, a sign and instrument of reconciliation for all humanity.”

He added that each of us must spread God’s mercy to those around us in every situation of life.

Offering us comfort

The final time Jesus utters His peaceful greeting comes after Thomas has expressed his disbelief of Jesus’ resurrection.

Rather than rebuking him, Jesus comes to Thomas’ aid and allows him to put his finger in His side.

“He does not treat Thomas with harshness, and the apostle is deeply moved by this kindness. From a disbeliever, he becomes a believer, and makes the simplest and finest confession of faith: ‘My Lord and my God!’”

Pope Francis said that every believer can relate to Thomas’ story and disbelief. Jesus comes to us too with “heartwarming signs of His mercy” and comforts us “by offering His wounds.”

Divine Mercy opens us up to suffering of others

At the same time, said the Pope, our experience of God’s mercy helps us to see the wounds of our brothers and sisters.

“We think that we are experiencing unbearable pain and situations of suffering, and we suddenly discover that others around us are silently enduring even worse things,” he said. “If we care for the wounds of our neighbour and pour upon them the balm of mercy, we find being reborn within us a hope that comforts us in our weariness.”

In conclusion, Pope Francis urged all Christians to make Divine Mercy Sunday their own by lending a helping hand or listening ear to those around us who may be suffering.

“From the eyes of all those who are weighed down by the trials of life,” said the Pope, “He looks out at us with mercy and says once more to us: ‘Peace be with you!’”

Edited from an article in Vatican News by Devin Watkins. The complete article can be viewed here.

2nd Sunday of Easter 2022 – Year C – Divine Mercy Sunday

24 April 2022

Acts 5:12-16                         Revelation 1:9-13,17-19                         John 20:19 – 31

Theme:  ‘My Lord and My God(John 20: 28)

Today’s gospel reading from John recounts three distinct but related events: a) on the evening of first day of the week (Sunday) the appearance of the Risen Jesus to his disciples locked behind closed doors ‘for fear of the Jews’; b) Jesus’ commissioning of his disciples to continue his mission of forgiveness and peace; and c), eight days later, Jesus’ second appearance to his disciples, this time in the company of Thomas, who is brought to believe that Jesus is truly risen by touching the wounds in his risen body. The reading climaxes in Thomas’ great acclamation of faith: ‘My Lord and my God (Jn 20:28).

The natural thing to do when we feel anxious or threatened is to withdraw to a safe place, lock the doors, and wait until the danger passes. That is precisely what the disciples of Jesus did following the capture, torture and horrific death of their master. Despite having been told by Mary Magdalene that she had seen the Risen Lord and having heard the message he asked her to tell them, they remain paralysed by their fear, sense of failure, and perhaps guilt that they had not stood by their master. It is in such a confused state that the now Risen Jesus comes to them, not with words of blame or recrimination, but with his peace. His first words are ‘Peace be with you’ (Jn 20:19). The significance of this greeting is underlined by being repeated three times in this short passage. We usually think of peace as the absence of conflict and turmoil, the ending of all those things that make us anxious and fearful. However, the peace Jesus offers is something more profound than the ending of conflict or the resolution of difficulties. The peace Jesus gives us is not the kind of peace the world around us can offer, not the often illusory security that comes from having wealth or power. Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus says to his disciples: My peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid (Jn 14:27). The peace of Jesus not something that we can create from our own resources, but something that can only be received as a gift ‘from above’.

Having freed his disciples from the prison of their own making by his gift of peace, the Risen Jesus, immediately commissions them to continue his mission of peace and forgiveness. For this, he empowers them with the gift of the Spirit. ‘As the Father sent me,  so am I sending you. After saying this he breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained (Jn 20:21-23). As the Risen Jesus came to his disciples, so he comes to us today in the midst of our fears, doubts, pain and confusion. He comes bringing us his peace and breathing into our anxious hearts the empowering breath of the Spirit, embolding us to continue his healing mission of peace and forgiveness.

John tells us that the apostle, Thomas, was not with the group of disciples when Jesus first appeared, but he doesn’t tell us why. Perhaps socially distancing himself from the rest of the apostles was his way of dealing with his grief at what had happened his master. However, Thomas is with them the following Sunday when Jesus again appears to his disciples, openly manifesting in his Risen body the scars of his traumatic recent history. It is surely significant that Jesus does not hide his wounds but invites the ‘doubting’ Thomas to touch them and to ‘doubt no longer but believe (Jn 20:27). The wounds in Jesus’ risen body are not old wounds, but wounds so raw that Thomas can place his finger inside them. And it is this intensely physical contact with the wounds of Jesus’ risen body that elicits from Thomas the greatest act of faith in the Bible: ‘My Lord and my God (Jn 20: 28).

Besides demonstrating that the Risen Jesus is the same crucified Jesus of Nazareth whom Thomas and the disciples had known and loved, these wounds are, as Pope Francis reminds us in his Urbi et Orbi Message, ‘the everlasting seal of his love for us’. The wounds of the Risen Christ also remind us of the terrible wounds that mar our world today, including the Church, the sacramental body of the Lord – wounds we are challenged to embrace with faith, rather than withdraw from in fear. At this time especially, as images of the horrific sufferings of the people of Ukraine bombard our senses almost hourly, let us, like Thomas, bury our own doubts, fears and confusion in the open wounds of the Risen Jesus. As the prophet Isaiah reminds us: ‘By his wounds we are healed (Is 54:5). During this Divine Mercy Sunday and in these difficult and confusing times, we pray that we will find our solace, hope, and courage in the wounded, risen Christ.

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Is Risen

Then Empty Tomb: “He goes before you into Galilee! You will see him there!” Matt. 28.6

The feet that danced
at Cana’s wedding feast,
are held down,
are pierced.

The hands that reached for Peter
when his walk on water failed,
are stretched across the wood,
are nailed.

The voice that called
dead Lazarus from his grave, 
is failing in his throat,
has failed.

                                                          The one they wrapped up
                                                           in a shroud of linen,
                                                           is rising from the grave,
                                                           is risen.
                                                            Fr Tim Carroll SMA

Good Friday Reflection

The feet that danced
At Cana’s wedding feast,
Are now held down,
Are pierced.

The hands that held
When sinking Peter failed,
Are stretched across the wood,
Are nailed.

  The voice that called
Dead Lazarus from his grave,
Is failing in his throat,
Has failed.

 

Fr Tim Carroll SMA

 

Easter Sunday 2022 – Year C

17 April 2022

Acts 10:34, 37-43                         Col 3:1-4                         John 20:1-9

‘Christ has turned all our sunsets into dawns’ (St Clement of Alexandria)

We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song. The Easter liturgy makes it clear that the centre piece of the great drama of salvation is the passage of Christ from death to new life. In Christ not only is death defeated but even our fallen condition has become no longer a curse but a cause of rejoicing. Because of Christ’s resurrection we can shout triumphantly in the words of the Exsultet: ‘O happy fault that brought us so glorious a Redeemer’.

In the first reading of today’s Eucharist, Peter makes it clear that Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead was the direct action of God: God raised him to life and allowed him to be seen (Acts 10:38). The Resurrection is God the Father’s response to the Cross, his affirmation of everything that Jesus preached and did, everything for which he lived and died. It is the definitive answer of the Father to a world that sought to silence Jesus forever. It is the supreme manifestation of the power of God’s Love – a love that is stronger than death, hatred or injustice. It is the final word between God and humanity in the dialogue of salvation: the great Amen of God, not just to humanity, but to all creation.

The second reading from St Paul’s Letter to the Colossians reminds us of what Jesus’ resurrection means for us, his disciples. Through baptism we died with Christ and came to share in his new, risen life. So ‘we must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand (Col 3:2). The gospel passage from John, recounts Mary of Magdala’s discovery of the empty tomb. She runs to tell Simon Peter and John (‘the other disciple’) who run to the tomb and, seeing for themselves that it contained only the burial cloths of Jesus, come to believe in his resurrection. Until that moment, John tells us, ‘they had failed to understood the teaching of Scripture, that he must rise from the dead(Jn 20:9).

Coming to believe in the resurrection of Jesus can be a gradual discovery, as in the case of the disciples of Jesus, or a moment of sudden illumination as vividly portrayed by the poet, Denise Levertov, in her poem about the famous painting by Diego Velázquez, The Servant-Girl at Emmaus

She listens, listens, holding
her breath. Surely that voice
is his – the one who had looked at her, once, across the crowd,
as no one ever had looked?
Had seen her? Had spoken as if to her?

Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread from hers just now?
Hands he’d laid on the dying and made them well?

Surely that face —?

The man they’d crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumoured now some women had seen this morning, alive?

Those who had brought this stranger home to their table
don’t recognize yet with whom they sit.
But she in the kitchen, absently touching the wine jug she’s to take in,
a young black servant intently listening,

swings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure.

In this poem, Levertov highlights the intense focus and intent listening of the servant girl which triggers the moment of her recognition of the presence of the Risen Christ. Even though Jesus had spent far more time in the company of his disciples, teaching them by word and example, they did not understand his words and were slow to risen presence among them. For a long time they remained imprisoned by their fears and doubts. We, too, can be slow to believe in the Risen Christ present to us, to let go of our doubts and fears, and focus our lives on him. We need to imitate the intent listening to the Servant girl at Emmaus and let ‘the light around him’ illumine our lives, too. 

Pope Francis reminds us in one of his Easter homilies, ‘Jesus is a specialist at turning our deaths into life, our mourning into dancing. With him, we too can experience a Pasch, that is, a Passover from self-centredness to communion, from desolation to consolation, from fear to confidence. Let us not keep our faces bowed to the ground in fear, but raise our eyes to the risen Jesus. His gaze fills us with hope, for it tells us that we are loved unfailingly, and that however much we make a mess of things, his love remains unchanged. This is the one, non-negotiable certitude we have in life: his love does not change. Let us ask ourselves: In my life, where am I looking? Am I gazing at graveyards, or looking for the Living One?

On this Easter Sunday morning, let us rejoice and be glad because Christ our Lord is Risen. Death, and all that is negative within ourselves and in our world, has no longer any power over him. And with him we too are victorious, for now nothing can come between us and the love of God made manifest in Christ – manifested supremely in his glorious resurrection from the dead. I wish each and every one of you a blessed, peaceful and joy-filled Easter!

Michael McCabe SMA, April 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

A Reflection for Holy Thursday 2022 – Year C

14 April 2022

Exodus 12:1-8,11-14                         1 Corinthians 11:23-26                         John 13:1-15

‘I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you’ (John 13:15).

Holy Thursday celebrates three interrelated events:
a) The Institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper (expresses the core of our identity as Disciples of Christ);
b) The Washing of the feet: the Christian understanding of leadership and authority as service of others;
c) The Institution of the Priesthood as a ministry of service to the People of God.

In a book he wrote some years ago on the Eucharist (Why Go To Church?) the famous Dominican author, Timothy Radcliffe, tells a memorable story about the importance of the Eucharist for the Early Christian community. In the year 304 AD (a time when the Christians were being persecuted for their faith under the Emperor Diocletian), a number of Christians were arrested in North Africa for gathering together in the house of a Roman Official to celebrate the Eucharist on a Sunday. When the Roman pro-consul of the area asked the owner of the house why he had allowed these people into his house, he replied that these people were his brothers and sisters. The pro-consul insisted that he should have forbidden them, but he replied that he could not, and added these words, ‘Without the Day of the Lord we cannot live’.

Celebrating the Eucharist was what gave meaning to their lives. So they would risk imprisonment or even death rather than try to live their lives without the Eucharist. This has been true of many Christians down through the centuries. To cite just a single example from my own background. I come from Crossragh in County Cavan. It is named after a Cross erected on a hill – where people used to gather to celebrate the Eucharist at the time of the Penal Laws when public expression of the Catholic Faith was forbidden.

In every Eucharist we celebrate the presence of Christ, the one on whom our lives are based, the one whose love lights up the darkness of our lives. We also celebrate our own deepest identity as children of God, brothers and sisters of Christ. The great North African theologian and saint, St Augustine, expressed the meaning of the Eucharist concisely, when he said, as he held up the sacred host before the Christian assembly, ‘See what you are, and become what you see. What you see is the body of Christ and that is what you are and what you are called to become’. It is to this affirmation we answer ‘Amen’ when we receive the sacred host.

We receive the body of Christ and we must become the body of Christ for others. What does this mean? The Christ we receive is the one who came ‘not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mk 10: 45). At his last Supper with his disciples, he said: ‘I am among you as one who serves (Mk 22:27) and to show that he meant what he said he washed his disciples’ feet – the action of a slave at that time. And he commanded his disciples to do likewise; ‘I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done’ (Jn 13:15). In the Eucharist we receive the body of Christ not just to nourish us but to enable us to become Christ’s body for others.

The great Spanish mystic, St Theresa of Avila, reminds us that
Christ has no body now but yours,
no hands, no feet on earth but yours,
yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

A third interlinked theme of our celebration is priesthood. The core of the priest’s identity is to be found in the Eucharist, in the body of Christ broken and shared for the life of the world. Some years ago I came across the following identikit of the priest penned by two members of the Society of Missionaries of Africa (popularly known as the White Fathers), Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald and the late Fr René Dionne.

We have been given
          Eyes to see and ears to listen
          And a mind and heart to interpret what you see
          And hear the hidden meanings beneath the words spoken…
          A tongue to speak for the innocent… and the guilty,
          To praise, encourage and support,
          To proclaim, in season and out,
          The Good News that always renews the lives of all who listen.

We have been given
          Feet to approach those waiting in hope,
          To walk the extra mile.
          To seek out the hidden and the lost…

We have been given
          Hands to reach out
          To strengthen the fearful,
          Protect the weak and lift up the fallen,
          To share burdens and wipe away tears,
          To embrace the dying and lead them to their final home,
          To build up, not tear down,
          To fan the embers, not quench the smouldering wick,
          To bless, not strike,
          To consecrate and give, not withhold and kill.

We have been given
          A heart to feel with,
          To open doors closed by despair,
          To discover the best in others and set it free,
          To rise to the summons in the night and not count the cost,
          To understand and forgive … or simply to forgive,
          To comfort the sorrowful.
          To love and thereby heal wounds.

All these things God has given us so that people may never doubt or forget his presence among them, that in our touch, our words, our actions, he may touch and speak and act; and they in turn may sense his presence wherever we go, and seeing us, may know, with little effort, they catch a glimpse of God.

Living out this identity faithfully and with every fibre of our being in the only credible and meaningful response to the present crisis of priesthood in the Western world.

Michael McCabe SMA, April 2022

“Let us not grow tired of doing good”

Just a week after it began I flicked between news channels. In disbelief, I saw destroyed buildings, soldiers, tanks, explosions and people whose lives had changed completely.

One image summed up the injustice of this war. A father standing in the cold, looking through the fogged-up window of a bus at his wife and child inside. As he reached up to touch the glass, his child also placed a small hand on the window. Separated by glass and torn apart by war, this was how they said farewell, the man remained while his family travelled to safety in Poland, not knowing if they would ever be together again.

By now such partings have, without any exaggeration, been repeated millions of times. As I write, three weeks into the war and over 3 million refugees have left Ukraine. Commentators fear a long protracted war so many more will be forced to follow.

Beyond Ukraine, in Europe and elsewhere, we hope and pray that the war does not spread. But no matter what happens its economic and social impacts will last for many years and will become more difficult.

The immediate response of countries and individuals to the plight of Ukrainian Refugees has been united, laudable and very positive. A huge effort to welcome and support refugees has been put in place and is supported by Governments and by the generosity of people all around Europe, resulting in funds and convoys of needed materials being sent for distribution to refugees. Borders have been opened and immigration restrictions removed in many countries so that those who have lost everything can find a place and support while they rebuild their lives.

As time goes by, as the number of refugees increase and as economic impacts bite the unjust effects of this war will be become even more evident and responding to them more difficult. How will we individuals and Christians respond? The words of St Paul to the Galatians give good advice:

“Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up. So then, while we have the opportunity let us do good to all. Gal. 6:9-10

The generosity and support for Ukrainian refugees has so far been magnificent, truly human and Christian. But it will be a long haul and perhaps the most generous and Christian thing we can do is to sustain the positive response we are now making. There is still a lot to be done and a big part of that doing will need to happen within ourselves – in making sure that we do not harden our hearts so that; we do not grow tired of doing good – of doing what is right so that in due time we reap a harvest of peace.

“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Matt 25:40.

SMA SUMMER SCHOOL 2022

You are cordially invited to attend the SMA Summer School 2022.

 The event will take place online on Saturday 18th and the morning of Sunday 19th of June 2022 via Zoom and is free of charge. See programme below.

The focus for 2022 will be on the current ecocidal and socially destructive system of unconstrained growth, profit and consumption. We ask is there another way for us to live together on this planet, and to use its resources more justly, wisely and sustainably?

To book a place CLICK HERE  or via the Summer School Booking Icon on the top of this website’s Homepage.

Palm Sunday 2022 – Year C

10 April 2022

Isaiah 50: 4-7                        Philippians 2:6-11                        Luke 22: 14 – 23:56

Today, Palm Sunday, is the first day of Holy Week, the high point of the Church’s year, climaxing in the Easter Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Two gospels are proclaimed during today’s Eucharist. The first, during the procession with palms, is taken from St Luke and recounts Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding on a borrowed colt. He is greeted joyfully by the crowds, who spread their garments on the road before him and acclaim him with the words: ‘Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens!’ (Lk 19:38). These are the same crowds who will, a few days later, shout out in unison, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ (Lk 23:21).

During the Liturgy of the Word, the events of Jesus’ passion are proclaimed in full, this year from the Gospel of Luke. We will hear these same events once more on Good Friday, when the passion of Jesus according to the Gospel of John will be proclaimed. Why does the Church give so central a place in its liturgy to the passion and death of Jesus on the Cross? Why do we continue to remember in all their shameful and gory details the humiliation and crucifixion of the one who was Love Incarnate, the one who came on earth only to bring healing, forgiveness and peace? It was surely not because this was the price demanded by the Father for our sins. Only a sadist would demand such a price, and God, far from being a sadist, is Love itself. Nor does Jesus deliberately court his own destruction. He did not seek the Cross, though he did embrace it freely as he discerned that the inevitable outcome of his mission of love would involve being handed over to his enemies and put to death: ‘Now it happened that as the time drew near for him to be taken up, he resolutely turned his face towards Jerusalem’ (Lk 9:51). Jesus’ suffering and death shows us with startling clarity what happens to self-forgetful love in a world ruled by the demons of hatred and violence. Jesus might have avoided the Cross, but only by turning aside from his mission of proclaiming and inaugurating the God’s reign of justice, peace and love. And this he could not, and would not, do. To reveal the full extent of God’s love for us, he had to endure suffering and death. The events we recall today represent the final phase and climax of Jesus’ life-giving mission of love.

In the story of Jesus’ passion and death, presented in exacting detail by all the evangelists, Jesus’ mission moves into a higher key, in which he allows himself to be acted upon rather than to act. For three years, he had acted: reaching out to people, especially the poor and marginalised, proclaiming a message of hope to those longing for liberation, healing the sick, forgiving sinners, and casting out demons. In the first phase of his mission, he was the protagonist. Now, in this final phase of his life, he is the one being acted upon. We see him being betrayed, arrested, imprisoned, interrogated by Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate, scourged, crowned with thorns, mocked, forced to carry a cross, stripped of his garments, and finally nailed and hung on the cross until he expired. This is the supreme moment of his witness to the God of Love. Jesus, suffering and death on the Cross, as the noted Dominican theologian, Herbert McCabe, points out, reveals ‘the weakness of God…, not the weakness of ineffectiveness but the weakness of love, which is our best picture of the power of God. From creation itself right through to redemption the power of God is exercised not in manipulating and interfering with things but in letting them be, because the power of God is the power of love’. It is, however, only through the lens of the resurrection that we come to see the weakness of divine love in our world not as a tragic defeat but as a glorious victory.

As we prayerfully recall the memory of Jesus’ passion and death, we profess our gratitude for the love that allowed Jesus to be ‘led like an innocent lamb to the slaughter’. We express our solidarity with all the victims of violence in our world today: the people of Yemen, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Nigeria, and especially the people of Ukraine. Let us pray that, like Jesus, we may be active witnesses to his transforming love in our violent world.

I will end with an apt reflection from the pen of Fr Flor McCarthy SDB:

‘On the cross Jesus endured insults and mockery.
Yet his heart remained open even to his enemies.
He absorbed all the violence, transformed it,
and returned it as love and forgiveness.
One’s pain can so easily turn to rage,
so that one wants only to lash out blindly
at whoever happens to be within range.
From the depths of his own pain,
Jesus reached out to comfort the thief.
Some people are like sugar cane:
even when crushed in the mill, what they yield is sweetness.
Jesus stretches our capacity for compassion.
He challenges our idea of love.
The pity is that it often goes unused.
By our love people will know that we
are followers of Christ the King.’

Michael McCabe SMA, April 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

SMA International News – April

Welcome to the April edition of the SMA International News which, this month, brings us three reports as well as the usual round-up of news from the SMA Generalate in Rome.  

This month we bring you news from Poland regarding the present situation – we hear how the SMA Polish Province is doing all it can to support war refugees from Ukraine.  

The second report this month comes form the parish of Our Lady of the Pygmies of Bélemboké in the Central African Republic. We hear about a training session for the catechists of this Parish which took place in March. 

Next, we go to the Democratic Republic of Congo and we hear from Father Apollinaire Kakhanda at the Mgr Brésillac boarding school who shares with us the realities of this SMA school.

Finally, we end with some information about the recent work of the SMA General Council . 

 

 

Three Catholic priests in Nigeria kidnapped in March alone

Father Leo Raphael Ozigi

SMA Involvement in Nigeria goes back well more than a century. Father Joseph Oswald Timothée Waller, S.M.A. was appointed Prefect of Eastern Nigerian in 1912 and since then SMA.s, many of them Irish, were involved in the development of the Church and the  Dioceses now in Nigeria.  Among them are Archdiocese of Kaduna, Zaria and Kafanchan Diocese, the locations of the sad events described in this article from La Croix International.  

A Catholic priest was among 45 people kidnapped after Mass on Sunday in Kaduna state where Nigeria’s main Islamic jihadist groups have killed Christians and burnt and destroyed their worship places. This is the third instance of a Catholic priest kidnapped during this month of March in the violence-wracked region.

Assailants on March 27 abducted villagers along with Father Leo Raphael Ozigi, a priest of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in the town of Sarkin Pawa, the Nigeria Catholic Network reported. “The unfortunate incident occurred when the priest was returning to his place of residence in Christ the King Parish, Gwada, after the celebration of the Holy Mass in his parish, St. Mary’s Parish, Sarkin Pawa,” according to the diocesan chancellor. Father Felix Zakari of St. Ann’s Catholic Church, Zango Tama parish in Giwa local government area of Kaduna State was among 50 people kidnapped by bandits on March 25 and when they razed the church.

Bandits also raided other villages in the area where over 50 people were killed and about 100 abducted. The Chancellor of the Diocese of Zaria, Father Patrick Adikwu Odeh, called on Catholics to pray for the safe release of the kidnapped priest who was taken shortly after he left his residence at St Ann’s on his way to the diocesan headquarters.

Father Joseph Aketeh of St. John Catholic Church, Kudenda, Kaduna South local government area, serving in the Archdiocese of Kaduna, northern Nigeria, was abducted by gunmen on March 8. The gunmen invaded the church in large numbers after killing a security guard. The assistant parish priest was able to escape being abducted. In that incident, at least two other people were also kidnapped by the attackers. Additionally, in the last few days, two attacks have been carried out on trains running on the Abuja-Kaduna route. At least eight people were killed in the attack on the evening of March 28. According to Sahara Reporters, 44 villagers were also kidnapped during the attack.

On March 26, a group of some 200 attacked Kaduna International Airport and killed a security guard, preventing flights from taking off. Nigeria has been battling an insecurity challenge since the Boko Haram insurgency began in 2009. At least 536 Nigerians were killed by terrorists in the first three months of 2022. Kaduna state is one of the worst affected. According to a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, more than 10,366 Nigerians were killed by terrorists in 2021 and more than 2,900 kidnappings carried out. The insecurity situation has been further worsened by the clashes between the nomadic herdsmen, predominantly from the Fulani tribe, and the more stable pastoral farming over water and grazing land. Insecurity in Nigeria varies from area to area.

In the north-east, the jihadists from the Islamic State of West Africa Province represent the main threat. In other Northern States and in the so-called Middle Belt, the central zone separating the Muslim-majority North from the Christian-majority South, the presence of bandit groups and clashes between peasants and ranchers are the main risk factors. In the South, separatist tensions and those related to environmental damage from oil production have created a potentially explosive situation. Kaduna state in Nigeria is one of the worst affected by banditry. In January this year Father Joseph Danjuma Shekari was abducted from his parish residence in the Diocese of Kafanchan but was released after one day. Last year bandits killed two people, abducted others and razed a Catholic church in a village in Kaduna State. In a separate incident bandits also shot and killed two Christians in their family home in the state. Media reported that gunmen belonging to kidnapping and cattle-rustling gangs – called bandits by locals – often raid villages in northwest Nigeria. However, Intersociety, the civil rights group International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, reports that jihadists belonging to Nigeria’s main Islamic Jihadists — Militant Fulani Herdsmen, Boko Haram and its offshoot ISWAP — have killed Christians and burnt and destroyed their worship places. Catholic bishops in Nigeria have criticized the federal government for failing to provide security in parts of the country witnessing ongoing anti-Christian violence.

With permission from La Croix Inernational

5th Sunday of Lent 2022 – Year C

3 April 2022

Isaiah 43:16-21          Philippians 3:8-14          John 8:1-11

Theme: The God of Mercy and Compassion

Mercy is the most striking manifestation of God’s love as reflected in the life and ministry of Jesus. The God of Jesus Christ is, above all, a God of mercy and forgiveness. This is shown supremely in Jesus’ death on the Cross, when he prays to his Father to forgive those who are crucifying him. This was indeed an extraordinary, though not surprising act of forgiveness. It came as the climax of a life and ministry marked by consistent and compassionate outreach to sinners. In the words of the American poet, Robert Frost:

Christ came to introduce a break with logic
That made all other outrage seem as child’s play:
The Mercy on the Sin against the Sermon.
Strange no one ever thought of it before Him.
‘Twas lovely and its origin was love.

The God revealed in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ is a God who not only forgives, but who delights in forgiving, who reaches out to the sinner, who actively seeks out the lost, who loves the company of sinners. It was Jesus’ compassionate outreach to sinners which led him into conflict with the Scribes and the Pharisees, who prided themselves on their strict observance of the law and who despised all those who were not like themselves: the uneducated, the morally weak, the tax collectors, the public sinners, the prostitutes.

This conflict is highlighted in the dramatic scene presented in today’s gospel passage from John. The Scribes and Pharisees bring forward an unfortunate woman caught in the act of adultery for him to condemn her in accordance with the Law. John, however, pinpoints their real motivation. They did not need Jesus to condemn her; they had already done that; they wanted to use her as a bait to trap Jesus. They wanted ‘to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him’ (Jn 8:6). Without condoning or trivialising the woman’s sin, or appearing to contradict the Law, Jesus finds a way to turn the tables on his opponents and show mercy to the woman. He invites them to look first into their own hearts and judge themselves before stoning the woman: ‘Let the one who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her’ (Jn 8:7). These words of Jesus dissolve a nasty and extremely dangerous situation. The opponents of Jesus, realising that that they are not without sin, walk away one by one – displaying, in this instance at least, an admirable honesty. Left alone with the woman, Jesus says to her: ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more’ (Jn 8:11). Jesus’ act of compassion and forgiveness must surely have given this humiliated and terrified woman the freedom and the strength to turn her life around. It is worth noting that Jesus’s forgiveness here precedes the call to repentance, whereas we usually think repentance as an essential precondition for forgiveness.

Though Jesus did not come to abolish the Law, mercy was his number one priority. But what is mercy? It is that divine creative impulse, the fruit of God’s unconditional love, which heals the wounds caused by human sin, sows seeds of hope where there is despair, restores broken relationships, and draws life from the teeth of death. It was this impulse that determined the life and ministry of Jesus. It was the elixir of divine mercy that enabled him to fulfil his mission of life-giving service: ‘I have come that you may have life and have it to the full’ (Jn 10:10).

At the very heart of Jesus’ message and ministry was a concern for the integral well-being of human beings, created in the image of a God who is Love. From Jesus’ words and actions, it is clear that God wants us to be healed, to be fully alive and well, at all levels of our being: spiritual, psychological and physical as well as social and political. Jesus’ entire ministry was the outward expression, the sacrament, of God’s mercy and compassion. In the words of Pope Francis: ‘Faced with a vision of justice as the mere observance of the law that judges people simply by dividing them into two groups – the just and sinners – Jesus is bent on revealing the great gift of mercy that searches out sinners and offers them pardon and salvation.’

I will end with a story which illustrates the nature of mercy. ‘One day a mother came to plead with the Emperor, Napoleon, for her son’s life. The young man had committed a very serious offence for which the penalty was death. The Emperor was determined to ensure that justice would be done. But the mother insisted, “I have come to ask for mercy, not justice”. “But he does not deserve mercy” answered Napoleon. “Your Excellency”, said the mother, “it would not be mercy if he deserved it.” “So be it”, said Napoleon. “I will have mercy on him.” And he set her son free.’

Like grace, mercy is pure gift. In the words of Portia in The Merchant of Venice, ‘it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven/upon the place beneath… It is an attribute of God himself. And earthly power doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice.’

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, March 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

International Response by the SMA to the Ukrainian Refugee Crisis

Mvs.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Since 24 February, 2022 we have witnessed a level of aggression, death, violence, suffering and destruction not seen in Europe since World War II. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused a mass exodus of women, children and the elderly to neighbouring countries. Within just four weeks over 3.5 million people have fled beyond Ukraine’s borders, with Poland receiving the largest portion of these.

Staff from the SMA Parish Centre, Wilton with materials packed and ready to send to Poland

People in the SMA Parish in Wilton, Cork, like people elsewhere, experienced initial reactions of revulsion, shock and disbelief at the war.  But in Wilton they have responded in a practical way. After checking out how to get goods to Poland, they organized an Appeal for goods and donations. Posters were distributed locally; the Appeal was advertised through the Parish Church, local shops and radio stations. After an overwhelming response, a week later Container and four Van loads of material had been gathered, sorted, packed by volunteers and were on their way to Poland. Cash received was used to purchase medical supplies.

The SMA Polish Provincial Superior, Fr Grzegorz Kucharski, appealed to the SMA worldwide for support. He told us that the Polish SMA’s have opened their two SMA Houses (in Piwniczna Zdroj, southern Poland and Borzecin Duzy, Warsaw) to accommodate war refugees. In his letter, Fr Grzegorz wrote that this allows us to accommodate 110 people for the moment, but if the needs were to rise, we will increase our capacity to accommodate to the maximum number of people“.

Fr Grzegorz Kucharski, Superior of the SMA Polish Province

In response, the SMA Provincial Council and our communities around Ireland organized and contributed to collections. The proceeds are going to the Red Cross and the SMA Polish Province. Our lay staff also contributed generously to these appeals.

The aim of the Polish SMA is to provide Refugees with shelter for as long as necessary and a place where they feel safe and welcome. Food, clothes and personal items will also be provided to replace what was lost in fleeing from their homes. Places in schools will be organized for children and help given to women to find employment so that they may return to their country, one day after the war, with some savings.

In his appeal letter Fr Grzegorz invites us to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine and with the SMA’s work to support refugees. He tells us that local Polish people have donated material goods to equip and furnish the accommodation and to make the new residents feel welcome. 

“However, we need even greater solidarity to pay for food, gas, water, heating and electricity, the prices of which have doubled in recent months because of the war.” 

The money which will be sent from Ireland will be an important help in covering some of these costs. And we hope to continue contributing what we can which will be sent to the SMA in Poland.

If you wish to donate to this very practical and necessary work in Poland you can do so via the Reception in the SMA House, Blackrock Road or through the Office in the Wilton Parish Centre.  

The African Missions Centre in Borzecin Duzy – one of the buildings that will accommodate war refugees
The SMA House, Piwniczna Zdroj , Poland will also house Refugees

Act of Consecration of humanity, and Russia and Ukraine, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Pope Francis has called on the Catholic faithful throughout the world to join him tomorrow – Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord – as he consecrates humanity and particularly Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Pope Francis writes:Nearly a month has passed since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine that is daily inflicting immense suffering upon its sorely tried people and threatening world peace. At this dark hour, the Church is urgently called to intercede before the Prince of Peace and to demonstrate her closeness to those directly affected by the conflict. I am grateful to the many people who have responded with great generosity to my appeals for prayer, fasting and charity.

Immaculate Heart of Mary:  Fr Lawrence Lew OP, Flickr , Creative CommonsNow, also in response to numerous requests by the People of God, I wish in a special way to entrust the nations at war to the Blessed Virgin Mary. As I announced yesterday at the conclusion of the Angelus prayer, on 25 March, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, I intend to carry out a solemn Act of Consecration of humanity, and Russia and Ukraine in particular, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Since it is fitting that we should invoke peace with hearts renewed by God’s forgiveness, the Act of Consecration will take place in the context of a Celebration of Penance to be held in Saint Peter’s Basilica at 5:00 p.m., Rome time. The Act itself will take place about 6:30 p.m.

This Act of Consecration is meant to be a gesture of the universal Church, which in this dramatic moment lifts up to God, through his Mother and ours, the cry of pain of all those who suffer and implore an end to the violence, and to entrust the future of our human family to the Queen of Peace. I ask you to join in this Act by inviting the priests, religious and faithful to assemble in their churches and places of prayer on 25 March, so that God’s Holy People may raise a heartfelt and choral plea to Mary our Mother.”

Click here to read the Prayer of Consecration which Pope Francis encourages us to recite throughout the day.

May the Prince of Peace hear and answer our prayers.

4th Sunday of Lent 2022 – Year C

Lawrence LEW OP (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

27 March 2022

Joshua 5: 9-12                        2 Corinthians 5:17-21                        Luke 15:1-3,11-32

Theme: The Embrace of A Forgiving God

In today’s gospel we heard the familiar parable of the Prodigal Son, probably the most memorable of all the parables of Jesus. It stands at the epicentre of Luke’s Gospel and discloses the heart of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God – a Kingdom of Love, Mercy and Forgiveness. The story is told of a Moslem theologian who was asked to translate this parable into Arabic. When he began to read aloud the translation he had made, as the story goes, he wept unrestrainedly for he had never imagined that God could have such tender love for his children.

It is important to remember the context of the parable. Jesus is addressing the Scribes and Pharisees who were scandalised and angry that he always seemed to be mingling and eating with tax collectors and public sinners. This man”, they said,welcomes sinners and eats with them(Lk 15:2). Jesus knew that the reason for their negative reaction to him was their mistaken image of God – sadly an image that still persists among many Christians to this day. What image of God comes across in this parable? It is that of an almost foolishly compassionate and merciful father, someone who, far from feeling offended or angry with those who have strayed away from his household, is simply overjoyed to have them safely back home. Let us examine the parable a bit more closely:

It is a story about a father and his two sons. The behaviour of the younger son is indeed reprehensible. He has abandoned his family and religion and become a swineherd among the gentiles. He has wasted his inheritance. So desperate  has his situation become that he decides to return home, but without any real hope of being accepted into his father’s house. He is prepared to be treated, not as a son, but as a hired servant. What happens on his return far exceeds his expectations. Not only is he not treated as a hired servant. He is not even given time to say how sorry he is. The Father sees him coming from afar (probably he has been looking out many times for his return). And what does he do? He rushes out to meet him, embraces him, and weeps tears of joy now that his son whom he has never stopped loving is back safe and sound. 

Let us turn now to the elder brother, who represents the Scribes and Pharisees whom Jesus is addressing. He had stayed home with his dad. He had worked hard every day. He had always done what his father wanted. Did his father love him? Surely yes, but he didn’t want love. He wanted acknowledgement of his loyalty and good behaviour. His father seemed to be taking him for granted. Apparently, he had never held a party for him, which is difficult to believe. When he sees the way his foolish father runs out to meet his younger son returning, as we would say in Cavan, ‘with his two hands as long as one another’, with no shoes, or cloak, or hat, he feels understandably aggrieved. When he hears the jubilant sounds coming from the party his father is hosting in honour of his wasteful and foolish brother, he is so angry he is fit to be tied. It seems to him that he has been the one wasting his time staying at home and trying to do everything to please their father. In some ways it is easier for us to understand the elder son than to understand the foolishly forgiving father.

However, the sad truth is that the older son did not know his father at all, even though he was living with him. He kept his distance all along. He did not want anything to alter his view of his Father as an upright but demanding man who expected nothing less than complete loyalty. The older son did not take time to get to know the Father, to speak with him, to realise how much he continued to grieve over his younger son’s departure, how he longed for the day when he would return, how he worried about him and cried at the thought that he might never return. Hence, when he was invited by the father to share in the celebrations for his younger brother, he cannot do it. He can’t even understand it. The father had never ceased to love his younger son. The elder brother had never really loved his father or his brother. He cannot feel love in his heart at all and he cannot know the joy of the father or of the prodigal son. He had made himself a stranger in his father’s house.

I will end with an apt reflection on this great parable from the pen of Flor McCarthy, SDB:

The prodigal son came home empty handed.
He had no trophies to show his father,
no achievements with which to earn
his praise, his welcome, and his love.
He was a failure. Worse – he was a sinner.
He deserved to be punished – and he knew it.
Yet punishment was the last thing he needed.
To punish him would be like pouring water on a dying fire.
What happened?
When the father saw his lost son coming towards him,
his heart went out to him,
and next minute they were in each other’s arms.
It is an extraordinary experience to be loved in one’s sinfulness.
Such love is like a breeze to a dying fire,
or rain falling on parched ground.
Those who have experienced this kind of love,
know something about the heart of God.

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

The 21st March marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 Black people at a peaceful demonstration against apartheid laws in Sharpeville, South Africa. This international Day has been declared, in remembrance, not only of the Sharpville massacre but also of the impact of racism on individuals and communities across the globe.  It is also an occasion to show opposition to the injustice of racism and solidarity with those affected by it.
Below is information from an article with the heading of BE AN ALLY – COMBAT RACISM on the website of INAR Irish Network Against Racism that not only makes clear that racism is a reality in Ireland but also proposes practical things we can do to address it.  

The death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, sparked protests across the world. In Ireland, we have seen unprecedented levels of interest in the problem of racism, and urgent calls for justice by those directly affected.  While standing in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and Black people in the US, we must also have a long and honest look at our own country’s racist legacies – from the deeply rooted systemic racism against Travellers, the prevalence of anti-Black racism, the stigmatisation of Muslims and refugees, and the inhumane treatment of people living in Direct Provision. These legacies put into context the high toll of interpersonal racism and the overt acts of racism that Asian people are experiencing in light of the COVID-19 pandemic recorded by iReport.ie. This only shows us how much work we, both as individuals and as a society, still must do to address racism in Ireland.

racism irelandRealising the scope of racism in our own country may feel upsetting and overwhelming, especially for affected communities, but also for those from the majority community who are coming to grips with the breadth and scope of the problem. However, rather than feeling hopeless that racism is ever-present and seemingly insurmountable, INAR would like instead to inspire you to channel that frustration and take positive action.  To this end INAR proposes a list of things that we can do in Ireland to help us  ‘be the change you want to see in the world’. 

10 THINGS YOU CAN DO ABOUT RACISM IN IRELAND

https://www.flickr.com/photos/shefftim/40160434384
Copyright: Tim_Dennell_07947642412 CC BY-NC 2.0, flickr.com
  1. Recognise your privilege and its meaning.
  2. Explore and address your prejudice.
  3. Educate yourself.
  4. Educate others.
  5. Be an active anti-racist ally.
  6. Respond to racism in your community.
  7. Support those affected by racism.
  8. Report racism.
  9. Be an anti-racism advocate in your organisation, work, school.
  10. Pressure leaders.

NB:  How to go about each of the ten points above is explained in detail in  INAR website article which is well worth taking the time to read.  For those who want a more in-depth understanding there are also numerous links to other sources of information.  One of the points above suggests we educate ourselves – this article in and excellent and impressively extensive resource that can help us to do so.  Well done to the writer.   To read the full article click here

 

HELP FOR REFUGEES “A combined Community Evert”

On a Monday evening 7th March after viewing the devastating news from Ukraine the Staff of the SMA Parish Centre met with Fr. Michael and decided to try and support this cause. A group of staff from the Centre led by Ann Cronin in collaboration with staff from Penney’s, Wilton Shopping Centre, led by Roy Hanna, made connections with a group of Polish Couriers which resulted in an agreement to carry the goods to the Polish Border with Ukraine being made.

From the left a staff member of Penney’s, Roy Hanna, and from the SMA Parish Centre, Ann, Teresa, Tom, Pat and Noel .

With these initial steps in place Fr Michael, Parish Priest at St. Joseph’s Wilton, agreed to promote the appeal in the wider Parish.  The the appeal got moving, posters were produced and distributed to local shops and venues. Information about the appeal was also shared on Social Media, through local Radio Stations, and in the Parish Newsletter.  At the same time Parishioners were invited to come on board to help sort and pack all donations.

The response has been overwhelming, people have been hugely generous with Sleeping Bags, Torches, Clothing, Food, Hygiene Products and  Baby Products.  Cash donations were also received, this money was spent in the local pharmacy on First Aid Supplies. On the following Wednesday we had a full container of aid supplies and this was dispatched to Poland.  By Friday of the same week further donations were received – enough to fill four Van’s and this material has also been sent. Donations were still flooding in to the Parish Centre and all that is received will be used to support refugees.

Packed donations ready for transportation

The latest update from the Polish drivers is that Medical supplies are now needed more clothes.  On Saturday 19th of March Ann Cronin, the Parish Centre Manager, had a call from Cork Airport, as citizens of Ukraine were arriving and needed support.  From the donations received ninety personal bags made up of hygiene products for Ladies, Men and Children & Babies were prepared and sent to the Airport. Today, 16th March, another van-load of these hygiene bags will be sent to the airport and there are plans to continue providing material support for other Ukrainians expected to arrive in the coming days and weeks.

At this moment in time donations of  First Aid and Hygiene Products are being accepted – no clothing or Blankets are required.

 

3rd Sunday of Lent 2022 – Year C

20 March 2022

Exodus 3:1-8a,13-15                    1 Corinthians 10:1-6,10-12                    Luke 13:1-9

A priest in one of our Houses was known for his wise sayings. A favourite adage of his was: ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression’. True enough! Most people judge us by the first impression we make on them and only rarely do they change their opinion. So first impressions are important. We may not get another chance. Fortunately, God does not deal with us in this way, as today’s gospel shows. He is a God of second chances, a God ‘of compassion and love, slow to anger and rich in mercy, as today’s responsorial psalm reminds us. The parable of the barren fig tree illustrates this truth. 

A fig tree planted in a vineyard should have ideal soil conditions to produce abundant fruit, certainly after three years! Sadly, the tree in the parable has remained fruitless. Initially, the owner of the vineyard wants the gardener to cut it down as it is taking up precious ground that could be put to better use. However, the gardener appeals to his master to let it be for another year, during which time he will ‘dig round it and manure it (Lk 13:9). The point of the story is that, just as the gardener was patient with the fig tree, so God is patient with us and gives us ample chances to bear fruit. For our part, we must not squander these chances. We must repent. Jesus warned his contemporaries: ‘Unless you repent, you will all perish (Lk 13:3). Repentance is a core gospel imperative. Jesus begins his proclamation of the Kingdom of God with the injunction: ‘Repent and believe the Good news’ (Mk 1:15).

But what is repentance? The English word has the rather unfortunate connotation of  ‘regret’, ‘remorse’ and ‘guilt feelings’ over something we did in the past. Such feelings can tend to lock us into the past rather than lead us towards future God wants us to embrace. To understand what Jesus means when he calls  us to repent, we need to go back to the Hebrew word for repentance, which is ‘teshuva’. This word is derived from the verb ‘to return’ and its focus is not on the past but on the future. Teshuva is not an emotion or feeling of regret, but a decision – a decision to turn away from where we are headed and move toward God. It is a turning away from the darkness toward the light. It is a joyous home-coming not a sad departure. It is allowing God to draw us toward Himself and transform us into ‘children of light’ (1 Thess 5:5). For this to happen we must be willing to let go of the past and open our hearts to the new person God wants us to be. And we must believe that the God of compassion and love can transform and re-create us in the image of his beloved Son.

During a retreat I gave many years ago, one of the priests doing the retreat told me that he did not believe it was possible for people to change in any fundamental sense after the age of twenty-five. ‘I am the same guy I was forty years ago,’ he argued. I have all the same faults and I hope at least some of good points I had when I was ordained. The only change I notice in myself is that I am now less naïve about life and the possibility of change.’  The only response I could make was that he had probably changed more than he realised and, even if his attempts to change did not seemed very successful to him, Jesus was not so hard on failure. What he could not tolerate was self-righteousness or complacency. 

Our greatest sin, and the biggest obstacle to our repentance, may be our reluctance to believe that God really loves us. If we truly experienced God’s love, we could not help but be  transformed  by it. Sadly our understanding of God is often clouded by our own fears and anxieties, so we turn away rather than approach him in trust and confidence. A poem I came across many years ago illustrates this point.  It was written by the well known New testament scholar, N.T. Wright, following a visit to the Louvre museum. He had to view Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting, the Mona Lisa, from behind thick glass, owing to security concerns. All the reflections in the glass obscured his view of those bewitching eyes in the portrait. This experience, he says, shows us how we often view God, the world and one another through the ‘projections of our own anxieties’.  Here is the poem.

A Paris newcomer, I’d never been
Followed by those dark eyes, bewitched by that
Half-smile. Meaning, like beauty, teases, dancing
In the soft spaces between portrait, artist,
And the beholder’s eye. But now, twice shy,
She hides behind a veil of wood and glass;
And we who peer and pry into her world
See cameras, schoolchildren, other eyes,
Other disturbing smiles. So, now, we view
The world, each other, God, through prison glass:
Suspicion, fear, mistrust–projections of
Our own anxieties. Is all our knowing
Only reflection? Let me trust, and see,
And let love’s eyes pursue, and set me free.

Let us trust then. And let love’s eyes pursue and set us free. It’s what repentance is all about.

Michael McCabe SMA, March 2022

African Catholic leader says Church needs to better tap into the qualities of women

Marie-Laure Abotcha-Boni, is a member of the National Contact team for the Synodal process in Côte d’Ivoire. In an interview with La Croix Africa, Ms Abotcha-Boni stated that there is a crisis in our modern societies and in the Catholic Church. And the contribution of women in addressing that crisis is more important than ever.

Around the world there are meetings taking place in parishes, dioceses to prepare for the 2023 World Synod of Bishops. The quality of these meetings will be vital in ensuring a fruitful Synod. Each and every Catholic should get involved in this process wherever they are. Your voice must be heard. Ms Abotcha-Boni is a founding member of the Mother of Divine Love, the first new ecclesial community to be set up in Côte d’Ivoire, a West African country of some 26 million people of which about 7 million are Catholics.

She spoke with La Croix Africa’s Lucie Sarr about the synodal consultations in her country, pointing out the significance of this novel process for the universal Church. You can read the full interview at https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/african-catholic-leader-says-church-needs-to-better-tap-into-the-qualities-of-women/15534

La Croix Africa: How are these vast consultations going?

Marie-Laure Abotcha-Boni: We estimate that about 50% of Catholics in Côte d’Ivoire, especially in urban areas, have received the information that the Church is having the Synod on synodality. We must admit that we were more or less surprised by this event of universal scope, which means that at the time of the launching of the diocesan phase of the Synod, the various Ivorian dioceses had already chosen the themes for their pastoral year. The parishes also had their action plans. I hope that it will be possible to find a link between these themes for the pastoral year and the Synod theme, because such an event deserves a year of reflection so that everyone can make it their own. One question that can be asked is the following: have people on the ground really understood what is at stake in the Synod? One person, for example, asked me about this, saying that in his parish, he had just been given the Synod questionnaire, but that the explanations he received were not clear enough. This is why, at the level of the Commission that I lead within the national team that’s preparing for the Synod, we have told ourselves that a follow-up needs to be done at the level of each diocese so that we can see what is being done. Moreover, we must recognize that our parishes and ecclesial structures are sometimes focused on the needs related to their daily functioning rather than on the Synod. The other difficulty is to see how to reach the populations in rural areas, to bring them into this process, to explain to them the issues of the Synod and to make sure that their concerns are considered and reach Rome. Apart from these two points, it must be said that after the national contact team on the Synod was set up in October, we had a training in November with the vicars general of the various dioceses in Yamoussoukro. We also provided training for the leaders of the various religious congregations present in Côte d’Ivoire, as well as to the chaplains and executive secretaries of the different ecclesial movements and associations at the national level.

You were invited to speak at the January 21-23 Formation Assembly of the Consolata Missionaries. How were you received, as a woman charged with forming male congregations or all-male groups for the needs of the synod?

I met the Consolata Missionaries during a Synod training session for major superiors and they asked me to do a training session for their congregation. I was very well received by these missionaries who were delighted to have a woman speak at their assembly. But it is true that, in our African culture, it is not always a given that priests will accept having to listen to laypeople and women, at least in the areas of their competence (theology and related disciplines). I once had an interesting experience at an assembly of priests in a diocese in Ivory Coast. We were three speakers for a training session. Two priests spoke before me and everything went very well. There was no noise, everyone listened religiously. But when I started to speak, the priests started chatting among themselves. It bothered me, and I didn’t understand what was going on. When I later asked a priest in that diocese about it, he told me that it was difficult for the priests to be trained by a lay person, and moreover, by a woman, in a field that they consider to be their own. But I must emphasize that this isn’t always the case, since after this episode I still provided training to assemblies of priests who really liked these sessions.

What are your expectations for the Synod, as a woman, lay person and member of a new ecclesial community?

In my community, for more than five years I was responsible for a ministry dedicated to women. I noticed that the women under my responsibility were focused on the primary needs of life. This is certainly legitimate, but in a society and a Church in crisis, women must become more involved in the life of the Church. This is not about the ordination of women, but that women have a potential and a genius. We have qualities that the Church needs. Pope Saint Paul VI, in his message to women at the closing of the Vatican II, said the following: “At this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women impregnated with the spirit of the Gospel can do so much to help humankind from falling.” This message is still relevant today.

With thanks to Lucie Sarr and La Croix Africa.

To Prepare His Ways

Bp-de-Bresillac
Melchior de Marion Brésillac, Founder of the Society of African Missions (SMA)

To Prepare His Ways. Patrick J Harrington SMA. (Cork: SMA Publications, 2021). Pp. 416.

Entering St. Patrick’s building in Maynooth and turning right towards the Chapel one finds a series of portraits of 19th century prelates who left college and country and became bishops in faraway mission fields. Among these are the two Fennellys who both served as Vicars Apostolic of Madras (modern-day Chennai, India), John from 1841 to 1866 and Stephen from 1865 to 1880. This recollection of the ‘Maynooth Mission to India’ sets the subject of this book in relief. This is the story of Melchior de Marion Brésillac.

The opening chapter offers an account of his growing up in early nineteenth century France, entry into the seminary and formation there, followed by his ordination as a priest for the diocese of Carcassonne in 1838 and his first years of priestly ministry. Having discerned the desire to be a missionary, he requested and received permission to become a member of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (MEP) which resulted in his being sent to Southern India in 1842. The major part of this book is an account of his travels and travails there, as both a priest and bishop of Coimbatore until 1853. Drawing extensively from his correspondence and contemporary sources, these thirteen chapters detail the joys and difficulties of mid-nineteenth century missionary life with its debates and divisions around culture, caste and the creation of a local clergy. The narrative of these years in India is vivid, veritable and very valuable with the view of hindsight. The next five chapters describe in detail his return to Europe after his resignation as a bishop, his relations with Propaganda Fide (Evangelisation of Peoples) in Rome and his resolve to found a missionary society for Africa. The final chapter concentrates on the journey in 1859 of de Brésillac and his companions culminating in their deaths in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The pathos of the final line – ‘Thus ended the first mission of the Society of African Missions to Africa’ – is both prepossessing and prophetic.

With his experience as a missionary in Australia and Liberia, Superior General of the SMA and Bishop of Lodwar (Kenya), the author is eminently equipped to interpret the itinerary of ‘this great servant of mission’ who ‘gave everything – even his very life’ (from Prayer for the Canonisation of the Venerable Melchior de Marion Brésillac).

The Postscript presents ‘A Sketch of the Legacy’ of de Brésillac’, covering eight causes and contexts: The Role of Conscience and The Dignity of Persons, Inculturation and Local Clergy, The Goan Schism and “Malabar Rites” controversy, The Paris Foreign Missions and Legacy to Africa. The last includes the development of the Society founded by de Brésillac which at time of publication numbers 1,223, including members from many countries in Africa and India. These reflections bring out the ethical and anthropological, missiological and ecclesiological implications of de Brésillac’s imaginative and inclusive vision of evangelisation which went on to bear fruit in both the local ministry and global mission of the church, up to and beyond the Second Vatican Council. More than a historical account of the personalities, places and period in question, this book heralds what Saint Pope John Paul II proclaimed ‘the Permanent Validity of the Church’s Missionary Mandate’ in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio (Mission of the Redeemer). Aptly illustrated throughout with maps and photographs, this book sets forth the spirituality of de Brésillac which, springing from his love of scripture, shows him faithfully imitating the example of Christ the Good Shepherd. This is a very readable account of a remarkable life which comes with the highest recommendation.              

Kevin O’Gorman SMA, St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare

Published in the March issue of The Furrow, reprinted with the permission of the Editor

Click here to get a free PDF copy.

For information about getting copies of To Prepare His Ways contact Provincial Office, African Missions, Blackrock Road, Cork, T12 TD54, Ireland

The salvation of Africa and its children comes from African women

Fr Silvano Galli SMA

The salvation of Africa and its children comes from African women who remain faithful to their mission as guardians of life and the family: we missionaries are witnesses”, according to Father Silvano Galli, of the Society for African Missions (SMA), on the occasion of International Women’s Day. “If Africa has not plunged into misery, but continues to move forward, in spite of all the misfortunes that have fallen upon it, in spite of wars, diseases, famines, in spite of widespread bad governance, this is largely due to the tenacity of women, their love and their commitment to life”, he continued. Fr Silvano was speaking to Agenzia FIDES from the SMA Formation Centre in Lomé, Togo. For many years, Fr Silvano was in pastoral work in the north of Togo, in Kolowaré but, in recent months, he has come to the capital to help train young Togolese seminarians who want to be SMA missionaries. “The African woman is a hidden but irreplaceable protagonist. Mothers of families do not abandon their homes, their children and their elderly, when the house burns down or the land is invaded by lawless and heartless people“.

“Africa is saved thanks to the mothers who continue to work the land to support their families, who raise their children and those of others, who defy armed gangs and face violence, even the one that most humiliates them, and who resist unarmed even when everyone leaves. Africa is saved thanks to those mothers who, once the emergency is over, still know how to find the paths of forgiveness and reconciliation so that life can continue, those mothers who are not afraid to go out into the streets to ask for justice and peace and a future for their children and siblings”. “The woman, with her ‘feminine genius’ has the ability to see far, to foresee and provide, to welcome, make life grow and promote life, not only human life, her ability to listen, to empathize and be sensitive towards each person, her ability to transform even suffering into a gift for life. This is the power of love placed by God in each woman. When the feminine genius joins the Christian faith, African women also become the pillars of Christian communities. Among these women we cannot forget the missionary sisters, women of God, who consecrate and sacrifice their lives for the promotion of women. They have been faithful to their choice to be at the side of women, of the sick, of the last on earth, in the name of Jesus Christ. They have put their feminine genius and all their energy, intelligence and heart at the disposal of the human and spiritual development of this continent. Like the Sisters of Our Lady of the Apostles, (OLA Sisters), present in Kolowaré to care for leprosy patients since 1942” (see Fides, 27/1/2018).

Father Galli concludes by highlighting the fact that in these terrible years “it was the women who saved hope in Africa and it will still be them, the African women who, if there is finally that African renaissance that everyone hopes for, will make the continent move forward into the future”.

With thanks to FIDES, 8 March 2022

MARCH | For a Christian response to bioethical challenges

We pray for Christians facing new bioethical challenges; may they continue to defend the dignity of all human life with prayer and action.

We should respond to the advances of bioethics with a call to defend life.

  • The new Pope Video is dedicated to the challenges of bioethics and how to respond to them based on human dignity and the defense of life.
  • Aware of the profound changes in the world caused by the advances of bioethics, the Pope invites us to advance with them without contributing to the throw-away culture and while seeking biotechnological applications that are responsible and respectful towards the human person and the environment.
  • Francis calls all Christians not to “hide our head like an ostrich” and to promote the defense of life.

Text of he Video: Let us pray that we may give a Christian response to bioethical challenges.
It is evident that science has progressed, and today the field of bioethics presents us with a series of problems to which we must respond, not hiding our head like an ostrich.
Applications of biotechnological must always be used based on respect for human dignity.
For example, human embryos cannot be treated as disposable material, to be discarded. This throw-away culture is also applied to them; no, that can’t be done. Extending that culture this way does so much harm.
Or allowing financial gain to condition biomedical research.
We need to understand the profound changes that are taking place with an even more profound and subtle discernment.
It’s not a matter of curbing technological advances. No, we must accompany them. It’s about protecting both human dignity and progress. That is to say, we cannot pay the price of human dignity for progress, no. Both go together, in harmony.
We pray for Christians facing new bioethical challenges; may they continue to defend the dignity of all human life with prayer and action.

Pope Francis March 2022

2nd Sunday of Lent 2022 – Year C

13 March 2022

Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18                         Philippians 3:17-4:1                         Luke 9:28-36

The Transfiguration of Jesus

The transfiguration of Jesus has captured the imagination of artists down through the ages. Among the many mosaics, paintings and icons depicting this scene, the sixth century mosaic in the Basilica of the monastery of St Catherine in Sinai is my favourite. It dates from the 6th century AD. At the centre of the mosaic is the figure of Jesus transfigured. His right hand is raised in blessing and his eyes directed towards us. His clothes are shining white with gold edging. From His body, shafts of light emanate towards each of the five figures present: to the right of Jesus, the prophet Elijah; to his left Moses; around his feet, the Apostles John, Peter, and James. This wonderful mosaic captures the drama of the event: the three Apostles in a state of shock and bewilderment, while Jesus stands serenely above them, flanked by Moses and Elijah, who appear to be blessing him.

The story of the Transfiguration, as recounted by Luke in today’s gospel, takes place at a critical moment in Jesus’ ministry. He would soon leave behind beautiful Galilee and ‘turn his face resolutely towards Jerusalem’ (Lk 9:51), where he sensed that he would suffer the same fate as the prophets before him. As he had forewarned his disciples: ‘The Son of man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, to be put to death, and to be raised up on the third day(Lk 9: 22). He reminded them that they, too, if they wished to be his disciples, must share his cross and be prepared to lose their lives for his sake (cf. Lk 9:23-24).

In moments of crisis, or when facing a major decision, it was Jesus’ custom to withdraw to a lonely place and spend time, sometimes all night, communing with his Father in prayer  (cf. Lk 6:12-13). On this occasion Jesus takes with him three of his disciples, Peter, James and John, and goes up a mountain (probably Mount Tabor) to pray, and as he prays, he is transfigured. In the words of Luke, the aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became sparkling white (Lk 9:29). Luke highlights the significance of the transfiguration for Jesus himself and for his beloved disciples. As on the occasion of his baptism by John, in this moment of luminosity, a voice from heaven confirms the identity and messianic vocation of Jesus. ‘And a voice came from the cloud saying, This is my Son, the Chosen One Listen to him’ (Lk 9:35). This affirmation strengthened Jesus to face into the dark and threatening future that lay ahead as he resolutely took the road to Jerusalem. For Luke, the glorious manifestation of Jesus is inseparable from the shadow of the Cross. He tells us that the conversation between Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the Mountain was about ‘his passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem’ (Lk 9:31).

The transfiguration experience was important not just for Jesus but even more so for his beloved disciples, Peter, James, and John. Their eyes are opened to catch a glimpse of Jesus in his glory and their ears are opened to hear the divine confirmation of Jesus’ identity as ‘beloved Son’ to whom they are called to listen. Captivated by the experience, Peter wants to remain on the mountain in the exalted company of Elijah, Moses and Jesus. However, this is not to be. The  moment of illumination passes and the three disciples find themselves alone with Jesus.

Lent is a time to remember such moments in our own lives and draw strength from them. It is a time to trust in the Lord like Abraham in our first reading: ‘Abraham put his faith in the Lord, who counted this as making him justified’ (Gen 15:6). It is a time to withdraw to the mountain with Jesus, to listen to him, and let him lead us on our journey towards Easter, mindful, as our second reading tells us that Jesus ‘will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body’ (Phil 3:21). In these frightening and uncertain times, we need a light that lights up the mystery of life in depth and helps us to move beyond the struggles, the doubts and fears of our everyday lives. Like Peter, James and John, we too are invited to climb up the mountain and contemplate the beauty of Christ transfigured, casting glimmers of light in every fragment of life and helping us to interpret history in the light of Easter.

However, like the beloved disciples of Jesus, we cannot remain on the mountain. Jesus himself brings us back to the valley, among our brothers and sisters and into daily life. In the words of Pope Francis, ‘Going up the mountain does not mean forgetting reality. Praying never means avoiding the difficulties of life. The light of faith is not meant just to provide beautiful spiritual feelings. This is not Jesus’ message. We are called to experience the encounter with Christ so that, enlightened by his light, we might take it and make it shine everywhere’.  We must bring the light of Christ to others. So let us, in the words of the American poet, Amanda Gorman,

‘….step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.’

Michael McCabe SMA, March 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

8 March — International Women’s Day

DID YOU KNOW

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28)

The critical contribution of women and girls in responding to a future that is sustainable for generations to come, is marked in this year’s theme for International Women’s Day: Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”. 

8 MarchInternational Women’s Day aims to share the recognition of women’s achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political. The growing of international women’s movements has strengthened their rights and participation in the political and economic arenas. This year the focus is on gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow, which seeks to assert that advancing gender equality in the context of climate change and disaster risk reduction is a challenge for this century. In fact, women are increasingly being recognized as more vulnerable to climate change impacts than men. At the same time, women and girls are powerful leaders and change-makers for climate adaptation and mitigation.   (JPIC Roma)

For nearly half a century, the United Nations has observed March 8 as International Women’s Day. The day is an opportunity for us to pause, and to reflect on the reality that we live in a world that unjustly remains unequal for half of humanity. This stark truth is that women and girls who represent this half, constitute some of the most vulnerable in our society. Yet, they are the ones who continue to be ‘left behind’. This is despite their vital contribution to human and ecological development.  

Let us reflect and pray together for a world free from inequality, inequity and injustice as experienced by women and girls across our planet. We share with you this prayer reflection prepared by the Claretian Family, Daughters of the Heart of Mary. The human family can become complete only with gender equality. This prayer reflection is a help towards gender reciprocity.

 

SMA International News – March

Welcome to the March edition of the SMA International News which, this month, brings us three reports as well as the usual round-up of news from the SMA Generalate in Rome.  

First we hear about work in Divine Mercy Parish Ndola, Zambia where people are preparing for Baptism and other Sacraments next Easter.  Catechumenate Instruction is being delivered by Parishioners and SMA’s living and working in the Parish. 

Then we hear a Report about the Meeting on Initial Formation that took place in Abidjan in January 2022. 

Next, we go to Egypt to hear tribute paid to a long time honorary member of the SMA, Fr Gennaro de Martino  who died in December 2021.  Fr Gennaro was an honorary member since May 2001 but had already resided and worked with SMAs in Egypt since 1961.  He served as Parish Priest in Heliopolis Cathedral from 1975 until 2021.  May he rest in Peace. 

Finally, we finish with news from the Generalate  about  the visits of the Bishop elect of Djougou Diocese, Benin Republic, Mgr. Bernard de Clairvaux Toha to the SMA Generalate in Rome and by Frs Francois de Paul Houngue, SMA Vicar General and Fr Krzysytof Pachut, General Councillor to Liberia and Sierra Leone.   

ASH WEDNESDAY HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

Mazur, catholic news.org.uk CC

Basilica of Santa Sabina
Ash Wednesday, 2 March 2022

Cardinal Parolin read the homily Pope Francis had prepared for the occasion

Today, as we embark on the Lenten season, the Lord says to us: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Mt 6:1). It may be surprising, but in today’s Gospel, the word we hear most frequently is reward (cf. vv 1.2.5.16). Usually, on Ash Wednesday, we think more of the commitment demanded by the journey of faith, rather than the prize that is its goal. Yet today Jesus keeps returning to that word, reward, which can appear to be the reason for our actions. Yet within our hearts, in fact, there is a thirst, a desire for a reward, which attracts and motivates us.

The Lord, however, speaks of two kinds of reward to which our lives can tend: a reward from the Father and, on the other hand, a reward from others. The first is eternal, the true and ultimate reward, the purpose of our lives. The second is ephemeral, a spotlight we seek whenever the admiration of others and worldly success become the most important thing for us, our greatest gratification. Yet the latter is merely an illusion. It is like a mirage that, once we get there, proves illusory; it leaves us unfulfilled. Restlessness and discontent are always around the corner for those who look to a worldliness that attracts but then disappoints. Those who seek worldly rewards never find peace or contribute to peace. They lose sight of the Father and their brothers and sisters. This is a risk we all face, and so Jesus tells us to “beware”. As if to say: “You have a chance to enjoy an infinite reward, an incomparable reward. Beware, then, and do not let yourself be dazzled by appearances, pursuing cheap rewards that disappoint as soon as you touch them”.

© Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk, CC. Flickr

The rite of receiving ashes on our heads is meant to protect us from the error of putting the reward received from others ahead of the reward we receive from the Father. This austere sign, which leads us to reflect on the transience of our human condition, is like a medicine that has a bitter taste and yet is effective for curing the illness of appearances, a spiritual illness that enslaves us and makes us dependent on the admiration of others. It is a true “slavery” of the eyes and the mind (cf. Eph 6:6, Col 3:22). A slavery that makes us live our lives for vainglory, where what counts is not our purity of heart but the admiration of others. Not how God sees us, but how others see us. We cannot live well if we are willing to be content with that reward.

The problem is that this “illness of appearances” threatens even the most sacred of precincts. That is what Jesus’ tells us today: that even prayer, charity and fasting can become self-referential. In every act, even the most noble, there can hide the worm of self-complacency. Then our heart is not completely free, for it seeks, not the love of the Father and of our brothers and sisters, but human approval, people’s applause, our own glory. Everything can then become a kind of pretense before God, before oneself and before others. That is why the word of God urges us to look within and to recognize our own hypocrisies. Let us make a diagnosis of the appearances that we seek, and let us try to unmask them. It will do us good.

The ashes bespeak the emptiness hiding behind the frenetic quest for worldly rewards. They remind us that worldliness is like the dust that is carried away by a slight gust of wind. Sisters and brothers, we are not in this world to chase the wind; our hearts thirst for eternity. Lent is the time granted us by the Lord to be renewed, to nurture our interior life and to journey towards Easter, towards the things that do not pass away, towards the reward we are to receive from the Father. Lent is also a journey of healing. Not to be changed overnight, but to live each day with a renewed spirit, a different “style”. Prayer, charity and fasting are aids to this. Purified by the Lenten ashes, purified of the hypocrisy of appearances, they become even more powerful and restore us to a living relationship with God, our brothers and sisters, and ourselves.

Prayer, humble prayer, prayer “in secret” (Mt 6:6), in the hiddenness of our rooms, becomes the secret to making our lives flourish everywhere else. Prayer is a dialogue, warm in affection and trust, which consoles and expands our hearts. During this Lenten season, let us pray above all by looking at the Crucified Lord. Let us open our hearts to the touching tenderness of God, and in his wounds place our own wounds and those of our world. Let us not be always in a rush, but find the time to stand in silence before him. Let us rediscover the fruitfulness and simplicity of a heartfelt dialogue with the Lord. For God is not interested in appearances. Instead, he loves to be found in secret, “the secrecy of love”, far from all ostentation and clamour.

If prayer is real, it necessarily bears fruit in charity. And charity sets us free from the worst form of enslavement, which is slavery to self. Lenten charity, purified by these ashes, brings us back to what is essential, to the deep joy to be found in giving. Almsgiving, practised far from the spotlights, fills the heart with peace and hope.  It reveals to us the beauty of giving, which then becomes receiving, and thus enables us to discover a precious secret: our hearts rejoice more at giving than at receiving (cf. Acts 20:35).

Finally, fasting. Fasting is not a diet. Indeed, it sets us free from the self-centred and obsessive quest of physical fitness, in order to help us to keep in shape not only our bodies but our spirit as well. Fasting makes us appreciate things for their true worth. It reminds us in a concrete way that life must not be made dependent upon the fleeting landscape of the present world. Nor should fasting be restricted to food alone.  Especially in Lent, we should fast from anything that can create in us any kind of addiction. This is something each of us should reflect on, so as to fast in a way that will have an effect on our actual lives.

Prayer, charity and fasting need to grow “in secret”, but that is not true of their effects. Prayer, charity and fasting are not medicines meant only for ourselves but for everyone: they can change history. First, because those who experience their effects almost unconsciously pass them on to others; but above all, because prayer, charity and fasting are the principal ways for God to intervene in our lives and in the world. They are weapons of the spirit and, with them, on this day of prayer and fasting for Ukraine, we implore from God that peace which men and women are incapable of building by themselves.

O Lord, you see in secret and you reward us beyond our every expectation. Hear the prayers of those who trust in you, especially the lowly, those sorely tried, and those who suffer and flee before the roar of weapons. Restore peace to our hearts; once again, grant your peace to our days. Amen.

 
 

SUPPORT FOR THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE – St Joseph’s SMA Parish Wilton, Cork

Today, Ash Wednesday Pope Francis has called on all to pray for Peace in Ukraine. I encourage believers in a special way to dedicate themselves intensely to prayer and fasting. May the Queen of Peace preserve the world from the madness of war,” (Pope Francis).  Our prayers are needed especially as it seems likely that the level of violence and destruction will increase in the coming days. 

As a practical response and to offer direct support to the people of Ukraine, St Joseph’s SMA parish, Wilton, Cork are inviting  parishioners and local people to donate needed items. Posters like that here are on display in the Church and the collection of the nominated aid items has been announced in the Church and the Parish Newsletter. 

Items collected will be added to those collected in other places and sent to Ukraine.  We hope this website article will extend the reach and the response to this Parish effort. 

Donated items may be left in the Parish Centre.   Please note carefully what they are collecting and please ensure that whatever you donate are in good condition. Thank You!

1st Sunday of Lent 2022 – Year C

6 March 2022

Deuteronomy 26:4-10                              Romans 10:8-13                              Luke 4:1-13

Led by the Spirit into the Wilderness

Jesus’ life was dominated by a single passion: to proclaim and establish on earth God’s reign of justice, peace and love. His mission was not about saving people’s souls by taking them out of the world and bringing them to a place called heaven. It was about bringing God’s kingdom on earth and challenging people to embrace it. But how was he going to carry out this mission entrusted to him by the Father? He had no blueprint or plan of action to guide him. What he had was the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who came upon him at his baptism. This same Spirit – the spark of divine energy that brought the universe into existence and ignited the fire of life – now leads Jesus out into the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan for forty days. In this way Jesus was led to clarify the nature of his mission in the service of God’s reign.

Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness was a decisive and defining experience for him. It determined the path his messianic mission would take. It led him to reject several false paths he could have chosen – the path of violent revolution adopted by the political revolutionaries of the day, the Zealots, and also the way of compromise adopted by the Jerusalem elite, the Sadducees and High Priests. His wilderness experience led him to choose instead the path of redemptive suffering. The way of Jesus would be to turn the other cheek, to walk the second mile and to take up his cross and give up his life on Calvary. He will defeat evil by letting evil do its worst to him, by suffering it in love and forgiving his enemies. He rejects the temptations of Satan and commits himself unreservedly to carrying out the will of his Father.

I had often wondered what it would be like to live in a wilderness or desert. My curiosity was satisfied in the Spring of 2008, while on a Sabbatical programme in Jerusalem. The programme included an experience of life in the wilderness. Along with my companions, I spent a short but memorable time in the Sinai Desert, including a night sleeping in the open. I had imagined the desert as a place of sand, heat and dust. But it wasn’t like that at all. Instead of sand, there were rocks – huge mountainous boulders on every side – terrifying and yet strangely protective. Instead of heat, there was piercing cold that prevented me from sleeping. Instead of dust, the air was crisp and clean. Never in my life had I seen so many stars in the sky, shining brilliantly, a sight of awesome beauty! And then there was the silence, not just the absence of noise but the sense of ‘hush’ which made you want to speak in whispers so as not to disturb the silence. It was an unforgettable experience. It made me feel small and insignificant and yet immensely privileged. It made me want to clear my mind and de-clutter my heart, to let go of things I thought I needed, and focus on ‘something not sold for a penny/In the slums of Mind’ (P Kavanagh, The Ascetic).

The message Jesus formulated in the wilderness and that we are called to take to heart in these days of Lent is to ‘Repent, and believe the Good News(Mk 1:15). This means to turn away from the clutter or excess in our lives and to listen to the One who speaks to us in nature, in people and in the depths of our hearts. Lent is not a dreary, sad season to be patiently endured. It is a joyful season, as today’s Lenten preface reminds us: ‘Each year you give us this joyful season when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed. You give us a spirit of loving reverence for you, Our Father, and of willing service of our neighbour. As we recall the great events that gave us new life in Christ, you bring the image of your Son to perfection within us’.

Lent is a time to experience afresh the embrace of God’s love; a time to join Jesus in the desert, at least symbolically, and allow the Spirit to lead us on an inner journey. It is a time to take a good look at ourselves and, where necessary, realign our priorities. Yes, Lent invites us to repent, but repentance is not just our work. It is the fruit of the experience of God’s love and a work of grace, as Fr Flor McCarthy SDB reminds us the following reflection:

Repentance of itself is not enough – grace must be available.
But if grace is offered and not accepted, then nothing comes of that either.
There is no point in putting up a sail if there is no wind.
There is no point in planting a seed if the ground is frozen.
There is no point in pruning the tree if Spring does not come.
It is not enough to cut into people’s hearts in order to save them –
   they must be touched by grace.
Lord, touch our hearts with your grace
that we may produce the fruits of repentance.

Michael McCabe SMA, March 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

PRAY FOR PEACE in Ukraine – an Invitation from Pope Francis

The people of Ukraine are at this moment enduring the harshness of a more powerful aggressor, Russia, under its leader President Vladimir Putin. Peoples of all faiths and none are dying because of their desire to live in a sovereign nation, free from tyranny. The actions of the EU, UK and the USA among others will do little to deter those who seek the destruction of the Ukrainian state.

As the reality of war in the Ukraine deepens and innocent lives are threatened and lost, Pope Francis invites us all, in response to the shocking news of the recent nefarious attack on Ukraine by Russian and separatist forces, “believers and nonbelievers alike”, to fast and pray for peace in Ukraine, on Ash Wednesday, 2 March. 

I encourage believers in a special way to dedicate themselves intensely to prayer and fasting on that day. May the Queen of Peace preserve the world from the madness of war,” (Pope Francis).

The Pope urgently appealed for all those “with political responsibility to examine their consciences seriously before God, who is the God of peace and not of war, who is the Father of all, not just of some, who wants us to be brothers and not enemies.”

Let us also pray for world leaders and those in key decision-making positions to be filled with the Spirit of peace.

Let us pray for Ukrainian people living in Ireland as well as remembering those Irish people who have made Ukraine their home. We pray for an end to war and a restoration of peace.

“Every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is a failure of politics and of humanity , a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil” 

Fratelli Tutti 261

 

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

27 February 2022

Ecclesiastes 27: 4-7                              1 Corinthians 15: 54-58                              Luke 6:39-45

Theme: Change yourself before trying to change others

Last Sunday’s gospel from Luke ended with the exhortation to show mercy, to pardon instead of judging and condemning. Today’s gospel passage continues in the same vein, with practical guidance on how to behave as disciples of Jesus. We are warned against our tendency to be judgemental. ‘Why do you observe the splinter in the eye of your brother or sister and never notice the plank in your own…Take the plank out of your own eye first and then you will see clearly enough to take out the splinter that is in your brother’s eye’ (Lk 6:40,42). This warning against arrogance and hasty judgement of others may seem to be just common sense. However, it is far from easy to follow this wise advice in practice. Indeed, common sense is not all that common, as one of my teachers used say. We are all inclined to be judgemental. We notice the faults of others more readily than we see or admit our own faults. Indeed we can be completely blind to failings in ourselves that are all to evident to those who live and work with us.

A story I came across some time ago illustrates how blind we can be to our own faults.

‘In a community of monks there was a young monk who had committed a serious fault which was brought to the attention of his brothers. Immediately the elder monks assembled in community to cast judgement on him. However, according to their rule of life, they could not proceed until the Abbot joined them. So they sent him a message. “Come, the community is waiting for you.” So the Abbot arose, and taking an old basket riddled with holes, he filled it with fine sand. Then he started off carrying the basket on his back.  Naturally, as he went along, he left a trail of sand in his wake. The elders came out to meet him and asked him what he meant by this strange behaviour. He replied: “My sins are running out behind me. Everywhere I go I leave a trail of faults after me, only most of the time I don’t see them myself. Now, today, you want me to sit in judgement on my brother.” On hearing this the elders felt ashamed of themselves. So they abandoned the trial and pardoned their brother.’

The ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, tells us that self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. Few of us are truly wise in this respect. We’re so focused on the faults of others – those with whom we work and those for whom we work, the members of our community or family, our leaders – that we have little time or energy for the most fundamental and important exercise of all: truly looking at ourselves and correcting our own faults. In today’s gospel Jesus challenges us to refocus our sharp analytical skills, so quick to diagnose the faults and failings of others, and centre them on ourselves. He is asking us to put our own house in order before trying to reform others. This is surely an appropriate invitation to all of us as we are about to begin the Holy season of Lent.

Lent begins this coming Wednesday. The word ‘Lent’ comes from an old English word which means ‘Springtime’. So it reminds us of spring-cleaning and the new life in nature during the season of Spring. Lent is therefore a graced time, a time to do some spring-cleaning in our lives and enjoy new life as a result, a time to leave the trappings of sin behind us and grow closer to the Lord. In Lent we join Jesus in the desert – at least symbolically – and, with his help, to tackle our demons, our blind spots. We think we know ourselves and those around us. We think we know God and we even try to impose our will on God. Lent invites us to enter into a private desert, even in the midst of the world, and face up to our illusions about God and about ourselves.

During Lent, we use abstinence from meat and acts of penance as metaphors. In a very small way, these practices model our rejection of illusions about what we need, who we are, and who God is. Probably, we will not succeed in ridding ourselves completely of our illusion. That final cleansing will come only when we see God face to face at the final judgement. Then, and only then, will we have no illusions about our sanctity or goodness. All will be laid bare, and there will be no more hypocrisy, lies, or illusions. However, we must begin the journey from illusion to reality, from self-deception to self-knowledge now. And Lent is an appropriate time to re-commit ourselves to that task. I end with a wise prayer I received recently in a WhatsApp message from a friend. It is a prayer we should say and reflect on often, especially during the season of Lent

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that person is ME. 

Michael McCabe SMA, February 2022

 

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

20 February 2022

1 Samuel 26: 2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23                            1 Corinthians 15:45-49                             Luke 6:27-38

The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.’ So wrote Arthur Miller, the famous American playwright. Sadly, the word ‘love’ is so overused in contemporary discourse that it has lost much of its meaning. We speak of love of work, love of country, love of sport, love of food, love between friends, love of parents for their children, romantic love, etc. Examples could be multiplied. There are indeed many kinds and forms of love. In his encyclical letter, God is Love, Pope Benedict XVI distinguishes three main kinds of love: eros, the spontaneous attraction between a man and woman which tends towards union; philia, the mutual love that exists between friends; and agape or self-less and self-sacrificing love, supremely manifested in Jesus Christ, especially in the act of forgiving his enemies. It is this supreme expression of Christian love which is the central theme of today’s readings.

The desire for revenge is deeply ingrained in us. I remember as a young boy being enthralled by the novel, The Count of Monte Christo, a tale of revenge. It tells the story of a sailor, Edmond Dantes, who is betrayed by his friend, Fernand, falsely accused of treason, and imprisoned in frightful conditions for thirteen years. With the help of a fellow prisoner, he eventually escapes, and exacts revenge on those who had so cruelly betrayed him. I must confess that,  as a teenager, I found it easy to identify with Dantes’ desire for revenge, and felt a certain justice in the clever way in which he ‘turns the tables’ on those responsible for his unjust incarceration. Later in my life, however, I developed an aversion to stories of revenge, especially after watching some of the films of the American actor, Charles Bronson. I came to realise that the apparent ‘sweetness’ of revenge is short-lived and soon dissipates leaving the heart ‘high sorrowful and cloy’d’, to quote the poet, John Keats. Revenge and retaliation only add darkness to darkness, extinguishing the light that might lead to transformation. Only love has the power to transform. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, ‘Love is the light – and in the end, the only light – that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working’ (God is Love).

Our first reading today sets before us the example of David, who resisted the urge to revenge himself on King Saul who was jealous of him and wanted to get rid of him. Under cover of darkness David and his companion, Abishai, make their way into the camp of King Saul and find him asleep with his spear close to his head. Though David could have killed Saul, he simply makes off with his spear. He later returns the spear and tells Saul the reason he did not take advantage of the opportunity to kill him: ‘Today the Lord put you in my power, but I would not raise my hand against the Lord’s anointed’ (1 Sam 26:23).

The revolutionary moral precepts of Jesus in today’s gospel go far beyond resisting the desire for revenge. Based on the foundation of the beatitudes, they develop in particular the practical demands of the fourth beatitude: ‘Happy are you when people hate you, drive you out, abuse you, denounce your name as criminal, on account of the Son of Man(Lk 6:22). Jesus wanted a world transformed by the power of love, where the barriers of distrust are overcome and the legacies of hatred dissolved; where hurts are healed by compassion and misunderstandings dissipated by forgiveness. So he enjoins his disciples to bear hatred, insults and scorn with patience, without seeking to be avenged.  But he asks even more of them, spelling out a list of seemingly impossible positive demands: ‘love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you, and pray for those who maltreat you‘ (Lk 6:27-28). As difficult as these precepts may sound, they embody the highest ideals of Christian life and virtue. They challenge us to respond to darkness with light, to respond to what is worst in others with what is best in us. They invite us to emulate the perfect love of the Father, whose compassion extends to the ungrateful and wicked: ‘Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate (Lk 6:36). 

Living at a time when violence and a culture of revenge are still rampant, it is a matter of the utmost importance and urgency that Christians embrace the gospel teachings of Jesus on the love of enemies so that these precepts inform our choices in life, especially the choice to do good, to love and forgive. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr: ‘we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. Those devoid of the power to forgive are devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies’. 

So, in the great prayer of St Francis, where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury pardon;… for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen’.

Michael McCabe, February 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Human trafficking, an ancient crime that makes use of modern social media

 

 

 

 

 

Trafficking is not just being taken from one country to another country and then become a slave. Trafficking is when someone owns someone else’s life and exploits it“, said Jacqueline Fourie, foundress and president of Small Voice Human Trafficking, an NGO that fights against human trafficking in South Africa and Zambia, after the Mass celebrated at Saint Augustine’s parish in Silverston (Pretoria) on the occasion of the anniversary of Saint Bakhita. This coincided with the annual World Day of Prayer and Reflection Against Trafficking in Persons, which was established by Pope Francis in 2015.

Jacqueline Fourie recalled that the biggest obstacle the organization faces is ignorance, because people deny that human trafficking exists in South Africa and that their children cannot be victims of it. Instead, the head of the NGO stressed that children and young people are trapped by traffickers through social media that are used to recruit and exploit them. “Human trafficking is the fastest growing crime, the second biggest after drugs“, said Fourie.

In the course of his homily, Fr. Robert Ndung’u, referring to Ezekiel chapter 34 where God says: “Behold, I, myself will search for my sheep”, said the victims of human trafficking are scattered all over the world because they are looking for pasture and justice. He noted that some are looking employment, running away from poverty, war and violence.

And in fact, a lot of people disappear going for job interviews, confirmed Sello Mashaba of Without Chains, another NGO committed against trafficking, recommending girls to pay attention to job advertisements published by some modelling agencies. “Many girls have disappeared due to these attractive career announcements“, Mashaba said. There are various forms of human trafficking in South Africa, the victims of whom are both South African citizens, asylum seekers and African and Asian migrants.

The COVID-19 epidemic has exacerbated the problem. On May 31, May 30, 2021, the government of South Africa launched the Child Protection Week campaign with the theme: “Let us protect children during COVID-19 and beyond“. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2020 report “Global Report on Trafficking in Persons“, children account for over a third of the victims of human trafficking worldwide, with women and girls accounting for nearly 90% of victims of trafficking.

Trafficking in Ireland: Since the first victim of trafficking for sexual exploitation approached us in 2006, the Irish Immigrant Council has developed specific expertise on the trafficking of migrant women for sexual exploitation. This area remains a priority focus for the Immigrant Council, given that more than 90% of prostituted people are migrant women and girls.

The Council are working to end trafficking by providing support to migrant women (including members of the Trans community), as well as migrant men who find themselves victims of labour exploitation. They also campaign to end sexual exploitation by reducing the demand from consumers and monitor international developments to ensure we support victims in the best and most effective way possible.

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs defines trafficking as follows:

Trafficking takes place when all of these three elements are present:

  • ACT – a person is recruited, transported, transferred, harboured or received
  • MEANS – a person is threatened, forced or coerced in some way, through abduction, fraud, deception, the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or through the giving or receiving of payments
  • EXPLOITATION – a person is exploited (ie sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, organ removal or exploited into criminal activities or forced begging)

– with thanks to Agenzia Fides, the Vatican News Agency, 10 February 2022.

FEBRUARY | For religious sisters and consecrated women

We pray for religious sisters and consecrated women; thanking them for their mission and their courage; may they continue to find new responses to the challenges of our times.

In the Pope Video, Francis also recognizes that sometimes women religious are “treated unjustly, even within the Church.” For this reason, he calls them to fight against it and not to be discouraged; he asks them to keep showing “the beauty of God’s love and compassion as catechists, theologians, and spiritual guides” and “through the apostolic works they do.”

In continuity with the message that he has repeated on innumerable occasions throughout his pontificate, Francis asks religious sisters and consecrated women to center their apostolic work on having “an impact with the poor, with the marginalized, with all those who are enslaved by traffickers.”

Text of the Popes Message  – February 2022

This month, we will pray in a special way for religious sisters and consecrated women.
What would the Church be without religious sisters and consecrated laywomen? The Church cannot be understood without them.
I encourage all consecrated women to discern and choose what is best for their mission in the face of the world’s challenges that we’re experiencing.
I exhort them to keep working and to have an impact with the poor, with the marginalized, with all those who are enslaved by traffickers; I especially ask them to make an impact on this.
And let us pray that they may show the beauty of God’s love and compassion as catechists, theologians, and spiritual guides.
I invite them to fight when, in some cases, they are treated unfairly, even within the Church; when they serve so much that they are reduced to servitude —at times, by men of the Church.
Do not be discouraged. May you keep making God’s goodness known through the apostolic works you do. But above all through your witness of consecration.
Let us pray for religious sisters and consecrated women, thanking them for their mission and their courage; may they continue to find new responses to the challenges of our times.
Thank you for what you are, for what you do, and for how you do it.

A Memory of Fr Terry Gunn by his brother Pat Gunn

Fr Terry Gunn died two years ago on 10 February 2020 in the Cork University Hospital. He was 84 years old. He was ordained in 1960 and ministered in Lagos Archdiocese and Ijebu-Ode diocese, Nigeria, before returning to Ireland where he served in the SMA Houses in Blackrock Road and Wilton, Cork.  He is buried in the SMA community cemetery in Wilton.

Here we present a video about the life of Fr Terry.  It was filmed and edited by Paul O’Flynn the SMA Media Adviser and it came about as a result of the long standing friendship between Pat Gunn and Paul.  Through this Paul became aware of an extensive collection of photographs, paintings by Fr Terry and also information about his life – plenty to tell a good story.     

The result is available below – we hope you enjoy it. May he Rest in Peace. 

 

 

 

 

Labour Trafficking and Supply Chains – part two

The $43.4 billion per annum that accrues from forced labour is the root cause motivating Traffickers to enslave human beings.  Stopping these profits is therefore key to preventing and ending this crime. 

These profits accrue firstly because the produce of forced labour can be moved and distributed through supply chains and secondly because at top end of the supply chain, where finished products are available, consumer demand ensures that these goods are purchased, in most cases unwittingly, by consumers. 

THE NEED FOR LEGISLATRION AND REGULATION
Ultimately it is Governments and International Organisations like the UN and EU that bear responsibility for preventing trafficked goods entering supply chains, thus cutting off the profits that motivate Human Trafficking. 

Since 2014 the UN’s Human Rights Council has been in the process of drafting an internationally binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations requiring them to exercise due diligence to ensure that human rights are respected in their business operations  This includes their supply chains and preventing them being used as a conduit for the importation and sale of materials or products resulting from forced labour.  In March 2021, the European Parliament approved a proposal for an EU Directive on Mandatory Human Rights, Environmental and Good Governance Due Diligence. It is hoped that this initiative will eventually lead to new legislation in all member states.   

Both of these processes will most likely take years to complete as their is much debate and controversy regarding the scope and strength of these legal instruments.  NGO’s, civil and religious groups are calling for the greatest possible protection of human rights while some states and business interests want to protect trade and profits and also to limit their legal accountability. For more information download the SMA Justice Briefing on Human Trafficking and Supply Chains part II. Click on one of the options below.                                                       Screen Read version               Print Version

In Ireland a coalition (The Irish Coalition for Business and Human Rights) of over twenty organisations, including the OLA and SMA are supporting a the MAKE IT YOUR BUSINESS CAMPAIGN calling on the Irish Government to actively support the prompt progress of both the EU and UN efforts towards corporate accountability and mandatory due diligence that will prevent the misuse of supply chains and so prevent Human Trafficking.   

To  learn more about human trafficking and supply chains, as well as the importance of international regulation and how we can play a part, you are invited to attend the OLA-SMA webinar, “How Supply Chains Facilitate Human Trafficking – We All Bear Responsibility. The webinar takes place at 7pm on Tuesday, 15 February. We will hear from Keith Adams of the Jesuits Centre for Faith and Justice and from representatives of the Irish Coalition for Business and Human Rights.  To attend this event

                                                                                        REGISTER HERE

 

 

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

13 February 2022

Jeremiah 17:5-8                        1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20                        Luke 6:17, 20-26

The Beatitudes, Charter of God’s Kingdom

During my sabbatical programme in the Holy Land in the Spring of 2008, I was privileged to have had the opportunity to pray at the Church of the Beatitudes. Set in the foothills of Galilee in the centre of a lush garden filled with date palms, cypress trees, scented flowers and bougainvillea, it seemed to me like a little taste of heaven. Scattered throughout the garden were small granite markers containing the words of each beatitude, written in Latin, inviting pilgrims to reflect and pray. I now wish I had been able to spend more time there, but, of course, there is always the possibility I may one day make a return visit.

Today’s gospel passage recounts Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, Jesus’ Kingdom Charter. They are shorter and more personal than Matthew’s version. Whereas Matthew has eight beatitudes, Luke has just four categories of people declared blessed: the poor, those who are hungry, those who weep, and those who are hated because of Christ. In Luke’s version, Jesus addresses his  audience – his disciples, along with a large group of people – in the second person, ‘Blessed are you..’, whereas in Matthew’s version, he addresses them in the third person, ‘Blessed are those...’ Unlike Matthew, Luke also balances his four beatitudes with four ‘Woes’ or warnings for the ‘well heeled’ and those the world puts on a pedestal.

The beatitudes are at the very heart of Jesus’ message and mission. Called ‘the Gospel within the Gospel’, they show clearly how radically different are the values of the Kingdom from those of the world around us. The world of Jesus’ time, just like the world today, was a world dominated by the rich and the powerful, a world radically divided between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Jesus identifies himself with the ‘have-nots’ and proclaims them ‘happy’ or ‘blessed’, because their situation is about to change with the advent of God’s reign. In the beatitudes, Jesus was not speaking about the heavenly bliss the poor would enjoy after their harsh earthly pilgrimage was over. This view, popular in Western Christianity for many centuries, is a sad distortion of the teaching of Jesus. In the words of Albert Nolan OP, ‘Jesus was speaking, not of a future life beyond the grave, but of a future state of affairs on earth, when the poor would no longer be poor, the hungry would be satisfied, and the oppressed would see the end of their misery’. He was speaking about the fulfilment of the prophesy of Isaiah that he had proclaimed in the Synagogue of Nazareth, when he launched his messianic mission. He was confirming the promise of the God of the Magnificat, the God who ‘puts forth his arm in strength and scatters the proud-hearted’ who ‘casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly’, who ‘fills the starving with good things and sends the rich away empty’.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus is promising the poor and downtrodden in particular that they will have pride of place in the Kingdom of God. He is telling them that they are God’s favoured children. In this, Jesus is drawing on many passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that point to the poor and oppressed as those for whom God has special care and concern. They are the ones who, as our first reading from the prophet Jeremiah tells us, have put their trust in the Lord and have the Lord for their hope. They are ‘like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream’, whose foliage stays green, ‘and never ceases to bear fruit’ (Jer 17:8). But Jesus goes further than the Old Testament prophets in proposing the poor and marginalized as models of discipleship who manifest the character traits, attitudes, and virtues befitting true disciples.

The Beatitudes have often been described as a framework for Christian living and indeed they are. They offer guidelines for living out our vocation as Christians. Each of us is called to be a person of the Beatitudes. We are called not to be first in this world, but rather to be first in the eyes of God. This means to live simply, to be humble, gentle, merciful and just in our relationships and to place our ultimate trust in God. Today’s readings challenge us to examine our lives in the context of the horizon of God’s Kingdom and its Charter, the Beatitudes.

I will conclude with a short poem by the Welsh poet, RS Thomas, entitled The Kingdom. It expresses simply, clearly and memorably what is involved in living the beatitudes:

It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.

Michael McCabe SMA, February 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

WORLD DAY OF PRAYER AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING – Labour Trafficking and Supply Chains

Today, 8 February, the international anti-human trafficking network, Thalita Kum, invite you to participate in an eight-hour online Marathon of Prayer and Awareness against Trafficking in Persons. Join by clicking on the button below.  SCROLL DOWN TO THE END OF THIS ARTICLE TO SEE THE FULL TIMETABLE FOR THIS PRAYER EVENT

In the Church calendar February 8th, the feast of St Bakhita is also set aside to pray for victims of Human Trafficking.

Josephine Bakhita was born in Darfur, Sudan in 1869. Kidnapped at the age of seven, she was sold and resold five times. She experienced all the humiliations, sufferings and deprivations of slavery. 

Bought by the Italian consul to Khartoum in 1883, she was later taken to Italy. A court declared her free after which she entered religious life. She spent her life sharing her experience of slavery, comforting the poor and suffering and was known for her calmness, gentleness and good humour. She was canonised by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000. 

Forced labour, or labour trafficking

is the range of activities involved when a person uses force, fraud, or coercion to obtain the labour or services of another person.

The “act is when the trafficker recruits, harbours, transports, provides, or obtains a person for labour or services.

The “means” include use of force, fraud, or coercion through -threats of force, debt manipulation, confiscation of identity documents, psychological coercion, or other forms of coercion.

The “purpose” is to secure labour or services:  there is no limit on the location or type of industry.

A victim need not be physically transported from one location to another for the crime to fall within this definition.
2021 Trafficking in Persons Report

Over the next week the SMA and OLA Justice Offices will, publish information on the relationship between human trafficking, and supply chains, i.e. on how materials and goods produced through the forced labour of trafficked people enter the regular economy by being moved through supply chains and sold as legitimate goods. This generates huge profits for Traffickers and for those who trade, transport and deal in these goods. 

It is estimated that 25 million people are engaged in forced or trafficked labour and that it generates $43.4 billion per annum for those who enslave them.

While most people are aware of Human Trafficking and of how it denies the human rights and freedom of millions of people all around the world, there is less awareness of the fact that through the act of buying clothes, a mobile-phone or even things such as coffee or chocolate, that we may be contributing to the profits that motivate Traffickers to enslave human beings. 

While human trafficking is illegal and usually hidden from public view, the produce of trafficked labour is available all around the world. The fact that supply chains are global and complex masks and “launders” the production, distribution and sale of goods tainted by forced labour. This abuse of supply chains is widespread and is deliberately exploited by traffickers and by unscrupulous traders to move these illicit goods and to generate profits in countries all around the world including Ireland.   

Learn more about forced labour and supply chains by downloading the first of two SMA Justice Briefings on this topic click on the links below.

Read on-line version                                      Print version

Prayer to St Josephine Bakhita
St. Josephine Bakhita, you were sold into slavery as a child
and endured untold hardship and suffering.
Once liberated from your physical enslavement,
you found true redemption in your encounter with Christ and his Church.

O St. Bakhita, assist all those who are trapped in a state of slavery;
Intercede with God on their behalf
so that they will be released from their chains of captivity.
Those whom man enslaves, let God set free.

Provide comfort to survivors of slavery
and let them look to you as an example of hope and faith.
Help all survivors find healing from their wounds.
We ask for your prayers and intercessions for those enslaved among us.
Amen.

A second article looking at measures needed to combat and disrupt supply chain abuse that sustains trafficking will be published on on the 9th of February.  This will also link to a second Justice Briefing and to a Webinar Registration page. 

SMA International News – February 2022

Welcome to the February edition of the SMA International News which, this month, brings us four reports as well as the usual round- up of news from the SMA Generalate in Rome.  

First we hear about a new School in Ghana a collaborative effort between the OLA and SMA.  Next to we go to Ghana to hear about the opening of a new Parish that allows both pastoral care to a Catholic community and also primary evangelization.  Then we have two reports from the Philippines, the first recounting the experience of Typhoon Odette both on the country and directly on SMA’s and their families.  The final report is an account of the canonical visit of the Superior General to the Philippines in December 2021. 

 

 

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

“Leave me, Lord: I am a sinful man”

6 February 2022

Isaiah 6: 1-2a, 3-8;                       1 Corinthians 15: 1-11                        Luke 5:1-11

Theme: Responding to God’s Call

A few months after his election to succeed Pope Benedict, Pope Francis gave a lengthy interview to the well-known Italian journalist, Antonio Spadero. The first question Antonio asked the new pope was: ‘Who is Jorge Mario Bergolio?’ Pausing for a few moments, Pope Francis replied: ‘I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition; it is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.’  The Pope paused again for a few seconds and then repeated his answer but with an important qualification: ‘I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.’  This answer did not come from any false modesty on the part of Pope Francis but rather from a remarkable degree of self-awareness and honesty. We meet the same combination of self-awareness and honesty in the readings of today’s Eucharist.

Our first reading describes the call of the prophet Isaiah. Following an intense experience of God’s glory and majesty, Isaiah becomes acutely aware of his sinfulness and cries out: ‘What a wretched state I am in! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have looked at the King, the Lord of Hosts (Is 6:5). Despite his sense of unworthiness, the Lord calls him to be his messenger, his prophet, after sending an angel to purify him with a live coal: “See now, this has touched you lips, your sin is taken away, your iniquity is purged.” “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send? Who will be my messenger? (Is 6:7). Isaiah accepts the call and responds: Here I am, send me (Is 6:8).

Today’s gospel passage from Luke describes a similar acknowledgement of unworthiness, this time on the part of Simon Peter in the presence of Jesus. The context in which Peter becomes aware of being a sinner is significant. A professional fisherman, Peter and his companions had been fishing all night (the ideal time for fishing) and had caught nothing. When Jesus asks Peter to put out into deep water and lower the nets again, he must have been sceptical. Yet, he did as Jesus commanded and netted such a huge number of fish that the two boats were filled to sinking point. Seeing this epiphany of divine power, Luke tells us that Peter “‘fell at the knees of Jesus saying, “Leave me, Lord: I am a sinful man’ (Lk 5:8). Not only does Jesus not leave him, but he reassures him and called him to discipleship and mission: ‘Do not be afraid; from now on it is people you will catch (Lk 5:10). The passage ends with Peter and his companions leaving their boats, nets and livelihood behind and following Jesus.

In today’s second reading, taken from his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul reflects on his own calling to be an apostle. As a former persecutor of the Christians, he sees himself as unworthy to be called an apostle: I am the least of the apostles; in fact, since I persecuted the Church of God, I hardly deserve the name apostle; but by God’s grace that is what I am (1 Cor 15: 9-10). Indeed, more than any of the apostles, Paul was aware that his vocation was a creative gift of God who does not judge by human standards or depend on human achievement. Addressing the Christian community of Corinth, he reminds them of this profound truth in these words: Consider your call, brethren;… God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God (1 Cor 1:26-29).

Paul’s words were meant to encourage, not discourage the Christians of Corinth.

And they are meant to encourage us and to heighten our awareness of God’s grace at work in our lives. The examples of Isaiah, Peter and Paul invite all of us to reflect on our own calling as disciples of Jesus, to acknowledge how, in spite of being weak and sinful creatures, God’s grace continues to uplift and strengthen us. Perhaps, like Peter, it may have been an experience of failure that brought us to our knees and led us to more profound awareness of God’s grace. It was an experience of failure as a poet that brought the Monaghan poet, Patrick Kavanagh, to a deeper trust in the presence of the God who is manifested in nature and to a rediscovery of his poetic muse. In the depths of despair, he wrote these lines: ‘O God, can a man find you when he lies with his face downwards/And his nose in the rubble that was his achievement./Is the music playing behind the door of despair?/ O God give us purpose’. Yes, there was music playing behind the door of Kavanagh’s despair and it found expression in his wonderful poem, Canal Bank Walk:

‘Leafy-with-love banks and green waters of the canal,
Pouring redemption for me, that I do
The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,
Grow with nature again as before I grew.’ 

So we pray: Heavenly Father, rekindle in our hearts the passion to continually answer your call. Like Isaiah, Peter and Paul, who gave themselves unselfishly in response to your call, may we too be generous in responding to the call to be your messengers and make a difference in our world.

Michael McCabe SMA, February 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Memory of Catholic Africa

Soyoye Basil Bight-of-Benin
Fr Basil Soyoye, SMA

We will never stop praising the work of catechists in Africa“, writes SMA Father Basil Soyoye, from Nigeria, regarding the ‘Memory of Catholic Africa’ project which he launched in Benin last year. “When we celebrate the different anniversaries of the evangelization of Africa we must not forget that the first missionaries did not speak our national languages and that it was the catechists who acted as mediators between them and the local population. If evangelization has been successful in West Africa, it is because there were dedicated catechists there. They were not always accepted by the followers of indigenous religions. Some of them lost their lives because of this opposition“.

Fr Basil was speaking to FIDES about the need to collect and preserve the memories of the life of the African Church. The missionaries kept daily diaries (coutumiers) documenting everything they did each day. Many of these coutumiers are now in their General or Provincial Houses in Europe and the Americas. These handwritten accounts of the work of the foreign missionaries must be enhanced by records of those ‘indigenous missionaries’ – the early men and women catechists who, though often illiterate, learnt to recite the questions and answers of the ‘penny’ catechism, prayers such as the Our Father, Ave Maria, Glory be… etc – and then, in turn taught them to the people in the many villages accompanying the priest as he travelled through his parish, often hundreds of square miles.

Fr Basil served in Egypt, Benin, Nigeria and, most recently, was the Director of the SMA African Museum in Lyon, France. Now, back in Benin – at the SMA International Spiritual Year Centre – he has launched a project to provide an archive “collecting, through video-interviews, stories of the African faith, written or oral information on monuments, religious institutes, significant events of the Catholic Church in Africa.”

Read the full FIDES article here.

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

30 January 2022

Jeremiah1:4-5. 17-19                    1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13                    Luke 4:21-30

Theme: O, that today you would listen to his voice

I’m sure many will remember Don McClean’s popular song, Vincent, about the famous Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh. It ends with these rather pessimistic if memorable lines: ‘They would not listen, they’re not listening still / Perhaps they never will’. Not being listened to was the fate of all the prophets, those who spoke God’s word to the people of their time. It was the fate of Jeremiah, appointed by God as ‘prophet to the nations’ (Jer 1:5), and it was the fate of Jesus, God’s beloved Son, who, in the words of St John ‘came to his own people and his own people did not accept him (Jn 1:11).

Our first reading recounts the call and commissioning of Jeremiah, one of the  major prophets of Israel who lived at a time of great political turmoil. Jeremiah  was charged with the unenviable task of challenging the Kings and princes, priests and people of Judah, exhorting them to be faithful to the covenant God had made with them. A peace-loving young man, Jeremiah never wanted to be a prophet. At times he felt overwhelmed by the sheer burden of it, but, like Jesus after him, ‘he learned to obey through suffering’ (Heb 5:8). In this reading, he is assured that he will not fail in his prophetic mission, for the Lord will be with him, making him into ‘a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of bronze’ (Jer 1:18). The assurance given to Jeremiah is still given today to all those speak truth to power, who stand up for justice and integrity.

The story of Jesus’ rejection by the townspeople of Nazareth, vividly told by Luke in today’s gospel, is sad and disturbing. In the Spring of 2008, while on a sabbatical programme in the Holy Land, I had the privilege of spending a few days in Nazareth (now a large town) situated in the hills of Galilee. A guide led us to ‘Mount of Precipitation’, the place, we are told, where the people attempted to murder Jesus by throwing him down a cliff-face. The people who rejected Jesus were no strangers to him. They were his neighbours and friends. He had probably attended their weddings and funerals, visited them when sick, and joined in their festivals. With Joseph, he may even have to build their houses or make furniture for their homes. They were people he knew and loved. This makes their rejection of him all the more poignant.

Jesus had just proclaimed a heart-warming passage from Isaiah in their Synagogue and presented himself as the promised Messiah. The people’s reaction to him at first seems to be one of amazement and approval. ‘He won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips (Lk 4: 22). It is shocking to see how quickly this mood of admiration and acclaim changed to one of questioning, hostility and, in the end, murderous rage. We wonder what could have made these people so angry? What was it in his message that they didn’t want to hear, that they couldn’t accept. We get an inkling of what annoyed them from the words of Jesus, reminding them that God was not just ‘their God’  but the God of all peoples, the God who showed mercy to the widow of Zarephath and the Syrian, Naaman, both gentiles. Like most of Jesus’ contemporaries, the people of Nazareth believed that they, and they alone, were ‘God’s chosen people’. Jesus challenges their narrow vision of God and his ways, and draws them towards a more inclusive vision. This was not what they wanted to hear.

The story of Jesus’ rejection by his townspeople should challenge us about our own prejudices and blind spots. How open are we to the message God wants to give us? Do we really listen to God’s Word with an attentive ear and receptive heart? We need to cultivate a listening heart, but how do we do this? The answer, I suggest, is to be found in our second reading today, in which St Paul speaks of the qualities of love. They are the same qualities that characterise the listening heart. The listening heart is ‘always patient and kind; it is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude;… it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but delights in the truth’ (1Cor 13: 4-6) Above all, the listening heart is a heart that capable of appreciating the goodness and beauty in others.

I end with a story that bring out very well this final quality of the listening heart:  

‘Moved by the beauty around him, one of the disciples asked his old Master how he could help others to see and feel such beauty. ‘What you ask is difficult’ answered the old man. ‘To see and feel beauty outside ourselves, we must be and feel ourselves to be beautiful.’  ‘But Master’, asked the disciple, ‘how do we know if someone is beautiful?’  ‘Beauty is part of love’, the Master explained. It is being great enough to give, and humble enough to receive. To help another discover beauty is to open one’s spirit to noble and generous ideas. It is removing the blindfold that covers the mind and tearing off the bandages that shroud the heart.’ (Emilio Rojas).

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Nigerian Christians dying for their faith

Open Doors International, a non-denominational organization that assists persecuted Christians around the globe, has issued an annual report in which it claims a record 360 million people worldwide were discriminated against or abused last year for being followers of Christ, up 20 million on the previous year. Their annual report came as FIDES, – the Vatican’s missionary News Agency – released a list of twenty-two Catholic missionaries who were murdered in 2021, eleven of them in Africa. 

Open Doors has been monitoring Christian persecution since 1992 and has been publishing its World Watch List annually since 2012, listing the 50 countries where it was most dangerous to profess one’s Christian faith in the course of the year.

Funeral Service for 38 Christians killed in Kaura Local Government, Kaduna State Nigeria

Nearly 5,900 Christians were murdered last year, 80% of these martyrs for the faith were in Nigeria, including four Catholic priests.

This record level comes in a context of global health crisis, with the arrival in power of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the actions of jihadist groups in sub-Saharan Africa,” emphasizes Patrick Victor, director of Open Doors France.

The NGO says 5,898 Christians lost their lives last year because of their faith. That includes 4,650 in Nigeria and 620 in Pakistan. “This translates into 16 Christians being killed every day around the world,” Victor pointed out. 

Another notable figure is that 5,110 churches were targeted in 2021, including 3,000 in China. 20,000 Christian buildings have been closed in China over the past eight years. Watch List 2022 says 470 churches and Christian facilities were closed last year in Nigeria, and 200 in Bangladesh.

IN SUMMARY
1 in 7 Christians are persecuted worldwide;

1 in 5 Christians are persecuted in Africa;

2 in 5 Christians are persecuted in Latin America;

5,898 Christians murdered;

5,110 Churches attacked and 

6,175 Christians detained.

Additionally, it reports that 6,175 Christians are currently detained because of their religious beliefs, including 1,315 in India, 1,100 in China, and 1,050 in Pakistan.

Considering all the various types of persecution, the worst place in the world to be a Christian in 2021 was in Afghanistan. North Korea had been top of the list for nearly 20 years. “The Taliban had lists of converts to Christianity,” explained Guillaume Guennec, advocacy officer at Open Doors France. “They went door-to-door to find them, and immediately killed Christian men, while the women or girls were raped or sold,” he said.

Myanmar also moved up the list from 18th place in World Watch 2021 to 12th place in this latest edition. The main reason was anti-Christian violence by the military junta in wake of the February 2021 coup d’état. Fides reported that 35 Catholics in Mo so village, Kayah State, were murdered by soldiers and their burnt bodies were discovered on Christmas Day. Myanmar Cardinal Charles Maung Bo said that “as the rest of the world celebrated the birth of Christ, the people of Mo so village suffered death, shock and destruction.”

Christians in Nigeria (46% of the Nigerian population) continue to face daily oppression, particularly in the north of the country, which is suffering from the threat of terrorism. “Bandits and kidnappers are increasingly targeting Christians and church leaders for ransom,” said Protestant pastor and whistle-blower Fred Williams, who serves in a parish in Plateau state, Nigeria.

India is ranked the 10th worst country for Christians (4.9% of the Indian population). According to John Dayal, a journalist and human rights activist who founded the All India Christian Council, “in 2021, Hindu leaders publicly called for the killing of Christians and Muslims, for the establishment of a Hindu theocracy, a project supported by elected officials in power.” Last Christmas, “sixteen attacks targeting churches or religious congregations” took place in the country.

Three pieces of good news

قناة التغيير, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Pope Francis Apostolic Journey to Iraq – Hall of the Presidential Palace in Baghdad CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

First was the visit of Pope Francis to Iraq, which helped “raise world awareness” about the situation of Christians in the East.

Second was the acquittal of Pakistani Christians Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar – co-prisoners for a time with Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman who was falsely accused of blasphemy against the prophet Mohammed in 2009 after an argument with other women in her village. She was sentenced to death in 2009 until the Pakistan Supreme Court acquitted her in 2018, causing riots by anti-Christian groups. She now lives in Canada.

Shafqat Emmanuel and Shaqufta Kausar were released from death row in 2021, after a sever-year ordeal following similar accusations against this Christian couple in April 2014. Along with their family, they have been relocated to a European country for their safety.

And, finally, there was the release last October 9 of Franciscan Sister Gloria Cecilia Narvaez, whom jihadists had held captive for four years in Mali. Sr Gloria was held with SMA Fr Pierluigi Maccalli before his release in October 2020, after nearly two years in captivity.

Read more at: https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/360-million-christians-persecuted-worldwide-last-year-says-ngo/15510

Read the complete Open Doors Report at World Watch List 2022  · Serving Persecuted Christian’s Worldwide (opendoors.org)

With thanks to La Croix International, Open Doors and FIDES for the information used in this article.

SMA and OLA Justice Work – a look back at 2020

Since 2014 collaboration between the SMA and OLA Justice and Communications Offices has grown. This has been facilitated by the establishment of a Joint Justice Committee which plans and oversees  work on common justice priorities. 

In 2020 this collaboration led to planning and delivery of on-line campaigns and webinars raising awareness of and promoting action on the issues of protecting biodiversity, human trafficking and racism. The SMA Summer School and the second Intergenerational Climate Justice Conference were also very successful collaborative efforts with over six hundred and fifty adults and teenagers participating in the Conference.   

Below a short video describing this and other OLA – SMA Justice work in 2020. Click on the play button to view.

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

23 January 2022

Theme:  Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.

Nehemiah 8: 2-4a, 5-6, 8-10                    1 Corinthians 12:12-30                    Luke 1: 1-4; 4:14-21

There are notable parallels as well as contrasts between the first reading and the gospel of today. In our first reading from Nehemiah, the priest Ezra solemnly reads a lengthy section from the Book of the Law to a great assembly of the people of Israel gathered in an open square in Jerusalem. He thus re-constitutes them as ‘God’s holy people’ following the traumatic years of exile in Babylon. We are told that the people listened attentively and wept as they heard God’s word proclaimed to them. How attentively do we listen to God’s word and does it ever touch our hearts and move us to tears?

In the Gospel from Luke, Jesus also proclaims God’s word to those gathered in the Synagogue of his home town of Nazareth. The passage he reads is taken from the prophet Isaiah. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord‘ (Lk 4:18-19). Jesus then sits down, and, in words which launch his great mission of liberation, he says: This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen’ (Lk 4:21). The words of Isaiah serve as Jesus’ manifesto. He has come to replace the old Jewish love of law with a new law of love and inaugurate the greatest revolution in human history.

Jesus’ mission leads him to challenge head-on the values of Palestinian theocratic society. The afflictions of the poor, then as now, were, in large measure, caused by repression, discrimination and exploitation by the rich and powerful, the upholders of the status quo. Jesus directs his mission to those who had been ignored or pushed aside: to the sick who were segregated on cultic grounds; to tax-collectors who were excluded on political and religious grounds; and to prostitutes and public sinners who were excluded on moral grounds. In his compassionate outreach to these ‘outcasts’, Jesus concretely embodies God’s kingly rule as good news for them. It means the end of their misery and the introduction of a new order of social relationships based on the principle of inclusion. No one is excluded from the love of God ‘who causes his sun to rise on bad people as well as good, and sends rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike (Mt 5:45).

Some theologians have argued that Jesus had no social or political agenda, that he wanted to change hearts not social structures. However, as the great Scripture scholar, Tom Wright, points out, in the Judaism of Jesus’ day religion and politics were inseparable. As his contemporaries would have expected, Jesus sought to bring God’s kingly rule to bear on every aspect of human life. In the ‘Our Father’ he taught his disciples to pray: Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven(Mt 6:10). Jesus was not proclaiming a private or personal reign of God’s spirit in the souls of individuals. He was launching a revolutionary movement which would turn Israel and the world up-side-down. He wanted to establish God’s reign of justice, peace, truth and love in Israel and (through Israel) among all peoples.

Jesus lived, died and rose again in order to establish God’s kingdom on earth, and the task of his disciples is to continue that work. In the words of Pope Francis, the mission of the Church is ‘to proclaim and establish among all peoples the kingdom of Christ and of God’.  This mission entails the integral transformation of the world in which we live. In the words of Cardinal Suenens: ‘The preaching of the Gospel and its acceptance imply a social revolution whereby the hungry are fed and justice becomes the right of all’.

But we do not carry out this mission as isolated individuals. As the second Reading from St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians reminds us, we are the Body of Christ, and it is as the Body of Christ that we continue Jesus’ mission. The different gifts received by the members of the Church from the Holy Spirit complement one another, and, when properly used, build up the unity of the Church and serve its mission. The synodal process, launched by Pope Francis in October last year, and in which we are all called to take part, is a graced opportunity to deepen our sense of being the Body of Christ and collaborate more effectively in the service of the Church’s mission.

In a recent article in The Tablet, Jenny Sinclair reminds us that the purpose of our synodal journey is not primarily to change the Church. It is rather ‘God’s way of preparing the Church to save the world’. In the synodal process ‘the whole people of God come closer together on the journey of bringing alive the kingdom of God on earth’ (The Tablet, 1 January 2022, p.6). However, it is only when the Church functions effectively as the Body of Christ – when all its members are truly open to the divine Spirit and to one another – that it can be a credible sacrament of God’s reign of love and justice. So we pray: ‘Lord, make us instruments of your peace, justice and love in our confused and wounded world.’

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, January 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Living with the Spirit

The parishioners of St Joseph’s SMA parish, Wilton, Cork, Ireland, have produced a series of daily reflections to guide you through the week.

They are based on a pamphlet which was printed for Christmas 2021 and distributed in the parish. Those reading the prayers are also Ministers of the Word (Lectors) at St Joseph’s.

Take 4 minutes – yes, just four minutes – to join in a moment of prayer. 

Click on the button below to join them in prayer.

Feel free to share this link with your parishioners, family and friends.

 

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 – Year C

16 January 2022

Theme:  New wine in new wine-skins

Isaiah 62: 1-5                    1 Corinthians 12:4-11                    John 2: 1-11

In an interview some years before his death, the well-known Irish radio and television broadcaster, Terry Wogan, spoke about how, despite his traditional Catholic upbringing, he had lost his faith while still a teenager. Speaking about his childhood, he said: ‘There were hundreds of churches, all these missions breathing fire and brimstone, telling you how easy it was to sin, how you’d be in hell. We were brainwashed into believing.’  Too often Christianity has been presented and experienced as a rather grim and joyless affair, confronting us with feelings of guilt and failure. Obviously this was how it was perceived by the young Terry Wogan and understandably rejected as such, for that is not what the Christian message is about at all. As today’s readings clearly show, Christianity is essentially a religion of unwavering hope, of new life and overflowing joy. It is aboutnew wine in new wineskins’ (Mk 2:22). It is a celebration of God’s unfailing love and mercy, best conveyed in the biblical image of a wedding feast or banquet.

Our first reading from Isaiah is a joyful proclamation of God’s plan to transform Jerusalem, devastated by the Babylonians, and reunite and transform the scattered and disheartened people of Israel so that all nations will see their integrity. ‘No longer are you to be named “forsaken”, nor your land “abandoned”, but you shall be called “My Delight” and your land “The Wedded(Is 62:3). This wedding image is repeated again toward the end of the reading: ‘for the Lord takes delight in you and your land will have its wedding (Is 62:4) – a wedding in which God will be the bridegroom and Israel the beloved bride in whom God delights.

Our gospel reading recounts the familiar story of the wedding at Cana in Galilee, when Jesus turns water into wine, ‘the first of the signs given by Jesus’ (Jn 2:10). While this may be the first sign or visible manifestation of Jesus’ identity and messianic mission recorded in John’s Gospel, it is the third epiphany of Jesus we have celebrated over the past fortnight. On the 6th of January, Epiphany Sunday, we recalled the visit to Bethlehem of some wise men from the East, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and testifying to Jesus as the King of kings. Last Sunday, we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus by John in the river Jordan, when the Heavenly Father, by word and Spirit, attested to Jesus’ identity as his Beloved Son. Today, we recall Jesus’ first miracle, when he changes water into wine, testifying to himself as Son of God and letting his glory be seen so that his disciples believed in him (Jn 2:11).

The scale of the miracle at Cana is stunning. On the orders of Jesus, in response to his mother’s request, six enormous stone jars, capable of holding twenty or thirty gallons each, are filled to the brim with water, and changed into wine of the highest quality. This would be enough wine – about 800 litres – to make all the guests very happy for a year, not just one week – the normal length of a Jewish marriage celebration at the time of Jesus. Clearly the story is not meant to be taken literally. The abundance of wine is a sign or symbol of the  ‘new dispensation’ initiated by Jesus – a dispensation of ‘grace and truth’ (Jn 1:17), of new life and overflowing joy. Isaiah’s prophesy of the messianic banquet (cf. Is 25:-6-8) has arrived in the life and ministry of Jesus, who brings healing to the sick, gives hope to the hopeless, turns tears into joy, and changes death into life. An abundance of wine of the best vintage is the perfect sacrament of that fullness of life Jesus came to bring on earth: ‘I have come that you may have life and have it to the full’ (Jn 10:10).

There’s a popular Danish movie, Babette’s Feast, one of Pope Francis’ favourite movies, which captures very well the message of today’s readings, especially the gospel. It won an Oscar for best foreign film in 1988. Based on a short story by Karen Blixen (of Out of Africa fame), it portrays the transformation of strict Pietist community led by the elderly daughters of the group’s founder, who regard all earthly pleasures with disdain and eat only bland food. Their lives are turned upside-down when Babette, a first-class French chef,  shows up at their home, bringing a letter from an old friend and seeking refuge from violence in her native Paris. She offers to work for free, and stays with them for 14 years, gradually gaining their trust.

One day, she wins the lottery and, instead of returning to her home in Paris, she uses all her money to prepare a lavish feast in honour of the group’s founder. Watching the stiff, suspicious elders become transformed by the conviviality of a great feast, prepared with love and attention to detail, is an unforgettable experience. In the course of a wonderful celebration with the choicest of foods, spirits are lifted, bridges built, squabbles settled and friendships restored. The sisters are reminded of a sermon delivered by the minster many years before: ‘For mercy and truth have met together and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another’ and it seems to them, like an epiphany, that they can now see the world for what it really is – a place of light and joy. This was Babette’s gift to the community who offered her refuge and it is Christ’s gift to us today. What is our response?

Michael McCabe SMA, January 2022

JANUARY | Religious discrimination and persecution

Pope Francis opens his first prayer intention of 2022 with two direct and incisive questions which cry out for an answer: “How is it possible that many religious minorities currently suffer discrimination or persecution? How can we allow there to be people who are persecuted simply because they publicly profess their faith?” 

Paths of fraternity: welcoming other people’s differences

The Pope reminds us that religious freedom is tied to the concept of fraternity. In order to begin walking the paths of fraternity upon which Francis has been insisting for years, it’s imperative that we not only respect others, our neighbors, but that we genuinely value them “in their differences and recognize them as true brothers and sisters.” For the Holy Father, “as human beings, we have so many things in common that we can live alongside each other, welcoming our differences with the joy of being brothers and sisters.” Without granting this premise, it is impossible to undertake the path towards peace and living side by side with each other.

TEXT OF POPE FRANCIS MESSAGE
How is it possible that many religious minorities currently suffer discrimination or persecution?
How can we allow that in this society, which is so civilized, there are people who are persecuted simply because they publicly profess their faith? Not only is it unacceptable; it’s inhuman, it’s insane.
Religious freedom is not limited to freedom of worship—that is to say, that people can have a worship service on the day prescribed by their sacred books. Rather, it makes us appreciate others in their differences and recognize them as true brothers and sisters.
As human beings, we have so many things in common that we can live alongside each other, welcoming our differences with the joy of being brothers and sisters.
And may a small difference, or a substantial difference such as a religious one, not obscure the great unity of being brothers and sisters.
Let us choose the path of fraternity. Because either we are brothers and sisters, or we all lose.
Let us pray that those who suffer discrimination and suffer religious persecution, may find in the societies in which they live the rights and dignity that comes from being brothers and sisters.

Baptism of the Lord 2022

9 January 2022

Isaiah 42: 1-4,6-7                         Titus 2: 14=17; 3:4-7                         Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

Theme: ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you

The feast of the Baptism of the Lord is the last major feast within the Christmas Season. It marks a transition moment in the life of Jesus, when he leaves behind the hidden years of his life in Nazareth and enters the public arena for the first time. Hence the liturgy shifts our focus from the baby in the manger to the adult Jesus about to embark on his messianic mission in the service of God’s reign. His first public act is to join with a group of his fellow Jews, listening to the preaching of his cousin, John, and accepting to be baptised by him in the Jordan river. It is at this time and place that God reveals him as his Son: ‘Then, while Jesus was praying, the heavens opened: the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove and a voice from Heaven was heard, “You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you”’(Lk 3: 21-22). For Jesus, this event marks the beginning of a journey that will take him from Capernaum to Jerusalem, from the hills of Galilee all the way to the hill of Calvary.

Jesus’ baptism, then, serves as a prologue to his public life and mission, manifesting his choice to be obedient to the will of His Father and his decision about the form his messianic vocation will take. He will not be the great military leader who will liberate his people from Roman domination that many of his contemporaries hoped. Instead, he will be a suffering servant, a gentle and peaceful leader, who will identify himself fully with the poor and oppressed of the land. Our first reading from Isaiah, a prophet who lived around 700 BC, gives us a vivid portrait of the kind of Messiahship Jesus will embrace. He will not shout out, ‘or make his voice heard in the streets’ (Is 42: 3). He will be kind and merciful to all who are oppressed and who bear heavy burdens. ‘He will not break the crushed reed, nor quench the wavering flame (Is 42:3). But he will be implacable in his pursuit of justice for the poor and exploited: ‘Faithfully he brings true justice; he will neither waver nor be crushed until true justice is established on earth’ (Is 42:4). He will be a compassionate and merciful leader bringing healing and liberation to his people. His mission will be ‘to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison, and those of live in darkness from the dungeon’ (Is 42:7). And he will be a light not just for the people of Israel but for all nations of the world.

Recalling the baptism of Jesus and what it meant for him and his messianic calling reminds us of our baptism and what it means for us. First, it reminds us of who we are and to whom we belong. By Baptism we become children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus. By baptism, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, we become temples of the Holy Spirit, members of the Body of Christ (the Church), and sharers in the priesthood of Christ [cf. CCC 1279].

The baptism of Jesus also reminds us of our missionary calling as beloved children of God. In acknowledging our own dignity as God’s children, we are called to appreciate the Divine Presence in others by honouring them, loving them and serving them in all humility. We are challenged to live as children of God in thought, word and action so that our heavenly Father may say to each one of us what he said to Jesus: ‘You are my beloved son/daughter with whom I am well pleased’. 

Our baptism commits us to live holy and transparent Christian lives and to grow in intimacy with God by personal and community prayer, by reading and reflecting on the Word of God, and by participating in the Eucharist and other sacraments. But it also commits us to continue the mission of Jesus to establish true justice on earth, to be co-creators with God in building up his Kingdom of compassion, justice and love, and to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Today it is appropriate for us to remember the graces we have received in Baptism and to renew our Baptismal promises. On the day of our Baptism, we were anointed with the oil of Chrism to show that we were consecrated in the image of Jesus, the Father’s Anointed One. The candle lighted from the Paschal Candle was a symbol of the light of Faith which our parents and godparents passed on to us. This is, then, a day for us to renew our Baptismal promises, to consecrate  ourselves anew to the Lord, ‘rejecting Satan and all his empty promises’. Let us ask the Lord to help us to be faithful to our baptismal promises. Let us thank him for the privilege of being joined to his mission in witnessing to the Good News by our transparent Christian lives of love, mercy, service and forgiveness.

Michael McCabe SMA, January 2022

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Epiphany of the Lord 2022

6 January 2022

Isaiah 60:1-6                         Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6                         Matthew 2:1-12

Theme: ‘We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage’ (Mt 2:2)

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, one of the most important celebrations of the Liturgical Year – a feast with particular significance for missionaries.  The word Epiphany came from the Greek word ‘Epiphaneia’, which means revelation or manifestation. This Solemnity celebrates the revelation of the light of Christ to all the nations and peoples of the world, represented by the Magi or the Wise Men. It is an appropriate occasion to thank God for our missionary vocation ad gentes.

Homily

In the Gospel we hear the enthralling story how the certain wise men (Magi) from the East, guided by a Star, come to visit to the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. The Magi saw the star from afar and they knew that a very prominent event was about to happen, the birth of a great King, destined to bring integrity and justice to the world,  an event foretold by many prophets and wise men throughout the centuries and millennia past. The Magi undertook a long and arduous journey from their own lands, enduring difficult conditions to reach the place indicated by the star. Although their names are not recorded in the Scriptures, Church tradition has given them the names of Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. Their places of origin are often given as India, Persia and Arabia or other distant lands. On entering the place indicated by the star, ‘they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh(Mt 2: 11-12).

While this beautiful story should not be taken literally, it is a superb summary of the entire life of Jesus and every element in it is rich in symbolism. Jesus’ birth was like a star rising in the skies to guide people on their pilgrimage of life. His birth has an important background, highlighted by John in his prologue to his Gospel – the moment when the Eternal Word gave birth to the Universe, nearly 14 billion years ago. This is, as theologians today increasingly recognise, the first incarnation of God, a free and creative event with particles of matter and light expanding in an endless adventure. The initial birthing of our universe eventually gave rise to our Star, the Sun, the source of the atmosphere of our planet and of all living beings. At a certain moment in time this cosmic unfolding story converged in a unique and incomparable conjunction of light and love, of human and divine, in the historical person of Jesus. So, with the Magi, we contemplate the mystery of the Word Incarnate, the Cosmic energy of love shining in the defenceless and tender flesh of a baby.

The story of the Magi, as recounted by Matthew, shows how Jesus is recognised as the Messiah and universal Lord by those who genuinely sought wisdom, while many of his own people rejected him for various reasons. The political leaders, represented by Herod and the Jerusalem elite were perturbed. They felt threatened by a child! The Chief priests and scribes had access to all the right texts. But their knowledge of the texts did not open their hearts and guide them along the road of faith – a warning surely to whose who are too sure of themselves and their knowledge. The wise men, however, were seekers, and willing to undertake a long and hazardous journey. And, as Matthew tells us, led by a star they found the house and went inside. The house represents the house of faith. The gifts of the Magi, the gold, frankincense and myrrh  express the true nature of Jesus, Universal King and Lord of all Creation, Eternal High Priest and Suffering Servant. The gift of gold expresses the real significance of Christ’s Kingship; incense is a sign of his Priesthood; while myrrh signifies the manner in which he would fulfil his role as Messiah – his suffering and death.

At the time the Gospel of Matthew was written, around 85 AD,  the Jews had, by and large, rejected Jesus Christ and his message. However, the Gentile nations had responded to the preaching of Paul and his companions and were entering the house of faith, the Church. In today’s second reading we find Paul rejoicing that the pagans now share the same inheritance, that they are part of the same body, and that the same promise is made to them, in Christ Jesus, through the gospel(Eph 3:5-6). This providential acceptance of Christ by the nations was foreseen and gloriously celebrated by the Prophet Isaiah in the 8th century BC – as we see in the first reading: The nations come to your light and kings to your dawning brightness(Is 60:3).

As we join with the Magi in acknowledging the great light that has come upon the earth with the birth of Jesus, and offer him our homage, let us pray:

May Christ, our Lord, King, High Priest and Saviour, revealed and manifested to the whole world, be our Light and Guide. May he sustain us with his Spirit as we continue to walk faithfully in his presence in this world, bearing witness to his truth and love. May he bless us all now and always. Amen.

Michael McCabe SMA, January 2022

 

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

SMA International News – January 2022

Greetings dear Brothers and Sisters, Happy New Year from the SMA International News Team and welcome to the first Monthly News Edition of 2022.

This month we begin with a Report from Nigeria, telling of the return of SMA’s to Belliri Parish in Bauchi Diocese.  This Parish was founded by Irish SMA’s in 1950.  Next we have news of a recent development in Sierra Leone.  The Superior, Fr Patrikson Francis SMA  introduces us to  the work of Fr David Agbevanoo SMA in his Parish and in a newly constructed school.   Our third report this month comes from Strasbourg where the OLA Sisters have opened a new Community. 

The January Bulletin concludes with a the usual round-up of News from the SMA Generalate and ends with an introduction to the recently published book by Bishop Patrick Harrington SMA – To Prepare His Ways – Tracing the Life of Melchior de Marion Brésillac, which is available to download in pdf format on this website. 

Bethlehem: The reckless generosity of God

AlfvanBeem, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Fr Kevin O’Gorman SMA preached the following homily at the Christmas Day Mass in the SMA House, Wilton, Cork. Though the Christmas celebrations are now behind us, his words are relevant for every day of the year.

Asked about the best theologian I have heard I surprised the questioner by answering, ‘An anonymous child’. This was not a politically correct appeal to the Gospel passage about Jesus’ assertion of the primacy of a child’s place in the Kingdom of God. About twenty years ago as it was getting dark on Christmas day I went to the local church. A couple entered with their little boy who wandered around for a while and after his mother’s cajoling eventually came to stand at the crib. He climbed onto the pew that was placed at the front of the crib. The scene before him was familiar, animals in the surrounding countryside, a couple like his parents, a child in a makeshift cot perhaps reminding him of a photo of himself as a baby. The star and angels would have been seasonal to his sight as the carols being piped were to his hearing. Silent for a few moments he suddenly asked for all to hear ‘But where is holy God?’ Inspecting a scene so seemingly human and natural he was in fact viewing what Gerald Manley Hopkins called ‘God’s infinity dwindled to infancy’. The child’s inquiry goes to the heart of the mystery of the Incarnation, pronounced today in the Gospel – ‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us’.    

This incident calls to mind a passage from Frank O’Connor’s autobiography: ‘One Christmas Santa Claus brought me a toy engine. As it was the only present I had received, I took it with me to the convent, and played with it on the floor while Mother and “the old nuns” discussed old times. But it was a young nun who brought us in to see the crib. When I saw the Holy Child in the manger I was very distressed, because little as I had, he had nothing at all. For me it was fresh proof of the incompetence of Santa Claus – an elderly man who hadn’t even remembered to give the Infant Jesus a toy and who should have been retired long ago. I asked the young nun politely if the Holy Child didn’t like toys, and she replied composedly enough: “Oh, he does, but his mother is too poor to afford them”. That settled it. My mother was poor too, but at Christmas she at least managed to buy me something, even if it was only a box of crayons. I distinctly remember getting into the crib and putting the engine between his outstretched arms. I probably showed him how to wind it as well, because a small baby like that would not be clever enough to know. I remember too the tearful feeling of reckless generosity with which I left him there in the nightly darkness of the chapel, clutching my toy engine to his chest’.[1]

Entering into the lighted chapel, the child is immediately struck by the sight of the baby in the crib bereft of a Christmas present. There is no mention of the Magi and their munificent gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh which anyway, in the child’s assessment, would not have amounted to anything useful or enjoyable. The vision of the baby in the darkness equipped not only with the toy engine but also the expertise to empower it, fires the child’s imagination for he is not giving from his surplus, as if he has had a surfeit of toys to play with or possessions to part with. Like the poverty-stricken widow, whom Jesus ‘happened to notice putting two small coins into the treasury’ (Luke 21:1-2), the child parts with all he had to play with, a cost considerably higher for an only child. Applauding the innocence of his intervention to redeem the ineptitude, indeed inequality of Santa Claus, the child’s sacrifice of his toy engine is more than an example of and exhortation to Christmas charity. Through the child’s effort and example we enter into the mystery of the God who ‘so loved the world that he gave his only Son’ (John 3:16).

God’s revelation is received through relatedness as today’s readings record. For the anonymous author of Hebrews, God has spoken to us through his Son, the Son that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is’. These are indeed ‘the last days’ for the Father’s Word is spoken and it is final. For the beloved disciple behind the fourth Gospel this Word is ‘the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. It is he ‘the only Son who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

In his Apostolic Letter, Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization in the Modern World), Pope Paul VI proclaimed that ‘during the Synod [1974] the Bishops very frequently referred to this truth: Jesus himself, the Good News of God, was the very first and the greatest evangelizer; he was so through and through: to perfection and to the point of the sacrifice of his earthly life’.

The fact of the Incarnation is the foundation for evangelisation; there would be no evangelisation without the entry of the Word of God into the world. Jesus reveals and represents the ‘reckless generosity’ of God, not without shedding tears over Jerusalem and his blood on the cross there. Situated somewhere between the child who asks ‘where is holy God’ and the child who sacrifices his treasured toy to the Holy Infant we sense, in this season of memories times of tenderness and togetherness, above all the gratitude of being evangelisers in the church on earth and the hope – as the concluding blessing states – of being ‘sharers with the church in heaven’.

Fr Kevin O’Gorman SMA, December 2021

 

 

 

[1] Frank O’Connor, An Only Child (London: Macmillan & Co Ltd, 1965), 136-137.

2nd Sunday of Christmas 2022 – Year C

2 January 2022

Sirach 24:1-4.12-16                    Ephesians 1:3-6,15-18                    John 1:1-18

The Word was made flesh and lived among us’ (John 1:14)

Many of you may remember a popular song in the 1990’s, ‘What if God was one of us’. Written by Eric Bazilian, it became a major hit for American singer, Joan Osborne. The chorus goes like this: ‘What if God was one of us? Just a guy like you and me, Just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home’. Indeed God has become one of us;  there is no ‘what if’ about it. That’s what the great feast of Christmas is all about as today’s readings remind us. Our first reading from Sirach states that Eternal Wisdom has pitched her tent and made her home among us. The gospel reading from John states that the Eternal Word, through whom all that exists came to be, ‘was made flesh and lived among us (Jn 1:14). These statements give expression to the climactic moment at the heart of our Christian faith, the moment when God in his love becomes one with us. While the human mind cannot grasp the mystery of a love so great, perhaps the following story, that I came across some years ago, many help to give us some limited appreciation of it.

Once upon a time in the ancient kingdom of Siam there lived a prince who fell in love with a fair maiden, the daughter of one of the farm labourers. As heir to the throne, the prince knew that, if he married her, she would become queen and this should make her happy. But he also realised that something would be missing from her happiness. She would admire him and be grateful to him, but she would not be able to truly love him because the inequality between them would be too great. So he decided to renounce his kingship, become a humble labourer on his Father’s vast estate, and offer her his love as an equal. In so doing he knew he was taking a great risk, but he thought it better to risk everything in order to make real love possible.

So he put aside the robes of a prince, donned the clothes of a farm labourer and left the royal palace. Slowly he befriended the maiden and offered her his love. He went out of his way to show her how much he loved her. At first she was withdrawn and distrustful, not believing that disinterested love was possible between humans. And besides she had a poor image of herself and didn’t think she was worthy of anyone’s love. But eventually, as the prince continued to woo her, her resistance broke down and she opened her heart to the young man. Once she accepted his love she began to believe in her own goodness and was able to love him in return. Eventually the prince revealed his true identity and proposed to her. They were married and lived happily ever after.

This simple story is clearly a parable about the kind of love we celebrate today. The Son of God came in humility and weakness. He wanted to gain our love so that we would follow him freely out of love and not in servitude. This, of course, involved a risk. People might not accept him. As John says in the prologue of his gospel: He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him(Jn 1:11). But an extraordinary transformation took place in those who accepted his love and opened their hearts to him: ‘But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God (Jn 1:12). When we accept God’s love we experience our own goodness and are able to love God and one another in return.

Today’s readings invite us to deepen our appreciation of the great mystery of God’s love for us, a love so complete and unconditional that it made its home among us, and to respond to that love by letting it take possession of our hearts. What a different place the world would be if we all let the message of Christmas take deep root in our hearts so that we become, in turn, channels of that love in our relationships with others. This is essentially the mission of the Church. It is called to bring the balm of Christmas love to the darkest places of our lost and broken world.

Over thirty years ago, I remember listening to a very moving talk by an American     woman, Mrs Leckey, on the need for a fresh vision of the Church’s mission. Speaking at a conference in the Gregorian University, Rome, she said that the post-Vatican II Church had shaped its vision of mission around the ‘pilgrimage’ image. This had, she said, yielded fruitful insights into the nature of the Church as a perfectible community en route towards the future Kingdom, but it was not an adequate image. We needed, she suggested,  a companion image of the Church as ‘home’  – a place of refreshment, intimacy, peace and order. Only when the Church becomes a ‘home,’ can it bring healing, peace and order into a world of chaos and alienation, and this is a vital dimension of its mission. Home is a place where people are accepted and feel secure.

Many people today, both in Church and world, feel lost and alienated. They do not know what it is to have a home. Surely it is an essential part of the Church’s mission to make Christmas real and practical for the uprooted people of our time,  providing a place of intimacy where they feel accepted; a place where they may discover or re-discover a sense of rootedness, of having an anchor in the world. Only on this foundation can the Church bring the message of Christmas to people and become an effective agent of healing and peace for our broken world.

Michael McCabe SMA, December 2021

Feast of the Holy Family 2021 – Year C

26 December 2021 – Feast of the Holy Family

God’s Children: that is what we are

1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28                    1 John:1-2, 21-24                    Luke 2:41-52

On this Feast of the Holy Family we are invited to reflect on the importance of family in our lives as God’s children, and on the values that underpin and sustain it. Created in the image of a God who is Love-in-Community (Trinity), the meaning of our lives is to be found in relationships. Our identity as human beings is inseparable from that network of relationships we call ‘family’ – not just the family into which we are born and in which we grow up, but the wider family of friends and relations, of county and country, of Church, of all humanity and, indeed, of all God’s creatures, great and small, with whom we are inextricably connected. And our final destiny is to belong to the family of the blessed in heaven. We might say then that family is inscribed in our DNA. It is part of who and what we are. All this is all beautifully captured in the Africa philosophy of Ubuntu, which is best translated as ‘I am because we are’.

All today’s readings highlight important family values. Our reading from the first book of Samuel recounts the birth of Israel’s first prophet, Samuel, a name which means ‘I asked the Lord for him’ (1 Sam 1:20). His mother, Hannah, sees Samuel not as her possession, but as a gift from God, and a sign of God’s favour to her. So she decides, as soon as he is weaned, to dedicate him to the Lord: ‘Now I make him over to the Lord for the whole of his life (1 Sam 1:28). We know that, when Samuel grew up, he made that dedication his own and went on to play a very important role in the history of Israel. The reading reminds us that all children are gifts of God. They do not belong to their parents. In the words of the Lebanese poet, Khalil Gibran, speaking to parents:  ‘They come through you but not from you,/And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.’

Our second reading from the First Letter of St John, re-affirms and deepens the message of the first reading. We are not only gifts of God. We are God’s children: ‘Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children, and that is what we are’ (1 Jn 3:1-2). Today, some people say, with wonder in their voices, ‘We are stardust’. This, of course, is true, and it is wonderful. But our deeper identity as God’s children is a far greater cause for wonder – for wonder and for gratitude. It is also a constant challenge because we must not take that sublime identity for-granted. We must live and act in accordance with it. In the words of St John, we must ‘live the kind of life that pleases God (1 Jn 3:22)

In the gospel we have Luke’s dramatic account of the finding of the boy, Jesus, in the Temple. At one level, it is a very human story that resonates with parents whose children go missing. Jesus is now a boy of twelve and his parents, Mary and Joseph, take him with them to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of the Passover. When the feast is over, Mary and Joseph, along with their ‘caravan’, set out on the return journey to Nazareth. Only after a day’s journey do they realise that Jesus is missing. [It’s a bit like what happened in the popular movie  ‘Home Alone’]. Then begins the frantic search for him. And, after three days of searching everywhere – three days of what must have been unimaginable distress and torment for Joseph and Mary – they find him, Luke tells us, ‘in the Temple, sitting among the doctors, listening to them, and asking them questions (Lk 2:46).

On finding him, Mary, clearly distraught, speaks very sternly to her son: ‘Why have you done this to us; see how worried your father and I have been, looking for you (Lk 2:48).  Jesus’ enigmatic reply can only have deepened their anguish: ‘Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?(Lk 2:49). Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph “did not understand what he meant” (Lk 2:50). Then he adds an important statement about how Mary deals with her puzzlement at what her Son has done: “Mary stored up all these things in her heart” (Lk 2: 51). The story ends with Jesus returning to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph and living under their authority. Here is surely a lesson here is how tensions in a family can be resolved through listening, reflecting and accepting things we may never fully understand about a wife or husband or ‘our’ children. 

As with most of Luke’s stories, this story of Jesus’ apparently ‘strange’ behaviour has a deeper layer of meaning. It shows Jesus beginning to awaken to his identity as ‘Son of the Most High’, at home in his Father’s house. Jesus appears quite at ease sitting among the doctors in the temple, listening to them and asking them questions. And these learned men are awestruck at his wisdom and his answers. Up to now, Luke had introduced us to a series of witnesses who proclaim the divine identity of the infant Jesus before he can speak for himself. Now, as Jesus is on the verge of adulthood, he is given his own voice. He is the Son of God as well as the son of Mary. He belongs to a divine family which has a prior claim on his life. Like Mary and Joseph, we too are invited to ponder and acknowledge the divine identity of Jesus. ‘Come, let us adore him, Christ, the Lord’. Amen.

Michael McCabe SMA, December 2021

SMA CHRISTMAS CAROL CONCERT of Music and Readings

On Thursday 23rd December SMA Parish Wilton hosted an online Service of Carols and Readings. 

Over 500 people tuned in.  To view a recording of this event click on the link below.

 

Due to Covid restrictions the participating Choirs were invited to the Church at different times to record their contributions. Thus, while respecting social distancing requirements we have put together an impressive selection of Christmas carols which we hope you will enjoy. This event featured; 
The Scrubs Choir from the CUMH, the Wilcollane Singers, the Indian Community Choir and A children’s choir from Gaelscoil Uí Riada

Thanks to all who helped plan and made this event possible, our Readers, Choir Leaders and special thanks to Paul and David O’Flynn who are the brains and technicians behind the project.

We invite you, wherever you are in the world to view this recording and we hope that you enjoy the programme.

At this special time, we pray that the peace of Christ may be with you and your families and we also remember SMA Missionaries and all Missionaries who are far from home – May they find joy and fulfilment in celebrating and announcing the Christmas Good News that the Christ-child – Emmanuel is God with us.


To view via YouTube – click below
 

 

 

Double click on photos to enlarge

Christmas Day 2021 – Year C

25 December 2021

Isaiah 52: 7-10                    Hebrews 1:1-6                    John 1: 1-18

Theme: The Word was made flesh

I’m sure many of you will have read, or at least heard of, James Redfield’s popular novel,  The Celestine Prophesy. A classic example of New Age Spirituality, first published in 1993, it clearly struck a chord with many people disillusioned with Institutional Christianity and searching for meaning in their lives. It became a runaway bestseller, being translated into 34 languages and selling 23 million copies worldwide. At a time of gloom and confusion, The Celestine Prophesy seemed to tune into positive spiritual energies in the world around us and within us. However, the claims made for the novel in the blurb were fantastic: ‘a story that comes along just once in a lifetime to change lives forever. The Celestine Prophesy does not live up to these claims. It is not the answer to the meaning of our lives. That is to be found in the Christmas story that we are celebrating today.

Christmas is a story about a New Age in human history, an age that arrived more than 2,000 years ago in the little town of Bethlehem with the birth of Mary’s child. This was an epoch-changing event heralded by angels: I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a Saviour has been born for you who is Christ the Lord’ (Lk 2: 10-11). Today, we celebrate the moment for which we have been waiting and preparing over the past four weeks – the birthday of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. We celebrate it with joyful acclaim because this was indeed a moment that changed history,  bringing us a sure and unfailing hope, a hope based on God becoming one with us, becoming Emmanuel (God-with-us).

Today’s liturgy pulsates with a joy that resonates throughout the universe. The first reading from the prophet Isaiah calls on the ruined city of Jerusalem to ‘break into shouts of joy’ because the liberator is at hand: The Lord bares his holy arm in the sight of the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God (Is 52:10). The salvation Isaiah is referring to is not a purely spiritual or other-worldly reality. It is not about going to heaven when our life on earth is ended. No! It involves the integral transformation of the lives of the oppressed people of Israel in the here and now. It is God coming to establish his reign among them, bringing happiness and peace. The responsorial psalm extends the call to rejoice to the whole world: ‘Shout to the Lord, all the earth, ring out your joy … for the Lord has worked wonders… he has shown his justice to the nations (Psalm 97). The second reading also underlines the universality of what God has done in sending us his Son, ‘the radiant light of his glory and the copy of his nature’, whom ‘he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything that is (Heb 1:3). 

Our gospel reading is the famous prologue of John’s Gospel. It situates the birth of Jesus against the cosmic backdrop of the birthing of the universe. The baby born in Bethlehem is the eternal Word who was with God in the beginning and through whom everything that exists came to be. Then, in simple words of awesome beauty, John captures the moment the infinite weds the finite, uniting in an historical being divine light and love: ‘The Word became flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth(Jn 1:15).

As we gaze in wonder upon the nativity scene, represented in the Christmas crib, we see the Lord of the universe as a tiny vulnerable baby totally dependent on his mother for his every need. Becoming one with us, the eternal Word became subject to the joys and pains to which all human flesh is heir: to the joy of loving parents, of friendship, of play and laughter, of song and dance; but also to hunger and thirst, grief and sadness. He would come to know the joy of bringing healing and hope to the crippled, the blind, the dumb, and those living on the peripheries of society. He would experience the pain of ingratitude and rejection, including the misunderstanding of even his closest disciples. He would also know fear when faced with the hostility of those who sought to destroy him. Finally, he would endure the unspeakable agony of a shameful death on a Cross – and all this to manifest the Father’s unfailing love for us and to show us what it really means to be human.

The Christmas story recalls the birth of this unique person, the incarnate Son of God, who didn’t just tell us how to live but showed us, through his tears, sweat and blood. The Christmas story challenges us to reflect on the life of Jesus so that we enter into the immense mystery of the love of God and discover the meaning and purpose of our lives and share it with others. As we celebrate his birth this Christmas, may our hearts burn with the fire of the love he has kindled upon this earth.

I wish you all a happy, peaceful, healthy and eco-friendly Christmas.

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, December 2021

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

To Prepare His Ways – Tracing the Life of Melchior de Marion Brésillac – a New Book by Bishop Patrick Harrington SMA

This new book written by Bishop Patrick Harrington SMA was published on the 8th of December 2021, the 165th Anniversary of the foundation of the Society of African Missions. It is “an attempt to familiarize readers with this Great Servant of Mission.”

SMA Founder, Venerable Melchior de Marion Brésillac

Largely based on the primary source of the Diaries or Souveniers that de Brésillac himself wrote the text, following a short account of his early years, gives the Founder’s “personal view of the Catholic missionary situation of India in the first half of the 19th century and his “struggle” to found the Society of African Missions. Also revealed are the personality, thinking, motivations, plans, scriptural and theological basis of the spiritual life of a missionary who neglected no means of advancing the work of God”.

The author hopes that readers will make their own assessment of Melchior de Marion Brésillac, a man who was “a missionary from the bottom of his heart”. As a postscript Bishop Patrick Harrington offers a sketch of the legacy of the founder of the Society of African Missions as he sees it.

The full text of this substantial book is available download in pdf format via the link below.

Click to download HERE

Fr Thomas Treacy SMA – Funeral homily

Fr Tom Treacy, SMA, died peacefully in the St Theresa’s Nursing Unit at the SMA House, African Missions, Blackrock Road, Cork on Saturday, 11 December 2021. He was 76 years of age, and had spent 48 years in Nigeria, West Africa. His Funeral Mass took place in the Sacred Heart Church, Belclare, Tuam, Co Galway on 15 December, followed by his burial in Claretuam cemetery, just metres from his family home.

Fr Malachy Flanagan, SMA Provincial Leader, was the Principal Celebrant, assisted by Fr Ciarán Blake, Cummer Parish Priest (of which Belclare is part), and Fr John Brown SMA, a classmate of Fr Tom’s who also preached the homily. The Archbishop of Tuam, Most Rev Michael Neary, presided at the Mass and addressed the congregation before leading us in the Final Prayers and Commendation. A number of SMA confreres and local diocesan clergy also concelebrated at the Mass.

The following is an edited version of Fr John’s homily. Note that in it he interchanges Tommie (as the family knew him), Tom (as his confreres in the SMA called him) and Fr TT as he was known by the parishioners in Nigeria.

We are gathered here today to formally return a missionary son of this parish to his creator. We present Fr Tommie Treacy back to God with gratitude, for his presence among us has been a blessing not just for his family and neighbours here in Claretuam, for the Society of African Missions, but especially for the people he ministered to in Nigeria. We bring Fr Tommie back to this house of God, this parish Church of the Sacred Heart, where he was baptised. We place his coffin before the pascal candle which speaks to us of resurrection and new life with God. We celebrate this Requiem Mass asking for God’s forgiving mercy while commending him as a person suitable for God’s presence.

As people of Christian faith, we believe that all life is from God; we come from God we go back to God. God endows each with specific talents, which if developed and used positively gives joy to the bearer and blessings to society. And we can add to that: if there is a spirit of love and service in our lives, if we have worked so that those without opportunity in life have opportunity, that those without education have education, that those without justice have justice; then we are making a big contribution towards the creation of the Christian society that Christ asks us to build. Fr Tommie was a person who, in joining the SMA, set out to do what he could for the peoples of Africa. With his easy relaxed manner and great love of people Tommie was to make a huge contribution to the educational and spiritual development of many in the northern Nigerian states of Kaduna and Kano. Now after 51 years of service we can say with St Paul, he had fought the good fight to the end, he has run the race to the finish, he has kept the faith and all there is now to come is the crown of righteousness reserved for him. (2Tim 4 7-8)

Tommie came to the SMA in 1963 with 42 others doing the initial Spiritual Year in Cloughballymore. He was to proceed to University College, Cork (UCC) for his university studies and after that to the SMA Major seminary at Dromantine, Newry, culminating in his ordination to the priesthood with fifteen others on the 16th December 1970. In August 1971 the six of us going to the dioceses in the north of Nigeria left Ireland as the troubles in the north began with interment without trial. We flew into Kano and remained there for a few days while experiencing the heat the sights and sounds of a city on the southern edges of the Sahara Desert. Fr Tom was not to know at this stage that it would be in Kano that he would spend the greater part of his missionary life. We were to spend the remainder of 1971 learning the language and customs of northern Nigeria.   Tommie’s first appointment was to a rural parish with Fr Brian Horan of happy memory.  

Fr Tommie began his teaching career at the beginning of his second tour in 1973 with his appointment to St Joseph’s minor seminary in Zaria. Several of Tom’s students in that Seminary would become priests. At that time the Archdiocese of Kaduna had only two Nigerian priests and it wasn’t at all clear that the SMA’s ambition of setting up the local church with its own bishop and local clergy was going to happen anytime soon. Work therefore in the minor seminary was of great importance not just to educate but by interaction and example of lifestyle, convince these young men that a vocation to the priesthood was a calling not just to spiritual well-being but an opportunity to do something meaningful for their own people. In the years that followed many young men offered their services to the church, while Tom showed that he was convinced of the need for a local clergy by taking every opportunity available to him to encourage, promote and financially support the training of Nigerian religious both men and women. This was particularly true in later years when the young but growing SMA region in Nigeria was struggling to find its financial feet. The parishes where Fr Tom ministered were among the largest and most regular contributors of funds for that cause. Through promotion and collections, he helped to make the new region known and financially self-sufficient.

After a few short years in Zaria, Fr Tom was asked to become leader of St Thomas’ Sec the only Catholic Secondary school for boys in Kano. From its earlier years St Thomas’ gave quality education to Christian and Muslim boys from the city of Kano but later was to play a major part in educating native Kano Christians, known as Magazawa, several of whom have now entered the diocesan priesthood and last year the SMA. The Sisters of St Louis had developed an initiative of Archbishop Peter Jatau (the first indigenous Archbishop of Kaduna) whereby rural children became boarders in St Louis Primary school; from there they went to St Louis Secondary for girls, while the boys went to St Thomas’. There was great satisfaction for Tom and all local church personnel especially the Sisters of St Louis that the Christians of Kano State, for so long barred from educational opportunities, now had good education and the openings that followed therefrom available to them. Fr Tom used his considerable talent as an organiser and persuader, with his easy manner in dealing with state education officials, to raise standards both of ed and discipline. He had come to be of service to the peoples of Nigeria, to help those unable to develop their talents, to raise up those held back. What better gift can one give to a young person than the gift of quality education. Fr Tommie never had any doubt but that he was in the right place doing the right thing. He was at peace and he was happy in his work.

Tom was a reserved person; never seeking the limelight. He wasn’t given to seeking agreeable company in which to relax, in many ways he ploughed his own furrow. However, when company found him he was charming, witty and very engaging and could enjoy himself until the small hours. Fr TT was hospitable and no one knew this better than those departing and returning missionaries from across the northern half of Nigeria. Navigating one’s way through Kano airport wasn’t always easy but knowing there was a welcome and a bed for you afterwards greatly relaxed the nerves.

Fr Tom was a patient man but it was as PP that he showed greatest patience. He believed in sharing the work of running a parish with his parishioners. He was a great believer in the value indeed the need for a Parish Council in the parishes he served. But keeping a Parish Council on side is not always easy. While in charge of St Thomas’ School, Tom was also PP of St Louis parish in Kano. The Parish Council members there had opinions on all agenda items and needed an opportunity to express them. One famous Council meeting began after the early Sunday morning Mass and was still in session at midnight; yes midnight! It is said they were debating the relative merits of two plans before them for their proposed new church. The reason they remember that the meeting lasted beyond midnight was that at that hour a member called for the Angelus to be said whereupon an argument arose as to whether the church requires us to say the Angelus at midnight. Is the Angelus not a midday and evening prayer? The decision on the Angelus is as far as I know not recorded in the minutes but you must admire the patience of Fr TT who after all had a school to look after a few hours later.

By 1990 Fr Tommie had left school life and gone full time into parish work – he was to serve initially in Our Lady of Fatima (OLF) parish in Sabon Gari and later in the SMA parish of St Charles in Nomans Land. These are very similar parish communities with huge numbers (OLF had more that 20,00 members with 14,000 attending the Masses on any given Sunday) which made great demands on time, patience and perseverance. There were numerous prayer and society groups, tribal and town meetings, each seeking recognition and attention. The most popular of these were the Charismatic Renewal, the Holy Name fellowship and the Legion of Mary. These first two especially required special attention in that they could be influenced by the preaching in protestant churches of an evangelical or fundamentalist nature many of whom were strongly anti-catholic. Scripture was understood literally and Tom soon realised that the answer to their scripture quotations was not reasoned argument or reference to Church teaching but another scripture quotation supporting his point of view. It was not our traditional method of evangelising but a skill that needed to be acquired for inner city success. To deal with such people I remember Fr Tommie telling me that he had undertaken a detailed study of the book of Revelations. The struggle to hold the Catholic line was difficult but Fr Tom had the sharp intellect, the patience and the quick wit to deal with it all. 

Fr Tommie put great effort into this work; he prepared his homilies assiduously; backing up his assertions with biblical references, speaking with conviction and faith. As earlier in St Louis parish, his big weapon was his Parish Council which he consulted and took the advice of on all matters. To be a member of his Parish Council was an honour; for parishioners looked to them for advice and guidance. Parish Council members in turn worked to make sure that developments in all aspects of parish life were brought to the Pastoral Council meetings. 

Fr TT’s ability as an organiser was best seen in the way he set up his catechetical programmes. None was done better than the RCIA programme; (i.e. the 18-months course whereby adults are prepared for baptism and full membership of the Church). Each candidate, together with their own sponsor, attends the weekly instructions followed by discussion. The various stages were fittingly celebrated, the candidate was thoroughly prepared to receive the sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist and Confirmation and sometimes marriage. Preparation for Baptism, FHC, Confirmation and Marriage were done with the same meticulous planning and execution. Needless to say, Fr Tom depended on a large group of instructors and educators but the measure of the man was that so many were more than willing to give generously of their time and talents. They saw in Fr Tom a man of faith of total commitment to the ways of Christ. He was a bright light in their sometimes-dark world. 

You will have seen in the media many very positive comments from Nigerians who knew Fr TT well.  In truth he has a wonderful way with the Nigerian people and they were very comfortable in his presence. I would like to finish by quoting from two Nigerians. The first is Fr Charles Okonkwo who lived with Fr Tom for eight years in OLF parish. This is what he wrote. “Living and working with Fr. TT, as he is popularly called, I saw in him a dedicated priest, a man of prayer, an administrator per excellence, a compassionate priest and a person with a great sense of humour. Early in the morning, Fr. TT would be in the Chapel for meditation and to say his prayers.  In the evening after his office work he did the same. The fruits of his prayer life were evident in his administration of the parish. He was an excellent administrator. He believed in carrying all parishioners along. To do this he took major decisions with his parish council and its sub-committees.  I saw in him a priest with a meticulous sense of stewardship. Before receiving or giving out any money, even for priest’s feeding, he would always write it in his note book to account for it; and he was always on time in giving parish quarterly financial accounts to the diocese. To help in catechizing his flock, he complied and published a book of some basic Catholic teaching with answers to some ‘Pentecostal questions’ about the Catholic faith and practices. He was a priest that was always present to his parishioners. He was a very compassionate person and cared for the needy. He operated an outreach program through the parish Society of St Vincent de Paul. To fund the program, he made appeals for freewill donations for the poor, and also had a number of big ‘help the poor’ boxes placed at different places in the church. Each week hundreds irrespective of their religion were helped with food, medical bills and housing needs.Fr. TT treated every one with respect and dignity.  I am grateful to God for the eight years I had living with him. When I succeeded him in the parish, his style of administration was my guiding principle. The news of his death hit me hard. He was a good man; and I pray almighty God to grant him eternal rest; and consolation to his relatives and those of us who knew him. May he rest in peace.”

Fr Tom Treacy with Sr Mary C
TT & SR M Connellan SSL SMA House Apple Ave Kano

Sr Patricia Ojo is Superior General of the Sisters of St Louis.  This is what she wrote: “Fr Tom Treacy was to many of the St Louis Sisters, a trusted friend, a brother and of course a priest, especially to those who were privileged to work with him in Kano. He was known to us simply as ‘TT. That was how free and at home we were in his company. He was down to earth, simple, with no airs and graces about him.

 I first met TT at close range when I went to work in Kano in the year 2000, and the first thing that caught my attention about him was his deep faith which he shared very readily with people. His preaching was inspirational and he was always very creative in the way he used everyday life stories and experiences to give the message. For him, it was always the ‘Good News’ of Jesus, and the good news is for everyone. One could see that he lived this in his own life, and in the way he related with people.

To him, everyone was important irrespective of who you are or where you come from. While he could be frank at times especially if he needed to make a point, you always saw the honesty and sincerity behind his statements and actions. He truly was a missionary to the core. While he was born in Ireland, Nigeria was his home, and with his usual sense of humour and wit, everyone was a brother or a sister.

He will be greatly missed by all of us, especially the WhatsApp messages he sent daily. They were short but they were, inspiring, funny at times and educative, always with one or two lessons to learn for the day. As Leonardo Da Vinci says, ‘As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death’, may he now enjoy the fullness of life with God in his eternal home.”

We say Amen to that. Eternal rest grant onto Fr Tommie, O Lord …

View Funeral arrangements here.

4th Sunday of Advent 2021 – Year C

19 December 2021

Micah 3:1-4a                    Hebrews 10:5-10                    Luke 1: 34-45

Theme: Most Blessed of all women

Last Sunday it was John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets, who was centre-stage in the liturgy. Today it is Mary, the humble maid of Nazareth. The Gospel Acclamation recalls her response of faith, trust and obedience to God’s choice of her to be mother of the Messiah: ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord: Let what you have said be done to me’ (Lk 1:38). The Gospel passage recounts the moving story of Mary’s visit to her elderly cousin, Elizabeth.  

My homily will focus mainly on the significance of the gospel story, but first a word or two about our first reading from Micah, a Judaean prophet who lived in the 8th century before Christ. Micah (the name means ‘who is like God’’) gives us an attractive profile of the future Messiah, not as a warrior Lord, but as a Shepherd King like David – someone who will usher in a reign of universal peace in his person, starting from the little town of Bethlehem (‘House of Bread’): ‘He himself will be peace’ (Micah 5:4a). The peace Micah is referring to is not merely the absence of wars and conflicts, but the positive presence of wholeness, harmony, well-being, prosperity and security. No wonder then that, at Christmas time, we wish one another ‘a peaceful’ as well as a happy or joyful Christmas. At Christmas we also pray for the gift of this peace in our personal lives and in the wider world. And how we need these blessings of the Prince of Peace in our violent and divided world today!

In the gospel we have the lovely story of Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth, a story rich in significance. On an obvious level, it is the story of two mothers-to-be sharing their joy at becoming the bearers of the incredible miracle of new life – a joy that ‘only a woman’s heart can know’ (Eleanor McEvoy). But the visitation story, as told by Luke, has another much deeper layer of meaning.

Mary comes to Elizabeth bearing in her womb the unborn ‘Son of the Most High’ (Lk 1:32).  Elizabeth, up until then unaware of Mary’s pregnancy, nevertheless recognises her as the bearer of the hopes and desires of all nations, and life stirs within her own womb. Her unborn infant, John the Baptist, who will prepare the way for Christ moves as if to greet the baby Jesus in the womb of Mary: ‘For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy’ (Lk 1:44). Elizabeth now sees Mary in a  new light as ‘the Mother of my Lord’ (Lk 1:43) and addresses her in words that have become familiar to us through the ‘Hail Mary’: ‘Of all women you are the most blessed and blessed is the fruit of your womb’ (Lk 1:42). According to the former head of the Anglican Church, Archbishop Rowan Williams, Luke is here presenting Maryas the first missionary, the first messenger of the gospel’. She is the first human being to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to another person. And she does this simply by carrying him within her body.

This story, then, has much to teach us about mission and what it means to be a missionary – which, as baptised Christians, we are all called to be. Mission is not, first and foremost, about preaching or delivering a verbal message. It is rather about going out to another person with Christ in your heart. To quote again the words of Rowan Williams, ‘Mary’s mission is not about the communication of rational information from one speaker to another; it is rather a primitive current of spiritual electricity running from the unborn Christ to the unborn Baptist’. And this communication evokes a response of recognition and joy.

As the first missionary, Mary testifies to the primary importance of simply carrying Jesus with love and allowing his presence to touch those with whom we come into contact. In the Visitation scene, something happens that precedes, and prepares the way for, all the words that will be spoken, and the deeds that will come later. The example of Mary challenges us about our way of being missionaries. Have we sometimes put more trust in our resources and our expertise than in the action of God’s Spirit in our lives and in the lives of those to whom we are sent? Have we been more concerned with doing things for people than being truly present to them?

We have indeed much to learn from Mary, our Missionary Mother. She models a patient and humble mode of missionary presence, not forcing God’s hand, but bearing Jesus with ‘love beyond all telling’ (2nd Advent Preface), and allowing the space and time for his presence to evoke that leap of recognition and joy in the hearts of those we meet. 

I will end with a prayer:

Mother Mary, teach us how to be a missionary after your own heart, carrying Christ with love to those to whom we are sent, and allowing his presence to evoke an awakening response of recognition and joy in their hearts. Amen.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, December 2021

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

Fr Thomas Treacy SMA – RIP

Fr Thomas (Tom) Treacy SMA passed to his eternal reward on Saturday evening, 11 December 2021. Fr Tom died in the St Theresa’s Nursing Unit at the SMA House, Blackrock Road, Cork with family members, nursing staff and SMA confreres by his bedside. The Light of Heaven to him.

Tom was the eldest of seven children born to T P and Nora Treacy (née Canavan). His three sisters, Breda Keane, Nora Corrigan, Marian Helly and three brothers, Anthony, Brendan and Bertie survive him.

Ordained on 16 December 1970, Fr Tom served for 48 years in Nigeria: first in the Archdiocese of Kaduna (1971 – 1991) and then in what was to eventually become the present Diocese of Kano (1991 – 2019). Ill health forced his return to Ireland and he retired to the St Theresa’s Nursing Unit in 2020.  

Fr Tom is deeply mourned by his siblings, his sister-in-law, brothers-in-law, his nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, his aunts Sister Pius Canavan (Presentation Convent, Clonmel) and Mrs Monica Seavor (Liverpool) and his aunt-in-law Mrs Kathleen Lowry (Tuam).

His remains will lie in repose in the Church of the Sacred Heart, Belclare, Tuam, Co Galway, from 6pm to 8pm on Tuesday, 14 December. His Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 1.30pm on Wednesday, the day before the 51st anniversary of his Priestly Ordination. Those attending the Church on Tuesday and Wednesday are asked to strictly observe social distancing and sanitising guidelines, wear a face covering and avoid shaking hands. The Mass can be followed on the Parish webcam http://www.corofinbelclare.ie/

Funeral arrangements will be on www.rip.ie shortly.

HOMILY FOR SMA FOUNDATION DAY

Today, 8th of December 2021 is the 165th Anniversary of the founding of the Society of African Missions.  Below is the text of the Homily preached today, by Bishop Patrick Harrington at a Mass to mark this occasion in the SMA Community in Wilton, Cork. 
Bishop Harrington is also the author of a new book published today about the SMA Founder, called “To Prepare His Ways – Tracing the Life of Melchior de Marion Brésillac.”  This will be made available via this website in the near future.   

My brothers,

Today throughout the Catholic world, we honour Our Lady because she was conceived free from original sin. From the first moment of her existence, Mary was not contaminated by original sin. We believe Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception was a special grace given to her in advance, because of her Son’s dying and rising from the dead. The God who had planned that his Son would become flesh and blood and dwell among us, also planned that an Immaculate Mother would give birth to Jesus.

Although it was only on 8th December 1854 that Pope Pius IX solemnly declared that Our Lady was conceived free from original sin and made it a “Dogma of Faith”, it had been the belief of the faithful for centuries before that. Indeed, Bishop Melchior de Marion Brésillac of Coimbatore made that point strongly in reply to a questionnaire sent to all Bishops in 1849. “We will believe as an article of faith what we already believe as a beloved truth”. (Souvenirs: page 1098). When Our Lady appeared in Lourdes four years after the Solemn Declaration (1858), she said to Saint Bernadette “I am the Immaculate Conception”. In this way, she confirmed the Pope’s decision.

Today also in the Society of African Missions, we recall the official birth of our Society on 8th December 1856 at the  Shrine of Our Lady of Fourviére in Lyons, France. This church and shrine had been built upon the Old Forum of Trajan where many early Christians had been martyred. Its statue of Our Lady (which incidentally portrays her as a black woman) overlooks the entire city of Lyons. In its edition of 9th December 1856, the Gazette de Lyon carried the story: “In the midst of the compact crowd of clergy and faithful that hurried yesterday to the shrine of Notre-Dame de Fourviére, we spotted the members of the African Missions… Bishop de Marion Brésillac, founder of this institution, celebrated the Mass at 8 o’clock. His Lordship was assisted by two priests, three young clerics and a lay Brother who have joined him in the great enterprise which they are placing under the Virgin’s protection. We are sure that such an interesting…work will be protected and blessed by Heaven”. (De Marion Brésillac…page 408). The two priests mentioned were Fathers Planque and Reymond – both of whom were to play different but hugely important roles in the nascent Society.   

In his own writings, our Founder does not speak about the details of this ceremony. However, he did inform “Propaganda Fide” in a letter dated 13th December 1856 (four days later). “I think that it would be good to let you know that on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, seven of us offered our enterprise to the Blessed Virgin, at the feet of the venerated image of Mary on the hill of Fourviére. There we made our resolution to devote ourselves entirely to the work of the African Missions. And we desire, if the Sacred Congregation so permits, to date the existence of our Society from 8th December 1856”. In its customary, measured way, “Propaganda Fide” gave its permission after “a suitable” interval.

Earlier in 1856 (February), Bishop Melchior had marked out the foundations of a society of missionaries. He did this at the specific request of “Propaganda Fide” which was signalling possible permission for him to resume his missionary career – provided he set up a society of missionaries to implement his vision and provide continuity. This exercise sharpened Melchior’s thinking. It also provided an outline of how a future Society would tell the Catholic world about the project, while giving “Propaganda Fide” a written statement of intent. In a small brochure of about four pages (which was paid for by the Sacred Congregation of “Propaganda Fide”), Melchior wrote as follows:

  1. The first and main goal of this Society is to evangelise, under the authority and directionof the Sacred Congregation of ‘Propaganda Fide’, the countries of Africa where the light of Faith has not yet penetrated or that are most deprived of missionaries.
  2. A number of clergy would be part of the Society. They would not take vows, but would make a solemn promise to persevere in the apostolic vocation and observe the statutes of the Society until the end of their lives.
  3. It is foreseen from the beginning that some members would remain in Europe to correspond with the missions and provide for its needs.
  4. The Mother House would be in France, but the Society would accept members from different countries that would agree to follow the statutes and prove to have a solid vocation to apostolic life.
  5. The Society would be composed not only of priests, but also of brothers who should have a trade/profession.
  6. Where several members happen to be together, they will lead a common life.
  7. The new Society would rely on associated benefactors for financial support. They would be informed periodically about the Society’s needs, life and activities in the missions.
  8. The patronage of the Holy Family, honoured in the mystery of the flight into Egypt, would assure spiritual assistance; also those of Saints particularly related to Africa: Saint Augustine, Saint Cyprian, Saint Benedict of Philadelphia (so-called the Moor), Blessed (now Saint: 1888) Peter Claver ‘the slave of the black people’ and all the blessed persons who became holy through the exercise of apostolic ministry in the missions, especially in Africa”.
SMA Founder, Venerable Melchior de Marion Brésillac

This is the type of Society that Bishop de Marion Brésillac founded and which has developed over the past 165 years. This is the one that each of us joined. This is the Society that, as of the 2nd of December 2021, numbered almost 800 permanent members and, at various levels of formation and commitment, the number is 422. This is the Society that Melchior de Marion Brésillac placed under the special protection of Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus Christ and Mother of the Church.

In Melchior’s own spiritual experience, Mary had an important place. Devotion to Mary was part and parcel of his childhood in Castlenaudary. A lot of prayers, songs and spiritual texts nourished his mind and heart. The works of many artists in honour of Mary could be found in churches, frescos, statues and shrines. A number of sanctuaries had been specifically built in her honour throughout France. These became places of pilgrimage and, in their own way, served as a means of evangelisation.

During his twelve years in India, Melchior found that the small Christian minority there loved Mary, the Mother of Jesus. This deepened his own devotion and to his easy acceptance of various pilgrimages to shrines erected in her honour in India. Days of special significance to him took place on feast days in her honour. For example, he scheduled his own Ordination as a Bishop for the Feast of the Holy Rosary and returned there every year for its anniversary. In his sermons and Memoirs (where he mentions Mary 52 times) – but especially in his Retreats, Melchior called on his listeners to pray to God’s Mother with a filial prayer of confidence. For example, in his Retreat to Missionaries (pages 254-255) he says: “In consolation as well as in trials, afflictions, work, temptations, in moments of interior calm and joy, let us have recourse to Mary. After Jesus, let Mary be our power and our support, our example and our model. She was the exact imitator of her Son’s virtues; and it was in her school and under her direction that the apostles (whose queen she was) were trained… Let her be the continuous guardian of our soul; and let her preserve in us – as in a leak-proof reservoir – the treasures of virtues which Jesus Christ placed there with his hands”…

During the two years that Bishop de Marion Brésillac was on missionary animation work in between 150 and 200 centres throughout France (where he preached and took up collections for the African Missions and the establishment of the Society), he never failed to spend some time at the numerous Marian shrines such as La Salette, Vancluse, Rock, the Guard in Marseille, Port, Our Lady of Victories, Liesse – to pray for her help in this aspect of his work and to receive the strength to keep at it. And when he was officially appointed Apostolic Vicar of Sierra Leone, he decided “to take a picture of Mary to Sierra Leone where we will construct for her a chapel as soon as we can, under the title ‘Mater Febricitantium’ ‘Mother of those who suffer from fevers’…”(De Marion Brésillac: Letter to Bishop Bonnand… No. O853.                        1st November 1858).

As for us, as we celebrate the 165th anniversary of the Foundation of our Society, we too look on Mary with admiration. She is the first believer in Jesus. She is the first Christian. We look to her as a model for all of us.

Each day as we perhaps struggle with health issues, temptations, events which in the past we regret or have hurt us, we can – and should – pray to Mary to help us on our own journey.  Even though she was Immaculate, she had to take up her cross – something that Simeon had predicted (Luke 2:35). Neither should we fail to thank her for the care which she has taken of us and of our Society; and for what it has achieved so far. We humbly ask her to continue to be a Mother to us all. We know that she is a Mother who listens – and wants what is best for all of us and for our Society.  AMEN.  

3rd Sunday of Advent 2021 – Year C

12 December 2021

Zephaniah 3:14-18a                    Philippians 4:4-7                    Luke 3:10-18

Rejoice, the Lord is near

Today is Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday and the theme of joy naturally dominates the liturgy. In the opening prayer we prayed to the Father to help us experience the joys of the salvation Christ has won for us ‘and celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing’. In our first reading the Prophet Zephaniah calls on the people of Israel to let go of all restraint and give full voice to their joy that the Lord, their God, is in their midst as a victorious warrior: ‘Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud! Rejoice, exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem’ (Zeph 3:14). The responsorial psalm repeats the exhortation of Zephaniah and, in our second reading, St Paul tells the Christian community in Philippi that he wants them ‘to be always happy in the Lord’ (Phil 4:4). The Gospel passage summarises the message of John the Baptist, announcing the imminent arrival of the Messiah, and exhorting the people to prepare for his coming by practicing justice and helping the poor.

Too often Christianity has been presented as a rather grim and joyless affair, confronting us with guilt and failure. But the reality of sin and failure is merely the preface of the Christian story, not its centre piece. This is the victorious love of God that forgives, heals and makes everything new. It is the experience of this love that is the source of our joy. But what is this joy that is at the heart of the Christian message?

We think of joy very much in association with youthfulness, freshness, innocence. And it is true that joy keeps us young. A joyful person seems always youthful. Like the kiss of the sun on a flower, or a smile lighting up a child’s face, joy transforms. People who are joyful transform those around them. Joy is contagious. In the presence of joyful people, our  hearts become lighter and the world around us seems so much brighter. However, Christian joy must not be confused with superficial cheerfulness. It is not the false hilarity of those who ignore the reality of suffering in the world around them or avoid pain in their own lives. To quote the words of Timothy Radcliffe OP, ‘true joy is not the happy clappy jollity of those who go around slapping people on the back and telling them to be happy because Jesus loves them. Nor is it the obligatory cheerfulness referred to by the Irish Poet, Seamus Heaney, when he speaks of ‘the fixed smile of a pre-booked place in Paradise’. No, it is, rather, in the words of John Catoir ‘the awareness of God’s loving presence within you’. And this awareness is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Christian joy is quite compatible with sorrow and even with anger. As Christians we are called to share not just the passion of Christ, but also his passions – his joy and sorrow and even his anger. These are the passions of those who are alive with the gospel. The joy that Christ brings us is a joy that is found even in the midst of pain and suffering. The most joyful people I have come across in my life as a missionary priest were those who had been profoundly touched by the pain of the world. Barbara McNulty, an Irish Lay Missionary, who worked among the poor in Brazil, writes about how she found joy in the heart of suffering: ‘It is the paradox of joy’, she states, ‘that it is at its most significant in association with suffering. I worked for many years with the sick and the dying in a place where one would expect to find despair and depression; yet because of the warmth of the love all around me I found laughter and hope’ (The Tablet, 16 August, 1980).

As disciples of Jesus, we are invited to experience and share with others a joy that flows from the experience of God’s tender and loving smile as we blossom and flourish in the warmth of God’s delight in us. In the psalms we pray: ‘Let your face shine on us and we shall be saved’ (Ps 80:3). Our lives have been illuminated and transformed by the experience of God’s tender smile. The Church – and that means all of us – has no right to speak about the demands of the Gospel unless we first embody the tenderness and delight of that smile – the source of all true joy.

I will end with a reflection on joy from the pen of Flor McCarthy SDB.

There is a clear note of joy in today’s liturgy.
Joy is a blend of laughter and tears.
It consists of having a love affair with life.
It is having a heart aglow with warmth
for all one’s companions on the road of life.
It is looking for the happiness that comes in small packages,
knowing that big packages are few and far between.
It is making the most of the present,
enjoying what is at hand right now.
Joy is love flowing over into life,
and it can co-exist with pain.
Joy is the flag we fly when Christ, the Prince of Peace
has taken up residence in our hearts.

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, December 2021

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below.

SMA International News – December 2021

This month we have news from Ireland – we hear about the work of Fr Alphonse Sekongo, from Ivory Coast and who came to Ireland in 2016.  He tells us of his experience of working as Parish Priest at the SMA Parish in Blackrock Road.  Then we go to Strasbourg to learn about a concert organised to support the work of Mission in Africa.  Next we have a report about a recent meeting of the SMA OLA Common Spiritual Heritage Commission that took place in Rome,  Finally the Bulletin ends with a general round up of SMA information.

 

 

Let us pray for the catechists, summoned to announce the Word of God: may they be its witnesses, with courage and creativity and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In his prayer intention for December Pope Francis tells us that Catechists have an invaluable mission for the transmission and growth of the faith.

In this month of December, the Holy Father dedicates his message to catechists, recognizing their work as an authentic mission and ministry at the service of the mission of the Church. The Pope points out that it’s truly a vocation, since “being a catechist means that you ‘are a catechist,’ not that you ‘work as a catechist.’”

The Video for this month, shows catechists and young people working together on a mural. With spray paint and buckets of paint, dozens of children and adolescents—accompanied by their catechists—help Italian artist Paolo Colasanti to produce a creative rendition of the scene of the washing of the feet, on a wall of the youth center at the Roman parish of Our Lady of Coromoto.

In May of this year, Francis had already made great gestures towards catechists by instituting their lay ministry with the Motu Proprio Antiquum ministerium. As 2021 draws to a close, the Holy Father is ratifying this form of service, which has continued throughout the history of the Church and which, he explains, is “a vocation; it’s a mission.” Today, he explains. we can see how “in many dioceses, on many continents, evangelization is fundamentally in the hands of a catechist.” For this reason, “we need good catechists who are both companions and teachers.”

VIDEO MESSAGE TEXT: The lay ministry of catechist is a vocation; it’s a mission. Being a catechist means that you ‘are a catechist,’ not that you ‘work as a catechist.’ It’s an entire way of being, and we need good catechists who are both companions and teachers.
We need creative people who proclaim the Gospel, but who proclaim it neither with a mute nor with a loudspeaker, but rather with their life, with gentleness, with a new language, and opening new ways.
In many dioceses, on many continents, evangelization is fundamentally in the hands of a catechist.
Let us thank catechists for the interior enthusiasm with which they live this mission at the service of the Church.
Let us pray for the catechists, summoned to announce the Word of God: may they be its witnesses, with courage and creativity and in the power of the Holy Spirit, with joy and much peace.

 

ADVENT REFLECTIONS

This page contains the eight Advent Reflections from SMA Fathers and an OLA Sister. These were written and recorded for Advent in 2020 a year that due to the pandemic, made us all change the way we live and the way we relate with each other.  The pandemic is not yet over and it looks as though it will be with us for some time yet.

Below are the personal reflections of eight people – what Advent means to each of them and how it offers hope. The Reflections can be accessed and viewed  by clicking the link beside the  names of those who composed and delivered them.

 

Fr Pat Kelly SMA – Click Here

Fr Seamus Nohilly SMA – Click Here

Sr Janet Nutakor OLA – Click Here

Fr Mossie Kelleher SMA- Click Here

Fr Paddy O’Rourke SMA – Click Here

Fr Tom Casey SMA – Click Here

Fr Anthony Kelly SMA – Click Here

Fr Des Corrigan SMA – Click Here

If you wish to return to these Reflections again later, they can be accessed by clicking on the Reflections image/link on the top left hand side of the Homepage.

Our thanks to all the above for these personal reflections on the meaning of Advent 

2nd Sunday of Advent 2021 – Year C

5 December 2021

Baruch 5:1-9                  Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11                  Luke 3:1-6

Advent is not a penitential season in the same sense that Lent is. Joyful hope rather than penance is its keynote, as today’s Scripture readings illustrate. Nevertheless, we are called to repentance. The voice of John the Baptist rings in our ears: ‘Prepare a way for the Lord. Make his paths straight’ (Lk 3:4). Preparing a way for the Lord and experiencing the joy of salvation are inseparably linked. They are two sides of the one coin. While we have begun to live the joy of the Gospel, we remain pilgrims on the way, ‘hoping to reach the perfect goodness which Jesus Christ produces in us for the glory and praise of God’ (Phil 1:11).

In our first reading, the Prophet Baruch proclaims a message of hope to the Jews living in exile in Babylon. The Exile (in the 6th century BC) was a particularly traumatic experience for a people who saw themselves as specially chosen by God. They had lost everything they held precious, their freedom and the things that gave them a sense of identity as a people: their homeland and Temple. Their most cherished hopes had been crushed and it seemed that God had forgotten or abandoned them. Psalm 137 captures their feelings of dejection and abandonment: ‘By the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Sion; on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps’ (vv 1-2).

Baruch assures the exiles that God has not forgotten them, and that he will soon return to lead them back to their homeland and restore their fortunes. Thus, Jerusalem will once again become a city of joy, peace and integrity: ‘Jerusalem, take off your dress of sorrow and distress, put on the beauty of the glory of God forever, wrap the cloak of the integrity of God around you…: since God means to show your splendour to every nation under heaven’ (Bar 5:1-3). These words must have been music to the ears of the long-suffering and disheartened exiles. They are meant to be music to our ears, too, for Baruch’s message of hope is as relevant today as it was when he was alive.

While our circumstances are very different from those of the poor and oppressed Jewish community Baruch is addressing, many people in Ireland today are living through a kind of exile. They no longer feel at ease in a country that has changed beyond recognition, and abandoned those traditions and values that gave many people a sense of identity and security. A priest friend of mine, who recently returned to Ireland after more than forty year of missionary service in Africa, captured this experience of loss in these words: ‘I am back again in my homeland, but I no longer feel at home here. The Ireland I left in the 1970s is dead and buried’. So we, too, no less than the people of Israel, need to be reminded that, even if we have been unfaithful, God is ever faithful and will never abandon us.

Our gospel passage from Luke introduces us to the figure of John the Baptist, the precursor of Jesus Christ. John is presented, in words taken from the prophet Isaiah, as a ‘voice crying in the wilderness’, calling his contemporaries to repentance: ‘Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill be laid low, winding ways will be straightened and rough roads made smooth’ (Lk 3:4-5). Today there is another voice in the wilderness calling on us to prepare a way for the Lord. It is the voice of Pope Francis exhorting all of us to open our hearts and minds to the Spirit and engage courageously and humbly in the synodal journey that he launched just a month ago.

For Pope Francis this period of preparation for the upcoming Synod on the theme of Synodality (journeying, listening, and discerning together) is a vitally important ‘ecclesial moment’, an opportunity to heal the wounds of the Church and renew its energies in the service of mission. So he appeals to all of us, lay and clerical members of the Church, ‘not to soundproof our hearts’, not ‘to remain barricaded in our certainties’, but to listen to one another and to the Spirit of God, who will lead us to new pastures. The mountains we need to remove are the mountains of our pride, self sufficiency and complacency. And the valleys that we must fill are the valleys of cynicism and fear of change. The synodal journey will not be fruitful if we are like the Zen Master’s guest in the following story:

A Zen master invited a visitor to tea. The guest arrived, crossed his legs and sat in silence. The Zen Master then took the teapot and started to fill the cup. When he had filled it to the brim, he continued to pour until the tea was flowing over the saucer and on to the floor. The guest was horrified and enquired why the Zen master was so careless. ‘Because’, the master replied, I feel that your head is like this teacup – so full of certainty that it would be impossible for me to add anything to what you already know. You cannot hear what I say.’

Let us then, in response to the exhortation of Pope Francis, engage in the synodal process with open minds and hearts, allowing God’s Spirit to guide us to a new dawn for our Church and its mission in the service of God’s reign of justice, truth, peace and love.

Fr Michael McCabe, SMA, December 2021

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below. 

Fr Tom Kearney SMA – Funeral homily

Fr Tom Kearney, SMA

Fr Tom Kearney died unexpectedly at his brother’s home in Ardee, Co Louth, on Monday, 22 November 2021. His Funeral Mass was celebrated in the Church of the Nativity of Our Lady, Ardee, on Saturday, 27 November. The chief mourners were Fr Tom’s sister, Anita Carroll, his brother Seamus and his sister-in-law Margaret, Fr Tom’s many nieces, nephews, grand nieces and grand nephews, parishioners and members of the Society of African Missions.

Fr Malachy Flanagan SMA, Provincial Leader, was the Principal Celebrant, assisted by Fr Noel O’Leary, Local Leader of the SMA Wilton community where Fr Tom lived and Fr Tom Curran SMA, SMA Dublin community, who worked with Fr Tom in Ijebu-Ode diocese, Nigeria.

Before the Mass began, Canon Peter Murphy conveyed the sympathy of Archbishop Eamon Martin as well as those from the people of the parish to the Kearney family on Fr Tom’s sudden death. Messages were also received from the emeritus-Archbishop of Tuam, Most Rev Michael Neary, where Fr Tom had ministered for 20 years; from the British Provincial Superior, Fr Tom Ryan SMA, recalling Fr Tom’s service in the parish of St John Vianney, West Green, London, for nine years; and from Sr Kathleen McGarvey, Provincial Leader, OLA Ireland. Fr Tom had worked with the OLA Sisters both in Nigeria and London.

Fr Curran preached the homily, an edited version of which is given here.

Fr Kearney was later laid to rest in Ballapousta cemetery, Ardee.

 

A phobail dílis Dé… Eyin ara mi ni Oluwa… My dear brothers and sisters in Christ…

We come today to pray… to give God thanks for the life of Fr Tom Kearney SMA…  In doing so we also come to think and reflect on the mystery of death itself… realising its reality in the life of each of us.  Life itself is a journey, a pilgrimage… with an end, a goal… to be with God. Our reflection on life and death enables us to think a little, too, on our own role as Christians and what it means for us to be followers of Jesus Christ.

St Augustine reminds us You have created us for yourself O Lord and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

St Paul writing to the Romans, as we heard in the Second Reading, puts it another way: “Alive or dead we belong to the Lord”…

with the implication for all of us that all we are… or do… or say… is for God.  The one certainty for all of us is death…  What matters, in our journey to that certainty, is the quality of our life, the quality of our living.

In a very real sense, life itself, is part of the act of dying.  For the Christian… life… living… is to spend oneself for God and for others – a giving, a spending of ourselves. It is in that sense that St Paul reminds the Romans, again in that Second Reading, that “the life and death of each of us has its influence on others”.

This giving of one’s life for others is central in the life of the missionary… his or her life is spent with others and for others for the sake of the Good News of Christ… their life is spent in bearing witness to Christ… lives modelled on that of Christ himself, who is the missionary par excellence, and who gave himself totally for us, culminating in his death on the Cross on Calvary.

Today we come to celebrate the life and death of one especially called to be a missionary, Fr Tom Kearney.

He was one of a family of three – Anita and Seamus and Tom – children of Patrick and Rose Kearney.  And as we come to mourn and pray with Seamus and Anita we are conscious of the double heartbreak for Anita and her family with the passing to the Lord of her beloved, Aidan, last Sunday, just the day before Tom. May he rest in peace.

For Tom Kearney, life began some 20 km away at Dundalk where he was born on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11th 1935. Sometime after that the family moved to Ardee. Isn’t there a touch of Divine Providence in the fact that Tom’s final journey as a missionary was back to where it all began here in Ardee?  He was brought up in a genuinely Christian home, and was educated first by the Christian Brothers in Dundalk and later by the Marist Brothers there too. Tom felt drawn to serve God as a missionary priest and he came to the novitiate of the Society of African Missions at Cloughballymore (in Co Galway) in 1952 and joined the SMA, becoming a full member of the Society in 1957. He brought with him a profound interest in nature and in created things, notably bees and plants and animals, an interest that was to affect his work over the years. He completed his studies in Philosophy and Theology at Dromantine and was ordained to the priesthood along with 11 classmates by Bishop Eugene Doherty in the Cathedral of Saints Patrick and Colman in Newry on 18th June 1958. He celebrated his First Mass the next day in St Mary’s Church in Dundalk.

Four months later Tom was in Nigeria. Assigned to the Archdiocese of Lagos, he arrived there on 15th October, after a two-week voyage by sea. The ship was the MV Aureol aboard which many of our missionaries sailed to Africa over the years. Tom’s first contact with Africa was at Bathurst (the modern Banjul, capital of the Gambia) and they visited Monrovia, Liberia, and Accra, Ghana, before disembarking at Lagos.

For the next 25 years Tom was assigned to various parts of the Archdiocese. These assignments began with a short spell in the city of Ibadan where Tom immersed himself in the local culture and was introduced to the Yoruba language. For Tom, learning Yoruba was a difficult task. Yoruba is a musical or tonal language and Tom, as he would admit himself, had hardly a note in his head. However, he managed to capture the language and to speak it with great fluency without any of the normal tones and yet he could be understood perfectly and communicated very well with the people throughout his missionary life there. Tom was to serve in various parishes with beautiful names like Ajilete, Ado-Odo, Ijebu-Igbo, Iperu, Ijebu-Ode, Esure, Oru.

  • When Tom first arrived in Nigeria, the country was under British colonial rule, and Tom was to see Nigeria becoming an independent nation in 1960.
  • When Tom first arrived in Nigeria the hierarchy of the country was still mostly European, and Tom was to witness the transformation resulting in the hierarchy being almost entirely African by the end of his time there.
  • In 1969 part of the Archdiocese of Lagos was cut off to become the Diocese of Ijebu-Ode and Tom opted to work in the new diocese under its first bishop, Rt Rev Anthony Șanusi.

Tom was in Nigeria during the traumatic Civil War of 1966-1971 and was to suffer one of the consequences of that war. When returning to Nigeria in 1978 he was deported because his name was the same as another missionary who had been expelled. Tom returned to Ireland and resolved the problem and returned to Nigeria.

When we come to Tom Kearney the missionary priest there are two aspects to his missionary work the shepherd to his people and steward of creation – the pastor and the farmer. Whatever he undertook, Tom applied himself with great dedication and commitment.

As a pastor he was very serious about the training of catechists, the teaching of catechism, the administration of the sacraments, the celebration of Mass, the running of the many outstations in his parishes. He was strict and meticulous, ensuring that everything was done correctly, and he didn’t suffer fools gladly which on occasions led to misunderstandings and conflict.

Long before it became fashionable, Tom preached a Gospel of self-reliance and care of creation, evident in his commitment to agriculture and in many other initiatives. He was appointed Director of Community Development for Lagos and represented the Archdiocese at various conferences in places like Lesotho and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. On the farming front Tom was a great man for projects – ducks, fishponds, even pig-raising. He set up a rabbit farm in the hope of providing meat for the local people at a cheap price. The farm was extensive, and commercially was a great success, and Tom, ever the man of ideas, had plans to use the rabbit fur to make scarves and shawls, and the pelts to make purses. But it all came to an end in 1974 when the Bishop appointed Tom to be his Vicar General and the farm had to give way to the pastoral. He was to continue his love of farming and gardening and being in touch with nature with the small garden, his polytunnel and his aquaponics or fish-feeding project in Wilton in his recent years since retirement. By coincidence, only yesterday, I received the latest SMA African Missionary and there on the front page is Tom pictured, inspecting his polytunnel and the heading is “I am one person who has one responsibility – make things better”. We could all be that one person. Tom was like that, a man ahead of his time…

There is a time for everything, as the First Reading reminds us: a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to be born and a time to die.

In Tom Kearney we see a man completely dedicated to the missionary task – a truly missionary priest, his priority was the spread the gospel. He engaged with everybody, not just the high and mighty, but with everyone and got on well with the people of his various parishes. This was amply demonstrated in his last parish, Oru-Ijebu, when the local king, the Oloru of Oru, conferred a chieftaincy title, the Fesinboye of Oru, on Tom in recognition of his great work among the people. I think that means the one who practices his religion faithfully is honoured.

Tom spent over 25 years in Nigeria. It would be too easy to close the chapter with that. But it is important, I think, to note that the 25 years spent in Africa were at a time of great change and development for the Church in Nigeria. To continue the agriculture analogy as outlined in the Gospel, the missionaries – priests and brothers and sisters and laity – were like the sower sowing the seeds that today are reaping the fruit. Much of the seed fell on good soil and today there is a thriving church with numerous vocations and many new parishes have grown from the initial few. In the stages of development of the Nigerian Church, the work of the Society of African Missions was made possible through the trojan efforts of missionary stalwarts like Tom… and today we must note his own personal contribution to that growth. We thank God for that achievement. We thank God for what has been done.

When he considered that he had made his contribution in Africa, he opted to come to St. John Vianney parish, in West Green in London, to work with the British Province of the SMA. There he once more endeared himself to the people, especially the young, and served there for 9 years. In 1993 he returned to Ireland and took appointments in the Archdiocese of Tuam, serving for 5 years at Granlahan and 5 years at Glenamaddy before coming to Keel on Achill Island where he spent 9 years ministering to the people there.

His life, whether in Africa or in London or in Tuam, or in Ardee or Bundoran with his family, or at Wilton, was one of influence on others. His own personal contentment, his care for and interest in people, his love of nature and gardening… are things we can remember. Perhaps the Gospel today reminds us that, though we all can make a contribution, it is God who is the Sower and the Reaper and all that we are or do or say is done for God because it is for that that we have all been called.

Today, then, we thank God for having known him… for his long life… for the influence he has been on our lives.  We pray God to give him eternal peace. Perhaps it is fitting that we lay Tom to rest on this the last day of the Church’s year. As a new year dawns, we pray that Tom will rest in the arms of the God whom he served so well. We ask God to prepare us all for life in his presence for ever. The prayer of the Psalmist is a prayer for Tom and for each one of us:

“There is one thing I ask of the Lord, for this I long…
to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life…
to savour the sweetness of the Lord…
to behold his temple”.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.

Fr Tom Curran SMA

1st Sunday of Advent 2021 – Year C

28 November 2021

Jeremiah 33:14-16                  1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2                  Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

Theme: ‘Stay Awake, praying at all times’ (Luke 21)

A French philosopher once said that ‘only beginnings are beautiful’. While this may be a bit of an exaggeration, it is true that there is something particularly beautiful about beginnings. No matter how crazy the world may seem at times, or how messy our own lives may be, we can always make a fresh start. Beginnings are full of purpose, energy, and visions of something new and fresh that fire the imagination and warm the heart. The recently deceased Kerry poet, Brendan Kennelly, wrote a lovely poem about beginnings which ends with these striking lines:

Though we live in a world that dreams of ending, that always seems about to give in, something that will not acknowledge conclusion insists that we forever begin.

We have just begun a brand-new liturgical year with the season of Advent – four weeks of preparation for the celebration of Christ’s birth. In the words of a famous prayer the purpose of Advent, with its attractive symbols [the four candles and the wreath], prayers and readings, is to help us ‘to see Christ more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more closely’ (St Richard of Chichester). This season is designed to help us to appreciate more fully the significance of Christ’s first coming, and to make more room for him in our hearts now as we await his Second Coming. Advent is the time when we begin again our annual journey with the Lord, letting go of the negative baggage of the past, and opening our minds and hearts more fully to the Spirit of the Risen Christ present and active among us.

Our first reading today, taken from the prophet Jeremiah, draws our attention to the great hope of the people of Israel for a Messiah who would transform their lives – a hope that was fulfilled with the first coming of Christ. The Messiah is foreseen as a wise leader who will establish honesty, integrity and justice in the land. The gospel from Luke focuses on the Second Coming of Christ. ‘The Son of Man will come in a cloud with power and great glory’ (cf. Lk 21:27). Although heralded by spectacular and terrifying cosmic events, the faithful followers of Christ need have no fear. ‘When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near hand’ (Lk 21:28).

In the second reading, St Paul exhorts us, while we await this Second Coming, to live ‘holy and blameless lives’ … ‘the kind of lives that God wants us to live’ (1 Thess 3:13 – 4:1). In the gospel reading, Jesus urges his disciples to ‘stay awake, praying at all times’ (Lk 21: 29). This does not mean that we never relax or that we spend lots of time in Churches and keep on saying prayers. Nothing could be more soul-destroying. What Jesus means is that we pay attention to the presence and action of God in our lives here and now. It means that we tune in to what the Spirit is saying to us, not just in Scripture, but also in the Book of Nature (God’s primary revelation). God is also constantly speaking to us in and through the people we meet and in the apparently insignificant events of our daily lives. Too often we are not fully present or awake when God is speaking to us but rather sleepwalking through life. Advent is a time to wake up and become more spiritually alert.

Along with attentive and prayerful listening to the Lord, today’s gospel also warns to be careful lest our ‘hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life’ (Lk 21:34). While we might not succumb to drunkenness and dissipation, there is a real danger today of our hearts being seduced by the prevalent myth that the more of life we experience the better. Advertisements urge us to try everything and to leave no stone unturned. But it is precisely this attitude that deadens our capacity to recognise, acknowledge and enjoy the ordinary simple miracles of life. Eventually even the most beautiful things become stale and boring. It is when we resist the destructive impulse to grab at life’s gifts, when we allow the inner beauty in things – and more especially in people – to speak to us, that we become ever more aware of loving presence of God all around us.

In his poem entitled Advent, Patrick Kavanagh draws our attention to the importance of this blessed season in re-awakening our childhood sense of wonder and opening our hearts to the divine beauty all around us.

We have tested and tasted too much, lover –
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child’s soul, we’ll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

Advent is a time when the Church invites us to cast aside ‘the clay-minted wages of pleasure’ and wake up to the wonder of God’s loving presence in the creatures he has made. There is no better way to prepare our hearts to celebrate the birthday of Christ, who ‘comes to meet us with a January flower‘ (Patrick Kavanagh).

Michael McCabe SMA, November 2021

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below. 

 

Fr Thomas (Tom) Kearney SMA

Fr Tom Kearney, SMA

The SMA is mourning the unexpected death of Fr Tom Kearney SMA which took place on Monday, 22 November 2021, at the residence of his brother Seamus in Ardee, Co Louth. Fr Tom had travelled to Ardee to prepare for the funeral of his brother-in-law, Aidan Carroll. Please remember both of them in your prayers.

Fr Tom was born on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, 11 February 1935. After theology studies in the African Missions Major seminary, Dromantine, Newry, Co Down, he was ordained a priest in June 1958. Fr Tom served as a missionary in several parishes of the Archdiocese of Lagos and Ijebu-Ode diocese, Nigeria. He also ministered in the SMA Parish of St John Vianney, West Green, London. On returning to Ireland he was seconded to the Archdiocese of Tuam where he served for several years in the parish of Achill. Up to his death, he was living an active retirement in the SMA community, Wilton, Cork, where he developed a small garden for vegetables, fruits etc.

He is deeply mourned by his sister Anita and brother Seamus, sister-in-law, nephews, nieces, other relatives and friends as well as his confreres in the Society of African Missions.

Fr Tom had travelled to Ardee to prepare for the funeral of his brother-in-law, Aidan Carroll. Please remember both of them in your prayers.

Fr Tom’s remains will leave Tenanty’s Funeral Home, Ardee, on Saturday morning, 27 November, at 11.30am to arrive at the Church of the Nativity of Our Lady, Ardee, for 12 noon Mass, followed by burial in Ballapousta cemetery, Ardee.

You are welcome to join the Mass via the Ardee Parish webcam

Requiescat in Pace.

Pope: Justice and peace must overcome political, economic contradictions

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During an online meeting of of Justice and Peace Commissions of various national Bishops’ Conferences, hosted by The Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development,  Pope Francis urged participants to help society correct the contradictions in the economic and political systems revealed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The event, on the 18th and 19th of November focused on the challenges and possibilities facing humanity in the post-pandemic world.

Pope Francis began the conference with a message to encourage participants in their mission to foster human development in their home countries.

Integral development and peace: The Pope recalled that Pope St. Paul VI set up the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace in 1967, and entrusted it with the mission of promoting integral human development as the “new name of peace.”  Many national Bishops’ Conferences then set up their own local Justice and Peace Commissions to operate at the national level.  The Commission became part of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in 2017 under the guidance of the prefect, Cardinal Peter Turkson.

Social, ecological justice and peace: Pope Francis praised the work of the local commissions as “an indispensable service” to the social-pastoral work of the Church.  “They have the task of spreading knowledge of the social doctrine of the Church,” he said, “working concretely for the protection of the dignity of the human person and of human rights, with a preferential option for the poor and the most abandoned.”  In carrying out that mission, he added, the commissions contribute to the growth of “social, economic, and ecological justice, while sowing peace.”

Care for environment and fraternity: The Pope encouraged participants in the conference to look to his encyclicals Laudato si’ and Fratelli tutti for inspiration, and to inculturate the Gospel in their own societies.

“In every part of the world,” said Pope Francis, “integral development—and therefore justice and peace—can be built only through these two paths: care for our common home, and fraternity and social friendship.”

These twin paths, he said, find their origin in the Gospel of Christ, though they can be pursued with the faithful of other Christian confessions and religions.

Unraveling complex contradictions: He encouraged local commission members to work with “hope, determination, and creativity”, especially in the difficult context that has arisen due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Pope noted how the pandemic has exacerbated many conflicts, as many nations row back on their commitments to avoid the “tragedies of the last century.”

“The current crisis has highlighted numerous contradictions of the economic and political system, while unresolved challenges remain and require the joint dedication of many parties,” he said.

Pope Francis concluded his message to members of Justice and Peace Commissions with an appeal to work together with other civil and religious entities to find solutions to these glaring contradictions.

Source: By Devin Watkins, Newsletter Vatican News <[email protected]> 

 

SMA Wilton Parish remembers

Life is changed, not ended

The SMA Wilton Parish community are remembering the Souls of the Faithful Departed with a daily Mass at 10am (Monday – Saturday) and 10.30am on Sundays. Join them personally or via the parish webcam.

The Annual Remembrance Mass for deceased members of An Garda Siochána will be celebrated on Thursday, 18th November at 7.30pm.

The Annual Remembrance Mass for members of the PNT, Telecom, Eircom and Eir will be celebrated on Saturday, 20th November at 11am.

SMA Cemetery, Wilton, Cork

On Wednesday, 24th November at 7.30pm, Mass will be celebrated for all who have died in the parish community, especially those who died during the past 12 months. You are cordially invited to come and pray for your loved ones.

The Annual ESB Remembrance Mass will be celebrated on Saturday, 27th November at 11am.

Remembering Our Dead November Services – click here.

Jesus Christ, King of the Universe – 34th Sunday 2021 – Year B

21 November 2021

Daniel 7:13-14                  Apocalypse1:5-8                  John 18:33b-37

The solemnity of Christ the King marks the end of ordinary time and the culmination of the Church’s liturgical year. This feast was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 to promote devotion to the Universal Lordship of Christ in response to the growing secularism of the Western world. In 1969, Pope Paul VI gave the celebration a new title ‘Jesus Christ, King of the Universe’, moving it from the last Sunday in October to the last Sunday in the liturgical year. He also transformed it from a feast to a ‘Solemnity.’ But what does it mean to worship Jesus as King of the Universe? And what kind of kingship are we celebrating?

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus, on being questioned by Pilate, does not deny that he is a king but makes it clear that his kingdom is ‘not of this world (Jn 18:34). This does not mean, however, that it belongs to a purely spiritual, other-worldly realm that has nothing to do with this world. To the contrary it has everything to with this world and with our lives here and now on earth. However, it is a kingdom utterly different from the kingdoms where rulers impose their will on people and exercise their power by force and fear – the kind of kingdom that Pilate administered as Governor of the Roman Province of Judea (cf. Mk 10:42). The kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom born in the heart of God, and that only the heart of God could hold – ‘an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace’ (Preface of Christ the King). To see more clearly what the Kingdom of Jesus is about, we need look no further than the testimony of the gospels about Jesus’ life and public ministry.

Hardly anything is more certain about the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth than that he proclaimed the kingdom or reign of God. The phrase ‘Kingdom of God’ occurs 122 times in the Gospels, 90 of which are on the lips of Jesus. The synoptic gospels introduce Jesus’ public ministry with the concise phrase: ‘The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent. Believe the Good News (Mk 1:15). The kingdom God was not only the central theme of Jesus’ teaching; it was the event that shaped all his actions – his table-fellowship with sinners and outcasts, his healings and exorcisms, his forgiveness of sins. God’s kingdom, as lived and proclaimed by Jesus, meant good news for the poor, healing for the sick, and liberation for the enslaved and oppressed: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord (Lk 4:18-19). The Kingdom inaugurated by Jesus and embodied in his ministry implied nothing less than a total, global, and structural transformation of human life on this earth. It is indeed a kingdom in which the entire cosmos is purified of all evils and filled with the reality of God, a universal kingdom of which the now Risen and Glorified Jesus is now King.

The kingdom manifested in the life and ministry of Jesus was based on, and empowered by, his experience of God as unconditional and unrestricted love – his Abba experience. In Jesus we meet a God who loves us without conditions or limits, and who invites us to share the divine communion of love and so experience the fullness of life (cf. Jn 17:24-26). The kingship of Jesus is thus inseparably linked to his call to conversion and the invitation to experience the wonderful closeness of Abba. Only God’s power can overturn the evil and negativity in human life and history. What we must do is respond to the invitation of Jesus, ‘Repent and believe the good news (Mk1:15), and so be converted to a new way of living, if the reign of God is to become real in our lives.

Today’s celebration challenges us to give our hearts more completely to Christ and invite him to reign in our lives, in our families, businesses, and in the entire world. I will end with a short poem, entitled The Kingdom, by Welsh poet, RS Thomas, which captures very well what the kingship of Christ means and what it requires from us:

It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you will purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith green as a leaf.

Michael McCabe SMA, November 2021

To listen to an alternative Homily from Fr Tom Casey of the SMA Media Centre, Ndola, Zambia please click on the play button below. 

SMA Wilton responds generously to an All-Ireland Winner

Fr Pat Barry SMA

During the month of October, the month of Mission, the community of St. Joseph’s SMA Parish, Wilton, Cork, undertook the challenge of supporting one of our Irish SMA priests working in Zambia, East Africa to build a parish house.

Fr Paddy Barry, a former All-Ireland Hurling winner with Cork [1976], is home on leave from his mission in Zambia. A member of the famous great Glen Rovers Club in Cork City, Fr Pat (as he’s known locally) was part of that All-Ireland Winning team. A few weeks after winning the Liam McCarthy Cup, Fr Paddy was on his way to Nigeria, West Africa where he spent 19 years before taking up an appointment in the SMA House, Blackrock Road. In 2003, he headed back to Africa, to Zambia, where he has been ever since and to which he will return when his holidays are over. At the invitation of Fr Michael O’Leary SMA, PP of Wilton, Fr Paddy spoke at the Sunday Masses, speaking of his plan to build a house for the parish of St Agnes in Lusaka, the Zambian capital. This is a new parish in the Lusaka area being developed by the SMA. In 2004, Fr Paddy took charge of the parish of St Thérèse of Lisieux, Chainda, and he quickly saw the need to develop outstations in different parts of the area. St Agnes was one of those outstations. In 2018, it was cut off from Chainda and established as an independent parish in its own right. 

St Agnes Maternity Centre

St Agnes also has a fine Community Health Centre (built in 2003), with an out-patient department and maternity clinic, also built by Fr Paddy. The Clinic has 12 beds – 6 ante and 6 post-natal. Since the onset of the Coronavirus, it has been a Vaccination Centre against Covid-19. Built with funds collected in Ireland, with the support of the SMA and the Irish Government as well as the free labour of many of the local people in Ibex Hill, women and men, the Health Centre is a great blessing in an area of Lusaka lacking in many amenities, which we in Ireland take for granted. The Centre running costs are met by the Zambian Ministry of Health.

St Agnes’ Church, Ibex Hill, Lusaka

Over the past 17 years, with the financial support of the SMA and many Irish supporters and what the local people themselves could gather, there is now a beautiful circular church and Community Health Centre at St Agnes, Ibex Hill. Fr Paddy was assisted for several years by Fr Michael Igoe SMA (from Glassan, Athlone). At present Fr Paddy runs the parish from the local SMA Regional House. This involves a 20-minute commute which makes it difficult to create a healthy interaction between Fr Paddy and the people.

Work has begun and Fr Paddy was grateful for the very positive financial support he received from the Wilton community. The community donated €8,000 which he believes will go a long way towards the realisation of his dream for the parish St. Agnes. 

Every month, the Wilton parish nominate a particular project (in Ireland or in Africa) to support. St Agnes was chosen for October. As a result, the Wilton community have responded very generously, supporting SMA projects in Kenya, Liberia and Tanzania as well as a project in some South Africa townships, under the auspices of the Sisters of Mercy.

Well done to the community of St Joseph’s, Wilton, for their generous support to the work our SMA priests and Mercy Sisters in Africa as well as the Irish charities, particularly those in the Cork area.

Next up for the Wilton parish community is a Knit and Natter group who have had to leave their Public Library space and will be using some of the Parish Centre facilities to knit various items for those in need, at home and in Africa.

Dromantine remembers

We have loved them in life; let us not forget them in death [St Monica]

During the month of November we are especially mindful of our loved ones who have died. Many parishes arrange Masses in memory of those who died during the year and to remember all who are buried in local cemeteries etc.

We in the Society of African Missions (SMA) are also mindful of our deceased members – seminarians, brothers, priests and bishops – as well as our family members, members of other groups we have worked with (particularly the OLA Sisters) and our many supporters who have departed from this life.

Dromantine in autumn

Last year and this year, due to Covid-19, we are unable to invite family members to attend the Mass in Dromantine, Newry. However, you can join in the Mass via webcam which Fr Damian Bresnahan SMA (Community Leader) and the SMA community will be offering for all our deceased.

In the grounds of Dromantine there is a memorial to all those SMA members from the ecclesiastical Province of Armagh

The Livestreaming will begin shortly before the Mass.

To join the Mass live at 3pm on Sunday, 14 November   

The rapidly-growing archdiocese in Nigeria’s capital turns 40

Archbishop Ignatius Ayau Kaigama

Writing from Nigeria,  Lucie Sarr of La Croix International reports on how Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja paid tribute to all those who have built up a local Church that has gone from several thousand Catholics to nearly a million believers in just four decades.

When the Archdiocese of Abuja, located in the capital of Nigeria, was established as a “missio sui iuris” (independent mission) back in 1981 it had a fledgling Catholic community of only several thousand people.

Four decades later it is moving quickly towards a Church membership of a million baptized faithful. Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, who became the local ordinary only two years ago, recalled those who helped grow the Church here, during a Mass on November 6 to mark the Archdiocese of Abuja’s 40th anniversary.

He paid tribute to the late Cardinal Dominic Ignatius Ekandem (d. 1995), the first Nigerian to get the red hat, who was entrusted with leading the new independent mission in 1981. The cardinal, who attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), was bishop of Ikot Ekpene at the time and would continue to jointly hold that title until 1989 when Abuja was made a diocese in its own right.

Ekandem, who had become an auxiliary bishop in 1953 at the age of 36, worked with a number of missionary orders to develop the Church in Abuja. They included the Society of African Missions (SMA), the Holy Ghost Fathers (CSSP), the St. Patrick Fathers (SPS), the Servants of the Holy Child Jesus, the Sisters of the Holy Rosary and the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart. With the help of these religious communities the cardinal was able to establish a number of ecclesial structures on which his pastoral work was based. In the four decades since its foundation, the Church in Abuja – which became a metropolitan archdiocese in 1994 – has grown by leaps and bounds. According to the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican’s annual book of statistics, there were less than 9,400 Catholics in the diocese in 1990.Today that number stands between 895,000-900,000… and growing. During that same period, the original 10 parishes have expanded to 79 parishes. There are also 23 chaplaincies and 51 pastoral zones. There were only 24 priests serving in Abuja back in 1990. Today there are 303.The archdiocese also has 380 religious sisters and 132 major seminarians for 900,000 baptized Catholics.

Pioneers
“We give thanks to God our Father for the grace he has given us in Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit, for accomplishing many things through us in the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, and for having acted towards us in accordance with his mercy,” Archbishop Kaigama said before the thousands of people who came for the anniversary to give thanks to God. He said this 40th anniversary was also an opportunity to pay tribute to the very first native-born priests: Father Matthew Kukah, Archbishop Dominic Inyang, Father Willy Ojukwu and Mgr. Kenneth Enang. The 63-year-old Kaigama also underlined the important role played by the religious and lay faithful who were the pillars of the first Christian communities in Abuja. In particular, these include Sisters Mary Tuku and Theresa Nwanuro, as well as lay people Peter Aliu, Barr Joseph Daramola and Ignatius Nomhwange.

Personal commitment
Archbishop Kaigama, who was transferred to Abuja in 2019 after serving 19 years as head of the Archdiocese of Jos, said he has tried to continue the work of his still-living and well-known predecessor, Cardinal John Onaiyekan. “We will intensify our services for more positive pastoral and spiritual impact,” Kaigama said. “I call on all our pastoral workers to redouble their efforts, and on individuals and groups to contribute to the evangelization campaign by sponsoring modest church buildings or the purchase of land or the construction of parish houses,” he added. Archbishop Kaigama also spoke about the role of the priest in the Church by sharing an anecdote about a nephew who recently surprised him with a very critical letter.” I am absolutely appalled by your willingness to help strangers, but not the family,” the nephew wrote. The archbishop used the story to remind his priests that they are not to be making “tainted profits” for their biological families. “We become priests when we empty ourselves,” he said. “We are no longer looking to protect our own identity.”

With permission from La Croix International: https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/the-rapidly-growing-archdiocese-in-nigerias-capital-turns-40/15180 


Abuja @ Dusk | Abuja Nigeria | Jeff Attaway | Flickr CC

 

 

 

 

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 – Year B

14 November 2021

Daniel 12:1-3                  Hebrews 10:11-14,18                  Mark 13:24-32

Theme: ‘Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away’ (Mark 13:3)

A middle-aged woman was hurrying home from work on her bingo night out. As she drew near her home she spotted a young man standing at a street corner holding a placard with these rather startling words: ‘THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEAR.’ Approaching him she asked: ‘Are you quite sure the end of the world is near’. ‘Yes, quite sure’, he replied. ‘How near?’ the woman enquired further. ‘Very near,’ said the man. ‘Could you be a bit more precise?’ insisted the woman. ‘This very night, Mam’, he replied. The woman paused a moment to reflect on these ominous words and then, in a voice tinged with anxiety asked: ‘Tell me, son, will it be before or after the bingo’?

We don’t know for sure how or when the world will end. However, reading ‘the signs of the times’, it is quite probable that, unless we radically reduce the current level of our greenhouse gas emissions, we will soon bring about the end of the world as we know it with the extinction not just of human life but of most life forms on the earth. At the Glasgow COP 26 Summit, the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, reminded World leaders that we were one minute from midnight on the doomsday clock.

Today’s Scripture readings echo the sombre mood of our times. Both the first reading and the gospel passage allude to the end of the world. In apocalyptic images they warn us of ‘a time of great distress, unparalleled since nations first came into existence’ (Daniel 12:1); a time when ‘the Sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, and the stars will fall from the sky’ (Mark 13:24-25). While these images are poetic allusions and not to be taken as literal descriptions of events to come, they remind us of the all too real images we see on TV almost every day – images of drought stricken lands, burning continents, melting ice caps, flooding cities, and disappearing islands. And they conjure up a frightening scenario of what lies ahead of us.

However, the message of today’s readings is not one of disaster but rather of hope. The passage from the Book of Daniel assures us that the Archangel Michael will come to the rescue of ‘all those whose names are written in the Book’ (Daniel 12:2), that is, all the faithful of Israel who have persevered in spite of trials and tribulations. It affirms the resurrection of the dead and, in a  beautiful image, states that ‘the learned will shine as brightly as the vault of heaven, and those who have instructed many in virtue, as bright as the stars for all eternity’ (Daniel 12:3).

Mark’s gospel was written at a time of severe persecution in the early Church. Many members of the community in Rome had been arrested and put to death. Some has lost heart and abandoned their faith. In today’s gospel passage, Mark is consoling and strengthening a community threatened with extinction. His message is that those who are faithful need not have no fear. ‘They will see the Son of Man [The risen and glorious Christ] coming in the clouds with great power and glory; then he will send the angels to gather his chosen from the four winds, from the ends of the world to the ends of heaven’ (Mark 13:26-27). They must not falter but to hold fast to the words of Jesus which, no matter what happens, shall never pass away. For them, the world is not heading towards extinction but towards a wonderful transformation into ‘a new earth and a new heaven’ in which they will share in the glorious reign of their Risen Lord.

This message of hope is as relevant today as ever. We inhabit a world where there is much injustice, violence and hatred. Confidence in the progress of human civilization has been dented by the emergence of new conflicts and divisions. In the words of Pope Francis, ‘we live in a world lurching from crisis to crisis and lacking a shared roadmap’ (Fratelli Tutti). The recent Covid pandemic – unfortunately still with us – has shown us just how vulnerable we all are, while the accelerated pace of global warming threatens the very future of life on earth – notwithstanding the ‘blah, blah, blah’ (Greta Thunberg) of world leaders. And yet, as Christians we have an unconquerable hope that looks beyond the tragic circumstances of our times, for it is a hope based ultimately on the resurrection of Jesus and hence a hope for a new life that rises out of the ashes of death and decay. Such a hope is not confined by the limits of what we can achieve by our own efforts. God’s purpose in creation, reaffirmed in the incarnation, and gloriously manifested in the resurrection shall not be defeated. We may not know how or when this completion will happen, but as surely as day follows night, it will happen. Let us say ‘Amen’ to that not just with our lips but with our lives.

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, November 2021

Pope Francis asks us to pray that people who suffer from depression or burn‐out will find support and a light that opens them up to life.

In his prayer intention for the month of November Pope Francis expresses his closeness to all those who are feeling overwhelmed in their daily life, above all those suffering from stress and depression, and he asks us to pray that they receive the help they need.

The Holy Father calls our attention to the stress and depression affecting many people. Aware that people around the world are going through times of mental, emotional, and affective exhaustion (in varying forms and degrees), the Pope asks that they be adequately accompanied, that we pray for them, and that Jesus’ closeness not be forgotten.

The message of Pope Francis’ prayer intention addresses a central issue in the lives of millions of people: mental health. In the video, he explains that in many cases, “sadness, apathy, and spiritual tiredness end up dominating people’s lives, which are overloaded due to the rhythm of life today.”

Mental health in times of COVID-19

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has caused the death of millions of people. It has also tried the mental and emotional resilience of countless people and has affected their psychological equilibrium. Sometimes, this has created situations of real anguish and despair. With this reality in view, the Holy Father asks that we “be close to those who are exhausted, to those who are desperate, without hope. Often, we should simply listen in silence.”

Text of Pope Francis MessageOverwork and work-related stress cause many people to experience extreme exhaustion — mental, emotional, affective, and physical exhaustion. Sadness, apathy, and spiritual tiredness end up dominating people’s lives, who are overloaded due to the rhythm of life today.

Let us try to be close to those who are exhausted, to those who are desperate, without hope. Often, we should just simply listen in silence, because we cannot go and tell someone, “No, life’s not like that. Listen to me, I’ll give you the solution.” There’s no solution.  And besides, let us not forget that, along with the indispensable psychological counseling, which is useful and effective, Jesus’ words also help. It comes to my mind and heart: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Let us pray that people who suffer from depression or burn-out will find support and a light that opens them up to life.                         Pope Francis – November 2021

 

Sunday Mass – 7th of November 2021

Mass this Sunday is celebrated by Fr Denis Ryan SMA who worked in Ghana for many years and who is now a member of the SMA Community in Blackrock Road, Cork.  

 It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”  2 Maccabees 12:46

This is the month of the holy souls. We remember and pray for all the departed, especially members of our own families, our neighbours and friends.  We also remember and pray for those who have been forgotten. We ask the Lord to grant them all eternal rest.

May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. 

 

Dromantine SMA Annual Remembrance Mass 2021

We have loved them in life; let us not forget them in death [St Monica]

During the month of November we are especially mindful of our loved ones who have died. Many parishes arrange Masses in memory of those who died during the year and to remember all who are buried in local cemeteries etc.

We in the Society of African Missions (SMA) are also mindful of our deceased members – seminarians, brothers, priests and bishops – as well as our family members, members of other groups we have worked with (particularly the OLA Sisters) and our many supporters who have departed from this life.

Last year and this year, due to Covid-19, we are unable to invite family members to attend the Mass in Dromantine, Newry. However, you can join in the Mass via webcam which Fr Damian Bresnahan SMA (Community Leader) and the SMA community will be offering for all our deceased.

The Livestreaming will begin shortly before the Mass.

To join the Mass live at 3pm on Sunday, 14 November    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SMA INTERNATIONAL NEWS – November 2021

The November edition of SMA International News brings us stories from the Italian Province and developments there.  These include new mission appointments from the Province and information about a new book published by Fr Luigi Maccalli SMA. Next is a report from France, the Superior of Lyons tells us about new SMA pastoral commitments happening in Lyons, Nantes and in Castelnaudary, the homeplace of the Founder.  Finally, re have a report from Ignatius Malwa, Superior of the Zambian District about a farming project recently undertaken and aimed at helping the District to become self-sustaining.   

As usual the Bulletin ends with a general roundup of information about recent events and news from the Generalate.  To view click on the image below. 

Fr Joseph (Joe) Maguire SMA – Funeral homily

Fr Joe Maguire SMA passed to his eternal reward on Monday, 21 November 2016. His funeral Mass was celebrated in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork, on Wednesday, 23 November. The Principal Celebrant was the SMA Provincial Leader, Fr Michael McCabe. He was assisted by Fr Pat Clarke [Archdiocese of Edinburgh, Scotland, who worked in Jos, Nigeria with Fr Joe], Fr Bernie Cotter SMA, Fr Seán Lynch SMA and Fr Alphonse Sekongo SMA. Bishops Timothy Carroll, Patrick J Harrington SMA, Noel O’Regan SMA and more than 40 SMA priests also concelebrated the funeral Mass.

The chief mourner was Fr Joe’s sister, Mrs Sheila Barnwall, with her family and other nieces, nephews, relatives and friends from Dublin and other parts of the country.

In his introduction to the Mass, Fr McCabe welcomed all who had travelled to be with the SMA as we said ‘goodbye’ to the oldest SMA priest in the Irish Province. “We gather here today to bid farewell to our dear brother, Fr Joe Maguire, and to pray that he now shares in the Risen life of the Lord who has promised eternal life to all who believe in him. Welcome to all who have come here today to take part in this funeral Mass, members of his family, particularly his sister Sheila, friends, neighbours, SMA priests and brothers. Sisters from the OLA, St Louis, Infant Jesus and Holy Child congregations. I also welcome Fr Pat Crean of Edinburgh Archdiocese and his sister Mary and Fr Martin Crean OSA.

I wish to convey my condolences to his sister, Sheila, his sisters-in-law, Josephine and Joyce, his nieces, including Sr Dolores in the USA, and his nephews, grandnephews, grandnieces, SMA confreres, the Archbishop, clergy, religious and people of the Archdiocese of Jos, Nigeria and Fr Joe’s other relatives and friends.

We remember in this Eucharist the deceased members of Fr Joe’s family, his parents, James and Julia, his brothers, Jimmy, Micheál and Kevin; his sisters Sr Michael and Christina, deceased relatives and friends as well as deceased members of our SMA family.”

After the Gospel, Fr Michael preached the following homily, an edited version of which we present here.

HOMILY

“We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that it will be the same for those who have died in Jesus; God will bring them with him.”

“Those who trust in the Lord will understand the truth, those who are faithful will live with him in love; for grace and mercy await those he has chosen.”

“I tell you most solemnly, unless a wheat grain falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest. … If anyone serves me my Father will honour him.”

Fr Joe died as he has lived – “in Jesus” – and has gone from us to be with him for ever. He gave his life totally and without conditions or reservations to the Lord as an SMA missionary priest. He had a long life – longer that the psalmist envisaged (“Seventy is the sum of our years or eighty for those who are strong”) – and was privileged to see the fruits of his ‘mighty sowing’ (P H Pearse). In February 2007, Fr Joe was one of a group of Irish missionaries, including the Provincial Leader at the time, Fr Fachtna O Driscoll, who were invited to take part in the centenary celebrations in Shendam (Nigeria) of the arrival of the first SMA missionaries in Northern Nigeria. Fr Joe wrote a vivid and detailed account of that event, describing it as “a wonderful, wonderful experience, one never to be forgotten”. In his account he paid tribute to the first SMA missionaries (three Frenchmen, Frs Waller, Mouren and Belin) to arrive in Northern Nigeria and embark on an enterprise that would, at the cost of their lives, yield a harvest surpassing all expectations. Fr Joe stated: “What Faith, Hope, Charity, Courage and Perseverance, those first missionaries have shown. Truly we can say, on their behalf, ‘Zeal for your house has consumed me’ (Jn 2:17).”  We can also say the same for Fr Joe whose long life of missionary service built on the foundation laid by those pioneers. Zeal for the Lord and the growth of his reign of love, truth and just was the patent force that shaped Fr Joe’s life. As we mourn the passing of a great missionary, we thank God for his ministry and what he achieved, and recall some of the key moments of that life.

Joe was born in Warren St, South Circular Road, Dublin on 28 March, 1022. He was the fifth born of a family of seven: four boys and three girls. Having completed his primary education at Grantham National School and Synge Street CBS, Joe moved to Mungret College, Limerick, for his secondary Education. At that time, Mungret College was an Apostolic School, established by the Jesuits to educate young men who might be thinking of becoming missionary priests. During his years at Mungret the seed of a missionary vocation was sown in Joe’s heart. However, on completing his secondary education, Joe decided to join the SMA – not the Jesuits – and, in September 1941, he entered the SMA Novitiate in Cloughballymore, Co Galway where he also studied philosophy. Two years later, he moved on to the SMA Major Seminary in Dromantine, Newry, Co Down, where he completed his theological studies. He became a permanent member of the Society on 12 June 1946 and, one year later, on 18 June, 1947, along with 15 classmates, he was ordained priest by Bishop Eugene O’Doherty at St Colman’s Cathedral, Newry. The next day, Fr Joe celebrated his first Mass at Our Lady of Good Council Church, Mourne Rd, Drimnagh, Dublin, where his family then lived. His first missionary appointment was to the Prefecture of Jos, Northern Nigeria, and the 8 January 1948, Fr Joe, along with three of his classmates – Frs Tommy Drummond, Bill Power and David O’Regan – left Dun Laoghaire for Southampton and from there set sail for Nigeria.

Apart from a short break in Ireland in 1975, for medical treatment, Fr Joe was to spend the next fifty one years of his life in Northern Nigeria. His arrival in Nigeria coincided with the beginning of a great upsurge in education, as the Nigerian Government gave capital grants and grant-in-aid for primary schools. As a result, primary schools sprang up all over Nigeria and greatly facilitated the work of evangelisation. Fr Joe’s own apostolate was quite varied and enriching involving parish work, teacher training, and six years in the Minor Seminary in Barakin Ladi. He also held important administrative and leadership roles. In 1979 he was elected SMA Regional Superior with responsibility for the welfare of SMA members in Northern Nigeria – a post he held until 1983. Later he was elected Society Superior in Jos. Fr Joe also represented the Region of Northern Nigeria as a delegate at the 1973 SMA General Assembly, and also at the Irish Provincial Assemblies in 1973, 1979 and 1983. As a Leader, Fr Joe was well organised, conscientious and efficient, a man of enormous integrity who easily won the trust and admiration of others. He gave 100% of himself to whatever task he was asked to undertake. While he could be demanding of others, he was most demanding of himself and led by the example of his life. He was a genial and gracious host to the many sisters and priests who came to visit the Regional House. He welcomed and supported the fidei donum priests who came to work in Jos from the diocese of Edinburgh. He was, above all, a true friend and mentor for the local clergy. One of those priests, Paul Gokok, now studying in Germany, and who was baptised by Fr Joe in 1968, on hearing of Joe’s death, phoned to convey his condolences.

As I have already mentioned, Fr Joe lived to see the mustard seed of God’s word grow into a mighty tree. When he first arrived in Jos Prefecture, in January 1948, there were only nine parishes in that vast territory. Transport was minimal with just 4 cars in the entire Prefecture. By the time he left to return to Ireland, in 1999, he has seen that Prefecture transformed into an Archdiocese with several suffragan dioceses, served by indigenous bishops and priests – and with a vast cohort of sisters, catechists, and lay leaders. For Fr Joe, this phenomenal growth was, of course, God’s doing – it was a miracle of grace. However, it was made possible by the missionaries’ wholehearted commitment to the task of evangelisation (what Joe termed “getting stuck into the work”) and perseverance. And underlying and fuelling that perseverance and commitment were a solid life of prayer, the daily celebration of the Eucharist, and the encouraging response of the people.

Fr Joe’s commitment to the SMA and the people of Nigeria was leavened by a profound sense of gratitude for the grace of his priesthood and missionary vocation. When I and my sibblings were growing up, grandmother – to get us to wash ourselves – used to say “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. Whatever be the truth of that claim, gratitude or thankfulness is the clearest expression of Godliness, and Fr Joe was truly grateful for all that the Lord was doing in and through his life and ministry. Two moments which brought him immense joy and for which he was especially grateful were the visit of Pope John Paul II to Kaduna in February 1982 and his own return visit to Shendam, Nigeria, in 2007 (at the age of 83) for the centenary celebration of the arrival of the missionaries in Northern Nigeria.

Fr Joe was a selfless worker in the vineyard of the Lord, but he was also a keen sportsman – especially hurling and football – and an enthusiastic supporter of his home county, Dublin. He was an unabashed admirer of the achievements of the great Kevin Heffernan with whom he struck up a close friendship – and whom he advised on matters of football strategy! Joe’s enthusiasm for the Dubs had not dimmed over the years and he was delighted this year to see Dublin once again win the All Ireland final against Mayo.

The last 17 years of Fr Joe’s life were spent in the SMA community of Blackrock Road, where he continued to contribute to the life of the Province and participate fully in all aspects of the life of the community. He took particularly to heart the injunction of Paul in his First Letter to the Thessalonians to “pray without ceasing” (I Thess 5:17) and his visits to the oratory grew more frequent as the years went by. He suffered bouts of ill health, especially in recent years, but these did not dampen his energy or his determination to live life to the full. It was only with the greatest reluctance that, less than two years ago, he moved to St Theresa’s Nursing Unit. There he was well cared for by Sr Margaret Kiely RSM and nursing Staff. While in St Theresa’s he continued to take his meals with the main community and attend all community exercises. The words of Sir Harry Lauder’s famous song sum up Joe’s spirit of steely determination to keep going right up to the end:

Keep right on to the end of the road, keep right on to the end. Tho’ the way be long, let your heart be strong, keep right on round the bend. 

Tho’ you’re tired and weary still journey on,  till you come to your happy abode, where all th love you’ve been dreaming of  will be there at the end of the road.

Only the day before Fr Joe died, seeing how frail he was and yet insistent on keep going, I remarked to a confrere: “Joe will surely die on his feet”. And, indeed, he kept journeying right on ‘to the end of the road’, until the Lord was ready to take him to himself, and, as the words of the first Reading today puts it, “live with him in love”.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.

Read Fr Joe’s Obituary here.

Fr Joseph (Joe) Maguire SMA

The oldest priest in the Irish Province, Fr Joseph [Joe] Maguire, passed to his eternal reward shortly before 10am on Monday, 21 November 2016, Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady. He was 94 years of age.

Fr Joe was born in Warren Street, South Circular Road, Dublin, the 5th child of seven born to James and Julia [née O’Brien]. He is predeceased by his parents and five siblings, James, Margaret [Sr Michael OSF], Micheál, Christina and Kevin. His sister Sheila [Barnwall] is the last remaining member of the family, living in Co Dublin.

After completing his primary education at Grantham St NS and Synge Street CBS he joined his father in Jacob’s Biscuit factory.  But feeling an intense interest in missionary priesthood he entered the Jesuit-run Apostolic school in Mungret College, Limerick, where he completed his secondary education before joining the SMA for Novitiate and Philosophy studies at Cloughballymore, Kilcolgan, Co Galway. He took his First Oath of membership in the Society on 1 July 1943. His theological studies were completed at the African Missions major seminary at Dromantine, Newry where he became a permanent member of the Society on 14 June 1946 and was ordained a priest in the Cathedral of St Patrick and St Colman on 18 June 1947 by Bishop Edward Mulhern, one of sixteen priests ordained on that day. His first Mass was celebrated in the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Mourne Road, Drimnagh, Dublin.

In 1948 he went to Nigeria, and served for 50 years in northern Nigeria. He was Principal of the Minor seminary in Barakin Ladi for some years. Among the parishes he served in were Kwa, Kagoro, Shendam, Pankshin, St Theresa’s in Jos Town, Zawan, Bukuru and Tudun Wada.

Fr Joe served as Regional Superior with responsibility for the welfare of SMA personnel in northern Nigeria from 1979 – 1983. He later served as Society Superior for Jos Archdiocese. During his time as Regional Superior he was a most genial host in the SMA Regional House at Kagoro, as he was in every parish he lived in. He was a lifelong Pioneer, though on one occasion he was encouraged to take a hot whiskey to help with a very bad cold. Reluctantly he did but it was something he regretted and as soon as he came on his next home holiday he headed off to be re-enrolled in the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association.

Reflecting on his years there at the time of his Golden Jubilee, Fr Joe saw it as “an enriching ministry involving parish work, teacher training and six years in the Minor seminary [Barakin Ladi, Jos]”.

Fr Joe as Christ, 1952

It was normal that when SMA priests were home on holidays they should spend some time in the Motherhouse at Blackrock Road, Cork. During his first holidays home [in 1952] Fr Joe was asked by a local theatrical group to play the part of Christ in a Passion Play they were performing in the then Cork Opera House during Lent 1952. He certainly cut a fine figure in that role.

Fr Joe had his share of ill health down the years but he never let this limit him. Right up to three days before his death he was participating to the full in the community prayer and daily Mass. Despite increasing difficulty with walking he could be seen moving slowly along the corridors heading to or from the chapel. He was a man of prayer and spent hours before the Blessed Sacrament every day. And, as someone remarked in recent days, the other place you’d find Fr Joe heading for was the community sitting room to have a cup of tea, countless mugs of tea every day with a biscuit. He loved the tea!

Pilate washes his hands, condemning Jesus to death.

Fr Joe was an enthusiastic supporter of the Dubs, an enthusiasm which was well nourished during the 70s and 80s in their absorbing tussles with Kerry. He retained that interest all his years and was delighted to see his beloved Dubs retain the Sam Maguire last month after overcoming Mayo in a replay. A story he often recounted was of the time, in Croke Park, watching Dublin playing a match. A vociferous fan of the opposing team [either Louth or Meath] was ‘casting aspersions’ on the late great Kevin Heffernan who was on the Dublin team that day. Joe had enough of ‘the language’ and turned to deal with the fan but, lucky for him [the fan] Fr Joe’s brother and another friend held him back and no contact was made. A most unusual action for Joe who was always so placid and gentle. “And I had my collar on”, he’d say and then chuckle away at the memory! 

Fr Joe is mourned by his sister, Mrs Sheila Barnwall [Dublin], sisters-in-law, Joyce Maguire and Jo Somerville, nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews, relatives, friends, SMA confreres and the people of the Archdiocese of Jos, Nigeria.

His funeral Mass was celebrated at 12 noon on Wednesday, 23 November 2016, in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton. He was later laid to rest in the adjacent SMA community cemetery.

May Fr Joe now enjoy his eternal rest.

Read Fr Michael McCabe’s Homily at Fr Joe’s funeral here.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 – Year B

7 November 2021

1 Kings 17:10-16                  Hebrews 9:24-28                  Mark 12: 38-44

To give and not to count the cost’ (St Ignatius of Loyola)

Widows feature prominently in the Bible. Today’s readings showcase two widows as examples of extraordinary generosity. We must remember that, in biblical times, widows were not only poor, but also without any security. They were the most marginal of the marginalised and extremely vulnerable. On losing their husbands, they had lost their only means of livelihood and had to depend totally on charity to survive. 

Our reading, from the first Book of Kings, recounts a memorable incident in the life of Elijah, one of the great prophets who lived 900 years before Christ. During a severe famine he enters a foreign town, Sidon (in modern day Lebanon) where he meets a widow gathering sticks. This woman is preparing to cook a final meal for herself and her son before they both expire. Notwithstanding her harrowing circumstances, Elijah asks her for water and some bread, assuring her that she and her son will not starve to death. Trusting his word, despite not being a Jew, she shares her final meal with him. The story has a happy ending as we are told that ‘the jar of meal was not spent nor the jug of oil emptied’ (1Kings 17:16).

In the gospel passage from Mark, we meet another widow also in dire straits. She has just two small coins left in her purse, the equivalent of a penny, about 1% of a labourer’s daily pay. In an act of seemingly reckless generosity she puts both coins into one of the boxes of the Temple treasury. Jesus alone notices her and immortalises her act of utterly self-less giving. He presents her to his disciples as a model of generosity, saying: ‘I tell you solemnly, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have put in money they had over, but she from the little she had has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on’ (Mark 12:43-44).

The discrete unselfconscious action of the widow stands in stark contrast to the self-important posturing of the scribes, who love  ‘to walk about in long robes’  in order to be noticed and ‘greeted obsequiously in the market squares’ (Mark 12:38). Jesus warns his disciples to beware of these hypocrites who, while pretending to be holy men of prayer, ‘swallow the property of widows’ (Mk 12:40). In other words, they use their position as lawyers to exploit vulnerable widows for their own advantage. A more despicable injustice would be hard to imagine!

Taken literally the actions of the widows featured in today’s readings appear reckless and foolish, for they give, not from their abundance, but all the meagre means they have for survival. Yet their extreme generosity illustrates a profound truth about God and about what is important in life. The widows epitomise God’s self-giving love, for it is when we freely give without counting the cost that we are most like God. Brendan Kennelly, the Kerry poet who died recently, has a beautiful poem about the mystery of God’s constant outpouring of himself. I quote a few lines:

‘I give thanks to the giver of images,
The reticent God who goes about his work
Determined to hold on to nothing.
Embarrassed at the prospect of possession
He distributes leaves to the wind
And lets them pitch and leap like boys
Capering out of their skin.
Pictures are thrown behind hedges,
Poems skitter backwards over cliffs….
I do not understand
Such constant evacuation of the heart
Such striving towards emptiness.’

It is Jesus who manifests supremely the Creator God who gives everything away. He does this in his ministry to the poor and marginalised, but above all in his passion and death on the Cross. The widow whose selfless act of generosity touched the heart of Jesus in today’s gospel prefigures his own great act of self-giving love soon to be accomplished on the hill of Calvary. By this act he sacrificed himself, as the Second reading today reminds us, ‘to do away with sin once and for all’ (Hebrewa 9:26) and so became the great High Priest of our Faith.

Today’s readings challenge us to imitate the generosity of the widows in today’s readings and become sacraments of God’s self-giving love in a world increasingly preoccupied with possession and security. Let us be givers and not just consumers. I end with a reflection from the pen of Kahlil Gibran that sums up the message of today’s readings:

There are those who give little of the much which they have–and they give it for recognition, and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life,
and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue.
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks,
and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.’

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, November 2021

Eternal Rest grant to them, O Lord

November, beginning with the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls, is traditionally the month in which the Church remembers the dead and in a special way we are invited to remember our family and friends who have died, especially those who have passed away in the last twelve months.  During this month, Mass will be offered each day in the SMA, Blackrock Road, Cork. From 2 – 10 November we will celebrate that Mass in St Joseph’s SMA Church at 6pm (except on Sunday, 7th of Nov when the Mass will be at 7pm ) and we invite you to join us via webcam on those days. 

Click Here  to join us or, from Tuesday 2nd of November,  click on the image, like that on the left, which will be placed on the top right of the Homepage. 

For the rest of the month the Mass will be celebrated at 10.30am in our SMA community Oratory in Blackrock Road, which is not open to the public.

We will celebrate the Annual Remembrance Mass for our deceased SMA and OLA members, our families and supporters at 3pm on Saturday, 6 November, in St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton. Click here to access the Wilton parish webcam.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual life shine upon them. Amen.

 

Month of Mission – Sunday Mass 31st October

This week we bring you the last in the series of Sunday Liturgies to celebrate October the month of Mission, on this occasion led by Fr Anthony Kelly SMA.

FR Anthony comes from Ballinalsoe Co Galway was ordained for the Society of African Missions in June 1977 and together with two classmates went to Ghana on his first Missionary appointment in October of that year.  He worked in Pastoral work in the Diocese of Sunyani in the Brongh- Ahaffo region of Ghana for 13 years.  In 1990 he returned to Ireland and was based in S.M.A. house Dromantine until November 1999 where he served as vocation director for the Irish province. Each summer he directed the SMA holiday camp which catered for the children of our sponsors.  In 1998 he established the Friends of Africa, a youth group who did advocacy work for Africa and sent young people for missionary experience to Africa.

In 2000 Anthony took up an invitation to go to Zambia where he worked in Youth ministry as

To View click on the image below

chaplain to two Teacher training Colleges in Kitwe in the Copperbelt region until 2006.  In January 2006 he became Regional Leader and served the S.M.A  in Zambia as leader until December 2013.

After a short Sabbatical Anthony was asked to go to the S.M.A. house of Formation Nairobi Kenya where he served for 5 years  until his election on to the leadership team of the Irish province in July 2019.  Fr Anthony currently serves the Irish province as Councillor where he is responsible for Justice, Communication, engagement with Laity and other portfolios.

Love God and Love your Neighbour.

COP26 – What is it all about – What is at stake

Over the next few weeks our TV’s, News programmes and Social Media will be dominated by the 26th Conference of Parties in Glasgow taking place from October 31 to November 12.  What is it all about and what will actually happen?  Below are links to articles that give a good overview of the Conference.

In previous COP meetings we heard of the grim cost of not addressing the climate crisis, promises of carbon reductions and change as well as pledges of financial support for the most affected                                                                     nations. The reality is that these pledges were not fulfilled and carbon emissions have increased.

COP26
“represents an urgent summons to provide effective responses to the unprecedented ecological crisis and the crisis of values that we are presently experiencing, and in this way to offer concrete hope to future generations.”

Pope Francis

In recent times we have seen nations and world leaders, twist and wriggle in their responses to the climate crisis, trying to gain strategic and economic advantage and at the same time keeping and eye to political power at home in a time when there is a growing public consciousness of climate change and the environment. The language of politics is greener, but up to now lacking in substance.  Speaking about previous COP meetings the activist Gretta Thunberg pulled no punches when she said:  “Finding holistic solutions is what COP should be all about. But instead, it seems to have turned into some kind of opportunity for countries to negotiate loopholes and to avoid raising their ambitions. 

COP26 is where it has to get real.  On the positive side, never has there been more acceptance of the climate science and that change needs to happen.   In addition, over the last few years, the reality of the climate crisis has hit most nations, even the richest. The perception that their huge economic resources would cushion the effects of climate change has taken a severe battering in the last year or two.  Covid-19 is also a game-changer on many levels. Two of these are firstly; the pandemic has starkly shown that human ingenuity and technology are not silver bullets that save the day and secondly; it has shown that huge, and previously unthinkable, change, like that needed to mitigate the present crisis, can be made in the way that we do things.

What will happen at COP26 remains to be seen.  It’s an under statement to say that the situation is serious or urgent. This time world leaders have never had less wriggle-room and the need for common action has never been clearer.  No doubt there will be attempts to divert attention and for leaders to point to the actions of other nations to justify their own position or intransigence.  There will again be attempts to delay carbon reduction or, as the Australian Government has already done, to point to as yet to unviable carbon capture technologies as reasons to justify continued use of fossil fuels. Previous COP meetings have “gone to the wire” with powerful nations holding out to protect their interests and resulting in the can being kicked down the road. It is likely that this will happen again but now the road and time is much shorter. 

The articles below give a good overview of what the Conference is about and what it needs to achieve

A Beginners Guide to Climate Change  – this very short article answers  Questions, What is COP26 about, its structure and what will happen at the meeting?  

What’s at Stake at COP26 – an article from Deutsche Welle (DW) focusing more on the issues that the Conference needs to make decisions on. 

Religious Leaders Issue Joint Appeal Ahead of COP26    – Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Justin Welby urge everyone to play their part in safeguarding the future of the planet: “We must decide what kind of world we want to leave to future generations. We must choose to live differently; we must choose life.”

Latest COP26 News  Catch up on the latest news and updated for the COP
26 Press Office and sign up for the COP26 Newsletter

 

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 – Year B

31 October 2021

Deuteronomy 6:2-6               Hebrews 7:23-28               Mark 12: 28b-34

‘Love is the only force that can make things one without destroying them’ (Teilhard de  Chardin)

In today’s gospel passage from Mark, a scribe asks Jesus to identify the most important commandment of all. Departing from his usual practice of responding to a question by asking another one, Jesus answers the scribe’s question directly. But he mentions two commandments instead of one: love of God and love of neighbour. Why? It wasn’t that Jesus had a problem with maths. The answer is that loving God and neighbour are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other. The first Letter of John makes it abundantly clear that loving God and loving neighbour are inseparable: ‘Let us love one another since love comes from God, and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is Love’ (1 John 4: 7-8).

Just how well the early Christian community understood and lived this double commandment of love is illustrated by the testimony of a second century philosopher, Aristides. Writing to the Emperor Hadrian in defence of the Christians he stated that: ‘Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If one member of the community has something, he gives freely to those who have nothing. They don’t consider themselves brothers and sisters in the usual sense, but brothers and sisters in the Spirit of God. And if they hear that one of them is in jail or persecuted for professing the name of their redeemer, they give that person what he or she needs. This really is a new kind of person. There is something divine in them.’ 

We might say that the early Christians lived like a people possessed – possessed by the love of God, so that they could not but love God and love one another in return. Through their experience of the Risen Christ and the outpouring of his Spirit, they had left behind the darkness of night and emerged into the dawning light of God’s love and their lives were changed utterly. In the words of the poet, W.B. Yeats ‘A terrible beauty was born’. Some time ago I came across a memorable story which encapsulates the experience of the first Christians – and, hopefully, our experience as well:

There once was a rabbi who was asked by his students, “Master, how should one determine the hour in which night ends and day begins?” One student suggested, “Is it when a person can distinguish a sheep from a dog in the distance?” “No,” said the rabbi, “It is not.” A second student ventured, “Is it when one can distinguish a date tree and a fig tree from afar?” “It is not that either,” replied the teacher. “Please tell us the answer,” the students begged, “How should one determine when night has ended and day begun?” “It is when you look into the face of a stranger and see your sister or brother in need of your love,” said the rabbi. “Until then, we are still in the night.”

Sadly the word ‘love’ is so overused in contemporary parlance that it has lost much of its meaning. Love can be many things, as St Paul in his letter to Christian Community in Corinth valiantly strives to catalogue: ‘Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous, boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes’ (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

We are familiar with the saying that ‘love makes the world go around’. It is also what makes the ‘merry-go-round’ worthwhile. To quote St Paul again, ‘without love, I am nothing’ (1 Corinthians 13:2). But love is also demanding, for to love means to go beyond ourselves, to rise above our own needs and respond to the needs of others; it means to leave our comfort zones, to give our time, our energy, our talents, and indeed ourselves to others. And to do this not just when we feel in good form good or for a short time, but to do it in season and out of season, in good times and bad, until, in the words of St Paul, our life has been ‘poured out like a libation’  (2 Tim 4:6).

During recent Sunday nights, RTE1 is running a series of half hour programmes entitled ‘The Meaning of Life’ in which the host, Joe Duffy, interviews public figures about their faith and cherished values. It’s an engaging programme but the answer to the question of life’s meaning was given to us a long time ago. It was graven in the flesh of the Son of God who identified himself completely with us, and poured out his life out of love for us on the hill of Calvary (cf. Philippians 2:5-11). Jesus showed us that we human beings are only truly human when we give ourselves away in love. But we can only do this when we experience ourselves as loved with a love that is unconditional and unlimited – namely, God’s love for us. I will end my homily with a prayer from the pen of Fr Flor McCarthy:

‘If only the heart were right we could give so much more.
Lord open our hearts when they are closed,
Soften them when they are hard,
Warm them when they are cold,
Brighten them when they are dark,
Fill them when they are empty,
Calm them when they are troubled,
Cleanse them when they are sullied,
Heal them when they are wounded
And mend them when they are broken,
So that we, your disciples
May bear the fruits of love. Amen.

Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, October 2021

These Are the Knees – A Reflection

This Reflection is inspired by a Crucifix in the Church of the Holy Spirit at Dennehy’s Cross, Cork.  Carved from rosewood, the crucifix was specially commissioned from a Kenyan artist to remind Ballineaspaig parishioners of the link to their sister parish of Turkwel in the Diocese of Lodwar in the Turkana desert, Kenya.  This place has strong links with the African Missions. Bishop Patrick Harrington SMA served as Bishop of this Diocese for over ten years years and Fr Oliver Noonan SMA ministered in this very Parish. 

The Crucifix was installed in the church sanctuary in Dennehy’s Cross on Mission Sunday, 19th October, 2014.  While attending Mass this striking work often attracted the gaze of Rosalie Maloney,  the author of this reflection.  In particular she was intrigued by the knees of Jesus, which seem to be made from a different material and are of a different colour to the rest of the figure. Contemplating them inspired in her the following reflection:

 
These are the knees Mary kissed better when Jesus tumbled as all children do.
These are the knees that sat at table
with the bride and groom at Cana
with Martha, Mary and Lazarus in their Bethany home
with Pharisees, sinners and tax-collectors
with his disciples during their many meals together including their last
and with Mary and Cleopas her husband in Emmaus.
These knees touched the ground when Jesus
conversed with the children face to face
washed his disciples’ feet
and prayed to his father in Gethsemane.
These knees carried Jesus
on foot
by boat
to synagogue and Temple
to Jericho, Jerusalem, and Capernaum.
These knees bent when Jesus sat down –
on a mountain or in a synagogue to preach
in a boat by the lake to speak in parables
opposite the treasury to observe the widow’s mite
by the well where the Samaritan woman would give him water.
Before these knees many fell in supplication or thanksgiving:
Interior of Church Of The Holy Spirit. Note Cross on the Left. Credit: William Murphy, CC via Flickr
Jairus
Zebedee’s wife
the Canaanite mother
and the Samaritan leper.
These knees relaxed in sleep on a storm-tossed boat.
These knees bent to mount and ride a donkey into Jerusalem.
Before these knees the soldiers knelt and mocked, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
These are the knees battered and bruised from falls on the Calvary road.
These are the knees his mother touched lovingly as Jesus was laid in a borrowed tomb.
These are the knees . . .
With permission from Rosalie Moloney, Ballineaspaig  Parish Faith in Action Group

WORLD MISSION SUNDAY 2021 – MESSAGE FROM POPE FRANCIS

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“We cannot remain silent about what we have seen and heard” (At 4:20)

Dear brothers and sisters,

when we experience the power of God’s love, when we recognize his presence as a Father in our personal and community life, we cannot help but proclaim and share what we have seen and heard. Jesus’ relationship with his disciples, his humanity revealed to us in the mystery of the Incarnation, in his Gospel and in his Passover show us the extent to which God loves our humanity and makes our joys and sufferings, our desires and our anxieties our own (cf. CONC. ECUM. Vat. II, Cost. Past. Gaudium et spes, 22). Everything in Christ reminds us that the world in which we live and its need for redemption are no strangers to him and also calls us to feel an active part of this mission: “Go to the crosses of the streets and all those you will find, call them”(Mt 22:9). No one is foreign, no one can feel foreign or far away from this love of compassion.

The Experience of the Apostles

The history of evangelization begins with a passionate search for the Lord who calls and wants to establish with every person, where he is, a dialogue of friendship (cf. Jn 15:12-17). The Apostles are the first to tell us this, even remembering the day and time when they met him: “It was about four in the afternoon”(Jn 1:39). Friendship with the Lord, seeing him care for the sick, eating with sinners, feeding the hungry, approaching the excluded, touching the unclean, identifying with the needy, inviting to the Beatitudes, teaching in a new way and full of authority, leaves an indelible imprint, capable of eliciting amazement and an expansive and free joy that cannot be contained. As the prophet Jeremiah said, this experience is the burning fire of his active presence in our hearts that pushes us to mission, even if it sometimes involves sacrifices and misunderstandings (cf. 20:7-9). Love is always on the move and puts us on the move to share the most beautiful and hopeful proclamation: “We have found the Messiah”(Jn 1:41).

With Jesus we have seen, heard and touched that things can be different. He inaugurated, already today, the future times reminding us of an essential characteristic of our human being, so often forgotten: “we were made for the fullness that is achieved only in love” (Enc. Brothers all,68). New times that inspire a faith capable of giving impetus to initiatives and shaping communities, starting with men and women who learn to take charge of their own fragility and others, promoting fraternity and social friendship (cf. ibid.,67). The ecclesial community shows its beauty every time it remembers with gratitude that the Lord loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:19). The Lord’s “loving predilection surprises us, and amazement, by its very nature, cannot be possessed or imposed by us. […] Only in this way can the miracle of gratuitousness, of the free gift of oneself, flourish. Even missionary fervour can never be achieved as a result of reasoning or calculation. Putting one another “in a state of mission” is a reflection ofgratitude” (Message to the Pontifical Mission Societies,21 May 2020).

However, the timing was not easy; the first Christians began their lives of faith in a hostile and arduous environment. Stories of marginalization and imprisonment were intertwined with internal and external resistance, which seemed to contradict and even deny what they had seen and heard; but this, instead of being a difficulty or an obstacle that could lead them to fall back or close in on themselves, prompted them to turn every inconvenience, opposition and difficulty into opportunities for the mission. The limits and impediments also became a privileged place to a grease everything and all with the Spirit of the Lord. Nothing and no one could remain unrelated to the liberating announcement.

We have the living witness of all this in the Acts of theApostles, a book that missionary disciples always keep at hand. It is the book that tells how the scent of the Gospel spread as it passed, eliciting the joy that only the Spirit can give us. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles teaches us to live the trials by clinging to Christ, to mature the “conviction that God can act in any circumstance, even in the midst of apparent failures” and the certainty that “those who offer themselves and give themselves to God for love will surely be fruitful (cf. Jn 15:5)” (Exhort. Evangelii gaudium,279).

So are we: even the current historical moment is not easy. The situation of the pandemic has highlighted and amplified the pain, loneliness, poverty and injustices that many people were already suffering from and exposed our false security and the fragmentation and polarization that silently tear us apart. The most fragile and vulnerable have experienced even more their vulnerability and fragility. We experienced discouragement, disenchantment, fatigue; and even conformist bitterness, which takes away hope, has been able to take over our eyes. We, however, “do not proclaim ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord: as for us, we are your servants because of Jesus”(2 Cor 4:5). This is why we hear the Word of life resounding in our communities and families, echoing in our hearts and saying to us: “He is not here, he has risen”(Lk 24:6); A word of hope that breaks all determinism and, to those who allow themselves to be touched, gives the freedom and audacity necessary to stand up and creatively seek all possible ways of living compassion, “sacramental” of God’s closeness to us that abandons no one at the side of the road. In this time of pandemic, faced with the temptation to mask and justify indifference and apathy in the name of healthy social distancing, the mission of compassion capable of making the necessary distance a place of encounter, care and promotion is urgent. “What we have seen and heard”(Act 4:20), the mercy that has been used to us, is transformed into the point of reference and credibility that allows us to recover the shared passion to create “a community of belonging and solidarity, to which to allocate time, commitment and goods” (Enc. Brothers all,36). It is his Word that redeems us daily and saves us from the excuses that lead us to close ourselves in the cowardly of skepticism: “so much is the same, nothing will change”. And faced with the question: “for what purpose should I deprive myself of my security, comfort and pleasures if I cannot see any important results?”, the answer always remains the same: “Jesus Christ triumphed over sin and death and is full of power. Jesus Christ truly lives” (cf. Evangelii gaudium,275) and also wants us alive, fraternal and able to host and share this hope. In the present context there is an urgent need for missionaries of hope who, aoted by the Lord, are able to prophetically remember that no one saves himself.

Like the Apostles and the first Christians, we too say with all our might: “We cannot remain silent what we have seen and heard”(Acts 4:20). Everything we have received, all that the Lord has gradually bestowed on us, has given us because we put it on the stake and give it free of charge to others. Like the Apostles who have seen, listened to and touched the salvation of Jesus (cf. 1 Jn 1:1-4), so today we can touch the suffering and glorious flesh of Christ in the history of every day and find the courage to share with everyone a destiny of hope, that undoubted note that arises from knowing how to be accompanied by the Lord. As Christians we cannot keep the Lord for ourselves: the Church’s evangelizing mission expresses its integral and public value in the transformation of the world and in the custody of creation.

An invitation to each of us

The theme of this year’s World Mission Day, “We cannot keep quiet about what we have seen and heard”(At 4:20), is an invitation to each of us to “take charge” and to make known what we carry in our hearts. This mission is and has always been the identity of the Church: “it exists to evangelize” (St. PAUL VI, Esort. Evangelii nuntiandi,14). Our life of faith weakens, loses prophecy and capacity for amazement and gratitude in personal isolation or closing in small groups; by its very dynamic requires a growing openness capable of reaching and embracing everyone. The first Christians, far from succumbing to the temptation to close themselves in an elite, were attracted to the Lord and to the new life that He offered to go among the peoples and witness to what they had seen and heard: the Kingdom of God is close. They did so with the generosity, gratitude and nobility proper to those who sow knowing that others will eat the fruit of their commitment and sacrifice. Therefore I like to think that “even the weakest, most limited and wounded can be [missionaries] in their own way, because we must always allow good to be communicated, even if it coexists with many fragilities” (Esort. ap. postsin. Christus vivit,239).

On World Mission Day, which is celebrated every year on the penultimate Sunday of October, we remember with gratitude all the people who, through their witness of life, help us to renew our baptismal commitment to be generous and joyful apostles of the Gospel. Let us remember especially those who have been able to set out on their journey, leave land and family so that the Gospel can reach without delay and without fear the corners of peoples and cities where so many lives are thirsting for blessing.

Contemplating their missionary witness spurs us to be courageous and to pray insistently “the lord of the harvest, that he may send workers into his harvest”(Lk 10:2); in fact we are aware that the vocation to mission is not a thing of the past or a romantic memory of other times. Today, Jesus needs hearts that are capable of living the vocation as a true love story, that makes them go to the peripheries of the world and become messengers and instruments of compassion. And it is a call that He addresses to all, though not in the same way. Remember that there are suburbs that are located near us, in the center of a city, or in your family. There is also an aspect of the universal openness of love that is not geographical but existential. Always, but especially in these times of pandemic, it is important to increase the daily capacity to enlarge our circle, to reach those who spontaneously would not feel them part of “my world of interests”, even if they are close to us (cf. Enc. Brothers all,97). To live the mission is to venture to cultivate the same feelings as Christ Jesus and to believe with him that those next to me are also my brother and sister. May his love of compassion also awaken our hearts and make us all missionary disciples.

May Mary, the first missionary disciple, grow in all the baptized the desire to be salt and light in our lands (cf. Mt 5:13-14).

Rome, St. John lateran, 6 January 2021, Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord.

FRANCIS

MISSION SUNDAY – MASS

Continuing our series to mark October the Month of Mission – this week we bring you Mass for MISSION SUNDAY celebrated by Fr Christopher EMOKHARE SMA who hails from Nigeria and who grew up in a Parish served by Irish SMA Fathers. Now an SMA Missionary himself, he is living and working here in Ireland as the Family Vocations Community (FVC) Director for Munster.   In today’s Mass Fr Christopher will emphasise the following points: 

  • Mission in the strict Christian sense involves movement. It is a conscious movement of spreading the good news of Jesus Christ; professing and living out the realities of the sacred scriptures.
  • Mission is about wishing to share the extraordinary gift of faith that God has wished to give us, when He made us sharers in His own life.
  • You and I are protagonist of God’s word. Mission is primarily the spread of the Good
    To view click on the Image below

    News. The Good News is joyful. In the presence of the Lord there is fullness of joy.

We Pray that in our lives we hear the Good News and that through our words and actions we spread the joy and peace of the Gospel. 

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 (Mission Sunday) – Year B

24 November 2021
World Mission Sunday

 Jeremiah 31:7-9                  Hebrews 5:1-6                  Mark 10:46-52

The Second Vatican Council, in its Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity, states that ‘the pilgrim Church is essentially missionary (AG 2). Mission is not some extraordinary task that the Church undertakes in addition to its normal business of managing a world-wide institution. No! Mission is rooted in the nature of the Church; it is the reason for its existence. The Church is the community of Christ’s disciples called and sent to continue the mission of Jesus in the world. And this is the responsibility not just of priests and religious but of the entire people of God,  composed mostly of lay men and women. As Pope Francis reminds us, ‘all baptised members of the Church are sent forth in her name to witness to, and proclaim, the Gospel of God’s love’. This is how God is able to touch and transform hearts, minds, bodies, societies and cultures in every place and time (2019 Message for World Day of Mission).

During his life on earth, Jesus was particularly concerned with those on the periphery of society, those who were marginal to, or excluded from, the Jewish establishment of his time: the poor, the blind, the lepers, the tax collectors, those possessed by demons, the persecuted, and the downtrodden. Jesus wanted to end their misery and enable them to have life in its fullness: ‘I have come that you may have life and have it to the full’ (Jn 10:10). Concern for poor and downtrodden was at the very heart of Jesus’ mission:  ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord’ (Lk 4:18-19). Jesus fulfilled the God’s promise, as expressed in today’s first  reading, to ‘gather his people from the far ends of the earth; all of them: the blind and the lame, women with child, women in labour, a great company returning here… I will comfort them and lead them back’ (Jer 31:8).

As Christ’s disciples, all members of the Church are called and sent out to be agents of Christ’s love and compassion in our broken, confused and anxiety-riven world. Pope Francis reminds us in his Message for this 2021 World Day of Mission thatthe pandemic [Covid 19] has amplified the pain, loneliness, poverty and injustices experienced by many people in our world, especially the most frail and vulnerable’. Like the apostles, ‘who have seen, listened to, and touched the saving power of Jesus’, we are called and sent to touch the suffering and glorious flesh of Christ…and find the courage to share with everyone a destiny of hope(2021 Message). We are also called, in response to the signs of our times, to broaden the scope of our compassion and care to include our abused and endangered ‘common home’ – planet earth – and the multitude of living creatures with whom we share it,  and to whom we are inextricably connected.

On this World Mission Sunday, Pope Francis, invites us to remember in a special way, and to pray for, ‘all those missionaries who resolutely set out, leaving home and family behind, to bring the Gospel to all those places and people thirsting for its saving message’ (2021 Message). Down through the centuries the Church’s mission to the nations (ad gentes) was carried out by specific groups, like the Society of African Missions (SMA), the Congregation of Our Lady of Apostles (OLA), and many other Missionary Institutes, ready and willing to embark upon a courageous outreach to peoples and cultures outside their homelands. Without the inspiration and leadership given by such persons and groups, the missionary impulse of the Church would have gradually diminished and died out, and the Church would have never realised its essential vocation to bring the Good News to the ends of the earth. This special calling to mission ad gentes and ad extra, in the words of Pope Francis, ‘is not a thing of the past, or a romantic leftover from earlier times. Today, too, Jesus needs hearts capable of experiencing vocation as a true love story that urges them to go forth to the peripheries of our world as messengers and agents of compassion (2021 Message).

In these days the peripheries the Pope is speaking may not be far away. They are all around us, in the heart of our cities or even of our own families, and to these not so distant peripheries we are challenged to continue the compassionate mission of Jesus.

In the words of the contemporary Anglican priest poet, Malcolm Guite:

He (Christ) might have been a wafer in the hand
Of priests this day, or music from the lips:
Of red-robed choristers, instead he slips
Away from church, shakes off our linen bands
To don his apron with a nurse: he grips
And lifts a stretcher, soothes with gentle hands
The frail flesh of the dying, gives them hope,
Breathes with the breathless, lends them strength to cope.’

May the compassionate love of the Risen Christ touch our hearts and make us all true missionary disciples. Amen.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, Cork, 18 October 2021

Click on the play button below to listen to an alternative homily for Mission Sunday from Fr Tom Casey SMA.

Month of Mission – Sunday Mass

This month being Mission Month we are continuing with an emphasis on going out to plant the seed of the Gospel. Therefore Fr Dónal O’Catháin, who hails from Cork, speaks of his experience for many years in Africa. This Sunday’s Gospel message tells us,  

“whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.  For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The essence of mission is service to others by announcing and witnessing to the Gospel Message.   

To view click on the image below

Pope Francis’ Mission Prayer

Heavenly Father, when your only begotten Son Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he commissioned his followers to “go and make disciples of all nations” and you remind us that through our Baptism we are made sharers in the mission of the Church.

Empower us by the gifts of the Holy Spirit to be courageous
and zealous in bearing witness to the Gospel so that the
mission entrusted to the Church, which is still very far from
completion, may find new and efficacious expressions that
bring life and light to the world.

Help us make it possible for all peoples to experience the
saving love and mercy of Jesus Christ, who lives and
reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God
forever and ever.  Amen. 

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

17 October 2021

Isaiah 53:10-11                  Hebrews 4:14-16                  Mark 10:34-45

‘Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth’   (Muhammad Ali)

In today’s gospel Mark recounts Jesus’ third prediction of his passion, death and resurrection – his most vivid and detailed. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him, spit upon him, scourge him, and put him to death, but after three days he will rise again’ (Mark 10:33). Mark sets this  prediction in a dramatic context. Jesus is walking resolutely ahead of his disciples on the road to Jerusalem, knowing full well the fate that awaits him there. The disciples follow, not so resolutely, unable to take in what he is saying to them, or to accept what it implies for Jesus or for themselves. They distract themselves with dreams of power and glory.

This time it is the sons of Zebedee, James and John, two of Jesus’ closest disciples, who approach Jesus and ask him for a favour. They want him to guarantee them the highest places of honour in his coming Kingdom. Actually their request sounds rather like a peremptory demand: ‘We want you to do us a favour’ (Mark 10: 37). Their attitude and approach to Jesus reflects accurately the corporate mindset of today’s secular world, in which social climbers seek their own self interest at the expense of others, and push themselves to the top by any means, fair or foul. Indeed James and John are telling Jesus what to do. We might ask ourselves if our prayers are sometimes like that – telling God what we want him to do for us instead of being open to what God wants from us.

It is worth noting that Jesus does not berate the two brothers or express indignation at their foolish demand. With remarkable patience, he tries to open their minds to what being his disciple really means. He tells them that they don’t know what they are asking. Then he asks them if they can drink the cup of suffering from which he must drink, or endure the baptism of agony he must endure. Confidently, but without any real comprehension, they reply that they can. Jesus assures them that they will indeed be given a share in his suffering but that the dispensation of honours in his kingdom are in the hands of the God the Father.

Overhearing the conversation between Jesus and the two brothers, the other  apostles are furious, not because they are any less ambitious, but because they have been upstaged by James and John. So Jesus calls all the twelve together for a much-needed lesson about power and authority. Painstakingly, he explains the difference between the common understanding of authority, exemplified by ‘the pagans’, their Roman colonisers, and the exercise of authority in his kingdom. You know that among the pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This must not happen among you (Mark 10: 42).  

Roman power, as Jesus’ disciples were well aware, was exercised primarily through force, intimidation and a network of patronage that sought to ensure absolute loyalty to the Emperor. This kind of exercise of power has no place in the Kingdom Jesus is establishing. Authority is not about lording it over others but about serving them in love: ‘Anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave of all (Mark 10: 43-44).  In Jesus’ kingdom, power and leadership are manifested in service of others. Jesus himself is the living embodiment of the this kind of leadership. He is the humble, suffering servant depicted by Isaiah in the first reading today,  whose innocent suffering brings healing to others. He is the supreme high priest who, as our second reading tells us, took on himself our human weakness and identified himself with us in every way except sin.

The values of Jesus are profoundly counter-cultural and diametrically opposed to the worldly lust for power and status, which, as Pope Francis frequently reminds us, can also be found within the Church at every level. The message of today’s gospel is as relevant to our time as it was in the time of Jesus. As members of Christ’s body, the Church, we are all called to be countercultural witnesses to God’s reign of justice, peace and love. We are challenged to resist the insidious attractions of fame and prestige and imitate the kind of servant leadership embodied by Jesus, who gave ‘his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45). It is thus we become great in God’s eyes. Such service is not drudgery or slavery, but liberating and joyful, for it makes us true disciples of Jesus and children of God’s kingdom. In the words of the Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore: ‘I slept and dreamt that life was nothing but joy. I woke up and realised that life was only service. I served and I understood that service was joy’.

Fr Michael McCabe SMA, Cork

Kidnapped Colombian Sister freed in Mali

Sr-Gloria - courtesy of World Watch Monitor

Franciscan Sister, Gloria Cécilia Narvaez, who was held captive for a period with SMA Fr Pierluigi Maccalli, has – after 4 years and 8 months – been freed by her kidnappers (GSIM – Group to Support Islam and Muslims – a group linked to Al Qaida). This happy event took place on Saturday, 9 October 2021. In June 2021, it was reported that the Colombian government had ended its efforts in Mali to get Sister Gloria released. Thankfully other governments, particularly Mali, continued their work and this has, at last, bore fruit.

At the time of his liberation, Fr Maccalli asked for prayers for Sr Gloria who was in very poor health at the time he last saw her. It is not known how her health is now. Sr Gloria was a missionary in the Koutiala, Mali area for several years before her kidnapping. The kidnappers intended to seize two other younger sisters but Sr Gloria persuaded them to take her in their place.

The Mali head of state, Colonel Assimi Goita, assured his people that his government would not let up in its efforts to free all those, both Malian and foreigners, who have been kidnapped in this part of west Africa. Archbishop Jean Zerbo on Bamako confirmed her release, having prayed for her release and he thanked the Malian government and others for all they had done to get Sr Gloria released.

As we give thanks to God for Sr Gloria’s release let us redouble our prayers for all those still held captive, not only in west Africa, but throughout the world. May the hearts of their kidnappers be softened so that the women and men of faith and peace can return to their communities and families.

For more information see also this article published in La Croix – Read More
   

SMA INTERNATIONAL NEWS – October 20212

Welcome to the October SMA International News. In this edition we cover stories from the UK, Poland and Rome. 

This month we begin in Poland with a report on the Ordination of a new SMA Missionary.  Then we go the UK an hear about recent development there from the Provincial Leader.  Finally, from Rome, we hear about Fr Andrea Mandonico who won the  literary prize of Ambassadors to the Holy See for a book he wrote.  The short biography of Blessed Charles de Foucauld highlights the strengths of his spirituality and his pastoral care. The jury – chaired by Ambassador Alexandra Valkenburg, Head of Delegation of the European Union to the Holy See; and Pietro Sebastiani, Vice-President and Ambassador of Italy to the Holy See – proclaimed Father Andrea’s book, winner after a close examination of 57 books published in 2020.  Congratulations to Fr Andrea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Month of Mission – Sunday Mass

This Sunday we again bring you liturgy celebrated by Fr Tom Casey at the Oratory in  Ringaskiddy, Co Cork.  This Mass is celebrated for, and is broadcast over the internet to the people in Zambia among whom he has worked for many years. Now at home on leave from his work at the SMA Media Centre, Ndola,  Fr Tom continues to minister to them from afar.  Below are a few paragraphs written by him reflecting on the Gospel message for this Sunday.

If we had been asked, when we were young, to carry all those burdens that we have, in our lives, had to carry and are still carrying – we probably would have said that it would be impossible. Yet, here we are doing the impossible. We have carried our impossible burdens gracefully and probably with great courage. That’s our miracle. 

In today’s Gospel we read, Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.” 

To view – click on the image below 

If we examine our own experience we probably will see that it was when we resigned ourselves to what is, that the burden seemed to become lighter. The temptation we often have is to reject our burdens. What the rich young man was asked to do was impossible for him. He saw it as too much to ask.  His mistake was, not to trust that God’s power.

Then Jesus stated the whole doctrine of salvation in a nutshell. If,” he said, “salvation depended on a man’s own efforts it would be impossible for anyone. But salvation is the gift of God and all things are possible to him.” The man who trusts in himself and in his possessions can never be saved. The man who trusts in the saving power and the redeeming love of God can enter freely into salvation.       

Lord, bless us with a growing trust in You. 

 

Forty religious leaders join Pope Francis in a plea for the planet

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Wikimedia Commons File:Pope Francis Korea Haemi Castle 19 (cropped).jpg - W Creator: Jeon Han 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

By Loup Besmond de Senneville | Vatican City for La Croix

Leaders from the world’s major faiths gather at the Vatican and call for an immediate end “of threats to our common home”

It has been a very long time since such a gathering of high-level religious leaders from all over the world has taken place in the Vatican. But some 40 of them gathered on Monday morning in the grand Hall of Benedictions above the portico of St. Peter’s Basilica. On this Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, they signed a text that calls on governments to take urgent action to limit global warming.

The faith-based initiative came less than four weeks before the opening of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. Pope Francis was joined by Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and other faith leaders in signing a strongly worded, seven-page appeal “to raise awareness of the unprecedented challenges that threaten us and life on our beautiful common home, the Earth”. The appeal strongly emphasizes the extremely fragile condition in which the planet now finds itself. “Nature is a gift, but also a life-giving force without which we cannot exist,” it says.

The threats facing our common home
 “Faith and science are essential pillars of human civilization,” the religious leaders point out. And because of this, they say it is imperative to “address the threats facing our common home” and take seriously the warnings from scientists. 

The United Kingdom and Italy launched the faith-based initiative launched last January and the Holy See lent its support. “Global temperatures have already risen to the point where the planet is warmer than at anytime in the last 200,000 years,” the religious leaders warn. It is because of this dramatic situation that they are appealing to political leaders who will be meeting in early November in Glasgow for COP26. “Now is the time for urgent, radical and responsible action,” they say in their appeal. They are also calling for an economic paradigm shift.”

But we also need to change the narrative of development and to adopt a new kind of economics: one that places human dignity at its center and that is inclusive,” the religious leaders insist.bThey advocate for an economy “that is ecologically friendly, caring for the environment, and not exploiting it; one based not on endless growth”.

The absence of the Dalai Lama
The faith leaders are especially encouraging civil society, financial institutions and educators. The appeal echoes a number of concerns and expressions the pope has often repeated, especially the need to address the “throwaway culture”. “Humanity must rethink its perspectives and values, rejecting consumerism,” the text says. As impressive as the appeal itself, was the closed door gathering of the many religious leaders who signed it. No press was allowed, but the Vatican provided a video stream of the event in realtime. But one major religious figure conspicuously absent was the Dalai Lama. Organizers did not invite Tibet’s spiritual leader, undoubtedly because they did not want to aggravate relations with China.

Other prominent individuals at the pope’s side included the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al Tayeb; the patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew; Metropolitan Hilarion of the Russian Orthodox Church, Martin Junge, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation; and Rabbi Noam Marans of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations.

An appeal to young Muslims

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Grand Imam of Al-Azhar. Ahmed el-Tayeb By Arbeitsbesuch Ägyptencropped by Gugganij – extracted from another file: Ahmed el-Tayeb Sebastian Kurz May 2015 (17963337671).jpg, CC BY 2.0,

The religious leaders were given two minutes to speak, allowing each of them the opportunity to emphasize what they considered to be the most important. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Justin Welby, called for a reform of the global taxation system to promote “green activities”, and Metropolitan Hilarion said he hoped for “repentance and responsibility”. “I ask all young Muslims and all believers to be ready to fight against any action that would degrade the environment,” said the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar. “Taking responsibility in this crisis is a religious duty,” he told them.

For his part, the pope stressed that “COP26 in Glasgow represents an urgent summons to provide effective responses to the unprecedented ecological crisis and the crisis of values that we are presently experiencing”. He said this challenge is all the more important because “everything in our world is profoundly interrelated”. That’s a central concept in his 2015 encyclical Laudato si’ and the pope will have the opportunity to repeat the message in the coming weeks. He is expected to travel to Glasgow on November 1 to address the heads of state and government who will be gathered at COP26.

With permission from La Croix

 

Pope Francis calls Christians to bear witness with their lives in a way that attracts, without demanding or forcing

In The Pope Video for October, Pope Francis asks all people to be missionary disciples in their everyday life, in their daily work, bearing witness to their encounter with Jesus and living with the flavor of the Gospel.

The Pope Video for October, the month of Mission, and also the month during which the synodal process begins the Holy Father explores in depth the evangelizing nature of the church and calls us all to be missionary disciples.

This mission, to which all the baptized are called, is centered above all on being “available to answer His call and to live united to the Lord in the most common daily things—work, meeting other people, our daily duties, the chance events of each day—allowing ourselves to be guided always by the Holy Spirit.”

This call, invites men and women to allow themselves to be “moved” by Christ and thus to bear testimony of a life that infects others, that attracts without forcing or demanding. In the video, he tells us that every testimony of life inspires admiration, and admiration inspires others to ask, “How is it possible for this person to be this way?” or “What is the source of the love with which this person treats everyone—the kindness and good humor?”

Being a missionary means seeking out and fostering personal, face-to-face encounters, person to person. Pope Francis tells us; “the Church grows by attraction and by witness.” It’s a matter of living near to Jesus, encountering others: If you have been attracted by Christ, if you move and do things because you are attracted by Christ, others will notice it without effort. There is no need to prove it, let alone flaunt it.” It’s about incarnating the Gospel in daily life, being a fire that ignites another fire.

To view Pope Francis Message for October click on the image below

 

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 – Year B

10 October 2021

Wisdom 7:7-11                 Hebrews 4:12 – 13                 Mark 10:17 – 30

Many years ago I met a young man emigrating to the USA. His ambition was to get a job, earn a good salary and, if possible, to become wealthy. In that way he felt he would be very happy and could achieve whatever he wanted in life.

Many people today set great value on having or acquiring wealth. How many people, Catholics included, buy lottery tickets in the hope of becoming rich. And provided I keep the commandments and I am a morally good person, what’s wrong with being rich?

The gospel today speaks to us about the danger of this attitude. A rich man comes up to Jesus, kneels at his feet and sincerely asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. He is full of enthusiasm and Jesus looks at him with kindness and with love. In answer to Jesus’ statement about keeping the commandments and he names some, the rich man says that he has kept them faithfully since his earliest days. Does he expects Jesus to congratulate him for this. Are we are like him, doing our best to keep the commandments and living a morally good life?

Then Jesus gently challenges the young man. “You are lacking one thing. Go, sell what you have. Give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me”. The rich man went away sad for he had many possessions. Jesus has a way of looking at people. The eyes of Christ penetrate our hearts so that he sees what we lack. The second reading notes that ‘everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of God’. God knows that there are things that hold us back from giving ourselves fully and completely to God. God knows our resistances. The first commandment tells us that we must love the Lord our God with all our hearts and there are no exceptions to this. That is what is asked of anyone wanting to be a true disciple of Jesus.

The danger with the rich man was that he saw his keeping of the commandments and living a morally good life as an indication of his own personal achievement. Like many good Christians the young man wanted God on his terms. Jesus takes discipleship out of the area of personal achievement. Jesus is telling him and us that it is more than that. We cannot just have God on our terms. We must hear what God wants of us

His emphasis was on himself and his own individual perfection, keeping the rules, avoiding sin. He loved God not unconditionally but on his own terms. He was truly shocked at the words of Jesus. His wealth meant more to him that his being perfect or gaining true life.

Jesus was also telling the rich man that his wealth was not something to be just owned but to be shared, most especially with the poor. True religion and discipleship of Jesus must involve concern and caring for others. What do we teach our children: ‘sharing is caring’! For this young man, his religion seemed to be a private matter between him and God. Jesus tells him it is far more. We cannot love God unless we love our brother and sister in need.

Money, and many other things, can keep us from God. I am not fully a disciple of Jesus if there is something that I am not prepared to let go of. The man was really being asked to let go of something to which he was deeply attached. In his case it was money. It could be e.g. a person, a wrong relationship, a lover, something I own, a place, my health, my reputation etc.

But letting go of all selfish attachments requires a decision. And decisions do not come easily. We pray, we struggle, we weep, we go back and forth. We weigh things. To surrender to Jesus can be very difficult and at times seemingly impossible. But God is compassionate and knows our struggles.

The disciples with Jesus were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves: ‘who can be saved?’ Jesus looked on them and said ‘For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God’. Unless we are utterly dependent on God’s Spirit, we cannot surrender fully to Jesus. Do we ask often for help with a heart that really needs it?

It is important though to realise that in asking us to let go of our possessions whatever they may be, Jesus is inviting us to a deeper peace and joy, to a quality of life which we all seek now. By letting go we will find something far better and more rewarding takes its place. Jesus guarantees this.

“Lord Jesus, help us to be aware of the true nature of discipleship and give us the Spirit to surrender fully to you as you show us.  Amen”.

Edited from a homily by the late Fr Jim Kirstein, SMA

 

Click on the play button below to listen to an alternative homily from Fr Tom Casey SMA.

It is the responsibility of all baptized to spread the Gospel.

To mark the beginning of October, the month of Mission, we bring you a few paragraphs written by Fr Tom Casey and a link to this Sunday’s Liturgy recorded by him.  Fr Tom has worked in Zambia for many years. He is engaged in a ministry of missionary outreach through the Media.  Working from the SMA Media Centre in Ndola he produces Radio and TV programmes broadcast in Zambia and other African countries.  During the Covid pandemic he began a new initiative – the broadcasting of Sunday Mass via the internet from the Media Centre, thus allowing the faithful in Zambia and also friends in Ireland and other countries the opportunity to join with him in the Sunday Liturgy.  Even at home on leave Fr Tom continues this missionary outreach to the people of Zambia through Mass recorded at the Oratory in Ringaskiddy county Cork.  Below he also reminds us that we can all be missionaries – wherever we are 

Because of our Baptism we are all priests’ prophets and Kings. Therefore, it is the responsibility of all baptized to spread the Gospel. If the Gospel is kept to ourselves, it dies. The Gospel is meant to be shared and passed on to the next generation, to those who have not heard it and to re-ignite it in those who are lapsed in their Faith in the Gospel.

Pope Francis asks all of us to be active in spreading the Gospel. He has said I ask the whole Church to live an extraordinary time of missionary activity”.  We are called to engage in the mission of the universal Church, through moments of sharing, prayer and  by missionary commitment.  In this way we can show the mercy and unconditional love of God for all people and for all of creation!  We can do this by:

  1. Giving support to the people in Afghanistan who are currently suffering great trials.
  2. You can help Catholic Missionaries support people with disabilities.
  3. Pray for people who have still not heard the Gospel.
  4. Through the example of our lives be silent witnesses to Gospel values.
  5. “The Church,” the Pope wrote, “needs men and women who, by virtue of their baptism, respond generously to the call – to leave behind home, family, country, language and local church, and to be sent forth to the nations, to a world not yet transformed by the sacraments of Jesus Christ and his holy church.”  
To view Sunday Mass click on the play button below.

At present I am resting at home in Ireland for a little while after suffering a stroke. Having a rest from the demands of producing an on-line Holy mass every Sunday. Here I have found that the outreach can still on with the wonderful help of Paul and David O Flynn and their families, together with the help of my community back in Zambia.  It is a perfect example of everyone being a missionary.

Let us all be encouraged to be missionary in our minds and actions.

May God bless you

Tom Casey SMA 

 

Safeguarding Sunday – October 3rd

sma logoSunday, October 3rd has been designated as the Irish Catholic Church’s Day for Life. In the Society of African Missions, it is also Safeguarding Sunday. On this day, we focus on the sanctity of life and meditate on our responsibility as Christians to safeguard all of life. The SMA is committed to promoting the welfare of all people, especially that of children and vulnerable adults. We do this by ensuring that robust safeguarding policies and practices are embedded in the work of the Society.

SAFEGUARDING PRAYER
Lord, you call us to walk with integrity in the service of others. May we all strive to understand our collective responsibility to work together to safeguard all people particularly children and vulnerable adults. Guide us as we build communities that foster the welfare of all. We ask this through Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Information leaflets for children and adults on the topic of Safeguarding (including contact details for our Safeguarding Office) are available in all SMA Churches and Houses.

Please download our  Safeguarding leaflet Here    Access our safeguarding page and policies Here