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Feast of Mary Mother of God & World Day of Peace

We come to the threshold of a new year, to a crossing in which we are carried by Christ; carried within Him in the mystery of Word and Eucharist. For the Christian it is always a threshold of hope.

We come to it – together or alone – in the company of Mary, Mother of God, Mother of Peace and, with her we pause to glance back at the year that is ending, we pause to ponder and to treasure in our hearts all that has been. There are experiences of great personal pain, of death and births that did not happen. There are babies who were born, dreams that were fulfilled, challenges met and obstacles overcome. We ponder in order to recognize the presence of God in all that we have been given to experience and this recognition of God’s presence in the past gives us hope for the future that is unfolding.

This is a contemplative, reflective moment that is necessary in every human life so that we are not endlessly rushing from one experience to another without learning the lessons and the wisdom offered by God in every single thing.

Looking back and moving forward we need to decide what to take with us and what to leave behind so that we don’t spend our lives hauling excess baggage, being unnecessarily burdened. The invitation of God in the Bible is to “unload all your worries on to Him because He is looking after you.” We need not carry more than is necessary.

We cross the threshold with Mary, abiding in Christ with the prayer of the Spirit of Jesus – “Abba Father” – rising in our hearts and the Eucharist as food for the journey.

I have had a great year. Being 60 years of age is a wonderful experience and I have learned the importance of the dreams that God has placed in our hearts. Dreams that I have held in my heart since childhood.

There is one dream that I decided to fulfil during the year – to travel for a week on a cargo ship – and it almost came true but didn’t in the end. But two other dreams did come true through no effort of my own.

The first was getting to spend a few days in a lighthouse, a gift given me by my family who were attentive to my dreams. The second is that I got to become a presenter on radio, Radio Maria. I didn’t seek it out. It was given. And this teaches me that I may propose to do something that is good and God given but God may choose otherwise, choosing instead to surprise me. And so I look back on these surprises and move forward in expectancy of surprises to come.

At home after Christmas I got to spend a day alone with my two youngest nieces – Katie and Laura – aged 7 and 5. I had decided not to buy them presents because they are overwhelmed with too many things. My intention was to offer them an experience – the experience of our presence with each other. Part of the plan was to bring them to a movie that they wanted to see.

I can’t remember which of the storms was raging in Galway on that particular day but it was horrendously wet and we couldn’t get parking anywhere. Everyone seemed to be out in town that day and when I said to the girls that we might not get to the movie, they said “we can just go to  your house.” And I loved their adaptability. They were content not to get what was promised, content with whatever we might do together.

We went to Bonkers, an indoor play area for a couple of hours, followed by a Supermacs takeaway which we ate at home in the sitting room at my house and when it came to time for going home they were reluctant to leave. During the drive back home the three of us sang Christmas carols and there was such purity and sincerity in their singing that I felt I had reached the summit of Christmas.

This is something I carry across the threshold into 2016, the song of a child in my heart, song of gladness and praise. Singing is also part of the prayer of the Spirit in all our hearts, the prayer that has power in it to shift the darkness in which we will inevitably find ourselves from time to time.

And we carry blessing, the blessing given by God to Mosses and Aaron in Numbers chapter 6 – “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. May the Lord uncover His face to you, and give you peace.”

I like this idea of the Lord uncovering His Face, revealing himself to us in the journey that lies ahead. It is for us, in moving forward, to keep the eyes of our soul focused on the light that shines from God’s face, a light that no darkness can overcome. May it be done in the Spirit, in the people who bless our lives every day and in the circumstances that will unfold. May we see the face of God.

It is almost 5 years since I first arrived in Tanzania, as a volunteer in the Esso area of Arusha at the foot of Mount Meru. 

When Fr Michael O’Sullivan sac was home in Ireland, on leave in Milltown, Co Kerry, he spoke about life in Esso where he was parish priest. A survey had indicated that there were many children and adults with disabilities and he asked if I would come to Tanzania to help them. I came initially for a month and the seeds of ‘Faraja’ were sown.

We started therapy and support services in a classroom in August 2010 and a year later we moved into the new  Therapy  Centre [below]. I will never forget the joy and smiles on the Mamas faces as we entered the therapy room. They could not believe that the Centre was just for them and their children. ‘Faraja’ is a Kiswahili word which means ‘Hope, Compassion and Encouragement’ and Pallotti is the name given by Fr Michael to the complex in which the Centre is located.

We now cater for 200 children and 75 adults, and 30 to 40 attend on a weekly basis. Many of the children have severe cerebral palsy, and had been locked away in a dark room with no light, while the Mama worked to provide food for herself and her family. Life is difficult for Mamas and having someone with a disability makes it even harder as there is no State support and they would have to pay for any services, if available, which most of them could not afford anyway.

At Faraja Pallotti we provide free therapy services to all who come to our door. We give encouragement         and hope and try to show compassion over a cup of tea and ‘Vitumba’. After therapy, they share stories and give each other support.

The Centre could not operate without the wonderful staff – Salome the Occupational Therapist and Hidaya, the Therapy Assistant – who deliver quality service with care and compassion. We try to visit their homes when people are unable to come to the Centre. We also visit other Centres and  hospitals who have surgeons

from Germany and the USA who come once or twice a year and provide free surgery for those we refer to them. We only have to pay the hospital costs, then we do the rehabilitation after surgery at Faraja.

We are currently working with a business called Shanga which trains and employs people with disabilities to see if we can get some of our young adults to work in their workshop. This would provide some income for them and give them self-confidence and empowerment. Shanga manufactures products for tourists and also exports to many parts of the world.

During the last 5 years the greatest change I have seen is that the children and adults with disabilities are no longer confined or “hidden away” and that Faraja helps families to realise that they are not alone and isolated and that they can give valuable support to each other. Coming to the Centre dispels the myth that they are cursed, that it is their fault and that they deserve this cross to bear. We showed the film “My Left Foot” at our May Day celebration and the Mamas cried because they did not think Mzungos (white people) had handicapped children. They also saw that ‘white Mamas’ had to work hard just like themselves as they saw Brenda Fricker do in the film. It was an eye-opener for them.

At the end of our celebration Fr Reginald Kimathi sac, our parish priest, spoke with them and told them that every child is a blessing and to have courage and accept life as it is. He blessed them all and said to always remember that God loves each and every one of us just as we are. We have many Muslims who attend Faraja and it is wonderful to see them coming to the clinic and sharing their stories with us.

May the Holy Spirit of God fill our hearts with His love so that like the early christians we may bear witness to that love in our fractured and broken world. On behalf of the children and adults and their families who attend Faraja Pallotti we say “Asanteni Sana” for your generous support, and please keep us in your prayers.

Clare Edwards – Esso – TANZANIA   03.12 15                                                                                                 athsolas@gmail.com

The death has occurred of Sr. Regina (Gertie) KING
Madonna House, Ferrybank, Waterford / Tipperary / Dublin

King, Sr. Regina (Gertie) R.S.H.M. Late of Huntstown, Dublin, Madonna House, Ferrybank and formerly of Drumquin, Silversprings, Co Tipperary November 21st (Peacefully) Predeceased by family who were of many, Sadly missed by her sisters Nora, Alice and Marjorie, brother Harry, sisters-in-law, brother-in-law, nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews, the Religious of the Sacred Heart Of Mary, relatives and friends.

Rest In Peace

Reposing in the Convent Chapel tomorrow, Monday evening, from 2.30pm until 4.30pm. Removal on Tuesday to the Sacred Heart Church, Ferrybank arriving for Requiem Mass at 12 noon followed by burial in the Community Cemetery.

”Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dilis”

+++

In the Year of Consecrated Life – a special celebration of the work of three congregations: The Trinitarians, the Pallotines and the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary – present in the parish for over 30 years in the person of Sr Regina King – was held in Corduff parish.

We welcome today Sr Regina’s community, family members and friends as we publicly acknowledge her contribution to the life of this parish and community… Pope Francis has set aside this year to highlight Consecrated/Religious Life. Of course I will argue that we are ALL consecrated in Baptism but it is also important to recognise the diversity of Religious/Consecrated Life and today especially to publicly thank Regina for her dedication and service to this community, to the parish and to the Church. Pope John Paul 11 in his work on Vita Consecrata stressed the importance of ‘Being’ as opposed to ‘Doing’. Yet if one examines briefly some of the many, many things that Sr Regina has been involved in, and with, during her time here she may be accused of ignoring or disobeying the Pope. Resource Centre, development groups, childcare minding, community development projects, Brownies, the Jesus Hour, Senior Citizens, Art Group, sewing co-op, Rainbows, Anam Charadis, annual retreat to Wales, St Vincent de Paul, Parish Choir, Parish Pastoral Council – it is an exhausting list in itself.

But Sr Regina’s ‘Doing’ is part of who she is – it is part and parcel of her ‘Being’. She ENABLES others, EMPOWERS them. In that way she brings alive her Faith and her Congregation’s Motto: ‘that all may have life’ but Regina completes it with the next phrase ‘and have it to the full’.

We thank you today for your service, for your creativity, for your insightfulness, for your life of prayer. We thank you for what you ‘DO’ and will continue to ‘DO; but most importantly we thank you for ‘WHO YOU ARE’

Fr. Liam McClarey SAC PP, Corduff

Taken from RSHM Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary

Maria Elisabeth Caspar was born on July 7^th 1918 in Berschweiler, diocese of Trier, Germany. She was called Liesel, a short form of her name Elisabeth. Later, in Peru, she was called Isabel – the Spanish form of her name. 

Until 1930 she attended the local Elementary School and then, for four years, the Grammar School in Saarlouis. Liesel grew up in a deeply religious family. Her own sister was also a Pallottine Missionary Sister of the English Province. Her father, an upright and loyal catholic and headmaster of a school, underwent considerable suffering during the Nazi period. 

Liesel felt drawn to missionary life early on. In 1934 she joined the mission school of the Pallottine Sisters in Limburg, and shortly afterwards was sent to the Convent High School, Rochdale, England. She passed her London Matriculation Exam in 1938 and, on October 20^th of the same year began her postulancy in Limburg, Germany. On August 16^th 1939 she became a novice. She took her first vows on August 17^th 1941 and her final ones on August 15^th 1947. 

Like so many young professed Sisters at the time, she had to help nurse the sick in the hospital that had been established in the mission house of the Pallottines in Limburg. Here she obtained her Nursing Certificate in 1945. After its closure in 1947 Sr Liesel helped in the office of the Sisters’ motherhouse Marienborn, until she joined the staff of their children’s home in Facit, England. When in 1952 staff and children moved to Pallotti Hall, she was transferred there. 

In 1956 Sr Liesel returned to Limburg, Germany and soon afterwards was sent to the mission in British Honduras, now Belize. At the time her health deteriorated and in 1963 she had to return to Limburg. A few years later she returned to England. 

During her time in England Sr Liesel was able and willing to turn her hand to various ministries. The Pallottines remember her with fondness, for she helped in their college in Thurles, Ireland, and in the Provincial House in Golders Green, London. She was also one of the pioneers who helped get the Westminster Pastoral Centre at London Colney into some form of habitable state. 

One of her happiest periods was the time spent in the mission field of Peru. In 1977 she willingly agreed to help a missionary team from the Diocese of Leeds. One of the Sisters of Mercy who worked there fell ill and Sr Liesel “temporarily” took her place. On 23^rd of December she arrived in Huambo in the Diocese of Chachapoyas in the Amazonas region. 

At first Sr Liesel worked in this isolated and poor area in the Andes. She writes of the village: “It could be a replica of Nazareth or Bethlehem with its living quarters and children, donkeys and horses, with its rough streets and insanitary conditions.” Of her first Christmas in Peru she says: “Christmas is everywhere, also in Huambo. Tonight I shall experience it quite differently. He became poor for the poor, and lived with the poor. It makes me very happy to share some of that poverty with Him in order to help these people find happiness in Him. They are all Catholics of a sort, but full of ignorance and superstitions, helpless and hopeless, because they can’t believe that they can improve things with God’s help and their own efforts. Yet they are friendly, open and affectionate and welcomed me like a miracle. May I not disappoint them.” 

She worked very hard in Huambo. Often they had to ride out on donkeys or horses to reach isolated areas where the sick and lonely were waiting for Holy Communion, where children had to be baptised and where the poor waited for comfort. From the beginning she was much involved with catechesis and the formation of catechists. After some years she moved to the episcopal town of Chachapoyas. 

When the team dispersed in 1987, Sr Liesel and Fr Gerry Hanlon, a priest of this missionary team of the Diocese of Leeds, moved into the Cathedral Town of the Apostolic Vicariate of Iquitos. Here Sr Liesel took care of passing missionaries, continued catechesis and preparation of liturgies, was spiritual director of the Legion of Mary, and above all became absorbed with work for street children and drug addicts. Just before her death she had begun begging for money to foster a fishing project, which would enable a number of fathers to make a living for their families. God alone knows the many efforts she made for the poor of the town. 

In November 1996, Sr Liesel suffered from a severe pulmonary illness aggravated by embolism. She rallied but still needed medical supervision. In January 1998 she wrote: “I feel well and strong. I take my weekly day off to go into the country and I take it easy.” In the same letter she wrote: “The next big event will be the General Chapter starting in March.” She followed closely the events of her Province and of the Congregation. 

Unexpected by the Sisters of her Congregation, she died on 14^th April 1998 in Iquitos, where she was buried.

Christine Bohr sac – London – ENGLAND

05.10.15

borh@talktalk.net 

Fr Gerry Hanlon, on whose invitation Sr Liesel had gone to Peru and with whom she worked most of her time there, remembers her nearly seventeen years later: 

Sr Liesel arrived in Huambo, our extremely remote village, on the top of an open truck on Christmas eve 1977. 

When I was appointed to Chachapoyas she followed me there and became diocesan bursar, making sure the priests and sisters who came in from their remote parishes, got enough money to live on.

Then, when I moved to Iquitos in the jungle area, she followed me there. We lived in a mission house and said morning prayer together before having her special breakfast. I was involved in education, and she attended Legion of Mary meetings, and monitored all the Masses at the Cathedral. She also bought food and took it out into to the country every Saturday to a drug addiction rehabilitation house.  

Needless to say I greatly enjoyed her company and she was extremely kind to me. 

Thousands turned out for her funeral, and it was most moving to see ex drug addicts carry her coffin. Their comment was “She was a mother to us all”. 

This comment courtesy Sr Adelheid Scheloske sac, archivist for the Pallottine Missionary Sisters, Germany

To be part of a first Christian church.

The members of the delegature of the Irish Province in the Argentine gathered in the retreat centre of Villa del Huerto, Cortinez, in the Province of Buenos Aires on Monday October 12^th. The Sisters of the Congregation Nuestra Senora del Huerto (Sisters of Our Lady of the Garden of Gethsemani) welcome the community here most years for the annual retreat and we all feel very much at home in this house. It is a simple house, on nicely kept grounds, but now what was once a secluded spot is just next to a national motorway and the noise of the traffic provides an undernote of movement twenty-four hours a day. It is remarkable that it does not impinge on us after a while and seems to be just a noise in the background.

This year the retreat was animated by Fr. Jorge Oesterheld, of the Diocese of Moron, parish priest of a busy city parish. He focused on what is central to our lives as Christians, the presence and activity of God in our midst and through his presentations led us to reflection. He is a practical man and has ‘the gift of the gab’ but also a very sure turn of phrase and the ability to relate the theme he is speaking on to the concrete realities of life as a priest. An example of his use of the concrete: he invited us today to imagine that we are going to make a journey, to climb a mountain, and we can carry what we need for the journey in a back-pack; on the journey, in climbing the mountain, even an extra toothbrush in the back-pack will take its toll on us. Hence the need to choose carefully what to take for the journey, to focus on what is essential and what will sustain one on the journey of living as a disciple of Jesus Christ and then leave the rest aside and continue the journey.

One of the concepts that he developed struck me and has guided my thinking and praying in these days. In speaking of the early Christian churches he made the point that they were made up of persons who had known Jesus and who had been transformed by that encounter. The next generation was one of persons who encountered persons who had been transformed through their encounter with Jesus and were in turn ‘infected with’ their experience of Jesus. Throughout my life I have often wondered what it would have been like to be part of such a Christian community and have felt that what we are living now is a very watered-down version of what they were. However, Fr Jorge stressed that we, the Christians of today, are part of the first Christian Church because every community, every church is in a true sense a new church, a first Christian church. New and original in that Jesus is present, just as present as he was in the communities in the first, second and third centuries; Jesus related to Peter, to the other apostles, to Mary Magdalene, to Paul, and he continues to relate to you and to me in the same manner today. Therefore we can believe that we, you and I, are part of a first community. Each of us came to know Jesus through the lives of others who had themselves known him through encounter with him; we in turn will pass on our enthusiasm and conviction to others who will seek Jesus.

The same characteristics that identified, formed and sustained the first Christian churches are those that identify, form and sustain us today, the living presence of Jesus, the action of the Holy Spirit, the fact that we gather together with Mary to pray, the trust we have that the Holy Spirit will continue to act in our hearts. And, the means that sustained the first communities are part and parcel of our community today: the gift of faith, a living and breathing faith, the Holy Spirit, enthusiasm for the message of Jesus, being transformed by the experience of Jesus, the presence of the community, the enthusiasm generated by a common experience and conviction, and the celebration of the Eucharist. As members of a Christian community, as disciples, we bring the Gospel to the situations we encounter today in our day-to-day experience. Pope Francis is urging us by word and example to bring the Gospel of Jesus to bear on the experiences and situations of daily life and living; our community will be a ‘First Christian Community’, to the extent that Jesus’s presence and activity is acknowledged accepted and transmitted to others.

If, and it is a big IF, I can realize that I am part of a first Christian community, then I know that the future is uncertain, I cannot predict it nor imagine it, I do not know even if there will be a future or much of a future, but I can trust that the living presence of Jesus continues to give life and meaning and direction to the Community-Church that has lived and grown over two thousand years. I want to be part of that church community.

Derry Murphy, SAC, October 2015.

My nephew is a very good body builder and he invited me to the Mr. Ireland show that he was competing in last Sunday. I’m not all that keen on big muscles, though maybe I’m envious, but I went anyway because I love him. And there I found myself in a big long queue outside the Olympia, easily the oldest and smallest man around.

About an hour into the show my nephew’s group arrived on stage – 23 of them all tanned and oiled in speedos. They did their 35-second routine as a group and out of this group six were chosen to contest the final. When they called my nephew’s name as one of the six I let out an uncharacteristic roar of delight. I was hooked! As he came on to do his solo routine my heart pounded and I trembled for him. And then something happened to me, to my vision, my way of seeing – I no longer saw the muscles, I was no longer observing on the edge. I saw my fine handsome nephew, a young man who has a hard time of it in life, and I was proud of him, rooting for him with my whole being.

And his late mother, my sister, was in the air between us. The audience didn’t know it but I knew that he was doing this for her and I was filled with tears, the stronges of emotions. Love and loss!

I understood that it was no longer me looking at him with my limited vision but it was Love that looked at him, it was God Himself seeing my nephew through me and I was seeing with the eyes of God. There’s an ordinary way of looking at people and life. And there’s a godly way of looking.

This is what Jesus is doing with the young man in today’s gospel. He looks steadily at him and his gaze is filled with love and truth and it is under this beautiful gaze that the man is offered an opportunity to grow and to advance further on the road of Life – the freedom of the children of God. But, sadly, the man did not accept the opportunity offered because it demanded too much of him.

The journey into the fullness of life is very demanding, in the way that an athlete prepares for competition. My nephew gave 16 weeks of rigorous training for last Sunday and I found myself saying that if I put as much effort in building up my soul, then I’d be in great shape altogether. The condition of the soul is infinitely more important than that of the body but we don’t give it the kind of attention necessary for eternal life.

Our question to Jesus is, “what must I do to build up my soul so that I am fit for Life eternal?” and Jesus gives two answers – one is keep the commandments and the second is that you need to do something more than the commandments ask. He looks at you now with love, sees you with loving eyes and says “you need to do one thing more”.

Ask yourself, what is the one thing, what is the one thing that is blocking your way to fullness of Life, what’s stopping you living the kind of life that Jesus calls you to live?

When confronted by the horrific tragedy of the families in Carrickmines today, we need a Godly way of seeing such tragedies. When a pregnancy doesn’t work out we need a Godly way of seeing, when a loved one is trapped in addiction we need a Godly way of seeing. When faced with a person that I do not like, someone I find difficult to get on with, I pray to see that person as God sees him or her.

In all our struggles we need to learn to see as God sees, to understand as He understands, to Love as He loves and in this to discover hope for our own personal journey and that of other people.

Sunday 28, Mark 10:17-30