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Contents: Volume 2: 7th Sunday of Easter (B) May 28, 2006 (Reflections
for Ascention were sent out last last week)
1. -- Fr. Paul O'Reilly, SJ
2. The Gospel according to Aesop -- Rev. Martin R. Bartel, O.S.B.
3. (Your reflection can be here!)

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1..
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Year B  7th Sunday of Easter

"Consecrate them in the Truth."

Some years ago, a British politician was accused of lying. This is not, of  course, an unusual allegation in politicians. What was unusual was his defence. He claimed that he had not said anything that was strictly untrue - he had not lied exactlyhe had simply been - in his words -"economical with the Truth". He had not said anything that was actually untrue; it was just that he had said part of the Truth and said it in a clever way so as deliberately to mislead people about the rest of the Truth. He had told the Truth - just a very small part of it that concealed the rest of the Truth.

He did not think that this was in any way dishonorable and, even when his little trick had been found out, he saw no reason to resign his office. Not surprisingly, now 95% of the British population do not trust politicians to tell the Truth. Only one in twenty think that the people who take the most important decisions about the direction of the country can actually be trusted to tell the Truth even in simple everyday matters.

Man's ways are not God's ways. Jesus is returning to the Father. But he will not leave us orphans. He will ask the Father. And the Father will send us another Advocate to be with us for ever, that Spirit of truth whom the world can never receive since it neither sees him nor knows him; but you know him because he is with you, he is in you.

What then, is that Spirit of Truth? Well, I read about this couple in the Tablet of May 1998 and every so often I still think about them. They are an elderly couple who are - to this day - both doctors in a small town in the Szechuan province. When they were young, they had studied together at medical school, fallen in love and married. She was a Catholic; he was not. She wanted to convince him that he should join the Church, but he did
not want to be baptised. A short time later she had a child.

During the Cultural Revolution, the husband, along with many other men in the town, was arrested and sent to a labour camp. Hundreds of women lost their husbands; hundreds of families were broken up. They were not even allowed to write to the men who had been taken away. The separation was very hard on the wife, who had to work long hours at the hospital during the day and care for her son at night. As well as her own loneliness, she was under constant pressure from the government to
divorce her husband and renounce her religion, so that she could gain political and financial advantages. But she refused. Every night after she returned home, she and her son knelt down to pray for strength from God to endure.

Twelve years later, she heard that all of the men who had been arrested in that town were to be released and allowed to come home. So she went, anxiously, with her son to meet the train at the station, wondering how much her husband must have changed after twelve long years of hard labour in the prison camp. She and her son arrived early at the station and
sat down on the bare empty platform to wait. The time passed and she began to think that she must have made a mistake because the entire railway station was still completely empty, even though it was not long before the train would come. Maybe she must have got the day wrong, or the time, or the
authorities had changed their minds. But she waited until the appointed time. And then suddenly, away in the distance, she heard a sound - initially, just a whisper on the tracks - and then it slowly grew into what could only be the sound of a train. And yet still, she and her son were alone on the platform.  The sound of the train gathered and grew and she felt her heart throbbing within her - after having waited for twelve years, it seemed unbearable to have to wait another minute. Finally, at long last, the train drew into the station and hundreds of men came off the train, tired, weary and broken. Only one of them found what he was looking for. Even as she felt herself crushed by the pent up love of her husband, she could see past him to all the others who had returned to a place that was no longer home.

She discovered later that all the other men had been divorced and abandoned and forgotten by their wives and families. She alone had been faithful to the word that she'd given long ago. Her husband said it was at that moment that he knew that he too must become Christian.

Jesus says"When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will lead you into all Truth." God is not economical with the Truth.  Therefore, neither is the Church. As the last Pope said in his encyclical, 'The Splendour of Truth' we hold and teach these Truths which come to us from the apostles. That is the Same Spirit of Truth that came first on the Apostles at Pentecost. And it is the same Spirit of Truth that is instilled into our children at Baptism. It is that Spirit which consecrates us in the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth, now and forever - so help us God.

Let us stand and profess our Faith in the Truth of God.

Fr. Paul O'Reilly, SJ <fatbaldnproud@yahoo.co.uk>

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2.
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The Gospel according to Aesop

Seventh Sunday of Easter (B)
John 1711-19

The Bundle of Sticks

An old man on his deathbed summoned his sons around him to give them some parting advice. He ordered his servants to bring in a bundle of sticks, and said to his eldest son"Break it."  The son strained and strained, but with all his efforts was unable to break the bundle.  The other sons also tried, but none of them was successful.  "Untie the bundle," said the father,"and each of you take a stick."  When they had done so, he called out to
them"Now, break," and each stick was easily broken. "You see my meaning," said their father.

Union gives strength.

And union with God brings unlimited strength. No wonder then that Jesus' priestly prayer at the Last Supper includes a petition that those who believe in Him may be one just as He is one with God, his Holy Father. His union with the Father has protected Him from destruction by the evil one in a hostile world. When we are united with Him, He guards us too, from all that would do us harm.

Rev. Martin R. Bartel, O.S.B.
Saint Martin Parish
5684 Route 982
New Derry, PA 15671-1008
724-694-5716 voice/fax
Emailmartinrbartel@yahoo.com
http//home.catholicweb.com/saintmartin