Author Archives: Huruma

Easter Message 2017 from Fr. Derry Murphy SAC

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Easter 2017.

easterderry17Recently I took a 6am Ryanair flight, I had the window seat, and as the sun began to rise, the air hostess who had stopped at the row I was seated in, leant in and looked out of the window and marvelled at the sunrise and remarked that it was the time of day in which she felt closest to God. She went on to say that she had named her daughter Alba, which in Italian and Spanish means ‘Sunrise’.

We associate the Resurrection of Jesus with dawn or sunrise, with new light, with a new birth, a new day, new life and possibilities. In Amoris Laetitia Pope Francis writes of families gathered in prayer in the light of Easter; he writes that if faith in Christ is part of family life then he will unify and illumine the entire life of the family. He notes that married couples (and I think that we can extend it to apply to each of us in our relationships with others) ‘shape with different daily gestures a God-enlighted space in which to experience the hidden presence of the risen Lord’.

May this vision and a commitment to live it, be ours this Easter season, to shape with the gestures, activities, words and expressions of daily living a God-enlightened space where we, and those we share life with,  may experience this hidden and life-giving presence of the risen Lord Jesus.

Happy Easter.

AN EASTER REFLECTION – Fr. Brendan Walsh SAC

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Before my mother died last October, she spent some weeks in hospital in Galway. As she left home to go there for treatment we hadn’t suspected this might be her last time with us though her health was failing, well beyond recovery. As she was helped into my sister’s car she gave a look around at everything, the house, the flower garden, her home where she lived all of her life. It was a look that seemed to say ‘goodbye’. A poignant gaze that betrayed her realization that she would not return. I wondered what went through her mind as she passed through familiar towns on that last trek to Galway. She spent five weeks in hospital, comfortable but getting weaker. Sharp as a tack mentally. In that time, we as a family came to realize the fateful truth that she was dying. She became reconciled to the fact that she was no longer going to be with us. She was at peace with it. She wanted us to be at peace with it too. We talked, laughed and cried in no order. At last a phone call from my sister broke the news that she was ‘gone’. I was on my way in the car when I got the news.

Resurrection from the dead is central to the Christian message. The Church now calls us to prepare spiritually by fasting from Ash Wednesday till Easter. At the end of this we collectively remember the liberation of the Jewish people from their slavery in Egypt to their arrival in the Promised Land; a land of “milk and honey”.  The original Passover which we celebrate at this time is means by which this could take place. We also recount the story of Jesus Passion, Death and Resurrection; the New Passover.  This story which we relive prefigures our own personal story of being saved from eternal disaster.  It takes on a whole new significance for my siblings and I as it is the first Easter without our mother. No longer a theory or abstraction but something very real to ponder. It takes the meaning and mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus to a whole new level. Christ resurrected from the dead and opened the doorway to eternal life for us. That’s a mind-blowing mystery. Again, from St Paul this time to the Romans ‘If in union with Christ we have imitated Him in death, we shall also imitate Him in his Resurrection’

My mother is more alive now than ever before. Hard to believe. The body in the coffin which I personally blessed with holy water and incensed at her funeral is not my mother any longer. Merely her remains.

In 1 Corinthians 15:14 St Paul tells us “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching has been in vain and your faith is in vain”. If as many say, in our increasingly materialist culture, there is no Resurrection then there is nothing at the end of the road for us. Death is merely a tragedy devoid of any meaning, any purpose. If there is no resurrection for us then everything is gone everything is lost. Sure, it is not easy to grasp the idea of life after death with our finite rational minds. It cannot be quantified, measured or tested in a laboratory. Science itself, for all its celebrated success cannot answer the ultimate question; “what lies beyond the passage from this life in death? Sure, some feel confident that science may one day enable us to live substantially longer lives, but that merely defers the final question. When celebrities die rarely is the question asked in the news media; “where are they now?”. We reminisce about their accomplishments and fame but rarely deal with the awkward question.

In our Easter ceremonies, we muster our best liturgical efforts to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His legacy is unlike any other left by a historical figure. So, it is fitting that we honour Him individually in our heart of hearts, and collectively as Church at this time. My mother believed in Heaven. A great woman of prayer. Her discomfort and pain never interrupted her nightly rosary and devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus before she retired to her bed. Souls in Purgatory, neighbours friends or family, everyone was covered. Her loss to us at this time is obviously traumatic. It would be unnatural for it not to be. But my personal sense is that we as family are blessed to be mysteriously closer to Heaven than ever before. My mother knew that everything she cherished was being taken from her in her final days. Or more correctly she was being asked to let go of them. She could only do so because she was being offered an infinitely greater Gift. There was no doubt in her mind. This is why we join with her in singing Alleluia this Easter.

Homily on the Prodigal Son Reconciliation Service – John Regan SAC

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Every time I hear this gospel, I always think of the wonderful image of the father welcoming his son back and embracing him with his love and mercy. The son had lived a life away from God, had squandered his freedom and indulged in the pleasures of the world, he had made a total mess of his life.

 Yet his father never gave up on him, always watching out from afar, hoping and praying that he would return home someday. So too is the way with God our loving father, he never gives up on any one of us no matter what we have done in life, he knows that we are weak and fragile and that we will stumble and fall many times on our journey of life, after all, we are human. The most important thing is that we get up again quickly and embrace God’s mercy and forgiveness. God takes us just as we are in our human raw state with all our imperfections. He calls us to a relationship of love even if we are in the depths of sin, he doesn’t love us any less, he waits. Always. And it is never too late. Thats what he is like, that’s how he is, he is a father. A father waiting at the doorway who sees us when we are still far off who is moved and who comes running towards us, embraces us and kisses us tenderly. His heart rejoices over every child who returns to him.

Pope Francis reminds us, bring to the confessional, the sins that bring the greatest shame. To confess ones sins to the Priest is to come face to face with the infinite mercy of Jesus who forgives. God never writes anybody off. No human sin no matter how serious it is can limit God’s love and mercy, so tonight, don’t hold back, give to Jesus what is really troubling you and weighing you down, off load everything and he will set you free.

 

PALLOTTINE PILGRIMAGE TO KNOCK

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knock-mosaic_1000The annual Pallottine Pilgrimage to Knock will take place on Saturday June 3rd, 2017 gathering at 12 noon in St. John’s Centre. Mass will be celebrated at 3.00 pm in the old parish church.

Memories of Blessing: 4th Sunday of Lent – Eamonn Monson sac

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hand-on-headGod does not see as we see. We look at appearances but God looks at the heart, the interior. (1 Samuel 16:6-7). In the healing of the blind man God seeks to lead us to the opening of the eyes of our mind, heart and soul so that we learn to see as God sees, that we come to see the presence of God in every circumstance of life, to recognize the blessings that flow from the presence of God, “that the works of God might be displayed” (John 9).

A central purpose of the miracles of Jesus is to lead us to faith, a deepening of faith which in turn leads us to worship God. That was the purpose of the Exodus from slavery in Egypt – that the people of Israel could be free to worship God. The man cured of his blindness arrived at a point faith, “The man said, ‘Lord, I believe’, and worshipped him” (John 9:38). The miracles are also of course expressions of the compassionate love that God has for us all, especially anyone in distress.

Blessings come to us in many ways – the formal blessing of the Church given through a priest; the blessing given by parents and godparents in the liturgy of baptism; the general blessing we give to each other when we say, “God bless!” There is also the blessing of a dying parent such as in the case of Isaac blessing Jacob, a blessing that is permanent and cannot be revoked. I was blessed by my mother before she died. I have also been blessed by children.

A couple of days ago, I went to anoint a man who is soon to die. We celebrated the sacraments of absolution, anointing and Eucharist and it was a very peace filled encounter. As I was leaving I asked him to bless me and he held my face in his hands, a gesture that sent a tingling sensation through me and brought tears to my eyes. And it feels to me like a blessing that cannot be revoked, a blessing that is true because it is given at that moment in life when pretending has ceased.

That same gesture happened to me many years ago, in Tanzania where I encountered a woman who had been blind for many years. She lived in a remote village and never went anywhere. She was an extremely happy woman who found the blessings of God in her blindness.

After Mass, she would welcome us into her home where she fed us. I wondered if something could be done for her at the Medical Missionaries of Mary hospital 60km away, so I asked her if she would be interested in exploring the possibilities.

An appointment was made and we managed to get the pick-up truck through a rocky track in and out of the village. There was no road. I was driving, with woman and her brother in the front seat beside. It was a slow laborious journey with the truck bouncing up and down and from side to side.

For the woman who could not see, it was hilarious and she shouted out, “there must be a God! Who else would send a priest on such a bad road to take me to hospital?”

BlindIn hospital, they discovered she simply had cataracts which the doctor removed. For us in Ireland cataracts are not a big deal but in Tanzania it usually meant a life of blindness for anyone living in a remote place.

I was there the day the day the bandages came were taken off her eyes. The nurse put glasses on her. I was the first person she saw. She held my face in her hands laughing, thanking God and everyone. It was such a feeling of honour to witness the opening of eyes that were blind, a feeling that can’t be described, a joy that can’t be expressed in words. But I was blessed by that joy.

The experience strengthened the faith she already had; for her community, it awakened a faith they had lost. It wasn’t a miracle but for all of us it was a sign of God’s compassionate presence in our lives, a sign of how he uses us as instruments of healing.

What I pray for is the inner vision to see people and life with the eyes of God so that every experience – good or bad – will lead us to see Him, to enter into a deeper relationship with Him, a life in which I worship Him in spirit and truth.

Fr. Eamonn Monson SAC

Remembering Cardinal Connell at San Silvestro – Fr. John Fitzpatrick SAC

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Desmond Cardinal Connell R.I.P.  (1926 – 2017)

The Basilica of San Silvestro in Capite, Rome was entrusted to our Society of the Catholic Apostolate by Pope Leo XIII in 1885 and our Pallottine priests and brothers have served here since 1887. It was during a General Chapter held at San Silvestro in 1909 that the Society was divided into Provinces, including the Irish Province. This Church dates back to 761 when Paul 1 was Pope. Titular Cardinals have been appointed to the Basilica since 1517. The late Cardinal Basil Hume former Archbishop of Westminster, London was Cardinal Priest of San Silvestro from 1976 until his death in 1999. In 2001 Pope John Paul 11 appointed Archbishop Desmond Connell as Cardinal with the title of Cardinal Priest of San Silvestro. In taking possession of his Titular Church a Cardinal celebrates a profoundly symbolic act that expresses his special communion with the Pope as the Bishop of Rome.

During his homily at the Mass on the occasion of his taking possession of San Silvestro he stated: “The centuries – long presence here of a Poor Clare community has particular significance for me because the first appointment I received as a young priest was a Chaplaincy with the Poor Clare community in Donnybrook”. We were privileged as the Pallottine community of San Silvestro to have had the late Cardinal as our Titular Cardinal. He was absolutely delighted to be assigned San Silvestro since we Pallottines were ministering in two Parishes in the Archdiocese of Dublin, namely St. Patrick’s Corduff in Blanchardstown and St. Anne’s in Shankill.  He paid many visits to San Silvestro over the past 16 years. He took a great interest in the Church and its long history and shortly after his appointment as Cardinal he commissioned a history of the Church to be written and entrusted the project to Dr. Eileen Kane, the distinguished historian of art, who published the first edition in 2005. Dr. Kane had the opportunity of presenting the second edition in person to the Cardinal in February of last year.  It was appropriate that Dr. Eileen led the prayers of intercession at his funeral Mass in the Pro Cathedral on February 25th.

He loved meeting the immigrant communities from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and other countries who frequent San Silvestro …the Link Community as they are called. He loved their music and song and they loved him and made him feel very welcome and at home among them.

His last visit to Rome was for the canonization of Pope John XXII and Pope John Paul 11 three years ago. We shared a meal with him at that time. He wrote to me on his return to Ireland to say that he would not be able to visit Rome again due to his declining health. On March 24th of last year, we phoned him on his 90thBirthday and sang ‘Happy Birthday to you’ over the phone. He appreciated this very much. He never failed to call us each year on 31st. December, the Feast of St. Sylvester to wish us a joyful celebration and to assure us of his closeness to us and his love for San Silvestro.

I posted a card and letter to him on the day he died which was the Anniversary of his nomination as Titular Cardinal, 22nd. February. His motto was ‘Secundum Verbum Tuum’ – according to your Word. He was always faithful to that Word and to the Eucharist in the humble, sincere and compassionate way in which he lived his priestly life. My predecessor as Rector, Fr. Denis O’Brien, who was Rector when Archbishop Connell was nominated Cardinal, on learning of his death wrote: ‘It was a great privilege to have known him’.

We will celebrate the Month’s Mind Mass here at San Silvestro on Wednesday 22nd. March at 7 p.m.

Fr. John Fitzpatrick sac

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilis. Requiescat in Pace.

Fr. John Fitzpatrick SAC

Rector, Basilica di San Silvestro in Capite

PRAYER TO ST. JOSEPH

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Oh, St. Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God. I place in you all my interests and desires. Oh, St. Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So that, having engaged here below your heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of Fathers. Continue reading →

TORMENTED BY THIRST – The Woman at the Well

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God be with you in all your undertakings (St. Vincent Pallotti)

Third Sunday of Lent – John 4:5-42 

“Jesus, tired by the journey, sat straight down by the well.” Here we witness one of the most human moments in the life of Jesus. In His tiredness and His thirst, He is one with us and represents all the weariness and thirst of our lives.

The first word that He speaks in this gospel reading is, “give me a drink!” So, before we go looking for anything from Him, we focus on what we can give Him. In what way, can you quench the thirst of Jesus? What does His thirst mean to you?

Later in Lent we will hear Him cry from the Cross, “I thirst!” It’s not just water He needs. He thirsts for you, longs for you to come closer to Him.

You want to come close to Jesus but there are obstacles in the way and His desire is to remove the obstacles, to bring you through them and beyond them.

In the first reading the people were “tormented by thirst”, a very strong expression that also is not just about the thirst for water; it is about the deepest yearnings of the human person, our deepest desires.

We are often tormented by our desire, tempted by the longings that stir in our bodies and souls, and we can be made utterly helpless in the face of these desires. There are temptations that we are able to resist or overcome but there are also temptations that lead us into sin time and time again.

The only thing to do with them is bring them to Jesus in prayer, to speak honestly about them, allow Him to address them in the way He addresses the sin in the life of the Samaritan woman.

What is interesting about Jesus is how He can tell a person the truth about their life – how He can do this without hurting the person but does it in a way that sets them free.

The Samaritan woman is delighted and liberated by the way Jesus speaks to her. “The woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people. ‘Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did; I wonder if he is the Christ?’”

This is the joy and freedom He offers to us when we allow Him to speak truthfully, lovingly to the sin in our lives. The liberation does not always take place at once or completely because it is a journey, a life-long process in many cases. But it begins when we honestly place our desires and our sins at the feet of His truth and Love and the outpouring of His Mercy that is without limit.

Eamonn Monson SAC