Pope Francis is encouraging parishes and schools to participate in a Season of Creation, commencing 1 September and ending on 4 October, the feast of St Francis of Assisi. We are called to prayer, reflection and action towards care of our common home, the planet earth.
'I tell you solemnly once again, if to or you on earth agree to ask anything at all, it will be granted to you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them.
Matthew 18:19 - 20
Among the thousands of young men who gave up their lives at Gallipoli was a young 19 year old Catholic lad, Hohepa Marino. He was born in Rotorua to Ihaka and Wirihe Marino and lived just outside Rotorua in Mamaku. Hohepa was a timber worker before he enlisted on 8 October 1914. With the first Maori Contingent of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force Hohepa sailed from Wellington aboard the SS Warrimoo on 14 February 1915, then disembarking in the seaport of Suez (Egypt) on 26 March.
Major-General Sir Alexander Godley, commander of the NZEF was unwilling to send the Maori Contingent into Gallipoli and instead sent them to Malta for further training. Rapidly increasing casualties and the need for reinforcements forced a change in imperial policy on native peoples fighting. The Contingent landed at Anzac Cove on 3 July 1915 where they joined the NZ Mounted Rifles. Hohepa fought at Chunuk Bair in early August and on Hill 60 later that month. He died of wounds on 2 September 1915 and is buried at Embarkation Pier, Gallipoli. He was mourned by his family and is named on war memorials in Tikitiki, Rotorua, Gisborne and Auckland.
Hohepa was my great-grandmother's brother.
102 years have passed since the end of the First World War and 75 years since the end of the Second World War. 9.7 million military deaths and 10 million deaths of civilians were recorded in the First War. The Second War cost upwards of 25 million military deaths and somewhere between 40 – 52 million civilian deaths.
No single country on this earth escaped unaffected from these most tragic and destructive wars. Some Eastern European countries lost up to 14% of their entire populations. The magnitude of the losses in these two great wars can be expressed in a myriad of statistics, but is most aptly portrayed in the stone memorials that reach across the globe and upon which are etched the names of those whose lives were lost.
They had names. Hohepa, Edward, Wallace, Adrian, Tom Awatere, Marino, Joseph: they were loved, they had promise, they had futures, they had dreams. Yet they were buried in foreign lands, far from home, far from the hearths of their childhoods.
And this is how we must measure war. Its victims are not fragile, faded memories: they lived and breathed, were present, were flesh and blood, they sang and cried. They are real.
And that is why the Christian has an unshakeable belief in the resurrection. There are songs that are yet to be sung, stories yet to be told, love still to be shared. It is not just a promise; it is because our God is a God of justice and mercy. Such a God could not desert those whom he loved to be mere scratches on stone; he will make amends. This prayer has been raised by the millions of mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, brothers and sisters and children of those who lost loved ones in the evil of war.
In the liturgy this Sunday we pray:
O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption,
look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters.
that those who believe in Christ
may receive true freedom
and an everlasting inheritance.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
(Opening prayer from the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A)
We too are named, loved and known and our place in the heart of God is assured for true freedom will be ours to enjoy in our everlasting inheritance.
To all our fathers, may your Sunday be blessed, and may you come to know and celebrate God’s love for you. For us all, let us make true peace the foundation stone of our nations so that we will no longer know war.
Peter Douglas
These are the service men and women in my family and Toni's. This is not dissimilar to millions of families throughout Australia and NZ whose parents, children, siblings, and cousins went to war for their country.
Killed and MIA
Private Hohepa Marino, NZEF Maori Contingent, died of wounds, Gallipoli, 2 September 1915, aged 19 (great-grandmother Rangikahiwa Roto Macpherson’s brother)
Private Marino Macpherson, NZ 28th Battalion KIA Western Desert 16 December 1941, aged 33 (paternal grandmother’s brother)
Flight Sergeant Wallace John Douglas RNZAF 489 Squadron MIA off coast of Norway 9 April 1943, aged 21 (Father’s brother)
Warrant Officer II Adrian Vincent Douglas RNZAF 149 Squadron, KIA 6 September 1943 aged 23 (Father’s brother)
Private Edward Douglas, NZ 28th Battalion, KIA Tunisia 20 April 1943, aged 25 (Father’s 1st cousin)
Private Joseph Douglas, NZ 28th Battalion, KIA Tunisia 20 April 1943, aged 23 (Father’s 1st cousin)
Private Tamati (Tom) Awatere, NZ 28th Battalion, KIA Western Desert, 23 November 1941, aged 30 (Maternal grandfather’s brother)
Returned servicemen and women
Temporary Corporal Geoffrey Kereti Rogers NZ 28th Battalion (Maternal grandmother’s brother)
Lt Colonel Peter Awatere DSO MC, Commander NZ 28th Battalion (grandfather)
Corporal Herbert Douglas, RNZAF RAF (father’s brother)
Private Turi Macpherson, NZ 28th Battalion (Maternal grandmother’s brother)
Sergeant Basil Macpherson, NZ 28th Battalion (Maternal grandmother’s brother)
Frank Macpherson, RNZAF (Maternal grandmother’s brother)
Lieutenant Basil Thomas O’Halloran, Australian Army 53 Anti Tank Regiment (Toni’s uncle)
Sub Lt Geoffrey Allen O’Halloran, RAN HMAS Huon (Toni’s uncle)
Captain Gwendoline Healey, Australian Army, Australian General Hospital (Toni’s paternal grandmother’s sister)
AB Harata Douglas, RNZN (niece)
Staff Sergeant Wayne Wanakore (Renee’s husband)
Bradley Rossi RNZAF (1st cousin)
Mark Johnson RNZAF (1st cousin)
Serving
Piripi Douglas NZ Army (nephew)
Chanan Douglas RNZAF (nephew)
Maria Hodge NZ Army (niece)
Reserves (Territorials)
Renee Douglas (niece)
Brett Giles Douglas (brother, deceased)
Nice to have, but we don’t need churches
Fr Bill Grimm MM
Just as Christians in the 21st century are heirs of the apostles and martyrs of the early Church, Christians in Japan are heirs of the martyrs and hidden Christians of that country from the early 17th century to the late 19th century.
That is true whether we modern believers are Japanese or not, Catholic Christians or not. The Church within which we live and worship endured persecution so recent that I know a woman whose grandfather died a martyr.
The rest of her family — parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews — was wiped out on Aug. 9, 1945, when the atomic bomb exploded over the Catholic neighbourhood of Nagasaki. She was the only member of the family out of town that day.
During the centuries of persecution, Christians in Japan had no church buildings, no clergy, no religious, no Masses, no religious institutions, no diocesan structures, and no contact with the rest of the Church in the country or outside.
What they did have was each other and a commitment to maintain as well as they could the faith that was passed on to them and to pass it on to the next generations even at the risk of their lives.
They were poor, oppressed and lived in perpetual danger, but they prayed and shared their ability to help one another in need. In many ways, it was the Golden Age of Christianity in Japan.
Those Japanese Christians knew that church is not someplace to go, but something to be, something to do.
The coronavirus pandemic is an opportunity to learn or relearn that today.
We have had to be faithful without much of what we thought essential, symbolized by a building and what goes on inside it.
But God is still with us whether we are in a cross-decorated building or not. The real issue is, are we with God?
Around the world, there are Christians who clamour to have their buildings reopen so that they might exercise their Christianity.
They ignore the fact that confronted with a highly contagious disease; the most Christian thing to do is to protect others by following the advice of disease experts.
Jesus never told his followers to gather in a particular place each week. He did say that our lives would be judged on whether or not we respond to him in our needy sisters and brothers. He did say that when we pray, we should go apart to a private place and pray in secret to the Father who sees what happens in secret.
When he spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus said that places are not important, that what matters is worship “in spirit and truth.”
The woman had asked him where proper worship should be done, at the temple on Mt. Gerizim or at the temple in Jerusalem.
His answer was basically, “Neither.”
In that case, do we need buildings at all if we can and should pray anywhere and everywhere?
We do not and we do.
Originally, Christians gathered in homes. Besides being persecuted, Christian communities were small enough to not need special buildings and were too poor to erect them.
Eventually, as numbers increased, homes were modified to allow larger gatherings.
The remains of the oldest known one are in Dura-Europos in Syria.
Its frescos, the earliest surviving Christian art, are in a museum at Yale University in the United States.
Over time as Christian communities grew, buildings were adapted or erected for liturgical use.
The three-aisle layout that is so common in churches comes from basilicas (public halls) that were repurposed into churches or were the architectural model for them.
So, we have buildings in which we gather in the name of Jesus so that our discipleship can be confirmed, nurtured, confronted, affirmed and comforted.
But the discipleship is the important thing.
Without that, the gatherings are nearly worthless. And that is the reason this pandemic is an opportunity for each of us. Discipleship does not require a particular kind of building or a particular kind of gathering.
Buildings, Sunday gatherings, public prayers and hymns are the accompaniments of religion, but not the essence of Christianity.
Christianity is not a religion.
It has religious trimmings, but its most basic reality is a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The “religious” trappings aid our commitment to and celebration of that relationship but are not the relationship.
Now that the danger of contagion makes the buildings and large gatherings unavailable, we are invited to concentrate on what our faith really is.
It is prayer, service and trust that we celebrate with others when we can, but which we must live regardless of circumstances.
We can gather few by few to break open the Word, break the Bread, and share our faith. We can be church, as were the persecuted Christians of Japan.
Fr Bill Grimm is a Maryknoll missioner who lives in Japan.
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