Newsletters: May 2007

I had to pinch myself when Nadir told me that Father Charles was dead. Father had been at our home only 36 hours before. He told us that he was going down to the Chrism Mass. I had suggested to Nadir that we invite Father around for a meal, but decided that Easter being a very busy time for him we had better wait till after we got home from Sydney.

Even now, as I step out of the bathroom, I think as I used to before, “I wonder if Father has turned up for breakfast?” But he won’t turn up again and we are so sad about that. Father was a true friend, not only to our family but to many families in and around Lismore. We had many a challenging discussion on the religious and moral issues and about Australian morés which he was sometimes struggling to get a grip on. Father valued family life, being one of 16 children and having no immediate family nearby, he made many families happy by becoming part of theirs. Whenever one of our children came to visit from Sydney he was there at least twice, once to welcome them home and once to say goodbye, sometimes turning up at the train station or airport. Once when Nadir and I arrived back after 12 hours on the train from Sydney, Father was there to pick us up and take us home. When our son, Brother Ruben’s plane was 2 hours late he kept him company at the airport.

Father Charles wanted no more than to settle down into a parish of his own where he could serve his little flock. It was not to be! Father was killed on his way back to Lismore to do a funeral for another dear friend, Ellen Nay. She was such a special lady; well into her 90’s she would drive herself to the Carmel, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. She would sometimes press a note into my hand to support the work of Apostles for Life, and she always assured me that she prayed for the work. Now doubt she is still doing that, now reunited with her beloved Bill. Together they had a large family to whom she was very precious.

I am sorry that I didn’t get to know Father Steve O’Donnell who was killed in the accident, but I did appreciate his zeal, his devotion and his insistence on the necessity of praying for the suffering souls in Purgatory! Let us all pray for these three wonderful persons who are now reaping the reward of lives spent in total dedication to Life Himself.

The Famous Roman Statesman and Orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, in his essay on Moral Duties wrote: "There are two kinds of injustice; the first is of those who offer an injury, the second of those who have it in their power to avert an injury from those to whom it is offered, and yet do it not." God will justly ask each of us, what did we do, to avert the innocent unborn child from being unjustly killed because the so-called private act of abortion cannot take place without the cooperation of the whole of society.

For example, the power of the periodical large Prayer Vigils, and the weekly prayerful presence of Jorge Bernal and the other Helpers outside the abortion mill, Queens Women Health Service, so moved Jose Cruz, a local real estate man, that he bought the building in which the abortion mill was located and evicted the abortionist, to use the building for morally good reasons. He requested the Bishop to come and bless it. And so on Saturday Feb.18th, after Mass in Blessed Sacrament Church, Bishop DiMarzio led the Helpers in prayer, inside the operating room, where 50,000 innocent unborn lives were taken and their mothers exploited. On another date, with a smaller group, I offered Mass in the same room

As you know the ultimate goal of the Helpers is conversion of heart by bringing the light of Christ to those in the darkness of the Culture of Death. Thus it was with joy that on June 17th that Bishop Daily after Mass in Holy Innocents Parish, Brooklyn, led the Helpers in a Vigil of Thanksgiving outside Parkway Clinic in Boro Park, where the at-times abortionist is once again a full-time doctor. On September 16th Bishop DiMarzio was the main celebrant at the Helpers Mass at St. Joan of Arc Church in Jackson Heigths. After Mass, the Vicar, Father Ogle, led us in prayer at two different abortion sites. In Jackson Heights between 104th and 70th Streets, there are 10 abortion mills aimed at killing Spanish babies. Joining us on this vigil was Barbara Spencer, a convert from Judaism to Catholicism, who lived in Canada but is now running a kitchen for the poor in La Paz, Mexico. She spent four days at the Monastery learning about the Helpers Apostolate, which she is going to start in Mexico. God’s ways are often a total surprise to us!

Please take part in the Helpers Vigils - at least once in your life! It really does make a difference!

Vigils are held in Canberra, Sydney, Albury, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Rockhampton, Cairns and Townsville.

To become a Spiritual Helper all you need to do is pray daily the Prayer below. The success of the vigils on the streets depends on your efforts.

St Carthage, as a young swineherd, heard the bishop and his clerics pass by, chanting psalms as they went along. The Spirit of God touched his heart and leaving his pigs Mochuda followed the procession as far as the monastery, where Mochuda concealed himself. The king, who had taken Mochuda under his wing, sent messengers to seek the youth, and one of these found him sitting, in the shadow of the doorway of the bishop's house. The messenger took Mochuda with him back to the king, who questioned him: "My child, why have you stayed away in this manner?" Mochuda replied, "Sire, I have stayed away through attraction of the holy chant of the bishop and clergy; I have never heard anything so beautiful as this; the clerics sang as they went along the whole way before me; they sang until they arrived at their house, and thenceforth they sang till they went to sleep. The bishop however remained by himself far into the night praying by himself when the others had retired. And I wish, O king, that I might learn their psalms and ritual." The king arranges for him to be taken into the Bishop’s care where he stayed until he was ordained. He went on to become a hermit, then an abbot of the foundation he built, then a Bishop. His life was foretold by saints and prophets, and he himself was a great prophet and miracle worker, raising the dead as his Master had before him and parting the waters of a treacherous river so his people could pass through to his final resting place Liosmor (Lismore). I thought the little story below would prove to be of interest. He is the patron of the Diocese of Wasterford and Lismore in Ireland as well as patron of the Diocese of Lismore in Australia.

“There came to Mochuda on another occasion with her husband, a woman named Brigh whose hand lay withered and useless by her side: she besought the saint to cure her hand. Moreover she was pregnant at the time. Mochuda held out an apple in his hand to her as he had done before to Flandnait, the daughter of Cuana, saying - "Alleluia, put forth your nerveless hand to take this apple." She did as she was told and took the apple from his hand and was cured; moreover as she tasted the fruit parturition came on - without pain or inconvenience, after which [the pair] returned to their home rejoicing.”

The feast of Our Lady, Help of Christians, was instituted by Pope Pius VII. By order of Napoleon, the Pope was arrested on 5 July 1808, and imprisoned at Savona and Fontainebleau. In January 1814, after the battle of Leipzig, he was brought back to Savona and set free on 17 March, the eve of the feast of Our Lady of Mercy, the patroness of Savona. The journey to Rome was a veritable triumphal march with the pontiff, attributing the victory of the Church after so much agony and distress, to the Blessed Virgin. He visited many of her sanctuaries on the way, crowning her images, and entered Rome on 24 May 1814 to enthusiastic crowds. To commemorate his own sufferings and those of the Church during his exile he extended the feast of the Seven Dolours of Mary to the universal Church on 18 September 1814.

When Napoleon left Elba and returned to Paris, Murat was about to march through the Papal States from Naples. Pius VII fled to Savona on 22 March 1815, where he crowned the image of Our Lady of Mercy on 10 May 1815. Following the Congress of Vienna and Battle of Waterloo, he returned to Rome on 7 July 1815. To give thanks to God and Our Lady he instituted the feast of Our Lady, Help of Christians; it was celebrated on 24 May, the anniversary of his first return. It is the patronal feast of Australasia.

A man's daughter had asked the priest to come and pray with her father. When the priest arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed. The priest assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit.

The priest told him his name and then remarked, "I saw the empty chair and I figured you knew I was going to show up,"

“Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"

"I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. "But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the priest talk about prayer, but it went right over my head. I abandoned any attempt at prayer, until one day four years ago, my best friend said to me, ‘Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here is what I suggest. Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, 'I will be with you always'. Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now.’

"So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though; if my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."

The priest was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, heard his confession, anointed him with holy oil, and returned to the church.

Two nights later the daughter called to tell the priest that her father had died that afternoon.

“Yes, when I left the house about two o'clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead. But there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?"

The priest wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we could all go life that."

Nine months on, it has come to fruition. We are presently advertising the only local-call-cost organization for NSW: Pregnancy Help Sydney Inc. We pray, and we ask you to pray, that these posters that we have fixed to bus shelters on Ballina Road, Lismore and on the Pacific Highway, Ballina, will be instrumental in turning a mother away abortion. Many mothers feel that they are have no choice, and are often pressured into abortion.

This morning I received an email from Jill of Kempsey asking me if I knew the book she is reading, This Tremendous Lover by Fr. M. Eugene Boylan, O. Cist. R. As is my wont, I decided to do a web search to see what I could come up with. I found the book quoted in the document, Christendom's Building Blocks — Catholic Communities by Br André Marie, M.I.C.M., which I thought so relevant to our cause as to merit publishing a very small extract. I hope that you will find it helpful too. You can read the whole document at www.catholicism.org/christendoms-buildingblocks.html

The Holy Sacrament of Matrimony is indissoluble and its primary end, the begetting and education of children, is essential for the temporal good of society and for the eternal salvation of souls. The home is the domestic Church and the enemies of Christian order have long fought to undermine its stability.

It may seem as if we have gone from the very global to the very local rather quickly. So far, everything we have discussed concerns the universal Church, the lives of nations, and international movements. We have suddenly narrowed our focus to your living room and your marriage bed. But it's all connected, and for this reason: the progress or regress of any society, natural or supernatural, begins in the home.

This is a piece of wisdom preserved in a Nigerian proverb, presumably of pagan origin: "The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people."

Father Mary Eugene Boylan added a supernatural layer to this when he wrote the following in his This Tremendous Lover: "It is urgent, at the moment, that Catholics should sanctify the family and the life of the family, for the influence of Christianity upon society depends upon its influence upon the family. Insofar as the family ceases to be Christian, Christian civilization will approach its end." (M. Eugene Boylan, O. Cist. R., This Tremendous Lover, The Newman Press, Westminster, MD, 1957, pg. 233.) It may surprise some to find out that this alarm was sounded by Father Boylan in a book first published in 1947! The degeneration of the Catholic home and the necessary impact that would have on society was something in plain view for those paying attention.

We can go back even further to Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI, whose encyclicals on marriage were making similar warnings. We cannot recommend Pius XI's Casti Conubii enough as a manifesto for the Catholic couple.

What deserves to be said is that the primary end of matrimony — the begetting and education of children — is a big part of "where the rubber meets the road" in this matter of rebuilding Christendom. We sometimes hear it said by enthusiastic non-contracepting parents that it is their goal to "out-populate the enemy." There is something to be said for this, but Catholic parents can produce all the children they want and will fail in out-populating the enemy if they fail in their job of "education." In fact, it's worse than that; they very well may end up handing over their children to the enemy.

"Education" as it is used here is not simply reading, writing, and 'rithmitic. The education spoken of as the primary end of matrimony includes everything it takes to raise a child: food, clothing, shelter, religious instruction, other forms of instruction, discipline in behavior, good mental and physical habits — everything.

The enemies of Christian order have long been fighting against family stability. We need hardly mention the obvious fruits of their labors: abortion and contraception. To be complete, the list would have to be extended to divorce, feminism — including having mothers work outside the home, a tax structure that encourages couples to contracept, schools which encourage promiscuous behavior, and an economy which has transformed the father from a provider for his family into a means of production to enrich financiers.

To get a true, supernatural picture of home and family life, we should consider the words of Pope Pius XI:

"Christian parents should understand, moreover, that their duty is not only to propagate and maintain the human race on earth; it is not even merely to rear worshipers of the true God. They are called to give children to the Church, to beget fellow-citizens of the Saints and members of the household of God, in order that the worshipers of our God and Savior may increase from day to day. ... for it is their function to offer their children to the church so that she, the fruitful Mother of the sons of God, may beget them anew to supernatural righteousness in the waters of baptism, make them living members of Christ, sharers of immortal life, and heirs, finally, of that eternal glory to which we all fervently aspire."

Nadir and I have both spent many hours working together on his autobiography - he as the author and I as the editor. We are very happy to tell you that “He Called Me By My Name” has recently self-published through iUniverse. It is available online at "He called Me By My Name"

We do have some copies available at $29.95 + postage. I can assure that it is a very good read. I have read it a dozen times and got pleasure from it each time.