Redemptorist News
Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities: 3rd Sunday of Easter, April 14,2013
SOUL FOOD FOR HUNGRY ADULT COMMUNITIES:
(‘communities’ of 2, 12, or any amount!)
Third Sunday after Easter, April 14, 2013: Gospel: St. John, Chapter 21, verses 1 and following.
Jesus Christ doesn’t do Small! He didn’t do Small at Cana, when his first ‘sign’ produced 120-150 gallons of the best wine,- between 600 and 900 bottles!
Nor did he do Small when he fed the crowd in the desert,- 5000, and that was just counting the men!
Today, he doesn’t do Small either,- the net that caught nothing for so long suddenly
A modern fisherman on the lake of Galilee.
caught one hundred and fifty three Big fish, all at once. And the net didn’t burst, though it took all their might to haul it behind the boat to the shore. 153 big fish! What any fisherman or woman would give to catch so many.
And then, what happened? The fisherman, Simon Peter, left them all behind him, to follow the Master, the one they called ‘The Lord’. ‘It is the Lord’, John cried, and Simon Peter went overboard for Jesus when he heard it and saw the Master on the shore. The fisherman, on the very day he got his greatest catch ever as a professional fisherman, realized it wasn’t his work at all that had done it, but the Lord’s. And Simon then took up a new job from that day onwards,- ‘Feed my lambs! Feed my sheep!’ The professional fisherman became a Shepherd.
Pope John 23rd wrote to the bishops of the world before they came to Rome for the Council. In his letter, he exhorted them to be good Shepherds,- but reminded them that their people were not sheep!
And now, we have Francis, Bishop of Rome, Shepherd of the flock of Christ’s people,- 
‘Feed my lambs! Feed my sheep!’,- and we’re not sheep, we are people. But Christ is the true Shepherd of us all.
And we remind ourselves today, Jesus Christ doesn’t do Small! And he tells us all, as Church, to ‘throw the net to the other side’,- in other words, to have ears for him and how to do things his way. And he won’t do Small, for his people, his flock, this hungry community, his gathered church in our generation. There are net-fulls and jar-fulls and basket-fulls of blessings from Christ Jesus, at all times and in all places.
I’m off! I’m going fishing!
Mosaic: Pope Paul VI kissing the ground at the place by the Lake of Galilee where Simon Peter swam ashore and met the Lord.
Seamus Devitt, C.Ss.R. seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com
P.S. If you want the story from the net’s point of view, ‘A NET, BURSTING‘, click here or go to Home Page.
Soul Food for Young Adult Communities, 2nd Sunday of Easter, April 7 2013
Soul Food for Young Adult Communities, 2nd Sunday of Easter, April 7, 2013.
‘Community’ may be two or 12 or…. and Sinead, Mark and Friends are young adults!
Dear Sinead, Mark, and Friends,
Today is Doubting Thomas’ day, and may people are very glad about the same ‘Thomas,
the Twin’ as he was called. Thomas appears a number of times in the Gospels, but today’s story, in John 20, is the best known. He refused to believe!
Doubt is part of our human condition, and rightly so. We need to check things out, are people trust-worthy? Is this possible? Does it make sense? and so on. Thomas was in that situation,- he wasn’t in the Upper Room (where the doors were LOCKED, for fear of being attacked, arrested and maybe crucified also, like the Master!), -he wasn’t in the room on Easter Sunday when Jesus came and stood in the midst of them all, and said ‘Peace be with you!’ (- welcome words, considering they had almost all run away from the Garden of Gethsemane and left Jesus alone.) When the others told Thomas about seeing Jesus, risen, he refused point blank to believe them. ‘No way, Jose!’ So, a week later, again they were gathered and Thomas was there. Jesus came and stood among them. He turned to his friend Thomas and held out his hands,- with the holes from the nails- and invited Thomas to put his finger in the wounds, and even to put his hand into the wound in the side of Jesus. Thomas was dumbfounded. He was truly in the presence of the Master. And, in response, he said those wonderful words, beloved of Christ’s followers ever since, ‘MY LORD AND MY GOD!’ This was his act of faith. He saw, and he believed. We don’t see, but we believe the people who were there and who told us about that moment.
About 60 years later, John, the Beloved Disciple to whom this Gospel is attributed, finishes this story with these words of conclusion (the original first conclusion of St. John’s Gospel): ‘There were many other signs that Jesus worked in the sight of the disciples, but they are not recorded in this book. These are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing this, you may have life through his name. (John 20:30-31)
So, Sinead, Mark, and friends, honour your own questions, your own doubt, your own faith-journey. Check things out. Is this believable? Is Jesus believable? Maybe, be like Doubting Thomas, until you meet the Lord in your own time. Want to meet him, and wait to meet him. He will surprise you when he shows himself to you, maybe in the guise of some person or persons in your life.
‘Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen!’ AMEN!
Fr. Seamus
Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities: 2nd Sunday of Easter, April 7, 2013.
Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities: 2nd Sunday of Easter, April 7, 2013.
'Doubting Thomas' by Caravaggio.
‘Doubting Thomas’ is the person put before us, in the Gospel for this Second Sunday of Easter. It’s from Chapter 20 of St. John,- the first account of the Resurrection, in John.
‘Change the name and the story is about yourself’,- a famous phrase of Cicero, about any story. Let us be Thomas, as we read it again (John 20:verses 19-31).
I am Thomas. I will not believe all this stuff that the others are going on about,- the women telling us about the empty tomb, the others of the twelve (well, eleven if you count Judas out, as he has died),- they all going on about seeing the Master alive, about his ‘appearing’ to them, in the upper room, in the garden near the tomb, and so on. Two others say they met him on the road out of Jerusalem. I’m not going to swallow all that stuff. I need to see for myself, to actually put my fingers into the wounds in his hands from the nails, and my hand into his side where the soldier pierced him after he died. Only then might I begin to believe.
A week later, I’m still unbelieving. I just don’t get it. Here I am in the same Upper Room, where we had had our last supper with him before he was taken and put to death. We hide here, and we keep the doors locked, because we are afraid that at any moment the authorities might come and take us away also, and condemn us and kill us on crosses too.
And then, the Master is here! He’s looking at me. He’s calling me over,- ‘Thomas’ he says, calling my name. He holds out his hands to me, and I see the wounds, and hesitantly reach out and place one finger in a wound. He then shows his side to me, he pulls back his cloak, and there I can see the wound clearly visible,- the place where they pierced him.
I don’t need to put my hand into that wound. I know it is the Master. It is Jesus, alright, and he’s looking at me still, with gentleness, with understanding of my difficulties. He just takes my two hands, and I burst out to him ‘My Lord, and my God!’ I couldn’t keep it in. It was truly the Master, alive, and with us, and speaking to us.
The others ribbed me about it, later, but I don’t mind. I did what I had to do. I asked hard questions, and I searched for the truth. And I found Him!
Call me ‘Doubting Thomas’ all you like- I don’t mind one bit. I’m proud of the title, now.
And maybe, if you can bring yourself to take my word for what happened on that day, you too might believe in the Master, you too might, in your own time, look at him and say with all your heart ‘My Lord! and My God!’ For he is both.
Be gentle with yourself, and with anyone who has doubts and questions. We all journey at different paces. The Master is patient, and is waiting for you.
God bless you, on your journey! Continue to have a truly happy Easter time. Christ is Risen! he is truly Risen! My Lord, and my God.
Fr. Seamus
Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities: Easter Sunday 2013
Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities, Easter Sunday 2013.
‘Christ is Risen!’ ‘He is truly Risen!‘- a greeting that is used among people, in many middle European countries on Easter Sunday morning. He is truly risen!
‘I am with you all days, even to the end of time!’ I AM.
‘When two or more of you are gathered in my name, there I am in the middle of you!’ I AM.
He is with us, in ourselves, in our communities, in our homes. He is with us gathered at Eucharist. He is with us on the streets and in the alley-ways. He is with us in each other, and in all the poor. And when the poor look to us,- those who are needy, struggling, burdened- Jesus is looking at us. He is Risen! He is truly Risen! He is alive, among us, in us, with us, all days, and everywhere.
‘The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord!’ (John 20:20 – TwentyTwenty Vision!
Have a Christ-filled Easter; may Jesus be ‘bursting out’ all over the place, – like a chicken breaking out of its egg-shell. That’s where our Easter Eggs come from,- that image of Christ breaking out of the tomb, and a new life beginning for us all. Enjoy your egg,- and let Christ break out in your life.
Pope Francis spoke to his priests on Holy Thursday morning, about the call of a priest today, in today’s world. It’s an inspiration for us all, priests and lay-faithful, and a wonderful vision of service that could capture many a young person’s heart. See it in Soul Food for today, or click here
Soul Food for Young Adult Communities: Easter Sunday March 31, 2013
Soul Food for Young Adult Communities: Easter Sunday March 31, 2013.
Sinead, Mark and Friends are young adults.
Dear Sinead, Mark, and Friends,
20-20 Vision! Wouldn’t you love to have it? ‘The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord!‘ (taken from St. John’s Gospel, Chapter 20: verse 20).
And when you want to see the Lord, and you ask to see the Lord, and you wait to see the
Lord,- then you will (in Jesus’ own time and moment) see the Lord! He will show his face
'Christ at the Heart's Door'- Warner Sallman
to you. He is knocking at the door, he is waiting to be invited into our lives and homes and communities, and when we open the door, and invite him in, he will come in and sit down at table with us,- the beginning of a beautiful relationship for life. (See Revelations 3:20 – ‘See, I am standing at the door, knocking. If one of you hears me calling and opens the door, I will come in to share a meal at that persons’ side.‘)
Jesus is also knocking at the door of each one of us, of each of our communities, in the guise of the poor, of people in need, who are struggling, feeling down, finding it hard to make ends meet, finding it hard to find friendship and human support, or meaning in life. Pope Francis spoke beautifully on Holy Thursday to priests, at the special Holy Thursday Mass of Chrism (where the Holy Oils are blessed for the year ahead), where priests recall the day of their own ordination to serve God’s people in Christ’s name. Find it with Soul Food on this Easter Sunday. or click here.
Have a wonderful Easter! The Lord is risen! He is truly risen! And he’s looking for you!
Fr. Seamus.
Comments or Feedback to seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com
Death of Fr. Paddy Breen, C.Ss.R.
Death of Fr. Paddy Breen, C.Ss.R.
The death has occurred on Wednesday March 27th of Fr. Paddy Breen, a Redemptorist much loved among his confreres and by so many among whom and to whom he ministered over his long life. May he rest in peace. The following is the text of an announcement by his community in Limerick.
The Redemptorist Community at Mount St. Alphonsus, South Circular Road, Limerick regret to announce the death of their confrere, Fr. Patrick Breen, C.Ss.R.
Fr. Paddy died on Wednesday, 27th March in the loving care of the Sisters and staff at Carrigoran House, Co. Clare.
Fr. Paddy’s remains will lie in repose in the parlour in Mount St. Alphonsus
Monastery from 3.00pm, Saturday afternoon, March 30th.
The removal to Mount St. Alphonsus Church will be on Easter Sunday Evening at
6.30pm, followed by 7.15pm Mass.
Requiem Mass will be celebrated at 11.30am on Monday, April 1st, followed by
burial in the new Redemptorist burial plot at Castlemungret Cemetery.
A native of Athlacca, Co. Limerick, and one of eleven children, Fr. Paddy was born on June 29th, 1925 and ordained a Redemptorist priest in August, 1950. His older brother, Joseph, was already a Redemptorist priest, and six of his sisters also entered religious life.
After 16 years ministering in the Philippine Islands, Fr. Paddy returned to Ireland in 1969 and was appointed Superior of the Redemptorist Student House, Cluain Mhuire, Galway; in Galway he was also Director of Students.
Having also worked as a parish missioner Fr. Paddy was elected Consultor Vicar of the Irish Redemptorists in 1978-1982 and then as Provincial Consultor 1982-1985. He later spent four years working in the Redemptorist Retreat House in Limerick until its closure in 1989.
After this he trained as a Hospital Chaplain and was for a number of years Chaplain in Mount Carmel Hospital, Dublin. During this time he also engaged in mission preaching. He retired to Mount St. Alphonsus, Limerick in 2002 where he has lived ever since and was engaged in the church apostolate until ill health intervened.
A gentle, humorous, kind and ever-affirming member of the community, Fr. Paddy will be greatly missed by his Redemptorist confreres in Limerick and throughout the wider Irish province, also by his sister, Sr. Una in Birmingham, and by his many nephews, nieces, grand-nephews, grand-nieces, and extended family, most of whom still live in Athlacca, Co. Limerick.
Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities: Palm Sunday, March 24th 2013
Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities: Palm Sunday, March 24th 2013. You are invited to go to HomePage for this Holy Week, to Reflections for Holy Week 2013,- with a reflection each day from Palm Sunday to Easter, and on the First Sunday after Easter. Click here: Reflections for Holy Week 2013.
Soul Food for Young Adult Communities: Palm Sunday March 24, 2013:
Soul Food for Young Adult Communities: (‘where two or more of you gather together in my name…‘).
Sinead and Mark are two young adults.
Dear Sinead, Mark and Friends,
During the coming week, there will be a Reflection each day of Holy Week, until Easter Sunday, on our Home Page (click on same). You might like your friends to know about them, and share them.
Greetings to the TY girls from St. Michael’s, Claremorris in County Mayo, who were with us in Esker for two days. Girl, as they say in parts of Galway, ‘you were mighty!’ A delight to be with. Thanks a mill!
This Sunday is Palm Sunday,- the beginning of this most holy week, for the followers of the Risen Crucified Jesus. Each day, this week, there will be a brief poem/reflection. I hope it helps. Here’s today’s – The Story is…of Love! For you all.
THE STORY IS
OF LOVE.
The pathway up the hill
is love.
The crying out to heaven
is love.
The forgiving of us all
‘who know not what we do’
is love.
Becoming Sin with/in us
is love
that we might then be
free,-
to sing, to soar,
to live again-
is love.
All He has done for us, become for us
is love-
that we might come back home again
with him into His Father’s/Love’s
own house where love began, begat
and ever lights the hearts
of all who enter in,
again.
Seamus Devitt, C.Ss.R., – from www.emptifulvessels.com
Happy St. Patrick’s Day from St. Patrick’s, Esker, Athenry!
We wish you a truly blessed and happy celebration of the feast of St Patrick, on this Sunday March 17th, 2013. God bless you all!
We all rejoice in the election of our new Pope, Pope Francis. God bless him mightily in his ministry for God’s people today!
Click here for news about his impromptu appearance, earlier this Sunday morning, at traffic lights near the tiny parish church of the Vatican. http://www.newstimes.com/news/world/article/Pope-makes-impromptu-appearance-near-Vatican-4361074.php
For reflections on St. Patrick on this feast day, See Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities, and Soul Food for Young Adult Communities, on this site. Go to Soul Food on Carousel.
The Esker Redemptorist Community.
‘I ARISE TODAY’- the Breastplate of St. Patrick, or The Deer’s Cry:
I arise today, through the strength of heaven;
light of sun, radiance of moon,
splendor of fire, speed of lightning,
swiftness of the wind, depth of the sea,
stability of earth, firmness of rock.
I arise today, through God’s strength to pilot me;
God’s eye to look before me, God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me,
from all who shall wish me ill, afar and a-near
alone and in a multitude.
Against every cruel merciless power
that may oppose my body and soul,
Christ with me, Christ before me,
Shrine of St. Patrick's Bell, in National Museum of Ireland.
Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise, Christ to shield me.
Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me,
I arise today…….
Hear it beautifully sung on You Tube www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGHWiAGpIP0
P.S. And on this day, we remember two Irish Redemptorists who set out in 2010 to begin a new Mission in Northern Mozambique and soon into Malawi. Their names,- Fr. Brian Holmes (in his 60′s), John Bermingham (in his late 30′s). They are learning Chichewa, a local language spoken by 15 million people! They are two among so many! God bless them, in this new venture of the Irish Redemptorists.
Anyone for Chichewa???? Contact us! We can give you a continent to work in.
‘Every new generation is a new continent to be won for Christ.‘ (Pope John Paul 2)
Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities, St. Patrick’s Day 2013
Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities, St. Patrick’s Day 2013
Pope Francis
On this our St. Patrick’s Day, 2013, we pray very especially for our new Holy Father, Pope Francis. May the Lord bless him mightily, and give him strength and comfort as he undertakes this calling to serve the people of God as Successor of St. Peter.
in the footsteps of Christ
And today, we celebrate another person, totally dedicated to following in the steps of the Master, and to bring the Gospel ‘to the farthest ends of the earth, beyond which nobody lives’. Our own Patrick, the one most responsible for bringing the Good News of Christ to this island. Later generations themselves undertook to bring that same Good News to other lands. ‘Every generation is a new continent to be won for Christ’, said Pope John Paul 11.
Rather than talk about the man, Patrick, let us hear him in his won words, from his ‘Confession’, a song of praise and thanks to God for what the Lord had done in him and through him.
‘I am Patrick a sinner, the most rustic and least of all the faithful’ is how he begins. Then about his being taken captive:
‘I was almost sixteen at the time and I did not know the true God…I was taken captive as an adolescent, almost a speechless boy, before I new what to see and what to avoid.’ Later he writes about his time in captivity, very probably at the foot of Slemish Mountain
Slemish Mountain, Co. Antrim, where the teenager Patrick tended livestock for six years
in County Antrim:
‘When I had come to Ireland, I was tending herds every day and I used to pray many times during the day. More and more the love of God and reverence for him came to me. My faith increased and the spirit was stirred up so that in the course of a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and almost as many in the night. This I did even when I was staying in the woods and on the mountain. Before dawn I used to roused up to pray in snow or frost or rain. I never felt worse for it, nor was I in any way lazy because, as I know realise the Spirit was burning within me.’
At the age of 21 or 22, he escaped, probably to France. Some years later, he had a dream: ‘one night I saw a vision of a man called Victoricus, who appeared to have come from Ireland with an unlimited number of letters. He gave me one of them, and I read the opening words which were ‘The voice of the Irish’. As I read the beginning of the letter I seemed at the same moment to hear the voice of those who were by the wood …near the Western Sea. They shouted with one voice: ‘We ask you, holy boy, come and walk once more among us.’ I was cut to the heart and could read no more’.
Another night he had a dream and the only bit he could make out of it was this statement at the end: ‘He who gave his life for you, he it is who is speaking in you’ And he adds ‘At that I awoke with joy.’
That was the call that Patrick heard, to come back to Ireland with the Gospel of Christ, with the love of Christ for this people. That was the call that Patrick answered, probably now in his thirties.
Later in the letter he writes, about his teenage years spent in Ireland as a slave: ‘But I cannot hide the gift of God which he gave me in the land of my captivity. I sought him vigorously then, and there I found him.’
‘I came to the Irish heathens to preach the Good News, and to put up with insults from unbelievers…It is there that I wish to spend (my life) until I die….All this was for a people newly come to belief whom the lord took from the very ends of the earth’. And, in another place: ‘We are indeed witnesses that the Good News has been preached in distant parts, in places beyond which nobody lives.’
Redemptorist Youth Congress pilgrims following Patrick's footsteps, Croagh Patrick August 13, 2012
‘From the time in my early manhood when I came to know him, the love of God and reverence for him have grown in me… Although he chose me to be his helper I was slow to accept the prompting of the Spirit.
‘I was like a stone lying in the deep mud. Then he who is mighty came and in his mercy he not only pulled me out but lifted me up and placed me at the very top of the wall.’
Patrick concludes his Confession: ‘Let your conclusion and the general opinion be the real truth, that my success was the gift of God.’
‘Every generation is a new continent to be won for Christ!‘ Can we hear voice of the Risen Christ among us, today? Can we meet Christ Jesus in our lives and prayer, and be gradually and then totally ‘captivated’ by his love,- for us and for every person on our planet? Are we willing to have the Holy Spirit burning in our hearts, in our communities? Can we see our heavenly Father all around us and within us, the Creator of everything that so marvelously is? Can I radiate Christ in my community, and with others be drawn to him by his magnetism and attractiveness? That’s how to really celebrate our saint’s day,- to have again the heart of Christ in us for the world and for ourselves.
Patrick, pray for us to the Lord our God. And pray for Pope Francis that he will lead us all to the Master, in our generation.
Have a great St. Patrick’s Day. God bless.
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
Feedback/ Comments to seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie
Visit YOUTUBE for ‘I ARISE TODAY‘, the Breastplate of St. Patrick, sung by Rita Connolly. click here www.youtube.com/watch?v=miIECtoNQ4M
P.S. And on this day,, we remember two Irish Redemptorists who set out in 2010 to begin a new Mission in Northern Mozambique and soon into Malawi. Their names,- Fr. Brian Holmes (in his 60′s), John Bermingham (in his late 30′s). They are learning Chichewa, a local language spoken by 15 million people! They are two among so many! God bless them, in this new venture of the Irish Redemptorists.
Anyone for Chichewa???? Contact us! We can give you a continent to work in.
‘Every new generation is a new continent to be won for Christ.‘ (Pope John Paul 2)
A Redemptorist Ireland Website