Sunday 31 A

We have all heard the expression, ‘practice what you preach.’

Many years ago a Greek philosopher named Aristotle identified three elements that must be present in every public speaker for him or her to be persuasive. These are, firstly, ‘logos’ ,or the spoken word, which must have coherence; secondly, ‘pathos’, or feeling, connecting with the audience’s sympathies; and lastly, ‘ethos’ whereby the speaker must be a credible witness to his own words, literally in his ethical behaviour.

It is very clear that the Lord has strong words of condemnation for the guilty practices of rabbis who lack this ‘ethos’ for their grave failings in administration, and in bad example. Whilst the ‘logos’ or the teaching of the rabbis is valid and authoritative, the example of their way of life is simply awful and can render their teaching lacking in relevance or urgency or unpersuasive to their hearers when they fail to live up to what they preach.

Pride, pomposity, arrogance have no place among God’s appointed and God’s anointed. The condemnation in the First Reading states:

‘But you, you have strayed from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your teaching’

The word that sums up this stumbling is ‘scandal’ coming from a Greek word ‘skandalon’ meaning a stumbling block. It is the Church’s teaching that ‘active scandal’ is defined as deliberately wishing to lead others – by deed or omission - astray. It is to set up something in someone’s path to deliberately cause them to fall over. It is sinister and involves deep personal malice and deceit in the perpetrator. [See the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs CCC ##2284-2287].

It is a sin against the fifth commandment ‘thou shall not kill’ surprisingly enough, but because it has the effect of killing the soul or spirit within a person, and indeed a whole community, that it is so insidiously harmful.

People do often sin through ignorance, force, fear, passion or acquired habit, but to deliberately wish to sin and/or to wish to lead others who are innocent through false teaching or behaviour to sin is indeed the worst kind of all and is engaging in a true ‘scandal’.

All moral and spiritual authority comes from God. Once the Creator is lost sight of, the creature is soon forgotten. Once a priest, rabbi or other religious leader loses sight of their responsibilities to practice integrity of life, with deep humility, they are in danger of setting themselves up as the arbiter of authority and lose the run of themselves in conduct, conversation and manner of dress. Having lost faith in God and becoming self-centred and vain they cause others to lose faith though lack of leadership and guidance. Priests are made contemptible and vile (First Reading) in the eyes of others through the sins of other wayward priests whose priorities are their own prestige and comfort.

This gives us pause when we consider the real scandals of recent years in the Church, the underlying clericalism that led to a magnification of evil, the effects on victims, and the outrage and disappointment of many disaffected Catholics to those ‘who have showed partiality in administration’ (First Reading).

St Paul is the opposite of everything we have described. He is a tireless worker for his people, slaving for them so that they can get to know the difference Christ can make to their lives, using the image of maternal care, with the effect on the communities to whom he is sent that ‘God's message [is] not some human thinking; and ... a living power among you who believe it.’ He humbles himself, and he is not haughty or proud (like the prayer of the Psalmist).

To sum up, in other words, the Pharisees in the time of Jesus, and the unfaithful priests in the time of the prophet Malachi ‘have strayed from the way’ and are now deliberately IN THE WAY. St Paul, in contrast, is helping the early Church known as the Way, to help people on their way to salvation, to ‘life in Christ’.

May we like St Paul, do likewise.

Mission Sunday homily

Mission Sunday

The story of any paralytic is a sad one. We can think of people who have been paralysed through age, infirmity or through a car accident. Listening to a radio show during the week it was sad to hear of a stroke victim in the Rehab Centre in Dun Laoghaire - where one of the Masterchef Ireland finalists works - who was featured making dinner for the patients there. He expressed his loneliness and his hope to be better for Christmas – which, if we need any reminding, is 8 weeks away. We tend to forget that people are suffering and they need our prayers as well as our overdue visits.

In the case of the paralysed man in the Gospel account today, curiously Jesus does not cure the obvious physical ailment first. He forgives the man’s sins. This takes priority. Why? Because the presence of sin hampers us, stifles us, and weighs us down like so much excess baggage hindering us in our attempts to grow closer towards God and to be the best type of persons God wants us to be. In other words sin is a much more insidious form of paralysis hidden from sight.

I am going to use an acronym now. The word FIGS could be used to describe the four states of mind we find ourselves in, paralysed, hindering our spiritual lives, and preventing us from receiving the healing help God offers us in the Sacrament of Confession or reconciliation.

F is for Fear. This is much more common and prevalent than we might think. Fear prevents someone like you and me to truly open ourselves to proper necessary scrutiny or evaluation. What might be obvious areas of change – or repentance - in the lives of others, are not so easy for us to own up to in ourselves. Fear of what others might think of us – especially the priest to who w confess our sins. but it may even be an unhealthy fear of God stemming from false images of God as a distant exacting accountant, rather than one of God as unconditionally loving us despite all our fears and failings. What am I afraid of? Am I paralysed with fear?

I is for Indifference. This is an offshoot of pride that causes us to question ‘what does it matter anyway?’ There is no identified urgency in you or me to name and shame our sinful attitudes and ways of behaving. This indifference betrays a DIY approach to our own salvation rather than opening ourselves to the continuous necessary outpouring of God’s grace in our lives. There may be even a sense of denial of the presence of sin at all. As a result, the letter ‘I’ therefore could also stand for Inertia.

G is for Guilt. This is where we recognise our guilt for sins committed against God, others and ourselves. We are paralysed by fear to act to repent, by the awfulness of what we have done. Scruples and hand-wringing, neurosis and sleeplessness are expressions of guilt that weighs heavily on people for a long time. Their lives come to a standstill and things are done in ‘going through the motions’ way. On occasion as a priest I have been witness in the sacrament to people shedding tears of relief and joy as they finally confess a guilty secret that has haunted them for many years. They truly undergo a resurrection experience.

S is for shame. It is embarrassing to confess something private and deeply personal and confidential. To admit failure is humbling, that I could be wrong – in something I thought, thinking badly of another and quick to condemn their motives or actions, to bring to the surface and out into the open. Shame was the reaction of Adam and Eve - they no longer wanted to expose themselves; they could not look at God face to face. Shame is particularly hard to bear when we have to repeatedly confess sins of ingrained habit. We want to run away. God can’t possibly forgive me this embarrassing personal failure and I can’t bring it out into the open. It is too much for me to expect to be forgiven.

While guilt and shame are healthy signs of a sensitive and active conscience, we learn as children through failings not to repeat them and we are prevented from being worse than we are. But dealt with badly, we become sick in mind and body even to the point of paralysis.

So where am I? Am I too afraid to admit sin, or too indifferent to care about it, or too guilty to face it, too ashamed to confess it? If any of these apply I am truly paralysed in sin and in need of help .To repeat, the paralysis due to sin is more damaging to one’s integrity than physical paralysis, as tragic and awful as it is.
Curiously then, the Gospel reading at first sight has nothing obvious to do with Mission Sunday. But Jesus is sent to bring the Good News to all. “To prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins” – he said to the paralytic – “get up and pick your bed and go off home”.

Jesus confirms the words of God in the First Reading, that God is consistently merciful, ‘If the (poor man) cries to me I will listen for I am full of pity’.
The Mission of evangelisation therefore is a call to us to follow in Jesus’ mission of mercy. But we cannot give what we do not have, so we need to hear the Good News too and experience the awe of the crowd in the Gospel – to hear and experience the Good News of repentance, and the joy it brings to us, and others, whom he wants to free from our paralysis.

Mission Sunday

TO LOVE God with all your heart mind and soul and your neighbour as yourself is as simple and as hard as it gets. All else is window dressing. This is a mission statement of morality and spirituality. It is the task of a lifetime.

Note the priority – God, then neighbour, then self, and the importance of the word ALL in relation to God and at the word AS between neighbour and self. God alone is worthy of all our love, and other loves or lesser loves are on the context of this complete gift of self – heart, soul, mind and strength.

St Augustine said ‘love God and then do what you will’.

It is more than a statement of intent; it is a way of life of striving to more fully appreciate what this love entails in practical living out and decision making, even to the tiniest details. St Therese said that in the heart of the Church she would be love, and she also taught us to do the ordinary things with great love.

To love and to be loved, as I have often said before, are the two great joyful discoveries awaiting each person. We are fortunate indeed if we discover these truths early. Many psychological and emotional disturbances occur in those who have not yet discovered the fact that they are unconditionally loved, and that this love can never be taken away no matter what happens to us; and that they are lovable, warts and all. Many childhood experiences and the trials of life prevent us from reaching this state of tranquillity and acceptance readily.

We are never going to be happy if we decide to live in splendid isolation, although we might want to choose to be; nor are we destined to eke out ‘lives of quiet desperation’. Love does not have to be affective, or erotic, but the emotional thrill of love must be experienced at least once in one’s lifetiome to believe in love, and to begin to appreciate the higher loves – of God, of sacrifice, or striving to live out love, and to be IN LOVE WITH CHRIST, not just ‘to love Him’ as a banal statement of intent. The great definition of love is to be found in St Paul in 1 Cor 13: Love is patient and kind and so on.

If this love is not experienced, love is sought in vain self-centredness, also called narcissism after the mythological figure of Narcisssus who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool and drowned in the attempt to attain embrace with self. The pain of self-destructive behaviours associated with addictions and impulse control issues to do with reckless eating, drinking, gambling, drug-taking, even shopping, are hugely damaging to self and are acts of self-hate. True self-love or self-regard is found in self-surrender to God AND others. We must completely surrender – and pray and say out loud often – to God that we choose to accept Jesus Christ as our PERSONAL Lord and Saviour – completely, whatever the consequences, whatever the change required of us. Our lives change drastically and we see others in a new light – that others are struggling too, and that they will not find happiness without a personal encounter with Christ Jesus our Lord.

The concern then for others – called service - distracts us from self-pity and over-analysis, and we begin to see how we are gifts FOR others and we need to CONSUME ourselves for others.

It is a love we want to share. There is a whole world out there of people waiting to be listened to, whose problems we may not be able to solve, but who wish to unburden themselves. They are eager to hear Good News in a world of fear, pain and heartache.
Let us pray for those who dedicate their whole lives, who spend themselves for others for the sake of the Gospel so that the love of Christ may be preached, heard and experienced ion all His richness. In giving may we too receive, and may we once more appreciate in our own lives ‘the difference Christ makes.’ Amen

29th Sunday of the Year A

This is the time of the year when the Revenue Commissioners are reminding us to file our tax returns. Yes, priests pay taxes, and are considered self-employed. We all have a moral obligation to pay our taxes, as much as we grumble.

In today’s Gospel as Jesus confrontation with the Jews become more dramatic and more frequent, Jesus reminds us to ‘render unto Caesar, what is Caesar’s’ after all.
Some among the Jews who on the one hand greatly resented Roman occupation being supported by taxes, and the Herodians on the other, supporters of the detested royal family and the occupying Roman force, united in an attempt to trap Jesus into civil disobedience. In a seemingly no-win situation, if answered incorrectly and to their satisfaction, Jesus’ response would give ammunition, as it were, to one party of His enemies which would later be possible to use his answer as evidence against Him in trial. They already had their minds made up to incarcerate him and have him put to death.

Jesus takes a Roman coin and holds it up them:
‘Render unto God what is God’s’. What does this mean? It means while we have duties as citizens, we have duties as Christians too to give God true worship. Justice means that all give to one another mutually what is their due. In an ideal just society there would be no clash of obligations.

But ‘rendering unto Caesar’ in civic society means that we must discern and ascertain which are the just, binding laws and demands of the state, from laws that are unjust and non-binding in conscience. Because something is legally possible, does not render it morally permissible.

The disciples in the early Church recognised legitimate civil authority: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities...he who resists the authorities resist what God has appointed (Romans 13:1-2)

But at the same time they were not afraid to speak out against public authority when it opposed God’s holy will: We must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29)
There have been times throughout history when Catholics and other Christians have been forced to make difficult choices. For early Christians it was a stark choice to either submit to the worship false gods or face a painful savage death, for Irish Catholics it was either fidelity to the Holy Mass, or a heavy fine or prison, and in some cases too, even death. The Church in nearly every country has many martyrs for the faith. We have 17 recognised Blessed Irish Martyrs, of at least 120.
What about us? Where there is a conflict between divine law and State law, there is a difficult and sometimes painful necessary choice to be made, it is a seeming question of loyalty. There are times, as Christians, when we must stand for something, and oppose social injustice - to summarise Chesterton, or fall for anything. For evil to prosper, all it takes is for good people to do nothing.

• We recognise for example the enduring indissolubility of marriage in the eyes of God, even if divorce and re-marriage is permitted in the eyes of the State;
• We recognise and must defend the traditional Christian understanding that marriage, by definition involves a man and a woman;
• and that the dignity and right to life of every human being from conception, to the embryonic stage, and right through all stages of pregnancy, And then on to natural death must be upheld.

While legal definitions alone do not determine the moral rightness and wrongness of human acts, we as citizens have the duty to promote the common good, to support and enshrine just laws and decry unjust ones.

We are called therefore to be loyal citizens of the State, but also to be Christians loyal to the prior and higher demands of the laws of God.

One of the most famous moral dilemmas was the one that faced St Thomas More, so marvellously portrayed in the movie ‘a man for all seasons’. Thomas’ choice was to take the oath recognising Henry VIII as supreme head of the Church of England, and recognise his marriage to Anne Boleyn; or to stick to his Catholic principles recognising the Pope’s authority to refuse the annulment, as well as defending the sanctity of marriage, testifying to the validity of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragón. Let it be said of us too that we always gave priority to render unto God what is God’s, and that we always preferred to do what is right ahead of what is popular.

St Thomas More was declared by Blessed Pope John Paul II as the patron saint of politicians. He was a prisoner of and martyr for all who uphold the dignity of conscience. He is really patron to us all who sometimes have ethical dilemmas, and are uncertain of what decision to take. Let us pray to him and try to take to heart
his words.

Thomas’ famous last words can be our catch-cry as well: ‘I am the King’s good servant, but God’s first’.

Today

All we have is this day

I wonder what is the longest book you have ever read? For me the top three longest are: ‘War and Peace’ (1440 pages), ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ (1000 pages), and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (800+).

What if we were to translate the number of days of our lives into pages? It makes a startling total. At present I am over the 16,000 mark!

How many pages/days in your life so far?

We do not know where or when our story of our life will come to an end. The simple fact is that we have no control over that. Only God knows that. But we can only live our lives one day at a time, or one page at a time. We can’t slow it down or speed it up. Some days go more quickly than others. Some are tediously slow.

The past

If we to take a backwards look at our lives, or if you like, the number of pages in your story so far, there are a number of people, places and events that come to mind.
I remember the day when... (How would we finish this sentence?)

A birthday, an anniversary, a wedding, my last day of school, a graduation, the day I stared my first job, got my first pay packet, the day I left home, my first time leaving the country, my first flight, my first date, meeting a future spouse, meeting your future best friend for the first time. All of us have happy memories that we cherish – we may even remember the exact date, and didn’t want the day to end. I remember the day clearly when I felt called to become a priest, February 8th, 1988, and the happiest, most wonderful day of my life, my ordination day, June 12th, 1993.

On the other hand, there were bleaker days for all of us: a day you were sick, or went to the dentist, or had to go to hospital, had to go to a funeral, where you had to part company, where a friendship or marriage ended, experienced bereavement, a day you were told bad news, where you were on 9/11..

The past is filled with joys and sorrows.

... The future

'I look forward to the day when...'

Christmas, a birthday, a reunion, a holiday abroad, last day of school, retirement, a party, the birth of a child, the New Year, a wedding, and so on.

But we can spend (or waste) a lot of time brooding over the past, perhaps even hankering for it, and it will never happen again; things will never be as they were.

We can equally worry (or hope) for the future but wishing won’t make it so.

All we have is this day. And every day of the future, and each day will be of equal length!

So all we have this day. What number day is it for you? What are you going to do with it? How are you going to live it, you with your unique strengths, talents, abilities, gifts, as well as flaws and warts and weaknesses? Does anyone have the perfect life, free form hardship, pain etc. NO, we all get our share. No-one has the secret to complete happiness on earth. But we have a decision to make. There are ultimately two kinds of people in the world: those for whom life happens to them, or those who happen to life.

Your life story is unique to you and only you can live it. Yes, you are the main character in your story. Who are the other main characters that also feature in your story, in the past and right now?

You may not always seem in control, and you don’t know what is around the corner. The main decision is to the right thing, and then take the next best step forward. God respects our free will, but wants us to make the right choices.

God is the author of our life, and he has a plan for the story of our life. In the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, we are a pen in His hands, and He has beautiful handwriting (if we let Him).

We are in the middle of our story right now, and this day is like a ribbon or bookmark in the story,as in the picture, while every few hours is a paragraph, and every conversation is a piece of dialogue. Every thought, word and action matters and is part of the storyline. What chapter am I on? How will I live this day? And what can I do today to ensure a happy ending, i.e., Heaven.

Jesus wishes to say to each of us as He said on the cross: ‘This day you will be with me in paradise’.

And then life really starts, the life God wants for us, eternal happiness, to live happily after.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It is good to have a motto

Make today count.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Today is a gift; that is why they call it ‘the present’!

It is also a good idea to have a prayer, or even the line of a Scripture, to keep us focussed in this strange reality of ‘now-ness’. Below are some suggestions:

‘Give us this day our daily bread’

‘O that today you would listen into His voice’ (Psalm 94)

As long as this ‘today’ lasts, keep encouraging one another (Hebrews)

‘Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’ (Mt 6:34)

Prayer: Lord, there is nothing that will happen to me today that you and I can’t handle together.

St Faustina

The following is a reflection given at our monthly Holy Hour in honour of Divine Mercy which takes place on the second Monday of each month in St Colman's Cathedral, Cobh

Last Wednesday, October 5th, was the feast day of St Faustina. It marks her death in this world and her birth to eternal life.

Last Sunday’s Gospel (see below) is very much in keeping with the message of Divine Mercy.

Just as there were those who were TOO BUSY for the wedding, we know that there are countless, poorly catechised but also indifferent Catholics who are not interested in the Mass. They are too busy for Mass but are quite happy with soccer, rowing rugby and other sports matches on a Sunday as well as shopping or a lie-in.
Do they know what they are missing?

The king who sent out his messengers in the parable eagerly awaited news of the return as well as the responses to all those who were invited. The parable immediately refers to the transfer of the mystery of salvation from the Jews to the Gentiles.

The revised translation in the Mass tells us more clearly: ‘Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb!’ The invitation to the wedding banquet in the parable in Sunday’s Gospel symbolises for us the invitation to the Lamb’s Supper in heaven, prefigured by our sharing in Christ’s Body and Blood.

Christ our King eagerly awaits souls to unite themselves to Him in the Eucharistic banquet. Jesus is our Eucharistic king. Like the king awaiting his guests in the parable, He expresses His disappointment to Sr Faustina:

I desire to unite myself with human souls; my great delight is to unite myself with souls. My daughter, know that when I come to a human heart in Holy Communion, my hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul. But souls do not even pay attention to me; they leave Me to Myself and busy themselves with other things. Oh how sad I am that souls do not recognise Love! They treat me as a dead object. (1385)

Let us respond generously to Our Lord’s invitation to the Eucharistic feast.

We have no better model than the life and witness and mission of St Faustina.

What was her full title? Sr Maria Faustina of the most Blessed Sacrament

The chaplet reminds us that 'we offer the Precious Body Blood Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ' – which is a Eucharistic prayer – addressed to the Father like all of the Eucharistic prayers in the Mass.

We know that without food – if we ever have to fast for any reason – we find life difficult. The Eucharistic food which is the daily bread of the Eucharist is in the words of St Faustina – 'the Bread of the Strong, from where I seek light, comfort and strength.'

During Corpus Christi she saw the two rays pass through the host in at the multitude. Our Lord told Faustina that she too was to be someone chosen by God to allow these rays of mercy to be dispersed through the world. It is, as it were, that the Lord was choosing Faustina as a lens through which the rays of light would be refracted and sent in all directions.

Finally the characteristic fruits of this spiritual life are given in the diary:

I spend every free moment at the feet of the hidden God. He is My Master; I ask Him about everything. Here I obtain strength and light; here I learn everything; here I am given light on how to act towards my neighbour. (704)

Let us likewise be generous in our time for Eucharistic adoration.

Fatima Pilgrimage 2011

The following are sermons given at Fatima during our recent Diocesan Pilgrimage in September.

True and false sympathy


Did you ever complain of an illness only to have someone try to outdo you?

There are a number of things not to say to someone who is suffering:

1. I know someone who died of that
2. Worse happened to me
3. You’ll get over it
4. I was ages with that!
5. I am not sure if I trust your doctor
6. I was given different medication
7. It could be worse

Do we really listen or are we waiting for the other person to finish in order to get our word in, or to have the last word? We may even want to do one better.
True sympathy, on the other hand, means ‘shared feeling’. It means having to button up and swallow our tongue. It is wonderful to find people who do really care, who are not easily distracted when we speak, who provide time and a sympathetic ear, who allow us to say what’s on our minds, who don’t rush in to comment, who wait for us to get it all off our chest. If you know someone like that you are truly blessed. It is when we have ‘emptied ourselves’ that we can then be filled with the wisdom from another. To journey with someone without attempting fast solutions, or indeed any solution. Allowing you to hear yourself speak, so that they can look and listen and even in that space you might even come up with a way of coping, if not a solution.
Compassion means to ‘suffer with’. Our Lady offered Lucia compassion to Lucia when she was told that her friends would die soon and that she would be left on earth some time longer. This compassion is, if you like, a winning formula that we can refer to again and again:

‘Do you suffer? My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God’



The Most Holy Name of Mary, September 12th

In every 5 decades of the rosary we recite the name of Mary our Mother 100 times! In our group of 34 people, this week we will recite Our Lady’s name 3400 times. Multiply that by 7 days and you get 23800 times this week alone. Then look at the crowds at Fatima in their tens of thousands and Our Lady’s name is uttered in intercessory prayer millions of times over each day!
Think of all the times we have called on Mary to be with us ‘now and at the hour of our death’.
Just last week I was called out to a man who had just died. It was 4 am. The family were gathered. The man’s wife called me on the phone and, after I arrived and gave the last rites of the Church, including absolution and the Apostolic Pardon for remission of temporal punishment due to sin, the doctor and family and I recited the decade of the Rosary and the Memorare. The wife turned to me afterwards and said: ‘you do not know how much comfort your recitation of the Memorare is giving me. For the last 10 weeks I have been here at my husband’s bedside, and I commended and entrusted him to Our Lady and recited the Memorare for him every day that he would have a happy death.’ It then dawned on me to remind myself and her that it was the early hours of the morning of September 8th, Our Lady’s Birthday!

I am sure we can replicate stories like this attributing wonders and signs to Our Lady’s intercession and stories attesting to Our Lady’s comforting presence.
Here at Fatima and at the Loca da Cabeco where the angel appeared is significant. It was here that many children would gather and play games, because there was a good echo in the valley. Jacinta in particular would call out ‘Maria!’ – Lucia tells us that Jacinta found that this name echoed best. The children would also sing hymns to Our Lady and the angels, including the hymn, ‘Angels, sing with me’. When the angel appeared to the children, he said, I am the Angel of Peace, pray with me.’ And of course little did young Jacinta realise that for the many times she called out ‘Maria’ that Our Lady would indeed respond and come in person to the use of her name!

Of course intercession of Mary points us to Christ, whose name under heaven by which every man is saved. The Apostle Peter declared in Acts 3, “There is no other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved than the name of Jesus.”

But Mary as always points away from herself, as at Cana to‘do whatever He tells you’.


Triumph of the Cross – September 14th

We might ask why we need to celebrate a day devoted to the Holy Cross of Our Saviour when there is rightly a great emphasis on the centrality of the Cross in Holy week in the liturgical life of the Church. After all, ‘Come let us worship’ are the words of the refrain we sing during the procession on Good Friday.

The date for this commemoration is not a random one as it is the anniversary of the date on which the Christian Empress Helena discovered the remains or relics of the true ‘cross on which hung the Saviour of the world’. It was her son Constantine who had a vision of the cross in the sky, and was told that it was ‘in this sign, you will conquer’. Having the cross emblazoned n the shields of his soldiers, the Romans triumphed. Shortly after Christianity was legalised and persecutions in the Roman Empire came to an end.
Jesus admonishes us that ‘if anyone wants to be a disciple of mine, let him deny himself, take up his cross every day and follow me’.

Jesus makes it quite clear that is an absolute requirement and not a hidden extra. We are called to fidelity and perseverance in our daily duty according to our state in life.

The cross is not an end in itself. There is no glorification on suffering, but rather it can serve as a means to an end when chosen and accepted as such. Suffering is unavoidable and uniquely experienced by each individual. Some suffering is appalling, especially a tragic bereavement.

It is for others in the Body of Christ. In the blood circulatory and immune systems in our body there are what are known as repair cells and helper cells. These help fight infection as it arises and help ward off further harm to the body’s defences especially in blood clotting and fighting viruses and other disease agents. Without them the body would suffer internal or external haemorrhaging.

In a sense we are called to be healers of the wounds caused by sins – ours and those of others. The reality of the horror of sin has been brought to us anew in the recent scandals. The repair required is immense. The damage caused by sin in Christ’s Body, the Church is quite extensive and apparent to us the moment. The long lasting consequences of the sins of a few on the whole church is devastating. The repair work and preventative work involved is consuming a lot of time and effort and is draining of resources. But these are the visible wounds that require repair and are palpable. The damage done to some of our brothers and sisters in Christ, carried out by other brothers and sisters, is truly damaging to them as well as to the image, and mission of the Church as a whole.

Our Lord and Our Lady too suffer by the betrayals and sins of clergy and religious – by the damage done to victims as well as by the wounds the perpetrators have inflicted on themselves. Truly Christ is reliving His Passion by the betrayal of so many.

Through the Cross, freely accepted, we triumph. This cross – the symbol that brought fear and horror in the contemporaries of the Gospel writers – required little elaboration. It was final, it was brutal, it cause people to shudder at the thought of this cruel violent style of execution.

The call of Blessed Jacinta, Blessed Francisco and Lucia was to a life of voluntary penance. Our Lady asked their consent, but assured them of God’s grace.

There are no earthly reasons or satisfactory human explanations for the devastation causes by natural disasters. Neither are there any words to explain the ‘whys’ of the awfulness of a cancer ward, a suicide, a crime scene, or child neglect – all of which I have seen in the course of my ministry.

Here at Fatima we are given a formula for peace as well as a value to suffering. As the Body of Christ was to be wounded grievously by the ‘errors of Russia’ from 1917 onwards, in order to save the world, Our Lady came to another part of the Church, the Body of Christ to apply the remedy, consecration to Her Immaculate Heart, Prayer, especially the daily rosary, penances, reparation.
Just as we have a share in Christ's many sufferings, so also through Christ we share in God's great help. (St Paul: 2 Cor 1:5).

Our Lady of Sorrows September 15th

Today, one day after commemorating the Triumph of the Cross we commemorate the seven sorrows of Mary. These are as follows
1. The presentation on the Temple
2. The flight into Egypt
3. The three days loss in the Temple
4. The meeting on the way of the Cross
5. The death of Jesus
6. Jesus is taken down from the cross
7. Jesus is laid in the tomb

They are also known as the dolours of Mary. There is a connection between these sorrows and the Immaculate Heart of Mary at Fatima. At an apparition in 1925 at Pontevedra, Spain, Our Lord appeared as a child in front of His Mother Mary who held in her hand her heart surrounded by thorns. The words of Jesus to Lucia then are meant for us too. The following is Sr Lucia’s account:

On December 10, 1925, the Most Holy Virgin Herself appeared, and beside Her, borne by a luminous cloud, the Child Jesus. The Most Holy Virgin put Her hand on her shoulder and showed her, at the same time, a Heart surrounded by thorns which She held in the other hand. At that same moment, the Child said to her:

"Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce Her at every moment, without there being anyone to make an act of reparation in order to take them away."

Then the Most Holy Virgin said to her:

"See, My daughter, My Heart surrounded by thorns which ungrateful men pierce at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console Me and say to all those who, for five months, on the first Saturday, confess, receive Holy Communion, recite the Rosary, and keep Me company during fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, in a spirit of reparation, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls."

What are the thorns that penetrate the heart of our mother and cause her pain?
It is sometimes asked why Our Lady asked for Communions of reparation on five first Saturdays, instead of some other number. Our Blessed Lord answered that question when He appeared to Sr. Lucia May 29, 1930. He explained that it was because of five kinds of offenses and blasphemies against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, namely: blasphemies against her Immaculate Conception, against her perpetual virginity, against the divine and spiritual maternity of Mary, blasphemies involving the rejection and dishonouring of her images, and the neglect of implanting in the hearts of children a knowledge and love of this Immaculate Mother.

See: http://www.rosary-center.org/firstsat.htm

At Rwanda, an approved series of apparitions that took place in the 1980s, Our Lady asked that people once more take up the recitation of the Rosary of Dolours on Tuesdays and Fridays. By our mediations on the Passion we console our Lord and Our Lady and we begin in a small way to understand God’s love for us in sending us His only Son to take away our sins. It may serve in no small measure to instil in us a desire to make reparation for sin and to avoid all future occasions of sin.

These are the words of Nathalie, one of the visionaries:

"The Holy Virgin insisted on the need for prayer. She said that the world is bad. It is necessary to pray, to pray, to pray a lot for this world that is bad, to pray for sinners, to pray for their conversion. She insisted a lot on the need for conversion: Convert to God! Convert to God! Convert to God! While saying that people don't respect God's commands, that people have a hard heart, she also asked us to meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary and to recite it every day. She also taught us the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows. She asked us to pray it every Tuesday and Friday. She asked us to obey the Church, to love God in truth, and to love our neighbour in humility and simplicity. She spoke of the need for mortification, a spirit of penitence and sacrifice. She also spoke of the need for suffering, to bear our sufferings every day. She said that no one enters heaven without suffering. She also told us that acts of charity for the poor make us beautiful flowers that God likes. She wanted a chapel to be constructed here in Kibeho, so everyone would remember her visit and pray for the Church and religious. Holy Mary spoke to us in Kinyarwanda [the language of Rwanda] with her very soft voice."

The Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows reminds us that Mary plays a key role in our Redemption and that she suffered along with her Son Jesus to save us. It is prayed using a special rosary comprised of seven "decades" containing seven beads each.Here is how the Chaplet of Seven Sorrows is prayed:

Each group of seven is begun with an Our Father, as in the regular Rosary. Some people start with an Act of Contrition, since the devotion has a penitential aspect. Also like the regular Rosary, the groups of seven Hail Marys are an occasion for meditation on "Mysteries" — in this case, the Seven Sorrows of Mary, as listed above.
See Kibeho: http://www.marian.org/mary/prayers/sorrows.php

September 16th, 2011: The memorial of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian

Have you ever noticed how many feats in the Church’s calendar are paired saints? Think of Ss Peter and Paul, Simon and Jude, Cosmas and Damien, Perpetua and Felicity and so on. Think of the many martyr saints commemorated in large groups, e.g., Korean Martyrs, Irish Martyrs and so on. Finally, think of those Blessed, or Beati, Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin the parents of St Therese, and of course our friends in Fatima, Blessed Jacinta and Francisco Marto.
It is a curious fact that in the life of every saint, there are others. Maybe canonised, maybe not. St Monica and St Augustine, who was baptised by St Ambrose; St Francis and St Clare of Assisi; St Ignatius of Loyola and St Francis Xavier, St Patrick and St Brigid, and so many Irish saints who were contemporaries and influenced each other. Think of the influences in the life of Blessed John Paul II, his spiritual mentors, his devout father, Jan Tyrranowski and others, the courageous Archbishop Sapieha, and Cardinal Wysinski. Think of St Therese’s family, described as ‘a nest of saints’; or St Faustina and her saintly confessor, Blessed Father Sopocko.
None of us lives for himself alone...the life and death of each one of us has its influence on others. (Romans 14:7).

None of us gets to heaven without the intercession or help from others. We too are called to be intercessors as well as an example through our prayer and conduct and outreach. Our mutual support, strength and sanctification will get us there. The Lord sent out His apostles in pairs, a journey shared, like a problem shared, is halved. And so in our lives there out to be a spiritual director, a confessor, a confidant, a companion, a friend. No man is an island.

The International Eucharistic Congress to take place in Dublin in 2012 has its theme: ‘Communion with Christ, Communion with one another.’ The word ‘companion’ is derived from the phrase ‘to eat bread with’. We journey together in faith as a Eucharistic people. The two disciples together on the road to Emmaus recognised the Lord Jesus at the breaking of bread.

May we be strength to each other in the one Body of Christ.