Redemptorist News
Letter to Sinead and Mark, Sunday Oct.14th, 2012: 28th Sunday.
Click on Home Page, and Mass Readings for this Sunday’s Gospel, Mark 10, verses 17-30. The Rich Young Man, -(or find it in your own Gospel of St. Mark).
Sinead and Mark are two young adults.
Dear Sinead and Mark,
Hope you both had a great week! Met a young man today, just about your own age too, and he was very distressed. He was a bit of a show-off, I’m afraid, with his Doc Martins and fancy shirts and cuff-links, the lot. But for all that, there was a sadness on his face,- even a confusion. Something didn’t fit, for him. Money wasn’t a problem, I could see,- or maybe Money was the problem? He had lots of it, but he had that look of emptiness and weariness with life. Money wasn’t doing the trick, obviously. Most people know that, I suppose, but for my new friend, you could say (excuse the pun) ‘the penny hadn’t dropped’.
He had introduced himself as Aaron,- a good Jew, he said. Kept all the rules, knew all the 635 laws by heart from his childhood, and was a faithful observer of the Holy Sabbath. That’s what was killing him, he told me,- he did all of that, but still wasn’t happy inside. He had inherited lots of dough from the GrandDad and he loved the high life, – but still, he was searching for more. He figured if he could only DO something big, some great Deed, that then he would get the Great Reward,- he would have WON eternal life by his own sweat and blood and labour. Or if he could only BUY his way, he would spend lots of his cash,- not all of it, but lots of it-, and then would have It,- like he could buy a new this or that or th’other.
Aaron told me that earlier in the day, he had spotted the great Rabbi that everyone was talking about, that ‘Good Teacher’ as so many called him,- the Rabbi Jeshua from Nazareth. And when he saw the Rabbi, he went straight up to him and put his great struggle to him, -‘What must I DO?’, ‘What mighty deeds or actions must I accomplish, so that I would win this ‘eternal life’, this real life that would last all life long?’ He told the Rabbi that indeed he knew all the 365 laws, and kept all the commandments of the Torah or Jewish Law, but still wasn’t happy.
He told me that, even as he talked, he noticed the Rabbi looking straight at him, almost through him, and that the man’s eyes were filled with real love for him and for his good. But then, what came next smashed it all: the Master or Rabbi said ‘Go and sell all that you have, give it away to the poor, and then come, follow me!’ Sell what I have? Give my cash and savings away? Let go of all the stuff my heart clings to like a drowning man? He wants me to FOLLOW HIM! But he’s the poorest of the poor, and often has no place to lay himself down at night! I couldn’t follow someone like that, for all that he seems to be happy out, in himself. FOLLOW HIM? Let go all my belongings? They don’t make me happy for sure, but I won’t let go of them. I cling to money and things, like a barnacle does to a rock. I can’t budge! Or more honestly, I won’t budge. 
Who and what will I cling to? I’ll cling to my SELF! I’ll cling to my possessions. I know he wants me to follow him, but all that letting go of stuff and things and the power of my money-? No way. It’s beyond me. It would take a higher power than I have, to move me, to help me to let go. I’m stuck, he said.
When Aaron was finished pouring all this out on me,- and me nearly a stranger to him,- I looked at him too, and my heart went out to him. He was in a bind,- literally, he was ‘bound’ hand and heart by the Things of life. I was reminded, as I looked at him, of another young man in his twenties who went through all of the same struggle,- his name was Augustine, and he wrote about it later is his famous song of praise, The Confessions of Augustine,- a confession of thanks and praise to God who had indeed delivered him from all the things that ‘bound’ him, and eventually young Gus was able, by that Higher Power, to let go of Things, and cling to the Master, Jesus (that the same Jeshua that Aaron had met earlier today)- and Gus found everything he was really looking for,- he found Joy at last.
So, Sinead, Mark, the struggle of Aaron and of Augustine is the struggle of any one of us,- what do we cling to for Life? And the invitation of the Master goes out to us too as He looks at us with love,- ‘If you’re looking for Life, Let go… and then, Come, follow me! Why? Because I am the Life!’
I’m off to spend a while wondering What am I clinging to, or maybe Who do I want to cling to? Where will I find the pure Gift that is real Life,- and not keep asking ‘What must I DO?’ The question is not answered by any Doing, or Buying,- but by Letting Go, and
then Receiving the pure Gift like a child does on Christmas morning,- with joy and dancing feet. ‘Let go, and let God!’ is a hard saying, but it’s worth the joy.
Enjoy your week, Mark, and you too, Sinead. Hope you will find your own answers to these words of the Master when you find him looking at you with love.
Keep a special intention in your prayers for me this coming days, please.
God bliss you and bless you both!
Seamus.
(My email is seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie. )
P.S. Click on Homepage on www.redemptoristsesker.ie/homepage to see info about a Weekend with the Redemptorists, this coming weekend of Oct.19-21st, in Marianella, Dublin. You’re welcome to just come along, spend time with us, chill out, ask questions, the lot. It’s a ‘Come and See’ weekend. Ta. Seamus
Weekly Letter to Sinead and Mark, for 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Oct.6th, 2012
27th Sunday, October 7th, 2012.
(Sinead and Mark are two Young Adults).
Dear Sinead and Mark,
Did you ever hear anyone asking ‘How’s it going, oul’ stock?’ It’s a term of affection, and this is what my Googling of it told me: ‘Oul Stock’ - Good friend. Generally used by the less than sober to assure the party being addressed that they are held in high regard and counted on as a close friend by the speaker. As in: ‘How’s it going, oul’ stock?”-
Well, I was reading one of the readings given to us for this 27th Sunday,- the reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (or Jewish followers of Jesus) Chapter 2, verses 9-11: ‘the one who makes us holy (that’s Jesus!), and the ones who are made holy (that’s us!) , are of the same stock; that is why he openly calls them his sisters and brothers.’ (See Hebrew’s Chapter 2, verse 11). Jesus of Nazareth, who never left that small portion of the Middle East, is the same stock as ourselves: he’s a human being, flesh and blood, knowing pain, temptation, struggle, tiredness, hunger, tears… just as much as we do. And so he could well say to you, Mark or to you, Sinead, or to any of your friends ‘How’s it going, oul stock?’,- ‘How’s it going, friends?’ Or if he lived in Belfast, he might say ‘What ‘bout ye?’
And the Gospel today (Mark 10: vs.2-16) speaks to us of marriage, separation, the beauty of sex, and the extraordinary dignity of every child ! It’s a challenging reading, and I can’t deal with it all, in this letter to you. Let’s cut to the chase, and look at the beauty of our sexuality. Here, Jesus brings his hearers back to something that is a foundation document for Jews, Christian, Muslims,- the very first Book and the very first chapters of the what we call the Book of Genesis (‘Genesis’ means ‘the Beginning’). Genesis teaches us this deep, deep truth,- ‘in His own image God created him, male and female
'Creation of Adam'- Michaelangelo, Sistine Chapel- the spark of the hands about to touch! God's spark is in us, we are each of us, female and male, touched and filled in all our humanness by the divinity of God.
he created them’. Sinead, you are made female in the image of God, and you, Mark are made male in the image of God! (God is Father, Mother, Brother, Sister, Lover to us all!)
And then, in chapter 2, another way of teaching the dignity of each woman, each man; ‘bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh’ is what they were, and are, to each other: and then it adds,- ‘This is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two become one body’. We are female in the image of God, we are male in the image of God, and husband and wife ‘cling to each other’ and the two become one body. And that’s the start of their wonderful journey of discovery of each other as two distinct, unique persons. And I love the way this is expressed in the formula one sometimes hears at weddings,- an older formula that is sometimes sadly neglected- ‘With my body I thee wed!’ . That is why, in the Catholic understanding of a wedding, even when the couple have exchanged their wedding vows in words before the Christian community, their wedding is only completed, their marriage is only ‘consummated’, when the couple have intercourse later. ‘With my body I thee wed!’ The couple exchange their vows AND their bodies,- and in this way ‘the two become one body’. It is they, and not the priest or minister, who give each other the Sacrament of Matrimony. They keep in mind for themselves the first part as well, of that teaching from Genesis,- ‘This is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife…’. Becoming one body with each other before they give themselves totally to one another (as’husband’ and ‘wife’), is missing the point, missing the meaning, of their physical sexual union. (Is it ‘putting the cart before the horse’, as the old saying goes?) Another way of putting this: did you ever ask yourselves why do people not exchange Christmas presents weeks before Christmas, instead of waiting for Christmas Morning? Is there something here about waiting until the time is right and the gift means what it says? Sinead, Mark, this might not be ‘modern’, but maybe there’s deep and ancient wisdom in it. What do you think?
One last thought for you, on this: in Marriage Encounter,- a movement that helps married couples to grow more deeply into their love and union,- there is a phrase,-‘When a husband and wife make love, they should hear God cheering!’ Does that surprise you? The same Creator taught us ‘Increase and multiply!’,- in other words, go and make babies galore! And our Creator is thrilled with delight when we do!
And when a recent Pope, Paul VI (’the Sixth’) taught us: ‘Sexuality is at the heart of being Human’, what a joy it was to hear it. And if it’s at the heart of being human, you can bet it’s at the heart of God,- because God created us in love, from love, and for love. Why? Because God is love! We are created to be Lovers, ‘in the image and likeness of God’. The Trinity, -Father, Son, Holy Spirit-, is one great cauldron of love: it is love.
So, that’s your calling, Sinead, Mark,- to be as genuinely loving as human beings as you can be, – to grow all your life long in the skills of loving, cherishing, touching, reaching out, serving,- in all the many ways and deeds that lie beneath that four-letter word,- L O V E
Finally, if you can, have a look at the last section of today’s Gospel-Mark 10:14-16- about 
Jesus and the little children, and the indignation of Jesus when the disciples tried to keep the children away from a busy Jesus. At end of this piece, Mark tells us, ‘Then he put his arms round them, laid his hands on them and gave them his blessing’. There’s tenderness, respect and real loving.
Have a great week, Mark, Sinead! Will write to you next weekend, again,- please God!
God bliss you and bless you!
Seamus.
(Fr. Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R. – email seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie )
Soul Food for the Hungry Adult: 27th Sunday, Oct.7th, 2012.
FOR HUNGRY ADULTS, SOULFOOD. Oct. 7, 2012.
‘He should have gone to Specsavers!’ That would be true of the (imaginary) reader who was stumbled through a public reading from St. Paul, and came out with ‘Husbands revere your wives…em, em..em.. Wives, reverse your husbands!’
When you cannot assemble that piece of furniture or equipment, and don’t have the foggiest notion how things fit together, there might come the moment when you just sit on the floor, amid all the bits and pieces, and say ‘Gimme the bloomin’ Manual!’,- or words not as mild, even.
Sometimes, in the great complications that are human relationships, when things everywhere seem to have gone astray, and people ‘have lost the plot’, it might be some help for a little while to go back to the ‘Manual’, -what has come to us from the Maker.
It seems that some Pharisees came to Jesus, -like some smart guys trying to catch him out- and gave him a puzzler about divorce and remarriage. They conceded that their leader, Moses, had indeed ‘allowed’ men to draw up letters of dismissal to be given to their wives, if they found something they deemed ‘objectionable’ about them. The poor women, the wives, had no such luxury regarding sending their husbands away. They were not allowed to ‘reverse their husbands’. Then Jesus refers to ‘the hardness of heart’ of the men that Moses had to deal with. They had lost the plot, had lost the dream of the Maker for women and men.
That’s where Jesus then brought them and brings us back to the two
The spark of the divine has touched each of us, female or male.
separate but interlinked accounts of the creation of men and women in the first place,- back, that is, to Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis, the First book of all. In the first account (Chapter 1, verses 26-28), we are ‘made in our own image’ says God, ‘in the likeness of ourselves’; ‘in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them’. And then said ‘be fruitful, multiply, fill all the earth’,- in other words, be united sexually, physically,- and remember that you are made male and female in the image of God! Enjoy your sexuality which is at the very heart of your being human!
From another tradition comes the second account, given to us in our first Reading today, from Genesis Chapter 2, verses 18 to 24. In this, they come to realize that they are flesh of each other’s flesh, bone of each other’s bone, that they are helpmates to each other. And then it says ‘THAT IS WHY… a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two become one body’. The young couple leave their parents’ homes and set up their own, where they ‘cling to one another and become one body’. ‘With my body I thee wed!’ is how you will sometimes (not often enough!) hear it at Weddings. Here, in sexual union, their Word becomes Flesh.
Jesus invites his hearers,- in the Gospel of Mark, it is his disciples, ‘back in the house’- to re-visit the foundation story, above, to see who they are, as men and women,- ‘in the image and likeness of God’, in God’s own image male and female, because God saw that it was VERY good! (Chapter 1, verse 31). In the creation of human beings ‘God saw all that he had made, and indeed it was very good.’ (All the other parts of creation were ‘good’, but the creating of us humans He saw as very good.).
Does that answer our questions about the complications and difficulties of all human relationships? No. But it points us in a direction that , -if our hearts are not hardened and un-teachable as Jesus said to the Pharisees- will give us wisdom, and restore our vision of one another’s dignity. God truly knows that we are fragile, and that we get things wrong, that sometimes we may be un-teachable but at other times we must do the best we can in bad situations. God is the God of Compassion, even while all the times holding up to us the mirror of our extraordinary dignity, and how we might better relate, male and female, young and old.
Jesus won’t take back a single word of his teaching and vision of our worth and nobility, even as he takes us by the hand in our fragile and broken realities. The teaching is hard, but the vision is good.
Time to look in the mirror of our Maker’s face (our Heavenly Father’s face!) and see ourselves immensely loved. ‘A friend,’- a recent poster says- ‘is someone who knows us as we really are, – and still loves us!’ Let’s continue paddling the canoes of our lives in the turbulent rapids of our many relationships, knowing that even if sometimes we get it wrong, the Master is always with us in the turmoil. ‘Do not be afraid, for I am with you!’
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie
Soul Food for Hungry Young Adults! September 30th 2012.
Today’s ‘Soul Food’ reflects on the Gospel for Sunday 30th September, the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Click on Mass Readings on Homepage, and on Sunday Readings, for text: St. Mark, Chapter 9, verses 38-43, also verse 45, verses 47-48,- or find it in your own Gospel of Mark.
Dear Sinead and Mark,
Can I tell you that today’s Gospel is a tough one to think about. The reading given us for today is from St. Mark and is a collection of a number of rather difficult sayings: can we unwrap them just a little bit? (Remember the Jewish saying: ‘Every story has 30 layers, and a Rabbi can only show you one layer.’)
‘WILL YOU HAVE A CUPPA ?’ Mrs. Doyle, 
in Fr. Ted – ‘ Ah go on, have a cup, you will, you will, you will! ‘ . Isn’t it great to give someone a cuppa, or even a cup of water, when thirsty. When you’re kind to another human, you’re kind to their Maker.
‘NORTH CIDER/ SOUTH CIDER’: And then, in today’s Gospel reading (Mark Chapter 9: verse 38 and following)- what about Outsiders and Insiders (or, as the Bulmers’ Ad in Dublin says ‘North Cider/South Cider’) : ‘But he’s not one of us!’,- he or she is a foreigner, an Outsider, not an Insider, not One of Us. How dare they be doing good things, and they not one of Us! –in our camp, our organization, our side of the river, our side of the railway tracks: They can’t be good, surely, LORD!’
OOPS! Sinead and Mark, I got it wrong again. That’s not the Way of the Master. That’s not how he thinks. Better catch myself on, here. ANYBODY who does good, who gives even a cuppa to somebody, or who brings any kind of healing to another person… must be on the Master’s side. ‘Master, we saw somebody who is not following US, casting out devils in your name. We tried to stop him, because he was not one of US!’
But Jesus is correcting us: ‘Don’t stop them if they are doing something good, – even if it’s only giving someone a glass of water to cool their thirst. They mightn’t be one of YOU or your lot, but they certainly belong to me, if they act like that. Just because they are different from you doesn’t mean they don’t belong to ME. Stop excluding people who are different, who are not following YOUR crowd.
OF MILLSTONES AND THE SEA: here is a very tough saying, 
one of the toughest images Jesus ever used. Jesus doesn’t put a tooth in it! He uses a very powerful image to speak a very powerful truth:- don’t even think of harming another person, little or big. What you do to another human being, you do to me! And if you cause somebody to lose faith, if your life is an obstacle to them, then let me tell you that it’s mighty hurtful not only to them but to me! To harm another like that, to cause somebody to stumble,- well, let me tell you it’s serious! And to impress on you (says Jesus) how wrong it is, let me use this image, he says: someone who does it deserves to be thrown into the sea with a great millstone around his or her neck! Sorry to be so blunt, he says, but I need to impress this deeply in your heart and community,- harm another, and you harm God! Your heavenly Father identifies with every human being on the planet,- whether ‘one of yours’ or not.
Remember this: every one is the Only One, before our Maker.
And Jesus might even take that line from Mrs. Doyle: ’Ah, go on, go on, go on!’- love one another, the way I have loved you’,- ’this much’, as he stretches his arms wide between heaven and earth and pours out his love for us and on us- ALL of us.
God bliss you and bless you, Sinead, Mark,- thanks for taking the time to read this. Have a great week. Walk close to the Master.
Seamus.
(my email: seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie)
Soul Food for the Hungry Adult: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Sept. 30, 2012
26th Sunday: For Hungry Adults.
‘Not one of us!’ and Millstones!
Not easy readings, this weekend. St. James doesn’t put a tooth in it when he addresses the rich who are cheating people, not paying proper wages, holding back moneys due, and generally ignoring the plight of the poor around them. ‘Start weeping’, he says to them. (This is James Chapter 5, verses 1-5. I could read it over my cappuchino!)
In the passage from St. Mark (- and this is the Year of Mark, for most Sundays-) we are given a number of difficult sayings, stringed together,- like ‘not one of us!’, a cup of water in my name, and a millstone around the neck.
‘Not one of us!’ ‘Because he was not one of us, we tried to stop him‘ driving out devils in your name, Lord. Isn’t it galling when the ‘foreigner’ gets the praise over against us: for example,- the Good Samaritan, he was ‘not one of us’, in fact was a despised Samaritan, considered far from God, and definitely not a follower of us and our way: when the ten lepers were healed of their leprosy, who comes back to say thanks but, -again!- a Samaritan. Who was the woman who got such praise from Jesus for her great faith, the likes of which he had not seen in Israel, but the woman we call the Syro-Phoenician woman,- a ‘foreigner’ again. Or the Roman Centurion who begged Jesus to heal his servant, yet sent the message ‘I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof’, and Jesus praised his great faith also: and of course, this Roman was a ‘foreigner’. Obviously, goodness, holiness, kindness, faith can be found in people of every race and creed: the Holy Spirit is not confined by any boundaries. The Holy Spirit does not recognise ‘because he was not one of us, we tried to stop him’. The Spirit breathes where the Spirit wills.
The kindness of a cup of water given to another is praised,- even the smallest kindness to another is done to Christ.
But what about the millstone tied around somebody’s neck,
and the person thrown into the sea? That’s one of the hardest sayings of Jesus. In the Jewish and Semitic way of speaking, when you want to make a point, you make it very black and white. Jesus wants to emphasise in the strongest possible terms the awefulness of scandalizing ‘one of these little ones’,- little in age or little in their faith-life, new believers. ‘To bring down one of these little ones who have faith’ is most serious. And Jesus adds the image ‘better thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck’. He’s really saying to us ‘Can I put this message any stronger than that?’ In other words, he wants us to truly sit up and hear it.
The other images or sayings about cutting off your hand, or taking out your eye or cutting off your foot,- that’s in the same genre of ‘black and white’, not meant to be taken literally, but meant to be taken seriously: if something is a serious block to my faith-life, then I must take it seriously and deal with it, otherwise I am causing myself to stumble and to lose faith,- I am a ‘scandal’ or stumbling block to what God wants to do in my life, to give me Life.
Not easy sayings, but sometimes it takes very strong images to catch our attention.
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
(e-mail: seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie )
Death of Fr. Pat O’Sullivan, Redemptorist.
News has come today, Tuesday Sept. 25th, of the death of Fr. Pat O’Sullivan C.Ss.R.,
from the Redemptorist Community in Limerick. Fr. Pat was in his middle 80′s, and had been ill for some weeks past. God rest his wonderful soul. He passed away quietly this evening, in Carrigoran Nursing Home in County Clare.
Fr. Pat taught in St. Clement’s College in Ilioilo, in the Philipinnes, for 17 years. After returning to Ireland, he taught in St. Clement’s Redemptorist College, Limerick, for a further 17 years. He was greatly loved by all, as a teacher, as a priest, and as a human being. His gentleness and unfailing kindness was renowned.
Funeral Arrangements: Fr. Pat will lie in repose in Mount St. Alphonsus Monastery, Limerick, from 4pm on Thursday, 27th September. Removal to the Church of Mt. St. Alphonsus will take place at 6.30pm on Friday 28th, followed by Mass at 7.15pm. Requiem Mass at 12 noon on Saturday, Sept. 29th.
May his dear soul rest in peace. May the Mother of Perpetual Help pray for him.
Weekly Letter to Sinead and to Mark: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 23rd , 2012.
25TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, SEPT. 23rd , 2012.
Weekly Letter to Sinead and to Mark, two young adults, hungering for God-knows-what.
(See ‘Mass Texts’ in Home Page, for the text of this Sunday’s Readings: the Gospel of the day is St. Mark, Chapter 9, verses 30-37).
Dear Sinead and Mark,
May I introduce myself to you? I’m Zach, and I’m in my early twenties now.
Will you come with me back to when I was five years old, playing with some other boys and girls, friends and neighbours, the day when we met Jesus coming back home to his own house, beside where we lived?
I remember the day very well, because Jesus picked me out. That’s my story. You can remember lots of things that happen when you are five!
I lived at the time with my parents in the village of Capernaum, just beside the lake of Galilee. As kids we went swimming and fishing there often. This day, there was a lot of commotion, because the Rabbi Jesus was back home after travelling to a lot of villages around the rim of that fertile ‘saucer’ that we call Galilee. He had been away for weeks. Now, he and his friends,- ‘the Twelve’ he called them- were back for a rest. Jesus’ poor Mammy had to feed quite a few of them, while Peter and Andrew went to their own house, where Peter’s wife and Mother-in-law were waiting, and James and John went back home to their Dad Zebedee.
Anyhow, there was a crowd of them there in the house, and, as kids do, we were hanging ‘round the door, peeking inside. This Jesus man was always glad to see us when he got home, and he would make a fuss of us as if we were really important people! There we were, peeking in, giggling, poking one another, and at the same time trying to hear what the adults were talking about. At one point, the friends around the table seemed to get fidgety, even embarrassed, and some had their heads down, others were looking away from Jesus. I had just about made out what Jesus had said to them: ‘What were you talking about, as you walked along the road home?’ I think he knew well, already. From what he said to them next, we guessed that they had been arguing with each other about who was the greatest! Imagine that!. Jesus sat down, and gathered them all around him,- and we slipped inside the door to hear better. ‘If you want to be the first, why not try being the last?’ he said: ‘why not try being the servant of everyone?’ That shook them, we could see. They looked very awkward, sitting there,- embarrassed, even. Just then, he looked around the room, and spotted me and my friends inside the door. Then he called me! He said ‘Hey, Zach,- will you come over here a minute, if you don’t mind? That ok with you?’ (Always polite, he was.) The big people made a space for me, and I went over to the Master (that’s what they called him). He then stood me in front of the others, the big people, he put his arms around me like my Dad would do, and he said: ‘Do you see young Zach here? Tell you what, lads, – if you or anyone else welcomes Zach or any of the other kids here, in my name, you would be welcoming me! And if you welcome me,- you are welcoming my Father who sent me to you!.’
You should have seen their faces. They looked at the Master, they looked at me, they looked back at him, and nodded. I think they were saying, silently, ‘Yes, we get it now, Master. Being tall doesn’t make us Big, being small doesn’t make them Small! We’ll treat even the littlest one as we would treat you, Master.’
The Master smiled at them, nodding in agreement. Then he turned and said to me ‘Thanks, Zach!’ He put his hand for a second on my head and blessed me, then told me to go off with my friends and play. He waved at us all as we left, and we waved back, before we headed off, racing each other to the lake nearby.
That all happened when I was five, but it is still as fresh today as it was, those years back before I grew up. It was a great moment,- for the Twelve, but also for me and my mates. We learned a lot about ourselves that day. We’re important to God, – so we’re important!
Thanks for listening to my story.
God bliss you and bless you!
Zach the Man.
(My address is Main Street, Capernaum, The Galilee.)
(Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R., Esker).
Reflection: 25TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: SEPT. 23, 2012.
25TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: SEPT. 23, 2012.
(For today’s Readings, click on Mass Texts, on HomePage.)
Weekly ‘Soul Food for the Hungry Adult’:
A few years ago, under a previous Government in Ireland, there was a cartoon about the Taoiseach (Leader) of the country at that time,- Bertie Ahern. It went: ‘Infamy! Infamy! They all have it in fa’ Me!’
Well, in today’s first reading, they all have it in for somebody or other, some totally innocent person. Who was ‘the virtuous man’ that the writers of The Book of Wisdom are talking about in today’s reading: ‘Let us like in wait for the virtuous man for he annoys us and opposes our way of life…he accuses us of playing false to our upbringing… Let us test him with cruelty and with torture and explore this gentleness of his…’ And so it goes on, ‘Let us condemn him to a shameful death, since he will be looked after,- we have his word for it’.
And still, today all over the world, innocent people, working for justice and right, are often hounded and even killed. Oscar Romero, in El Salvador, Sr. Dorothy Stang in the Amazon, , Gerardo Orteaga in the Philippines… the list goes on and on, still.
And Jesus was not immune to this, by any means. After coming down from the mountain,- that is, after his Transfiguration when his glory was revealed to three disciples- he begins to warn them, over and over, that yes, even if he was indeed the Messiah/ the Christ/the Anointed One, still he would be delivered into the hands of his enemies, who will put him to death, and that three days later he would rise again. The disciples couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t take it in. But Jesus kept telling them.
And then, as they squabbled later about who was the Greatest among them, who was The Most Important, Jesus took a child, set the child in front of the Twelve, and told them that welcoming such a child was welcoming Jesus himself,- because Jesus stood with the children, saw their dignity, and that they too were ‘Most Important’. Did the Twelve grasp this bit, either? Probably not right away. It took a lot of living before they came to recognize the truth of it. EVERY child is a V.I.P. !
And if the Twelve were slow to get it, maybe so are we. Food for thought, food to satisfy the hungering soul.
‘Infamy! Infamy!’ The world will have it ‘in fa’ Me’, if I follow this Jesus. He never said it would be easy, he just said it would be worth it!
Bon Appetit!
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R., Esker.
Feast of the Holy Cross, Sept. 14th.
‘Greater love than this no one has…’ (John 15:13)
‘And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself.’ (John 12:32)
For you.
Feast of the Holy Cross, Sept. 14th.
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: For reflections on the mystery of the Cross, click on www.emptifulvessels.com, poems/reflections by Fr. Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R., many inspired by the writings of Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap.. Type ‘Cross’ in Search.
The following is one such reflection:
The Cross was Timber, yes…
The Cross was timber, yes 
but it was more.
The Cross
was Sin, our Sin
-that was its core,
for it brought Him to death
and he brought it.
He became
that which He carried:
He entered in
to Sin
Became it,
-just for us-
Took all its horror
brokenness
and death
upon His Soul-
He took, -became-
the ‘Soul’ of Sin-
of death of soul-
was sorrow-filled
even unto death- our sin-
in all its Lostness
as He was cut off;
He took into himself
the same in us.
He was us-
and died with us
-Man-God-
and now His Father rescues us,
and gathers home again
the cut-off Lost bewildered stray-full Ones
brought back upon his shoulders
on his cross, his cross of joy;
for,
entering into Sin,
he had become its
tormentor,
tearing off its masks
of affluence
exposing it,
until it shrivels up
beneath the gaze of Him Who Is,
the Holy One, Obedient One.
Sin dies in Jesus’ arms.
Its grasp of us, its strangling hold
lets go;
He who entered it, -became it,-
has destroyed it
by his Un-Sin
Holiness,
his giving of himself.
Now He who lives again
proclaims his very cross,-
the cross of ‘Sin Surrendered’.
It is his pride,
his joy for us,
in us,
and it is Ours.
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