Category Archives: ARTICLES

Rocket Man, Starman, Life On Mars, I Am I said. Songs of my youth. Songs of identity, that interior aspect of me which reaches for the beyond. I am captivated by Voyager 1, the probe sent into space on September 5, 1977, five years to the day after I entered religious life  and on the very day I returned to the community, having been away for more than a year. 

Back then I had no knowledge of Voyager but we have somehow been travelling together these 40 years. There are journeys and journeys, I like to say. For every journey we undertake there is a deeper, spiritual significance that we are not always aware of. I have been a voyager, a wanderer pilgrim in spirit all my life – making journeys of significance and mostly journeying into the interior space of who I am; who I am in relation to others and mostly who I am in relation to God. My Mother called me Siddhartha, the nomad. 

Voyager 1 has become a kind of teacher to me, a teacher of what is beyond. The sheer immensity of its journey! When it was launched, it had an initial mission of about four years, after which it continued on an extended mission that brought it to inter stellar space, the first human made object to travel that far and it has left scientists amazed that it still works. It travels at about 60,000 kilometres per hour, having travelled a distance of over 13 million miles. If it keeps travelling it will reach what is called the Oort cloud in 300 hundred years, taking it another 30,000 years to pass through it! 

Voyager has been witness to the vastness of the universe; the sheer scale of it is staggering and it leaves me gasping in awe. And if the creation is so immense, then how much more immense is the Creator, how staggering and awesome! This is what happens to me when I read the first lines of the Prologue in John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) and it is there that I always have to pause and from there my meditation takes off into the awe-inspiring magnitude, the wonder of what it was like in that “beginning”, which is not a beginning at all but infinity, eternity.

In the beginning there was silence, that great silence in which the Word was begotten, the Word through whom everything came into existence. Silence! Jesus says of himself, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. (Revelation 22:13) The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Aleph which corresponds with Alpha and Tav corresponds with Omega. Aleph is soundless, silent, suggesting that Jesus is the silence in the eternal beginning before being the spoken Word that gave birth to the creation. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And God said…” (Genesis 1:1-3) 

How deep are the rich mysteries of God; how inadequate language is – the words we use to express a reality that is so far beyond expression. And yet within each of us there is an innate need to reach out and grasp something of God. 

So I contemplate the great silence that is infinitely more expansive than the distance travelled by Voyager. I contemplate who God is in that reality. For compass and guide I take flight with Voyager and I am immersed in the Bible, the sacred Word of God that is alive and active with layers of deeper meaning, unfathomable depths. “I thought of my God and I sighed!” from Psalm 77 – Blessed Pope Paul VI identifies this as summing up the whole Prayer of the Church. To pray is to think of God; to think of God is to sigh with groaning beyond utterance which is nothing other than the prayer of the Holy Spirit within us (Romans 8:26). 

Above the moon and stars 

Beyond the edge 

Of what is known 

The space between all things 

The quiet dark 

The womb of light 

Where speed and stillness merge 

And distance has no measure 

A thousand years 

A single day 

Is all the same 

Where Love And Hope and Faith 

Remain pure and perfect 

Vision

“Unleash the Gospel” is the title chosen for the renewal programme of the Archdiocese of Detroit, in the United States of America. The vision which underlines the programme was set out on Pentecost Sunday in 2017 and I have read of it many times since. The mental image it conjures up is of the Gospel on a leash, held in check, and straining to be free. And, of course, at the centre of it all is Jesus Christ, Son of God and son of Mary.

Christ at the centre of all of life, and of my life in particular is an on-going challenge. There are many things clamouring for attention in our world and in daily life, important things, essential things and others of lesser importance. Christmas time and all that goes with the preparation and the celebration of this holy season is an invitation to focus our attention on Jesus Christ, on Jesus at the centre of all of creation. In these days we will celebrate the birth of Jesus in time and in space, so that we might “attend to the birth of Christ within us” each day, a phrase I heard prayed this Advent which has stayed with me. Christmas is a time to savour that life of Jesus Christ within us, which is born, and reborn, and which can be unleashed or held in check. To savour this life of Jesus Christ with us, with family, with friends, with community, and with the community of faith, again and again until we are eternally in God.

This has been an eventful year in the life of the Church in Ireland and the visit of Pope Francis for the World Meeting of Families was a highpoint. His presence, his care and concern, his words spoken formally and informally, all pointed to  his faith in Jesus Christ, present and active in the Church and in society. The visit gave me new hope, and as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote in Spe Salvi 31 “we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day.” Perhaps the visit of Pope Francis was one of the ‘greater or lesser hopes’ for us, “but these are not enough without the great hope … this great hope can only be God …God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety.” (Spe salvi 31).

Jesus, the ‘God with us’ has a human face, born of Mary, shared our human existence, and is born within each of us, we welcome him anew this Christmas and pray that his presence be “unleashed”.

A very happy and holy Christmas season to all who log in to our Province website.

Derry Murphy, SAC.

Provincial.

Dear Saint Anthony, we are all pilgrims on this earth. We came from God and we are going to Him. He who created us will welcome us at journey’s end. The Lord Jesus is preparing a place for all His brothers and sisters. Saint Anthony, Guide of Pilgrims, direct my steps in the straight path. Protect me until I am safely home in heaven. Help me in all my needs and difficulties. Amen!

KNOWN UNTO GOD: The Least Thing Has Meaning

It’s the summer of ’78 when ‘Saturday Night Fever’ is in full flight and I’m a student working in Germany for the holidays.

That same summer I went to visit the Rheinberg War Cemetery, the resting place of more than three thousand victims of World War II. I was struck by the silent stillness, the sheer beauty and peace of it and I pondered the contrasting uproar of ugliness, the unspeakable suffering that gave birth to this place. War is an awful reality that I cannot understand but I find in myself a great respect for every single person who has served in war in any capacity; the selfless generosity and courage is deserving of my honour and admiration.

And the peaceful silence that rests over such cemeteries seems to me to speak of promise – God’s promise of a lasting peace that is eternal, a peace that only Christ can give, a peace that will perhaps elude us as long as we live on earth, a peace that will find its fulfilment in heaven. Such a promise in no way is a justification for war but God has a war of turning all things to good.

Most of the headstones in Rheinberg bear the name of the one buried but there are 158 that bear no name and at the bottom of the headstone is written “Known Unto God” – this more than anything impresses itself on my heart and mind.

Known unto God is the most important knowing there is but it is part of our human makeup to ignore such knowing because we really want to be known by those around us. To be known and noticed and appreciated. Small things like someone noticing your new hairdo, the meal you cooked, the job you did in the garden and how we suffer when the ordinary things of our lives go unnoticed.

It’s a harsh reality for many people that there is no one there to notice anything about us and God is inviting us to pay attention to the fact that He takes notice of every single aspect of our lives. For sensitive souls, for the scrupulous of a certain generation this conjures up notions of God watching us in a fearsome way, ready to catch us out as soon as we make a mistake. I’m thinking about God noticing in an admiring, appreciative way. This matters when one is left feeling unimportant, insignificant in life.

When my mother died, I suddenly realized that I was no longer anybody’s son. My father was already 18 years gone and I became nobody’s child in this world. It hit home to me when someone asked, “whose are you now?” It happens to the widowed or when one’s child has died. It creates an emptiness that cannot be put into words and in some way we became nothing for a while, a long while.

I’m thinking about a book someone gave me years ago – ‘Even the Least Thing Has Meaning’ – and I’m thinking about a single leaf on top of a tree that I was admiring one day. That leaf is visible to no one except God and the birds and in that lies its meaning – that it is seen by God, known by God, admired by God who created it and that is enough. During that little meditation I was feeling very insignificant and, on the edge, and it was a grace that I could accept that it was enough for me to be seen and known by God. Ultimately, I am a son of God and that’s enough.

It’s what we come across in the gospels – the supreme importance of what is little and seemingly of no account. The child. At our family Mass on Sunday we have a rather lengthy offertory procession – someone suggested that it takes half an hour which is not true. Maybe it takes ten minutes but it is important because every single little thing presented there by the child matters to God, every single child matters as do the parents who walk with them. They represent all of us and somehow, they are making all the little offerings on behalf of the whole community. After Mass today a little girl came to me with a fallen, fading leaf which she handed to me with a smile saying, “this is for you Father.” Even the least thing has meaning!

It is one of the lovely things I liked about the offertory in Tanzania. Not just the children but every person in the congregation came forward with an offering – some with money, others with a few onions or eggs or a bag of grain – essential aspects of life, things that matter however small.

There’s an offering taking place in today’s gospel (Mark 12:38-44). People putting money into the treasury, some putting in a lot and maybe feeling important in doing so but the one who catches the attention of Jesus is the poor widow who puts in two small coins. She might have put in the least amount compared to all the others but, for Jesus, she has put in everything she had and so her offering is wholehearted, completely generous.

So, when we find in life that we have little or nothing to give, it’s important to give all the same because it matters in itself and it matters to God with whom what is insufficient becomes sufficient, more than enough.

The widow of the first reading reminds me of a little experience I had at communion time at Mass one time at a retreat I was attending.  I was given the chalice to share with the people and as soon as I saw it, I said to myself, “this is never enough for all this crowd” and I felt a bit annoyed with the priest who had put the wine in the chalice, that he hadn’t put in more.

And so the people were coming to me one by one and I kept thinking that this will never last, the Precious Blood will run out when the words of the Prophet Elijah came into my mind, words spoken in today’s first reading – “The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail” ( 1 Kings 17:10-16)– and so it was with the chalice. When Communion was finished there was actually some left over. More than enough in the end!

Click on the image to view and download the latest Pallottine Voices Mission Newsletter

The annual UAC retreat is an established event in our Pallottine calendar and took place from Friday 28th to Sunday 30th September. The theme of the retreat this year was the Call to Holiness in the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate. We were 33 participants in all, some from the local area around Thurles, members of the Cahir group, the Cork group and those who travelled down from Dublin, from Dundrum and the parishes in Corduff and Shankill. As always we were warmly welcomed by the local Pallottine Community in the College in Thurles and the good Lord blessed us with lovely weather so that we were able to enjoy the grounds and some fresh air.

Friday, 10^th August 2018, Mbugwe Parish, Manyara Region, Tanzania.

My dear brothers and sisters,

I salute you in three languages: Kimbugwe, that is a local language here (talala mocheye), Swahili (habari gani) our national language and English in honour of our visitors from overseas.

We are gathered here to congratulate Fr. Martin Marsel Mareja as he celebrates 25 years of his priestly ministry. Let us all give him a round of applause.  Basically, today we can say one word only, “Asante” (thank you).  Preaching is part and parcel of a life of a priest, so today you’ve got to bear with me as I will speak a little bit longer than usual.

Frirst of all, I wish to sincerely thank Fr. Martin for asking me to preach on this most important occasion of his life as he celebrates 25^th anniversary of priesthood. I want to share with you an incident which occurred two days before the ordination of Martin and Ludovic Njaiko an Augustinian, by the way two of them were ordained together.  By then I was a curate to Fr. Michael Barry in Magugu parish. We had everything in place after working so hard and had erected a platform which was covered by an expensive tarpaulin. Some people came at night and stole it; this created confusion and anger because it just happened at a very last minute before the event itself. I will never forget it and I still remember it vividly the hurt caused to people who gave so much of their finance and time to erect the platform. God is good! We sent a runner to Fr. John Kelly, SAC, in Gallapo who gave us a loan of tarpaulin and the ordination took place smoothly on 8^th August 1993. I believe God’s hand worked miracles.

Today, 25 years after, Fr. Martin Mareja celebrates the Silver Jubilee of priestly ministry, inside a church in construction. I can see that roofing is done with steel and corrugated sheets from South Africa. It would take a set of heavy machinery to bring it down so for those who stole the tarpaulin two days before his ordination, they have no hope and chance of stealing the roof where he is celebrating his silver Jubilee Mass in thanksgiving to God. I wish to congratulate the Parish Priest, his collaborator and all parishioners for the good work of building a permanent parish church.

The first reading for today’s liturgy is from Gen. 12:1-3. It speaks about the call of Abram. Yahweh said to Abram, “Leave your country, your family and your father’s house, for a land  I will show you…” God calls with authority. God called Martin from his small village of “Osoley”, from his family, friends and away from his familiar environment to join a Congregation where the Lord wanted him to be. And, in obedience, he followed and today he is celebrating 25 years of service in the Lord’s vineyard as a member of the Pallottine family. Give him a round of applause.

Abram didn’t know where he was going but he trusted in God. The same applied to Fr. Martin. Martin trusted in God to lead him where he wanted to. No doubt he still does.

God said to Abram, “I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great.”Although Abram may not have witnessed the fulfilment of all the promises but most of them were fulfilled in his lifetime.  I believe that Fr. Martin has experienced many times God fulfilling his promises through the apostolate entrusted to him by our Society.  Talking to him he told me that he has gone through many challenges but at the same time he has enjoyed and still enjoys the privilege of serving the family of God where he is sent. He has been blessed serving in different places and roles in our Society. Currently he is in charge of our Mission Office in Thurles, Ireland. He is a blessing to the people he serves there. Likewise he receives God’s graces from the service he gives.  He is a blessing to his family, friends, to our Society and to the universal Church.

God said to Abram, “and in you all the peoples of the earth will be blessed.” We congratulate you Fr. Martin for the work you do. We ask God to continue to bless you with the many graces you need in your life and in your ministry.

In the Gospel story from Lk. 17:11-19, Jesus meets ten lepers calling him, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us. Then Jesus said to them, go and show yourselves to the priest.” The story goes on that, as they went their way, they found they were cured. One of them turned back, praising God in a loud voice. Jesus was amazed by the ingratitude of the other nine whom he had just cured.

This gospel passage reminds us of how many people find it very difficult to show gratitude to God or to people who have been kind to us. I’m delighted that Fr. Martin saw the need and importance of expressing his gratitude to God on this day as he celebrates his Silver Jubilee of priesthood. He wishes to thank God for the many blessings he has received in his life and ministry.

Today, Fr. Martin Mareja invites all of us gathered here to thank God with him. He invites us to thank with him his parents, teachers, formators, friends, neighbours, members of his Society, members of the Union of the Catholic Apostolate, all religious and all people of good will who in one way or another have touched his life. Fr. Martin I wish to conclude by expressing my sincere thanks to the parishioners of Mbugwe and everybody gathered here for making this day a memorable one. I suppose I should be including the homilist of today as well in all this.

God is good! All the time God is good.

Ad multos annos.

God bless you all.

Fr James Amasi, SAC.