Joy
We walk for an hour
Along a dirt road
Heading out of Venilale
Going to ‘the mountain’.
We chat
In a mix of English and Tetun
Strolling in a combination of sun, clouds
And spatters of rain that settle the dust.
When we arrive
There is singing and dancing
Before a number of games
Display the innocent joy
Of the participants
This remote location
Watched our shared humanity,
Crowned by the Hail Mary
For our safe travel back to Australia
Sung in two-part harmony.
And God smiled
Normal is a relative term
Spending time in another country
Brings that home
Forcefully
Language
Diet
Customs
Skin colour
Height
Are some of the factors
That emphasise difference
And can make you feel dislocated
Good will, patience and a smile
Can encourage relationship
And dialogue
To emphasise our shared humanity.
It is slow,
But worthwhile things
Take time
I wrote this piece as I marvelled at the goodness of my companions during our time at St Maria Mazzarello school in Venilale, Timor-Leste. Sharon, Mel, Julia, Giulia, Faith, Clare and Molly – this is for you:
Goodness
We see people’s goodness
In different ways
Sometimes it shines forth
In a thrill of living
Or a burst of joy
It can also reveal itself
In stories that bring
A smile or a belly laugh
Goodness can also be revealed
In more subtle ways
That are as powerful
Because they build relationships.
It can be the friendly smile of greeting
The kind word
The hug
The point is the goodness in us
Wants to come out and do good
Our task is to recognise and appreciate
The source of all this goodness
The one who loves each of us into being
God
Fr Frank Martin passed away recently, aged 87. A great man has gone. His greatness could be measured by his extraordinary, timely and visionary leadership of Catholic education that ensured the funding and ongoing existence of the schools that today we take for granted. For that work he was awarded an M.B.E. But, for me, who grew to know and love him as a parish priest, Frank’s true greatness lay in his acceptance, love and compassion towards others, his faith and empowering leadership. Our vibrant parish, with dozens of groups, was a testament to Frank (and Anne’s) assessment of people and their gifts – then encouragement to those people to see things through. However feebly, I’ve consciously modelled my faith leadership on his inclusive style.
Frank was always an educator – engaging with people, touching hearts, helping them to see the good in themselves, then drawing that forth from them. Frank’s faith – in God, in the precepts of Vatican II and in people – will live on. A great man has gone but we are forever changed for the better.
Have a great week!
Patrick
This is the first of two posts today. This is an article written by my friend, Brian Doyle, to mark this date and appears in The Oregonian of September 11, 2015:
On the morning of September 11, 2001, 83 employees of the investment banking firm Sandler O’Neill & Partners were in the company’s office on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower. Sixty-six of those men and women were murdered by terrorists who smashed a hijacked jet into the tower and caused it to collapse. Those 66 men and women, among them, had 76 children.
In the harrowing days after September 11, the surviving partners at Sandler O’Neill made several interesting decisions. Some of those decisions had to do with resurrecting the firm, out of rage and duty and defiance, and maybe somehow quietly a sense of ferocious indefatigable unquenchable prayer. Some others of those decisions had to do with the families of the murdered employees: those employees were paid their full salaries, including bonuses, through the end of the year, even though they were deceased; and their families were kept on full employee benefits for the next ten years, even though the employee of record had been murdered; and the firm helped set up a foundation to pay for college for all the children of their murdered employees.
This last decision fascinates and rivets and moves me, and I called the Sandler O’Neill Foundation the other day to talk about those children, and here are some things you should know: 54 young men and women have had their college tuitions paid so far, with 22 young men and women still eligible for free college tuition. The 54 who are attending or have attended college have gone to every shape and sort and stripe of college you can imagine, from Stanford and Princeton and Yale to community colleges and technical institutes to Fordham and Notre Dame and Georgetown. Four students have attended Boston College, the alma mater of Welles Crowther, the 24-year-old Sandler O’Neill employee who saved eleven people from death in the South Tower before running back upstairs to save more people and never being seen again.
The oldest child eligible is now thirty years old and the youngest is thirteen. This youngest child was born six weeks after September 11, 2001. When that child graduates from college, the Sandler O’Neill Foundation will cease to exist, except in memory; but what a resounding memory it will be.
Andy Armstrong is one of the four people who now manage the Foundation; he was one of the founders, in the first days after September 11, though he did not work for or with Sandler O’Neill. He was a friend of Sandler’s surviving partner, Jimmy Dunne, and he and many others of Dunne’s friends and colleagues and competitors helped set up the Foundation. “We were up and running by the end of the first week after the murders,” he says. “We wanted the survivors and their families and the families of the lost to know that we would always remember, that the passing years would never sweep this under the rug. Many dozens of people donated many millions of dollars to set up the Foundation. We have no salaries and no expenses except fees to stay extant. Yes, I know most of the children who went to college. You wouldn’t believe some of the letters they have written in appreciation. I think they particularly appreciate that we remember their mom or dad this way. Many of them hardly knew their moms and dads.”
I called Jimmy Dunne at Sandler O’Neill to ask him why he instantly did so very much the right thing, the generous thing, the extraordinary thing, when it would have been so easy and normal and understandable to just do enough.
“Because there was a moment in time to stand up,” he says, bluntly. “Because we believed at that moment that what happens from now will echo for a hundred years in the families of our people, their kids and their grandkids. Because I knew that how we conducted ourselves in those first few hours and days would define who we really were and what we were about. Because I knew this was the critical hour, and if we just got by without being honorable, then we stood for nothing. I remember staring at the television on September 11, and seeing bin Laden’s smirking face, and concluding immediately and irrevocably that we would not be intimidated, we would not go out of business, we would not take our money and run, but that instead we will survive, and come back stronger than ever, and flourish, and be an example of people who worked and lived with honor. And that meant taking care of our people and their children with respect and reverence. So we did that.
“We made two key decisions within those first few hours,” he says. “One, we would always try to think ‘what would bin Laden want?’ and then do completely the opposite. He wanted to murder us, and scare us, and make us run and hide, so we would do the exact opposite, and bring the company back better than ever. And two, we would not only flourish, but we would do so the right way. We figured what we did and how we did it was our way of fighting idiots like bin Laden. You want us to fall apart? Then we will survive and flourish. You want to destroy us? Then we will insist even more on acting with honor. That’s what the Foundation was for, is for. We want our defiance and reverence to echo for a century, so that the grandchildren of our people will know we stood for something, and acted honorably when it really counted.”
Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland – “the finest spiritual magazine in America,” says Annie Dillard, and the author of many books of essays and fiction, notably the novels Mink River, The Plover, and Martin Marten.
The kingdom of heaven is promised and given by the Lord only to the poor (Mt 5:3) for he who loves temporal things loses the fruits of love (first letter of St Clare to Agnes of Prague)
The radical nature of this Gospel command is confronting. The poor’ are those who are not caught up in ‘having things’. Having or possessing temporal things is fine, so long as our focus is on giving of ourselves to others and so building relationships and community: ’the fruits of love’. It is a fine line, as we can easily slip from having possessions to our possessions having us.
It is so easy for the young (and the not-so-young) to be seduced by the ‘latest’ and ‘best’. Our task is to model connectedness to others. We might also ask young people to reflect upon whether their ‘things’ build relationships with others…or actually set them in competition with others. Something for us all to ponder…
Have a great week!
Patrick
I give thanks to the Giver of Grace, from whom we believe, every good and perfect gift proceeds (James 1:17) (second letter of St Clare to Agnes of Prague)
Part of the Franciscan genius is apprehending that God is the source of all good – something you’ve seen me write about previously. As creatures of a loving God – all that we have is gift. Thus I ought to be grateful for what I have been given and grateful to the giver – God. This is also a corrective to our society’s narcissistic tendencies – where it is all about ‘me’. The most appropriate response to God’s generosity is to discover and develop our giftedness. Also, imitating our creator and giving our gifts away freely. In so doing, we will build community.
A Christian community is about co-operation not competition. As a member of the body of Christ, we each have something to offer. Our task is to guide young people to value themselves since God doesn’t make junk and discover and embrace their giftedness. Then, give thanks to the giver by their life.
Have a great week!
Patrick
The LORD said, ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people’ (Jer 7:23)
To obey God’s voice, I must hear God’s voice, which implies I must be listening. If my day is filled with activity, when do I stop? How could I hear? For our physical and spiritual wellbeing, we each need to cultivate or make time – for space, for reflection, for prayer. Then, I am most likely to hear God’s voice. We also have a choice: do I obey God’s voice or do I make my own way? In my experience, it isn’t about ignoring God’s voice as much as not making space in my life to hear it.
When I obey God’s voice, I behave in a whole and wholesome manner. I am concerned for others in need, near and far. I am loving and compassionate. I approach life as the ridiculously beautiful and gobsmackingly wonderful gift that it is from the God who loved and continues to love me into life. This makes us happy. This is good news. This is what we want for our young people.
Have a great week!
Patrick
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord (1 Cor 12:4-5)
Human nature being what it is, we may compare ourselves with others. In doing so, we may feel that we ‘come up short’. This is where the Body of Christ or community model is much more helpful. We each have gifts; we each have a role to play. The application to any team situation is clear. We each need the other to be able to do our best. This has been referred to as ‘a synergy of purpose and practice’. Or that the body of Christ brings us to eternal life.
Due to their delicate developmental situation, young people can also compare themselves with others which may buffet their self-esteem. Rather, our task is to help young people focus on the role that each of us can play and how much more we can achieve together. When I discover and develop my giftedness, using my gifts to build community, I honour the source of all goodness – God.
Have a great week!
Patrick
In honour of the first disciple
Mary,
How much did you understand at the Annunciation?
Did you know, could you know of all that was to happen
To the baby you breast-fed & changed nappies?
To the boy who fell over and came to you crying?
To the young man who startled you in the Temple?
To the man who loved as no other,
But whose words of love, truth and justice
Were as bitter gall in the mouths of those
Motivated by fear, fame, power and control?
Well you may have pondered these things in your heart.
What mother would not be cut to pieces
Watching all that happened to her son.
But this was not your only response.
You were a rock to the community that gathered around your son
Before and after his death and resurrection.
Your faith, your courage, your goodness
Was a stunning example to all.
Today is a celebration of the goodness of God,
A goodness, a divinity which we see in each person
Around us when, as the Lasallian maxim says,
We remember we are in the holy presence of God.
livedgospel 