Pope's advice on confronting suffering and pain - Rome Reports

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - January 28th 2011

On this weeks show we meet Fr Michael Liston who we hope is going to be a regular contributor to the show. Fr Michael takes us through a poetical reflection on parts of west Limerick and the need to have hope especially at this time. We have our regular reflection on the Sunday Gospel as well as our Saints for the week, some reflective music, our prayer space in the day and some chat.

Gospel - Matthew 5:1-12

This weeks gospel is a very familiar gospel - the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount with the preaching of the Beatitudes or as it was once described Christians political manifesto.

If ever a gospel needed to be used in lectio, this weeks gospel would be one because it is such a gospel that we think we are familiar with. But each time we read it, it hits us again just how strange is this message being preached where those who are being called Blessed are those whom society still today considers as the misfits or the out siders with the corresponding question as to why Jesus is highlighting them to us.

The need to reflect on what it means to be "Poor in spirit" or "meek", "merciful" and the corresponding rewards which are promised to us should cause us to stop in amazement upon hearing the Word proclaimed to ask ourselves what on earth it could mean.

Further reflections available here, here and here.

Saints of the Week

We have a busy week ahead with some heavy hitting saints and feasts in the liturgical calander.

January 31st - St John Bosco – Priest – Founder of the Salesians
February 1st St Bridget – Abbess – Secondary Patron of Ireland - (452-524) Mary of the Gael
February 2nd - Feast of the Presentation of the Lord (World Day for Consecrated Life) 
February 3rd - St Blaise – Bishop (Blessing of Throats)
Febuary 4th - St Andrew Corsini (Carmelite Bishop) - First Friday
February 5th - St Agatha – Virgin martyr

As always, thanks for listening

John, Lorraine, Shane, Michael K, Fr Michael

Some web browsing for you...........

One of the great photos of the uplifting event of the week! And following on from last Sunday's gospel about the need to remember to give thanks to God the whole world seemed to give thanks for the rescue of the 32 Chilean and 1 Bolivian miner. Interesting views and stories on the story during the week were how it was surely praying at their "makeshift shrine" that kept the Chilean miners sane. and how the first thing asked for by the miners when contact was made with them was a crucifix so that they could set up a small shrine down in the mine with many other makeshift shrines near the mine shaft.

David Quinn gives his opinion about the impact of faith during the crisis in his column in the Irish Independent - Why there were no athetists in the mine. And Nuala O Loan reminds us that despite what some people think, Religion is not a Problem.


And one of the great quotes of the week had to be:

"There are actually 34 of us, because God has never left us down here."

 - 19-year-old Chilean miner Jimmy Sanchez, in a letter sent up from the mine Tuesday. You can read more about Jimmy here.

At the same time, it also reminded us in Ireland that the element of folk religion, where it is part of the everyday fabric of our lives is something we need to rediscover with the example of the miners as they remembered to invoke their patron saint - St Lawrence (see pic)

And the Anchoress gives a quick reflection on the example of Mario Sepúlveda Espinace who returned from the depths bearing gifts....for others.

"[He]crested the top of a hole from which he thought he might never escape, and his first instinct was to give. That’s a thing worth writing about, and thinking about and praying about. I wish I had a picture of that moment! How huge and resilient is the human spirit?"

Back to the Synod about the Church in the Middle East, John Allen gives some interesting coverage and insight into the issues being raised by the Patriarchs and Bishops at the NCR blog with discussions about the role of the Eastern Churches in the universal church, the need to allow them to ordain their serving priests in Europe and North America as is their tradition and right, and interesting perspectives from Muslims and Jews about the relationship between the three Abrahamic faiths.


If you want to read more about the different Eastern Catholic Churches, CNEWA has a special magazine out this month with various articles about our Christian brethren in the Middle East.


The issue of tolerance and the role of Christianity in a secular society was sort of summed up during the week by Madeline L'Engle

"We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it."

In her regular Tuesday column, Elizabeth Scalia (aka The Anchoress) discusses how although we live in a tolerant society, for many of the social "lepers" around us, there is still a vast amount of intolerance.

Bishop Paul D Etienne reminds us on his weekly blog how we need to rediscover a centre or a Core of Life to our everyday existence.

Of course, Sunday 17th is the Canonisation of Mary MacKillop and in case you missed me, Sacred Space 102fm has had a series of bits and pieces about Mary during the week which you can find here. And make sure you tune in on Sunday morning for our interview with Sr Margaret O Sullivan about this great Australian Saint.

During the week we nearly forgot the memorial of Blessed John XXIII - Good Pope John and you can catch up on some reflections and favourite speeches of this beloved Pope here. with a quick biography of him here and one his most famous impromptu speeches.

"When you head home, find your children. Hug and kiss your children and tell them: 'This is the hug and kiss of the Pope.' And when you find them with tears to dry, give them a good word. Give anyone who suffers a word of comfort. Tell them 'The Pope is with us especially in our times of sadness and bitterness.' And then, all together, may we always come alive -- whether to sing, to breathe, or to cry, but always full of trust in Christ, who helps us and hears us, let us continue along our path.”

In a challenge to the world, former Czech president and Nobel prize winner Vaclav Havel gave a speech in which he challenge the prevailing culture and predicted that the "First ‘atheistic civilisation’ is heading for catastrophe".

Holding onto faith can be difficult at times, but sometimes people of faith should be thankful for doubt. And Pope Benedict XVI speaking in Rome during the week noted that "It is the faith of the simple that knocks down false gods"

An unusual journalistic endeavour this week on the Pat Kenny radio show, a journalists take on a pilgrimage to Knock.

Given our spiralling unemployment rate, the Anchoress gives us some inspiration in the form of a Rosary for Jobseekers.

And through out it all, perhaps we need to remember that we need to live in the now, struggle to live in the present moment and that sometimes it is important not to do anything,

Quote of the Day

"There are actually 34 of us, because God has never left us down here."

-- 19-year-old Chilean miner Jimmy Sanchez, in a letter sent up from the mine Tuesday

Read more here.

Mary MacKillop & Pain: The Woman Bent Double – Sr Marie Therese Foale rsj

A reflection on the gospel passage about the Woman Bent Over – Luke 13:1017, as given in Adelaide(1.3.97) by Sr Marie Foale rsj.

Mary MacKillop was a woman bent double with spiritual, physical and emotional pain. Suffering, the Cross, was always a part of her life. Yet, like the woman in the story, she let the pain flow through her. It did not possess her. She did not become embittered but remained faithful to her God even when all she could see was darkness. Then, at the word of Jesus, she was able to stand straight again, look into his eyes, and move forward with renewed courage. For her, the healing happened not once, but many times.

Mary once wrote that her life as a child was one of sorrows and her family home, when she had one, was most unhappy. However, she could add: 'Yet for all that, my good God watched over me and guarded me'. [1] As a young woman in Portland, she met her first real test of faith – when she was blamed unjustly for having been involved in the uncovering of headteacher Cusack's dishonesty. This storm raged for the last four months she spent in Portland. Rather than let it crush her, however, she let the suffering pass through her and, at its end, blessed God forthe care he took of her mind and heart during those months. She stated that the more these troubles pressed on her, the more the peace and love and gratitude of her good God filled her heart. [2]

From Knockpatrick to Kiyinda - Part 3 - Suffering

Suffering

“The choice is between the mystery and the absurd. To embrace the mystery is to discover the real.” (Basil Hume, The Mystery of the Cross)

“The joys and the hopes, the grief’s and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the grief’s and anxieties of the followers of Christ.” (Gaudiem et spes,).

The sounds of daily life in Kiyinda begin each morning around 5.30am with the Muslim call to pray ringing out from the minarets of the local mosques (provided that there is power),

Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.

Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.

Ash-hadu an la ilaha ill-Allah.

Ash-hadu an la ilaha ill-Allah.

Ash-hadu anna Muhammad-ar-Rasoolullah.

Ash-hadu anna Muhammad-ar-Rasoolullah.

Hayya 'alas-Salah. Hayya 'alas-Salah.

Hayya 'alal-falah. Hayya 'alal-falah.

Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.

La ilaha ill-Allah.

And almost like a plug has been removed or someone has un-muted the mute button, everything seems to burst into life, because almost as soon as the prayer has finished you start hearing life beginning to stir in Mityana.

Voices of excited children going for water, the clang of the school tyre (bell!) waking up the sleepy heads in the boarding sections, their shouts and laughter ringing through the duskiness of the Ugandan dawn, the horns of the first Kampala-Fort Portal express buses of the day blare out warning people to get off the road or else, the bleats of the goats waiting to be released from their pens and the squeals of pigs waiting to be fed join in the cacophony set off by our troop of cockerels who seem to take delight in announcing the arrival of a new day outside my bedroom window.

Into that orchestra of life steps the bird calls of the various inhabitants of the trees overshadowing my house, some of them as sweet and gentle upon the ear, others that only their Creator could love as they call seems to go through you no matter the time of the day.