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  PassionistsGlasgow

FATHER FRANK's LOG...

27/4/2017

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FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 23rd – 30th APRIL

From time to time I suffer with back pain, a combination of wear and tear on the spine; very bad posture, and a fall that I had some years ago. At the time, I was advised by our nurse in Mount Argus in Dublin to go and get some physiotherapy, something I had never before experienced. It was while I was rector of Mount Argus and I had gotten to know Elaine, a physio who had set up locally, and who had been coming into the monastery to treat various elderly members of the Passionist community to great effect. I made an appointment to go to her surgery where, on the appointed day, she greeted me warmly and engaged in some chit chat about her family in Cork, her time in Australia where she had done her training in a particular form of physiotherapy, and her new house in the parish which her mum had travelled up from Cork the week before to give the seal of approval to, and from which they had attended the Family Mass in the church.

During all this chit chat I had been getting myself ready and laying down on the physio table thinking what a nice, friendly person she was when, all of a sudden, and without any warning, she dug her elbow into my spine and then into the muscles on my back and my neck, and proceeded to put me through the most awful and excruciating of agonies, such as I had never endured before in my life. Elaine kept chatting away as if we were out for a Sunday stroll, while at the same time inflicting more and more agony, and it was only when she touched the sorest point of all, and my piercing cry rang out throughout the surgery, scaring a waiting room client half to death, that she turned to me and said,
“You know what I call this?” “No”, says I, through gritted teeth.

“Positive pain”, says she. And I thought to myself, she’s some kind of mad woman, she’s trying to kill me, a thought which was immediately given credence as her elbow dug into me yet again. But then, when all was over, and I realised what great relief she’d brought me, I couldn’t thank her enough, and I also couldn’t wait to get back the following week for another session and even more positive pain.

Perhaps “positive pain” is an appropriate term to use in relation the Passion of Jesus, without which there could have been no Resurrection from the Dead and no Redemption – no glory without the cross. The disciples too had their positive pain, enduring the heartache of Jesus’ death and the feeling that all that they had hoped and believed in had died with Him. But now in these Easter days we feel their joy as the Risen Christ makes himself known to them and prepares them to continue the work that He has begun, and to take His name and His Gospel to the ends of the earth.

Here is the wonderful Kahlil Gibran’s poem
On Pain from The Prophet

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. 
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; and you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief. 

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within 
you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician, and drink his remedy 
in silence and tranquillity: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by 
the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has 
been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears. 

​
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April 06th, 2017

6/4/2017

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FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 1st – 8th APRIL

Many of you will remember when Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday were celebrated a week apart, until the liturgical reforms after Vatican II and the introduction of the three volume Lectionary combined them into one, so that it is now called
Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord. It means that over a three-year period we get the chance to listen to the story of Christ’s Passion from Matthew, Mark and Luke, with the Passion of John being always read on Good Friday.

The liturgy of
Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord highlights the extraordinary contrasts and tensions between Christ’s joyful and triumphant entry into Jerusalem and the shouts of Hosanna Lord, followed by the dramatic and tragic events of Christ’s Passion with the cries of Crucify Him! For me it brings to mind a terrifying ordeal of real contrast and tension that I experienced during a liturgy some years ago.

It took place in South Africa, just months before the first ever democratic elections in 1994. Tensions in the country were running high. I had only arrived a few days earlier from Ireland to supply for a Passionist Priest, Father Paul Mary, who was recuperating from surgery, before heading on to Botswana to do some work with students and novices. It was my first time in Africa, and this was my first Sunday with the people. After the first Mass I was collected and brought to a black township where I was to celebrate mass and baptise 12 children. Opposite the Church was a cemetery and one side of the Church building was all windows, offering a clear view all the way down the road leading up to the cemetery.

The Mass had been a wonderful celebration of singing and dancing with life and faith in abundance. I loved it. There was a catechist, a great character, who was translating my homily into Sotho. The baptisms were to follow at the end of Mass and everyone stayed on to welcome these new children into the faith community. The atmosphere was full of joy. Towards the end of the Mass however, I noticed a rather menacing looking group gathering at the gates of the cemetery bearing traditional African weapons, fierce looking things, and now a funeral procession was making its way up the road towards the cemetery. It was clear that the people in the Church were aware of this too because the atmosphere noticeably became tenser, and of course they would have been much more aware than me of the tribal conflicts involved. Soon there was a full-scale battle going on outside. I turned anxiously to my catechist/translator and asked what I should do. He told me just to continue and finish the baptisms, which I did, and then, while the people stayed on in the Church, I was led out of a back door and driven through a maze of quiet and remote roads, safely back to the house.

I wouldn’t like to experience anything like that ever again, but it was a reminder to me that people throughout the world in a number of places have to live their faith in situations of tension all the time, and also that the tensions of
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, and of the events that we will celebrate in Holy Week, were very real. Let’s try to enter into these events with an active faith and walk with Christ every step of the way.

I hope you all have a very happy and holy Easter. My log will take a little break now and I will be back with you in a few weeks. Here’s a Good Friday poem by Christina Rosetti:

Am I a stone, and not a sheep, That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross; to number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss, and yet not weep? Not so those women loved who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved; Not so the Sun and Moon which hid their faces in a starless sky, A horror of great darkness at broad noon. I, only I. Yet give not o’er, but seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; Greater than Moses, turn and look once more, and smite a rock.
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    Picture

    FATHER FRANK KEEVINS C.P.

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