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It is with great joy and gratitude that we celebrate
this happy occasion of the diamond jubilee of five
Columban sisters
who have spent many years in
diverse and often difficult missions. Missionary
commitment brought Sisters. Maureen Byrne
and
Justin
Cassidy to Hong Kong from the 1950s to the 1980s.
They nursed and cared for Chinese tubercular
patients at a
time
when tuberculosis was rampant and
a life threatening disease. Many of their patients
were refugees from China, a
country
closed to
missionaries since the Chinese Revolution. During
these years, Sr. Justin also administered the Sandy
Bay
Orthopedic Center for children - set up by the
Society for the Relief of Disabled Children. Her
two hundred patients were
young polio victims and
children suffering from bone deformities. Both
Maureen and Justin not only administered their
institutions well, but cared personally for their
patients and were the inspiration of the nurses,
doctors, and staff.
Sr.
Bernardine Rush began her missionary experience
among the Kachin people of Northern Burma or
Myanmar.
The newly founded Columban mission included
a high school and a large but simple boarding school
for girls from far flung
villages, who otherwise
would have no opportunity of getting an education.
Their missionary efforts were short lived however,
for in 1964 the military junta took over the
school. The sisters were deported the following
year and it was with heavy hearts that
Sr. Bernardine and the sisters said goodbye to the
Kachin people. The slow, sad tolling of the funeral
bell expressed the
people’s sentiments as the
sisters departed. Sr.Bernardine then set out again
for another mission, this time to the
Philippines,
where she spent many years of committed missionary
service.
Srs
Maura Dillon and Catherine Hurley began their
missionary commitments among the Mexican people of
Los
Angeles. They taught classes and administered
the school. However, the demands of mission brought
Maura to the
Philippines where she set up a diocesan
theological institute, under the modest title of a
Catechetical Center in Olongapo
City. The Center
prepared high school teachers to teach religious
education in the schools of the diocese. This was a
new
venture for the Philippine church in the 1970s.
The Center continues to train teachers until this
day, a sign of its relevance
and importance for the
Philippine church.
Sr.
Catherine Hurley, on the other hand, was called to
the administration of the congregation. Her
leadership role
was a demanding one in the 1970s - a
very disturbing decade for the Church and for
missionaries - as the significance of the
deliberations of the Second Vatican Council were
only then being grasped. It was her task to see that
the mandate of the
Council to adapt our missionary charism to new global challenges was faithfully
carried out. When Catherine completed
her term of
office in the early 1980s she set off again for
another mission, this time to Chile, where she
served until her
recent retirement.
These
frontier missionaries adapted to new cultures,
climates, and languages at a time when Ireland was
still
economically depressed and stagnant and when
we could never have imagined Cable T.V., the Celtic
Tiger, the Euro,
or the Heinekan Cup!
During
these long years of missionary service our five
jubilarians were nourished by the invitation of
today’s gospel
which they have chosen for their
celebration: abide in my love. The word
abide is used repeatedly in this chapter of
John’s
gospel (10 times in verses 1-10). It is
variously translated as live in Christ,
remain in Christ, and make your home in
Christ.
Meister Eckhart, the 13th
century Dominican mystic says there is no need to
call Christ from afar because we are abiding in
him,
the resurrected, cosmic Christ. Our first reading
today reminds us that God has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual
blessing (Eph 1:3). We abide in
Christ in a deliberate, conscious way when we pray
or meditate, because prayer is an invitation
to soak
in divine energy and enter into deep mystical
oneness with Christ. Meister Eckhart again adds that
we are within Christ,
joined to him and therefore to
one another. And Julian of Norwich adds that we are
not outside Christ looking in, we are in
Christ
looking out.
When
Jesus said: I am in (abide) the Father and the
Father is in me; I come from within the Father; I
draw life from
the Father; his words came from the
depths of his contemplation as he experienced
the unfolding of the divine through him.
Being
deeply rooted in the divine, he grasped his
consequent mission, to transform the divine energy
within him into
compassion for tax collectors and
traitors, for prostitutes and the paralytic at the
pool, for widows, and the lepers who
called out to
him from afar. He dined with the broad category of
“outcasts” and “sinners” as an expression of
solidarity with
them. His mission demanded an
extraordinary lifestyle and passion for mission and
for people. The scandal of his ministry
was that
everyone was invited to his table and he treated all
with devotion, reverence, and respect.
These
words abide in me were spoken by Jesus at the
Jewish Passover meal, which became his last meal and
supper. The Passover meal was a solemn family meal
(not unlike our Christmas dinner) and Jesus and his
disciples – the
men and women who had accompanied
him in his last days in Jerusalem, all of them Jews
- would have been present. It was
to these ordinary
fishermen, tax collectors and housewives who became
his disciples that these words were spoken. And he
told them to keep his memory alive - “Do this
remembrance of me,” by abiding in him and living the
life that he lived.
Our
five jubilarians, Bernardine, Maura, Maureen, Justin
and Catherine have spent many years abiding in the
Father, soaking in divine energy, as they lived out
their passion for mission and for people. They
brought compassion, the fruit of their
contemplation
to all those to whom they ministered. Since all of
them have had an experience of living in Asia, we
will recall
a relevant Asian story here:
A salt
doll journeyed for thousands of miles and stopped at
the edge of the sea. It was fascinated by this
moving
liquid mass, so unlike anything it had seen
before. “What are you?” said the doll to the sea.
“Come and see, said the sea
with a smile” so the
doll walked in. The further it went, the more it
dissolved, till there was only a pinch of salt
left.
Before that last pinch dissolved, the doll
exclaimed in wonder, “Now I know the meaning of
mystery, now I know what I
am!”
Gradually dissolving into and abiding in the divine
presence, our missionaries brought their mystical
moments into their
ministry and vibrated that divine
energy to others. To paraphrase the words of Hafiz,
the 13th century Sufi mystic, our
missionaries helped their communities to “taste
sacredness” because for Hafiz caring for others is
an experience of being
“knee-deep in ecstasy.” In
the words of St. Paul, they brought to others “the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God, shining
in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:7).
However, missionaries often experience failure and
frustration in their work and they might often have
made their own
the sentiments of Adrienne Rich in
The Dream of a Common Language:
My heart is moved by all I cannot save;
So much has been destroyed,
I have
to cast my lot with those
who age
after age, perversely,
with no
extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.
On such
occasions they would have gone to their inner divine
fountain to be refreshed, perhaps even on occasion
to rise like
a phoenix from the ashes, to continue
the work of mission.
While the focus of today’s liturgy is on
the five sisters, it is also an important
celebration for their families and friends
who have
come here to celebrate with them. The message of
today’s gospel - abide in me, abide in Christ,
the resurrected,
cosmic Christ - is for
each one of you here. Divine presence or divine
energy cannot be quantified, nor can one have more
or l
ess than another. The invitation to soak in
divine energy and transform it into compassion is an
invitation to you today. It is
within family life as
well as in your work place that you are nourished by
divine energy and are called to become divine.
There
are many ways of entering into mystical oneness with
Christ. It is equally experienced by you at home as
you rear and
educate children, and prepare them to
leave home and become responsible and compassionate
members of the society.
That’s the mystical message
of today’s gospel – for our jubilarians and for each
one of you present - to stand at the edge of
the
sea of divinity, to gradually dissolve like the salt
doll until we finally and totally abide in the
cosmic Christ. That is our final
coming home!
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