Redemptorist News
SOUL FOOD FOR HUNGRY YOUNG ADULTS: Sept. 16, 2012.’Dear Sinead and Mark’.
This week’s Letter to Sinead and Mark, two young friends:
Sunday September 16, 2012. Gospel: St.Mark, 8:27-35. (Click on Mass Readings on Menu for the text of the readings)
Dear Sinead and Mark,
Back again with you! Can I take you this time on a journey, in your imagination? Come, travel with me a little while.
I’m a Hibernian traveler, a curious on-looker, walking the roads of Galilee with this strange Rabbi and his friends. They call him ‘Jehoshua’ or Jesus. This morning, we left the sea of Galilee early, as we have a long walk ahead of us. We’re heading north and east, towards Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in all this region, over 9000 feet high. Can’t miss it! We’ve about 40k to go. As we leave the Galilee behind us, we see in the distance a great temple city in the foothills of Mount Hermon. The city is on top of a high cliff, 100ft. high, and 500ft wide, and it looks very Roman in style,- and why wouldn’t it, since they are the Occupier Force in all this region. The city is named after the Emperor of Rome, Caesar, and his henchman King Philip (one of the Herod family!),- it’s called CAESAREA PHILIPPI, as Philip wants to impress his boss in Rome.
Can I tell another thing? The people in this region , not only do they worship the Emperor Caesar as a god, but they also worship the god PAN, -he’s the one who plays the pipes! He’s half goat and half man, and he’s the god of Fertility! No wonder he’s popular!
Anyway, here we are now walking behind the Rabbi Jesus, chatting away to each other. We can clearly see the temple city ahead on the mighty rock-face, shining in the glinting sun. While we’re gazing in awe, Jesus suddenly stops and turns to us. Something is bothering him, as if he is unsure about us. He asks us: ‘Who do people say that I am?’ Some of my friends in the group give different answers.. ‘you’re John the Baptist!’, ‘you’re the prophet Elijah!’ , ’You’re some ancient prophet!’, and so on. I’m watching his face as the answers come. Now he cuts to the chase and puts this to our group- ‘Who do YOU say that I am?’ Oh, that hurts. We have been following him for a couple of years or more, but he wants to know who do we think he is! Imagine! He’s serious. And, while we’re all stuck for words and embarrassed, good ol’ Simon Peter,- he’s always the first to jump in with the answers,- he blurts out to Jesus ‘’You’re the Christ’ (that means the Messiah in Hebrew, or God’s Anointed One, God’s Sent One’).
And you can see that Jesus is relieved! At least someone can see who he is. But he is telling us firmly to say nothing to anyone about it.
We’re still thinking about all this when he starts to tell us that yes, he is the Messiah, but he’s going to suffer really badly, he’s going to made a laughing stock for people, and then he’s going to be killed by the people. He tells us, at the end of that, that he will rise from the dead after three days! Whatever all that means, I haven’t a clue.
And he’s no sooner finished saying all this to us, when my friend Peter takes him by the elbow and walks him away from the crowd of us, a little bit.
This kind of leader ?
Peter starts to give out yards to Jesus, that this was the wrong way to go.. He needed to have a bit of backbone, to be a leader, a warrior to lead the people against these Roman occupiers. Great stuff, Peter! I’m with you on that!
But what do you think Jesus does, -he is looking around at us, somehow with great love and sadness in his eyes, and he is saying to Peter, the hero of a few minutes ago (oops! this bit hurts!) ‘Get behind me SATAN!’ Wow, that’s some come-down for Peter. From hero to villain in minutes. Jesus then adds ‘the way you think is not God’s way’.
or this kind of leader ?
I’m wondering what will happen to Jesus! If he doesn’t go the way of chariots and swords, will he not end up with the Romans torturing him and killing him in their special cruel Roman way,- crucifixion! Nailed up to beams, and hanging there for hours, sometimes days, until you can’t breathe any more. Can’t bear to think of it.
So that’s where I am on the road today. I can see the great and beautiful city; I can see CAESAR, I can see PAN and all his goings on, and I can see JESUS. Who is CAESAR? Who is PAN? Who is JESUS?
As they say in my own language, back home in Hibernia, ‘Sin Ceist!’ ‘That’s the Question!’
My choice. My life. My head on the block? When it comes to it, which will I choose?
God help me!
Oops, too much thinking! There’s Jesus and the others heading back down the road for home, back to Capernaum. Will I run after them and catch up, – or stay where I am?
Thanks, Sinead and Mark, for sharing my journey with me. Check with me where I end up eventually. And good journeying for you both. God bliss and bless us all.
Your friend on the road,
Seamus.
(Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R., Esker).
SOUL FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY ADULT: Reflection: 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B: Sept.16, 2012
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B:
Gospel: Mark 8:27-35 (click on ‘Mass Readings’, for the texts.)
You couldn’t miss seeing Caesarea Philippi. Jesus and his disciples had walked the 40k or more towards it, directly northeast of the Sea of Galilee. Even from a great distance, it looked mightily impressive. You couldn’t miss seeing this temple city.
Caesarea Philippi is in the foothills of Mount Hermon which is in Syria. Mount Hermon is the largest mountain in the whole area towering 2,814 meters (close to 10,000 feet) above sea level.
At Caesarea Philippi there is a massive wall of rock that is well over 100 feet straight up and about 500 feet wide. The city of Caesarea Philippi was built on top of this enormous rock. It was enlarged and rededicated by King Philip to honor the Caesar in Rome. Caesar considered himself a god and King Philip was eager to please him. Hence the name ‘Caesarea Philippi’. It was for the worship of gods.
As well as worshiping the Emperor Caesar, the Greeks and Romans had many other gods. One that was especially honored here in Caesarea Philippi was the Pagan god of Pan,- half goat, half man, god of shepherds and of fertility, and god of fright! (The word ‘panic’ comes from his name.) He was often depicted playing the flute.
This kind of Messiah?
or this kind of Messiah?
So, what was JESUS doing travelling up into the region of the great Roman-built city of CAESAREA PHILIPPI? CAESAR considered himself a God, and wanted people to worship him. Pan was worshipped at the waterfalls and in the caves, in this area. Why would Jesus face down the two ‘gods’, Caesar and Pan? In plain view of this enormous rock on which the pagan temple was built, Jesus turned to his own disciples and asked them that now famous question ‘Who do people say I am?’ And when Mark put this down in written form around 65AD, the disciples in Rome were faced with the god Caesar, the Emperor, and the Roman PANTHEON of all their false gods. And the question was put to disciples, then and now: ‘Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter, in today’s Gospel Reading, was the one disciple who spoke up bravely and said ‘You are the CHRIST’ (or The Messiah, the Anointed One sent by God). The only problem, as he found out very shortly after, was that his idea of ‘Messiah’ was very different from Jesus’ idea. Peter thought of chariots and war-hero, Jesus thought of the cross! And Jesus rebuked him with those sharp words ‘Get behind me, Satan!’
Move on 35 or 40 years, and you’re now in Rome. Imagine hearing that story of Mark’s Gospel read for you in your hiding place in Rome, where you gathered for the Breaking of Bread, constantly in fear of the banging on the door as they came for you. This was decision time. Who is Jesus, for you? Is he to be preferred to the Emperor? Whom will you worship? Will you choose Pan,the god of shepherds and fertility, -or will you chose the Good Shepherd himself, Jesus the Christ, who will give life to the full?
Will I cave in, when the soldiers come for me and my fellow disciples, and worship the Emperor to save my life, my skin? Or will I let go my very life, my skin, and worship Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God? Will I put my head on the block for Jesus, if it comes to it?
Tough choice. Today.
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
Homily given at Esker Cemetery Sunday Mass, Sept. 9, 2012
CEMETERY SUNDAY 2012: A great number of family members of Redemptorist Brothers and Priests, buried in our community Cemetery here 
, travelled to Esker for our annual Cemetery Sunday. The weather was not kind to us, the Mass was celebrated in the Church, and the prayers said, as it was raining too heavily at the time. It was great to welcome so many who came, some from long distances, to honour their deceased relatives, many long since dead.
The following homily was given by the Rector of Esker, Fr. Brendan O’Rourke
Cemetery Sunday, Esker, Athenry, Sunday, September 9th 2012
In a lovely new book on the Irish Redemptorists (The Redemptorists in Ireland 1851-2011, by Brendan McConvery, C.Ss.R.) we read that among the first community of Redemptorists in Esker in 1901 were two men, Father Patrick Sampson and Brother Casimir O’Gorman, and they are buried in our cemetery. So our Cemetery Sunday celebration connects us with the very beginnings of the Redemptorists in Esker!
The first Irishman to be professed as a Redemptorist Brother was James McVeigh. Father McConvery writes: “He was an Irish-speaker from County Tyrone, born in 1829, the year of Catholic Emancipation. He had been apprenticed to a shoemaker in Omagh, where he assisted at one of the earliest Redemptorist missions in 1852. During the renewal of the mission the following year, James approached Father van Antwerpen, the leader of the mission, to ask if he might be accepted as a brother candidate. His delicate health told against him and he was refused. James was insistent. He took off to Bishop Eton, the Redemptorist house in Liverpool, the following year, to renew his request. Again, the answer was far from encouraging. He was directed to the Passionists, but his poor health forced him to leave after a short stay. He returned to Liverpoor and took up his trade near the monastery. His persistence was repaid when he was eventually accepted. He was admitted to profession in 1860. As is often the case in monasteries, James, now Brother Stanislaus, never got the opportunity to practise his trade again. He served in the various Irish communities, dying in Esker in 1909.”
I looked for Br. Stanislaus McVeigh’s grave over in our cemetery. It isn’t there. I wondered where was he buried? And I emailed Fr. McConvery and he referred me to the chronicles of Esker. There, in the first book of the chronicles of Esker, I found the description of Br. McVeigh’s death. It also described how, given that they had not yet developed a cemetery in Esker, his body was escorted to Athenry train station. The community, all wearing their habits, walked beside his coffin, and then sent his remains in a train car specially set aside, for burial in the crypt of Mount Saint Alphonsus, Limerick City.
So in Brother Stanislaus McVeigh we are connected to the roots of Esker even before the days of a cemetery here! As many of us walk around the cemetery, and read the names of friends, family, and characters we will find some we liked or loved, and maybe some whom we found to be heavy going!! We are clear, I hope, that none of us are perfect, nor were any of the men buried in our cemetery. But they were good enough for God to work with and through!
And so are all of us, good enough for God to work with and through. And usually in ordinary ways.
A woman mystic of the Middle Ages said that while it is true to say that God is love it may be even more true to say that love is God! In other words, while the idea of God may be a struggle for some of us in our lives. Our understanding of God may change throughout our lives. But this mystic is saying to us, I think, that we should just keep our eyes, mind, heart and soul open to the presence of kindness, gentleness, thoughtfulness, fairness, justice, caring, compassion in life and then we will have met God
So, today, we honour and connect with all those who have gone before us. They invite us, from their colourful or their black and white lives, from their great and small achievements, and even from their mistakes and sins…they call us to let God’s Spirit flow through us, to live fully, to not fear making mistakes, and to not postpone living, loving, connecting, and caring.
Reflection: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B: September 9, 2012.
Soul Food for the Hungry Adult: Reflection: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B: September 9, 2012.
Gospel: Mark 7:31-37. Reading 1: Isaiah 35:4-7. Reading 2: St. James 2:1-5.
Lord, we’re all ears!
Jesus’ sat-nav must have been turned off, because Mark tells us he took the long way ‘round, in order to get home. He went through un-believing territory, to an unbelieving people. Maybe he just felt more at home, more welcomed, among these foreign gentiles. He took the long way home, because he left Tyre (in modern Lebanon, up the coast), heading for Galilee down South: but instead of going direct, he skirted Galilee on the east, then travelled in the ‘region of the ten cities’ (called ‘Decapolis’ in Greek), which is in modern Jordan, south of Galilee. This is one of the few Gentile places in which he ministered. He covered some territory, in this trip at least. You should find the map in your Bible.
And here, among these Gentiles or unbelievers, he was brought a man 
with hearing and speech impediments. Jesus takes him aside, away from his friends for a while, and then puts his finger in the man’s ears, and puts some of his spittle on the man’s tongue. Jesus was and is a hands on person! And he spoke in his own native tongue, Aramaic, and said ‘Ephphatha!’ which Mark translated for his readers as ‘Be opened’. We use the same words during Baptism when the priest touches the ears and the mouth of the person being baptized and says ‘Ephphatha! Be opened!’ We’re still asking Jesus to open our ears to hear God’s words to us, and our mouths to proclaim God’s praise.
And the previously un-believing Gentiles were astonished,- ‘their admiration was unbounded’ says Mark.
And if Jesus would only come and visit us, in all our unbelieving and our doubts and questions,- and if we could bring one another to him for his healing of our own deafness and being tongue-tied about our faith, he would gladly do it, in his own special way, in his own time. And if we ask him to do it, He will! And then, we will be astonished with joy. And that’s why he came. “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full!’ (John 15).
Lord, we’re all ears!
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
Soul Food for Young Adults: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Sept. 9, 2012.
This week’s letter is to Sinead and to Mark.
'I'm all ears, Lord! Speak to me!'
Dear Sinead and Mark,
Did you ever feel ‘faint-hearted’, like when your courage and confidence were at a low ebb? I know I feel that way, at times, maybe facing into a new year (like now) or facing a challenging task and wondering if I’m up to it. Maybe for some of your friends, it’s facing into the Leaving Cert year, or beginning College or the second year of college when you know what it’s going to be like. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. Well, I was delighted to find the very first words of the readings for the Lord’s Day on this Sunday is ‘Say to all faint hearts, do not be afraid. Look, your God is coming!’ (Isaiah 35:4) Good to know we are never really on our own, not matter what the challenge. I needed to hear those words, now.
I have friends called Chris and Catherine. Knew them both from their late teens, and was at their wedding about four years back. A wonderful wedding, with everything kept simple, and lots of joy and music and craic to beat the band. We all knew at their wedding that they planned to travel to Zimbabwe after their honeymoon, to work there for two years. And they did. And life was not easy for them. They worked with young Africans, teaching them skills and how to set up little businesses to make a few bob to feed themselves. I have a product from one of those businesses, in the boot of my car, – a pair of sandals made from car tyres and elephant manure! They’re the business. Well, Chris and Catherine took to their young hearts what St. James talks about today in the second reading,- don’t make distinctions between rich and poor. Treat the poor as you would the richest person, -because the poor are also VIP’s,- Very Important Persons. And what you do to them you do to Jesus. As they might say in Belfast ‘See them? See Him! – or – See Him? See them!’
How did Chris and Catherine get to this understanding? Well, their eyes were opened in their late teens and they came to know how Jesus treated and loved the poor. Their ears were opened to hear his words of wisdom, his teaching about each and every human being, as being Very Important Persons before their Heavenly Father.
So, Sinead, Mark, here’s wishing you both great hearing and clear vision,- the kind that only the Son of God can really give you, when you ask him. And maybe your tongue also will be loosed to give great praise to the God who loves us beyond our wildest dreams,- the One who’s crazy with love for each person,- including you and me.
God bliss you and bless you!
Fr. Seamus.
Cemetery Sunday in Esker, September 9th, 2012, 3pm.
The Annual Cemetery Sunday Mass for Redemptorists who are buried here in Esker, will be held on Sunday September 9th, at 3pm. Everyone is welcome! 
Refreshments to follow. For any enquiries, phone Esker 091 844007.
See a Special Newsletter under Newsletters, giving the Mass Leaflet, and the names of all who are buried in our cemetery.
Reflection: 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B: Sept. 2,2012.
Reflection: Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B: Sept. 2,2012.
Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23.
‘This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.’
I love liquorice all-sorts! I love to peek into the bag, and pick this one or that one. They mightn’t be good for me, but I love them anyhow. I love the colours, shapes, and layers.
And when Jesus gathered people around him, and invited them to follow him as a community of his followers, he gathered a very mixed bag indeed- his was a collection of all-sorts. Simon Peter, the main man, proclaimed that even if all the others left him, he, Peter, would never leave Jesus; and then went on to deny him three times in front of a young servant-girl. 
‘As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be…’ we, God’s greatly loved people, are a mixed bag, collectively and individually. Men and women, husbands, wives, lovers, young men and women, boys and girls, Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, priests, religious, – all of us are human beings, saints and sinners at the one time, and God is not finished with any one of us. In the garden of our souls and of our communities, there’s a lot of weeding, a lot of stones to be removed, and digging of hard soil, and then, the planting of a wild variety of wonderful gifts of the Holy Spirit, with need for plenty of watering, of nourishing, of feeding, of sheltering, until we blossom beautifully. ‘This people honours me with their lips but their hearts are far from me’,- yes, Lord, indeed, but now we want you to come into the garden of each of us and of our church, and do your wonderful work in us, again. The gate is open, and the soil is ready. I bring my own heart back to you, today. Come, Lord Jesus! Come O Holy Spirit!
Séamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
Reflection 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 26th 2012.
Reflection 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 26th, 2012. Gospel Reading (in Year B) is from St. John, Chapter 6, verses 60 to 69.
It’s crunch time: ‘What about you, will you also go away?’ A hard saying, because a profound truth was being presented, and ‘many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him’. His teaching is still a great challenge to every one of us, today.
Why should they believe him, -why should we believe him? ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you.’ They did not understand the depth of what was on offer, in this gift: even the Twelve did not understand it. Only later would it begin to make sense, and even then very slowly,- from the Last Supper onwards and the times they would later gather, after the Resurrection and after Pentecost, for what they called ‘the Breaking of Bread’, or what we now call the Eucharist (Thanksgiving), or the Mass (the Sending Out).
‘Will you also go away?’ And why not? But Simon Peter, -thank God for him !- spoke up, even in his own bewilderment: ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe, we know that you are the Holy One of God.’ He said this, not because he understood, but because Jesus was Jesus, and Simon Peter recognised him as the Holy One of God, and therefore One you could trust absolutely.
We may not understand, but we eat, nonetheless. Why? because Jesus said it. We take and eat, we take and drink, because Jesus told us to do so in his memory,- remembering his most solemn words ‘This is my body, given for you!’, ‘This is my blood, poured out for you!’ Maybe we just say ‘Wow!’, and bow. The depth of his love in this gift to us, is overwhelming.
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
Reflection: 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, – August 19, 2012.
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 19, 2012. Readings are from Year B.
Recently, a five year-old granddaughter said to her Grannie, during Holy Communion time at Mass: ‘Jesus is up there in the bread!- But, he’s not stuck in it!’ (Her older brother had made his First Holy Communion two months before, and she had watched it all , eagerly.) 
‘THE BREAD THAT I WILL GIVE IS MY FLESH FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD.’
The Gospel for this Sunday is John 6: 51-58. Continuing his discourse on Eucharist.
Jesus, Word and Flesh: Remember how St. John’s Gospel began,- ‘In the beginning was the WORD, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The word became FLESH and dwelt amongst us, and we saw his glory, the glory that he has from the Father as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.’ (See John Chapter 1).
Jesus is ‘the WORD made FLESH’, dwelling still among his people who are now his own body, his own flesh and blood, – in other words, us. All of his humanity, his very ordinariness, is ‘for the life of the world’. ‘This is my body, broken for you…this is my blood, poured out for you’- his whole self, body, blood, soul and divinity, given for us and given to us in life and in the Eucharist, to be taken right into ourselves completely. ‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person.’ As Jesus draws life from the Father, so will we draw life from the Father, through Jesus. The Risen Lord, the Son of God who had become flesh, now becomes bread for us and drink for us, and makes his home within us if we welcome and receive him with open arms. ‘Live in me, and let me live in you‘ (John 15:4) This is the extraordinary union that we call ‘communion’ with Jesus. It happens very particularly in ‘the breaking of Bread’, that is, Eucharist or Mass.
As we said last week, ‘There are thirty layers to every story, and a Rabbi can only show you one layer.’ There’s eating and drinking in every word of Jesus, and in his whole person offered to our whole person in a holy communion.
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
August 17th, 2012,- New Irish/Brazilian Redemptorist Mission to Africa.
AUGUST 17TH, 2012 will be remembered for the Formal Opening of the New Irish/Brazilian Redemptorist Mission in Mozambique and Malawi:
‘Plant an acorn, wait for an oak.’
Ever heard of ‘Chechewa’ ? Across Mozambique and neighbouring Malawi, it is the native language of 15 million people! And two Irish Redemptorists, Fr. Brian Holmes from Cork, Fr. John Berminham from Co. Kildare, have been learning Chechewa over the past two years, in Mozambique.
The formal inauguration of this new Redemptorist Mission in Mozambique/Malawi will take place on this August 17th at 9am in the Parish of Christ the King (Furancungo, Macanga, Diocese of Tete) Dom Inácio Saure, Bishop of the Diocese of Tete (which celebrates its 50th Anniversary this year) has agreed to preside.
This new Mission is a joint project of the Irish Redemptorists of the Dublin Province, and the Redemptorists (Irish and Brazilian) from the Vice-Province of Fortaleza in N. East Brazil, – a Mission begun 51 years ago from Ireland. This new Gospel outreach will, please God, be staffed by Redemptorists and co-workers, men and women, working as partners with our new African friends.
Fr. Eridian (Vice-Provincial Superior from Vice-Province of Fortaleza) and Fr. Michael Kelleher ( Provincial of the Dublin Province of the Redemptorists) plan to attend this formal opening. Having surmounted a health hurdle or two, Fr. Brian Holmes and Fr. John Bermingham are doing fine, thank God. They have a motor bike and have just invested in a second hand Hilux Surf car. They are now able to celebrate Mass in the local language (‘Chechewa’) in the communities of the district; their new means of transport will further facilitate their missionary outreach. Meantime, they have begun to put roof, doors and windows in the extension to the little house they live in, beside the chapel in Furancungo. Recently, they wrote:
“Day by day learning a few new words, and phrases, learning how the people survive here and understanding a bit more each day their way of life. We are happy. Last week we climbed one of the mountains near the town and you can see here the beauty of the region and have some idea of the town below. Today we are in Tete, the provincial capital, on the banks of the Zambeze River. At sundown it can be beautiful too. Thinking of you. Keep us in your prayers. John and Brian.
During the African journey from mid August to early September, Frs. Michael and Eridian hope to travel with Frs. John and Brian to see Bishop Emmanuel in Dedza, Malawi, to discuss having a foundation in that country also. After that meeting, a Network gathering of the Conference of Redemptorists of Africa & Madagascar will be held in Antananarivo, Madagascar.
Please pray for this new venture;- for the Redemptorists, it is like Peter stepping out of the boat and walking on water, after Jesus had said ‘Come !’ It is a great act of faith when our own numbers seem very small. Do any of you hear Jesus saying ‘Come’- and give your life ministering for the Gospel among the 15 million people who speak Chechewa ?
‘Glory be to God who by his might power at work within us is able to do far mare than we could ever dare to ask or even dream of,- infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts or hopes.‘ (Ephesians 3:20)
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
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