Nana and Padre Pio. Remembrance of her and my grandparents during the month of the souls.

Padre Pio of Pietrelcina died early in the morning of September 23^rd, 1968, and while he was well known and loved by many thousands across the world, his fame would grow and devotion to him would increase and multiply in the years after his death. Even while he was alive, people would make the journey from all parts of Italy to meet him, receive his blessing, and even book tickets for the sacrament of penance from him. When it was more difficult for people to make these trips, there were those who travelled across continents in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s to come to his Mass in the early hours. Many Irish have met him would have made the long journey to San Giovanni Rotondo to see him.

While he was alive, and while he didn’t like his image being portrayed, there were photographs of him being circulated and it was well known that pieces of his Capuchin habit were being torn and kept as relics. He used to wear the skullcap, but he had to give it up as they were being stolen even from his head by over-zealous people. His brown fingerless mittens, used to cover the plasters over the stigmata were kept as relics after they were worn once and changed.

My mother and father were married in December 1968, and I came along in October 1969. One afternoon in the Spring of 1969, my mother was in work in Abbey St in Dublin city centre, an elderly man came to the office with pictures of this Padre Pio and asking for 2/6d (two and six) in the old money. My mother hadn’t got it at the time, but he gave her the picture anyway and she felt badly not to be able to pay the man who she felt sorry for to leave the office with little money for his work.

When I was a little boy, my Nana, my mother’s mother, used to show me her old black-and-white picture of Padre Pio and I remember she would exclaim that he was a “very holy priest” She had the old traditional image of the Sacred Heart installed in the sitting room with the little red lamp which she used to light each day faithfully.

As a young lad out playing, on Monday, I would be Superman, on Tuesday, I would be Batman, on Wednesday, I would be Adam Ant, and on Thursday, I would dress up as a priest. This make-believe world, long before the internet and smartphones, kept us kids occupied in school, after school, and at the weekends.

As a teenager I was more into Breakdancing, graffiti art, discos, and I had a couple of girlfriends. We sported Adidas Rom, and baggy jeans which broke my mother’s heart trying to afford for us. In my mind I was thinking about priesthood, and I knew some of the priests in our parish who asked me did I ever think of being a priest? Sunday Mass was the limit of my religious practice then although I remember I used to pray a lot more as a younger boy. The seeds of a vocation get sown a long time back in the past.

In 1985 just after my Inter Cert, a brown-habited Capuchin visited my school and spoke of St. Francis of Assisi and the order he founded. Then he mentioned Padre Pio. I began to remember my Nana’s fondness for him and that old black-and-while photo she had in the house in O’Curry Road. He invited us to a “vocations workshop” which I went along to.

The vocations day was in Church St Friary, a church we would have passed by going to the other granny’s house in Glasnevin on Sundays. I met a lot of younger friars, full of fun and energy and I must say I was made very welcome and one of them said he knew I had a vocation to the Capuchin Order because I asked for a second helping of ice cream at dinner.

Time passed and I joined the order and a few years later, I found myself dressed in the Capuchin habit and linking my Nana’s arm as we walked up to Dufferin Avenue close to where she lived and where the Irish Office for Padre Pio was located.  We venerated the mitten of Padre Pio, and she was blessed by it which was an incredible experience for her since she had such a devotion to him. Over the years as a Capuchin student friar, I was involved in the organizing of the Padre Pio days of prayer in Church St with the late Frs. Senan, Angelus, and Barnabas, heroes of mine in the order, and Eileen Maguire, the Director of the Irish Office for Padre Pio until 2018.  I was in Rome for the Beatification of Padre Pio in 1999, and for the Canonization of Padre Pio in 2002.

Nana died on February 1^st, 1991, and I was ordained priest on June 8^th, 1997, and today I find myself as the Director of the Padre Pio Apostolate for the Capuchin Order in Ireland and I imagine that my Nana had something to do with all this because of her love for Padre Pio. My mother wonders too that all those years ago when she hadn’t got that ‘two and six’ to give the old man selling the pictures of Padre Pio, perhaps she gave much more, to her cost to God and Padre Pio.

 

  

XXV

Most people were sad when they heard the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth recently. It was one of those “Where were you when you heard?” moments. The Queen celebrated her silver jubilee in 1977 at a different time in Anglo-Irish relations. At any rate, she went on to have a golden, diamond, and platinum jubilee since then. 25, 50, 60, and 70, has come along in our lifetimes and while 1977 is only 45 years ago, most of us remember it especially as it was the year of Saturday Night Fever, and Star Wars, and ABBA’s hugely successful tour of Australia.

It’s been 25 years since I stood here in this church and Bishop Jim Moriarity, now passed on, ordained me priest in the presence of many of you. The theme of his homily was “A priest for the year 2000, a priest for the new Millennium. The Millennium, the year 2000, we wondered then, didn’t we, what that might mean as we watched them place the “Time in the Slime.” That was the clock ticking down to the year 2000, but even the millennium clock couldn’t survive the waters of the river Liffey! We were worried too about the millennium bug, and would the computers crash and what would happen to the planes flying in the skies when the clock struck twelve across the world on Dec 31^st, 1999, into Jan 1^st, 2000? A lot of water has flowed under O’Connell bridge since then. We have had the Euro, 9/11, President Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth laying a wreath at the Garden of Remembrance. A pope resigning, a Latin-American pope who chose a name like no-other in 2000 years. We had Roy Keane come home from Saipan, and now we wonder will Oasis reform? When I was ordained priest, Fianna Fail were elected to Government and Leo Varadakar was doing his Leaving Cert. Who knew that one day that Fianna Fail would be in Government with Fine Gael?

But let us go way back to the ancient ones who walked this holy ground in the 5^th century. One of them was a monk called Kevin who spent his early life and learning and who was ordained to the priesthood here in this area. Long before Dunnes Stores, or the Community Centre, or the Cuckoo’s Nest, or the Summer Project, or the Cycle Rally, St. Kevin, captivated by his love for God and his desire for solitude, left here to cross the mountains to settle in the monastery of Glendalough.

I could be wrong, but I don’t believe there was another monk or priest who left this area till I did in September 1987. My going away followed some summers of breakdancing, and discos, and dates, and some of you are here, and off I went to the Capuchins and their Franciscan habit and Padre Pio who had me spellbound, and I really had no idea why at 18 years of age. Perhaps if I had waited for a few years and not have gone so young, many of you may not be here, and maybe something else would be happening here today. But I did join, and for a while it was very tough, and awful leaving my family, and tough leaving Kilnamanagh, and especially all of you.

So, the boy from Kilnamanagh grows up to be a priest for the 21^st century and in the intervening years, I have been a school chaplain for ten years, a hospital chaplain for three years, and a parish priest for twelve years but all the while a brother in community in our Cork and Dublin Capuchin houses.

It all started for the Franciscans, nearly eight centuries after St. Kevin, when St. Francis of Assisi knelt before a cross in a little ruined church in down in the valley below the town of Assisi and he was inspired in his prayers to “Go and repair my church which as you can see is falling completely into ruin.” He thought of placing blocks and stones on the broken walls of the church he was kneeling in but soon after his followers, the first Franciscans came, he learned that it was a different rebuilding programme God wanted him for; to build up the church using living stones, people. Today, there are Franciscan brothers and sisters all over the world and the work is as vital today as it was in Francis’ time, so much so, that our Pope has taken the name Francis. Our lives revolve around the call to be lesser brothers and sisters to everyone in fraternity, and prayer to all – especially those most in need, the poor, the homeless, the refugee, and our mother Earth, our common home – the environment.

The call to serve for me, like the other friars and sisters and all in ministry, comes from Jesus. He has set a fire in our hearts and while there are struggles in all our lives, the joy that comes from following Jesus Christ can radiate so that other see it come through and becomes the building blocks of a vocation. Vocations are home grown and come in normal ways and while our world may not understand this, I would argue that priesthood and religious life prayerfully well lived is crucial for society in the 21^st century. I couldn’t do this if I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ which fuels all that I do.

And like everyone, I have my moments, and I have been supported by you all and you are so important to me.  I have shared happy days and sad days with you along the way. I have officiated at weddings in your families, I have baptized your children, and even grandchildren now! I have offered the funeral Mass for some of your loved ones. In all this and more, I have been the privileged one.

As I touched on, it hasn’t been easy. A lot has happened in the church in those intervening years and there has been huge suffering and for most that suffering is a daily cross.

Moving is something that we friars and clergy must do every few years and both we and our people face upheaval when we have to go to new places. You have a new PP; Fr. Frank arrive here in the summer for example. I have recently changed from parish ministry after twelve years to a new ministry with Padre Pio Prayer Groups, and Vocations Ministry.  Following the Lockdown and on the back of the years in parish pastoral ministry and involvement in some diocesan projects, I have been quite tired. But when the move came, this change hit me pretty hard. Why I am saying this is for you all to hear that I thank God for each one of you and the friars are consoled by the friends that God gives us.  We friars are called by God to follow Jesus Christ in the way of Francis of Assisi in the Church of today. He doesn’t leave us alone; he gives us great support. Yes, there are challenges and sometimes the light is dim, and I wonder where God is. But in comes people like you – all of you. And Jesus says through all of you, “I’ve got your back.” “I love you.” “I will not leave you alone.”

So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, mile búiochas…

To friends older and newer, thank you for your love. Even if I might not see some of you a lot, I know you are there, and I value your friendship and I ask you to keep in touch and let us meet now and again. For my part, you are always in my prayers.

To the friars, I said this in 2013 when I was 25 years in the order, I don’t know how you put up with me, I really don’t. I made Perpetual Profession of Vows in 1994 and that day I said I would be a friar for life. I hope I won’t let you down. (That’s another reason for celebrating today, the next milestone for me won’t be till 2038!) I am sorry for being a pain sometimes and causing you hassle along the way. And I’m sorry for being impatient with you as well, and sometimes being a big baby.

To the Poor Clare Sisters. I thank you for your prayerful support from day one.

To my family of origin; Dad, Mam, Kevin, Gráinne, David, Aoife, Lorna, and Clodagh. And now, Tracey, Sam, Louise, Jane, Helen, Peter, Orlagh, and Ross. To the Aunties Deirdre, Maureen, and Uncle Paddy, and the cousins, everyone knows what you mean to me. I would wither away if I hadn’t you, I would die.

Blessed John Paul I

 

I have some memories of the ‘Year of Three Popes’ It was 1978 and I was in third class primary school in C.B.S. James’s Street. The faith was practiced more then, churches were fuller, the world was bigger in that there was no internet, and mobile phone technology.  Flying overseas was a something occasional for most and done via a travel agent in offices in the city, not like today where we take commuter planes and with the click of a mouse, we can book a holiday.  There was no such thing as getting a 'selfie' with the Pope or Tweeting the Pope back then. 

The death of Pope Paul VI made the news on our radios and televisions. There weren’t embedded journalists and 24-hour news channels with guests taking us through what would be happening in the rooms of the dying pope, so we had to wait for the hourly bulletins and the main evening news. Pope Paul died on 6^th of August 1978 and at his side were his assistants and on his bedside locker was a Polish alarm clock he kept since he was in the Vatican Diplomatic service. The late British journalist and author Peter Hebblethwaite said in his book on Paul VI when the pope was pronounced dead, “The Polish alarm clock went off…”

However, before all that, the cardinals gathered in Rome to mourn the passing of Paul, now Saint Paul VI, and then to elect a successor. The conclave took place a little after the funeral of Pope Paul and on 26^th of August, the cardinals elected Cardinal Albino Luciani, from the Veneto region of northern Italy, and Archbishop (or Patriarch) of Venice. He was apparently horrified to be elected Pope. Publicly, he became known as the ‘Smiling Pope.’ He had been known for his writings, especially a book known as ‘Illustrissimi’, a collection of letters to famous people published in the early 1970’s. Some of these ‘illustrious ones’ were people like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Pinocchio, G.K. Chesterton, King David, Jesus, etc.

There were some surprises associated with the election of Albino Luciani. For the first time, a newly elected Pope took two names: John Paul. This was in respect of his two immediate predecessors, Pope John XXIII (1958-1963) and Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) He also dispensed with the formal papal coronation, instead of being crowned pope, there was now just a simple Mass and ceremony of installation. His pontificate was among the shortest in papal history for just 33 days later, the pope died on 28^th of September 1978. Again, the cardinals had to make their way to Rome for a papal funeral and the election of a new pope.

I mentioned that I was eight years old when all this happened and significantly for me, my mother learned that the new pope, Albino Luciani’s birthday was the 17^th of October, so I shared a birthday with the new Pope. I remember her suggesting I write to him to tell him and while I was curious and interested in doing this, I set about finding out how it could be done. I don’t remember how far I got in writing to the Pope because as we all know, John Paul I died so soon.

As Hebblethwaite reminded us about that Polish alarm clock, after the funeral of John Paul I the cardinals met in conclave again and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Krakow was elected on the 16^th of October 1978 and took the name John Paul II - and the rest is history.

Today, in Rome, Pope Francis declared Pope John Paul I ‘the Smiling Pope’ Blessed.

Saints Paul VI and John Paul II, pray for us!

Blessed John Paul I, pray for us!

 

Silver Jubilee

Thanks to social media we have no excuse when it comes to remembering birthdays, anniversaries, occasions, and other celebrations in the lives of friends and family. We are reminded about these celebrations almost daily on our timelines and if you are like me, it is a godsend.

Each year around this time of year I see posts and photos on social media of some ordinations to the priesthood and anniversaries of ordination. While in the west, the numbers of priestly ordinations are down, in other parts of the world thankfully there are more and more ordinations. We pray for vocations to the priesthood and the religious life and to the Capuchin Franciscans.

On this day 25 years ago, I was ordained to the priesthood in my home parish church of Saint Kevin’s, Kilnamanagh, I was 27 years old and had been in training and formation for the previous 10 years. Kilnamanagh is where Saint Kevin was educated in the monastery there before he crossed over the Dublin mountains and descended into Glendalough where he established his famous monastery and centre of learning in the 7^th century.

June 8^th, 1997 was a wonderful day and a day I had dreamed of from day one in the Capuchins in 1987. There were times along the way that I wondered if the day would ever come. I felt that the odds were somewhat against me when I joined because I was the youngest of the other five lads that joined with me. I thank God for the family I’ve come from and the community I grew up as part of and while none of us really understood what I was going to do and in fairness some felt it wasn’t a great idea, everyone was so kind to me and to the family.

Unless you are someone like me or know me well, you will not really hear much of men and women going into religious life today. The most famous Catholics are famous but not to everyone except perhaps for Pope Francis. Even in 1987 when Pope, now Saint John Paul II was in the Vatican, it was very unusual for someone to “Go away to be a priest” Looking back, again I say there wasn’t much understanding, and there were some who said “A waste of a life” however, there was and still is tremendous, good will.

I have learned so much on the journey in ministries such as school chaplain, hospital chaplain, and parish priest. I have baptized many babies and a few adults, given children in the parish schools their First Holy Communion and administered the Sacrament of Confirmation. I have been honoured to officiate at many wedding ceremonies of childhood friends and past pupils. I’m at the stage now where friends I grew up with, went to discos with, and went to school with are now grandparents. Recently, I gave First Communion to a grand child of a girl I grew up with.

While there have been happy times, there have also been sad times and even scary times. As parish priest I’ve been called to the scenes of accidents of one kind or another. You are there with other professionals, Gardaí, Ambulance, etc. offering whatever assistance you can. However, there it is as a priest commending the soul of the one who has died in whatever difficult circumstance to the mercy of God.  In hospital ministry I have said prayers for the dying and been called to the emergency department during critical and life-threatening incidents. I was called to the bedside of a child who was involved in a quad bike accident and watched the heartbreak of the mother holding him as he died. There was huge bravery and selflessness when the family gave their child’s organs that others may have life. I sat for hours all through the night when an elderly woman kept vigil over her deceased husband who was taken to the hospital from a cruise ship in the port. The situation was all the sadder as she was far from home and her family were all hours away and making contact was proving quite difficult. In these stories and more I can say hand on heart I have stood on holy ground. Being a priest and being invited to pray for a family in their happy or profoundly sad moments is like standing on holy ground.

As Sr. Briege McKenna once said to me, to do all this, one must put “petrol in the tank” All who are in ministry or in the caring professions and who encounter critical incidents from time to time need to charge up the batteries. We cannot give what we haven’t got. Everyone needs to reach out and ask for a little help. I’m no different in that I have structures, pastoral supervision, and spiritual direction to guide me as I go along. I need to pray and to be faithful to my daily Mass, and my prayers, especially the Liturgy of the Hours, and the Rosary. While I do this, this is also how I pray for others.

This is the secret, the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours and a relationship with Our Lady which is critical in the life of the priest. This fuels the fire and fans the flame and it is more than good works and charitable acts. We need to use another kind of vision, an inner vision, an insight, more than eyesight which fails over time, so we can see in the dark. Faith is the way we do this, and faith is passed on from one generation to the next. I simply couldn’t do this if it weren’t for the faith of my parents, grandparents, and those around me who love me.

We are fuelled by the holy Word of God in the scriptures and in the gospel, it is a living and life-giving word which nourishes and strengthens for this life and for the eternal life. At Mass the bread and wine are changed by the priest into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. If they remained just bread and wine, they stay human and is only useful to satisfy an earthly hunger and that would be all. But they are changed, they cease to be bread and wine at Mass. They become the body of Jesus and therefore we have the real presence of Jesus Christ among us. As the Tantum Ergo says, “Sight is blind before God’s glory, faith alone may see his face.” At the Last Supper, Jesus took bread and blessed it and broke it and said “This is my body, do this in memory of me. The He took a cup of wine and he said, “This is my blood, the blood of the new covenant, do this in memory of me.” We see the presence of Jesus Christ with the eyes of faith. This is how we priests do what we do, this is the powerhouse, here is how we minister and bring Christ to others and especially those most in need.

I am grateful to God for these past 25 years – a silver jubilee. I remember those who have died since then and I keep them in my prayers. For my family, brother friars, the Poor Clare nuns, and for friends, may God reward you all.

I would like to finish this piece with the words of St. Francis of Assisi from the ‘Letter to the Entire Order, in it St. Francis addresses the friars who are priests and reminds them of their high calling. Eight hundred years later, aside from the kind of language that was used at the time, these are still wise words and images for us.

 "See your" dignity, "friar" (cf 1 Cor 1:26) priests, and be holy, because He himself is Holy (cf Lv 19:2). And just as beyond all others on account of this ministry the Lord God has honoured you, so even you are to love, revere, and honour Him beyond all others. Great miseries and miserable infirmity, when you hold Him so near and you care for anything else in the whole world. Let the whole of mankind tremble with fear, let the whole world begin to tremble, and let heaven exult, when there is upon the Altar in the hand of the priest "Christ, the Son of the living God" (Jn 11:27)! O admirable height and stupendous esteem! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity, which the Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself; that for our salvation hides himself under the little form of bread! See, friars, the humility of God and "pour out your hearts before Him" (Ps 61:9); humble even yourselves, so that you may be exalted by Him (cf 1 Pt 5:6; Jm 4:10). Therefore, hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, so that He may receive you totally, because He gives Himself totally to you.

 

 

 

  

 

"We are always expected in heaven."

From time to time, Jesus spoke to the disciples about his death, and they didn’t like to hear it. They also couldn’t understand it. What is he on about? This talk seemed to happen on the back of great pastoral successes that he and the disciples had when they went about Judea and Galilee preaching and proclaiming the word. They witnessed Jesus heal the sick, give sight to the blind, command the crippled to walk, even raise the dead. They saw the abuse he got from the established church leadership when he ate with tax collectors and sinners and even forgave them. For example, when they dragged the woman caught committing adultery before him and mortified her publicly, they really were not that interested in her sin. They were more interested in putting him on the spot. All eyes were on Jesus a lot of the time.

There was huge momentum building in their lives and Jerusalem and the Passover seemed to be the focal point. When they reached Jerusalem, Jesus entered in triumph riding on a donkey with people crying; “Hosanna, blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord!” They are spreading their cloaks before him as well as palm branches and greenery. By the end of the week, things came to a crashing halt, there was a plot to arrest Jesus and no one in his company felt safe because one of his apostles, one on the inside betrayed him.

They all seemed to scatter after Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. They saw him being led off to be brought before the Sanhedrin in the early hours of the Friday morning. From there he was tried before Pontus Pilate, the Roman Governor, Tiberius Caesar’s man in Judea. There were two prisoners in custody, Barabbas, a well-known troublemaker to the Romans, someone they would happily do away with, and Jesus. According to a custom, in honour of the Passover they could call for the pardoning and release of a prisoner. Much to the anger of the Romans, and despite Jesus being scourged within an inch of his life, the Sanhedrin called for the release of Barabbas. Pilate had no choice but to go with the will of the mob calling for the crucifixion of Jesus.

In the middle east, two thousand years ago, in the hierarchy of punishments meted out to criminals, crucifixion was the most barbaric, grotesque, and frightening of all the punishments. The criminal died slowly in excruciating pain gasping for breath and bleeding profusely. Crucifixion was also a public act of disgrace to ultimately shame the criminal. They were nailed to crosses which they had carried and there they died sometimes over days and the bodies were often left there as a Roman warning; ‘Do not cross us – this is what will happen to you.’

When Jesus died, his apostles and his other followers disappeared in fear and hid themselves away. They tried to get something, anything by way of information. Their friend, their teacher, their Rabbi was put to death and while they remember that he had prophesied this, they didn’t understand, it didn’t click. They were heart broken. They locked themselves away and they didn’t know what to do.

When the Passover was over, early on Sunday morning, women from their group went with oils and spices to the tomb where the body of Jesus had been placed. They wanted to properly anoint his badly damaged body and wrap it up in a clean shroud.  They wondered who would help them roll away the great stone which was placed at the entrance to the tomb. When they arrived, they met two men in dazzling clothes who said; “Why do you look among the dead for one who is alive? He is not here, he has risen. Remember what he told you when he was still in Galilee: that the Son of Man had to be handed over into the power of sinful men and be crucified, and rise again on the third day?” They remembered his words. This was stunning news. As the day went on, they learned that other disciples had had encounters with Jesus who reminded them of why this had to happen

As the Risen Jesus emerges from the death and darkness of the tomb, his followers need to do this too. And the challenge is to leave the tomb behind them and emerge into the light of the resurrection. Their encounter with the Risen Lord fortifies their faith and gives them the necessary push to further witness publicly to the faith. By doing this, they therefore leave the darkness of their locked rooms and fearlessly come out and stand boldly into the Easter light.

As a society, as a church, we have spent three days in the tomb with Jesus. We too have been hidden and locked into the darkness in a sense. These three years, the end of 2019, the whole of 2020, and the whole of 2021 and till now, has been like the three days in the tomb with the stone rolled in place. We have endured restrictions, quarantine, lockdown, and sickness. We learned words and terminologies like; asymptomatic, close contacts, contact tracing, community transmission, flatten the curve, hand washing, herd immunity, incubation, lockdown, masks, pandemic, PPE, quarantine, self-isolating, social distancing, super spreader, surge, testing, vaccine.   Please God it is time to emerge from this. We see the numbers going down. We give thanks for all who were at our service during the pandemic.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine and the madness of Putin’s war is destroying this country live on our televisions and on our social media. There is so much darkness and doom. Ukraine has already suffered enough God knows in her history, not least in 1986 when the infamous accident happened at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.  Daily we learn of more attacks on Ukraine by an aggressive bully but God willing soon the tanks will leave for good, and the process of rebuilding can start. On Good Friday, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, Pope Francis’ envoy in Ukraine knelt in prayer at a mass grave close to Kyiv. He said, “So many dead, as well as a mass grave of at least 80 people buried without a name or a surname…tears fail to fall and words do not come, yet thank God, that there is faith. We are in Holy Week – today is Good Friday when we can unite ourselves to the person of Jesus Christ and go up with him to the cross. Easter Sunday and the resurrection of Christ will come soon.”

We must not stay in the darkness of an empty tomb. We must run out into the daylight of the resurrection, and we start now. As St. John Paul II said; “We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.” Let us journey together to the Kingdom where the Risen Lord Jesus Christ lives. Let us befriend our ultimate destiny more and more, life with God in heaven. To quote two young saints; Derry girl, Sr. Clare Crockett (who died in Ecuador on April 16th, 2016) saying good-bye to a friend she said; “Until heaven…” And Blessed Carlo Acutis, the first Millennial saint, (who died in 2006) said; “Our goal must be the infinite and not the finite. Infinity is our homeland. We are always expected in heaven.”

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

There are no borders from space

The International Space Station flies across and orbits the planet around fifteen times per day at speeds of 27 thousand kilometres per hour or 17 thousand miles per hour. It was launched in 1998 and it is up there in low-earth orbit conducting scientific research with a multinational crew of cosmonauts and astronauts. Among other things, it will help to provide testing spacecraft systems and equipment for future missions to the Moon and Mars.

On clear nights it is possible to see the space station as it crosses the night sky looking like a bright star. Amateur and professional photographers and astronomers have pictured it as it makes its way across countries and continents. The photographs are stunning, and some pictures show in some detail the football-stadium sized space station high up in our skies. I have the ISS app on my phone, and it alerts me to the exact position of the space station in real time and it also shows via a camera mounted outside the earth below as it passes above.

From the beginning of the space programme, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Astronauts Alan Shephard, and John Glenn and many other men and women have seen the earth far below as they orbited the planet. Those who travelled further out like the Apollo Astronauts saw the earth further away as they went to the Moon. As she reached the edge of our family of planets, Voyager, launched in 1977 turned her camera back towards earth after 40 plus years flying, and our sun was a tiny light way off in the distance.

In 2014, German Astronaut Alexander Gerst, one of the crew in the ISS, was flying over the region of Israel and the Gaza Strip and he saw the rocket attacks 400 kilometres below. He reflected; “We don’t see any borders from space. We just see a unique planet with a thin, fragile atmosphere, suspended in a vast hostile darkness. From up here it is crystal clear that on earth we are one humanity, we eventually share the same fate.”

When Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield was in command of the ISS during Expedition 35 in 2013, although he and the crew had very important work to do during their mission, including an emergency spacewalk, he treated us to breath taking photos taken from the cupola of the ISS. His pictures and those of the other astronauts clearly show us our beautiful, colourful, and fragile world. From the aurora borealis and the poles, to the oceans and rivers, to the eye of the hurricanes in August, the world is seen in all its sacred beauty. Thanks to the crew of the ISS, together with the space agencies, we see sunsets and sunrises, and towns and city lights at night. Our world is so pretty from the north to south and from east to west. And it is so tiny compared with other planets, stars, and galaxies in the heavens.

We need to take care of our planet. Over the years we have been warned time and again that we must protect the planet, and we are at a critical juncture now. Down here, we fight for land and territory and the result is the poor and the weak are far and away the losers. The terrible war where Russia has invaded Ukraine is affecting us all but most especially the ordinary Ukrainian women, men, and children who have been bombed, killed, injured, and displaced. Daily we see the results of massive violence and how it destroys lives and communities and homes. If this goes on there will eventually be no winners because we could lose everything. There will be nothing left.

We human beings form ourselves into families and communities, but we are called to share and respect what each one has. High up in space there are no borders. At the end of his Angelus address from St. Peter’s Square today, Pope Francis warns us that if war continues and destruction is allowed to rage, we will not have a world to live in. He says; “Before the danger of self-destruction, may humanity understand that the moment has come to abolish war, to erase it from human history before it erases human history.”

All of those killed in this war and other wars and conflicts were some mother’s daughter or son. Who knows, they could have been the scientist to bring about a cure for cancer. Each child has the potential to reach for the stars and how many children has this been stolen from by the evils of war?

Let us pray for a renewed respect for each other as citizens of the planet and strive to see what we have in common rather than what divides us. We have nowhere else to go right now until we stand before God at the end of our lives. Let us pray for peace.