Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam

Bulletin for December 2009

Sunday Mass Times

0730 Mass in Thai
0930 Mass in English

Weekday Mass Times

18.00 Mass in Thai in Chapel of Building 3
18.00 Mass in English in Chapel of Building 2 [when there are English-speaking retreatants]

          (The Mass will be in Thai with Short explanation in English)

New Year

DECEMBER

General: That children may be respected and loved and never be the victims of exploitation in its various forms

Mission: That at Christmas the peoples of the earth may recognize in the Word Incarnate the light which illuminates every man and that the Nations may open their doors to Christ, the Saviour of the world.

Tuesday 1st      Ss Edmund Campion & Companions, S.J., Martyrs
Thursday 3rd     St. Francis Xavier, S.J.
Tuesday, 8th    Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Monday 14th     St. John of the Cross, O. Carm.
Friday 25th        Birthday of Our Lord
Saturday 26th    St. Stephen, First Martyr
Sunday 27th      The Holy Family
Monday 28th     Holy Innocents
Tuesday 29th    St. Thomas a Becket, Martyr

Also in December

Saturday 5th     HM The King’s Birthday
Sunday 6th       World AIDS Day
Thursday 10th   Constitution Day
Sunday 13th      Bible Day
Weds 16th        Thai Catechists’ Day
Thursday 31st    New Year’s Eve

In January

Collection

The Sunday Offertory Collection for the month of October was 28,120 Baht. We thank you for your very generous support of the mission & outreach of The Seven Fountains Spirituality Centre.

Meditative/Contemplative Prayer Experiences you can download

Pray-as-you-go can be found at
www.pray-as-you-go.org

Sacred Space may be found at www.sacredspace.ie

livesimply is a challenge to live simply, sustainably and in solidarity with people in poverty.

www.progressio.org.uk/livesimply/AssociatesHome2/92990/livesimply/

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Education Sponsorship Fund-Raising Dinner

It is a credit to them and to all of you who contributed to the Fund, that we were able to raise 276, 944 Baht through that dinner. Well Done.

Last year we disbursed 1,406,500 Baht enabling 468 needy children to attend school. To achieve that same in 2009/10 we still require to raise more than another million Baht.

Praying with Scripture - ‘Lectio Divina’ – with Fr. David
Every Friday in the Old Wooden Chapel at 19.30 – 20.30
Everyone is welcome – you might like to bring your Bible with you.

Holy See: Exhibition on Matteo Ricci.

Jesuitica
 
The first musical textbook in the English language, A brief introduction to the true art of musicke (1584),
was the work of  William Bathe, born in County Dublin, who became a Jesuit in 1596.
A genuine polymath, he had by that stage already taught mnemonics to Queen Elizabeth I, presented her with a harp designed by himself, and studied at Oxford, Gray’s Inn and Louvain. He invented a simple form of musical notation (presently being researched in Trinity by Sean Doherty), and as a Jesuit wrote a seminal book on linguistics, and was an important pioneer in popularising the Spiritual Exercises.

… AMDG Express 29.09.2009

Theology in the age of migration

Seeing the image of Christ in the eyes of a stranger

By Daniel G. Groody

Undocumented migrants caught in the United States are lined up along a wall at the border crossing between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego in 2008. (CNS/David Maung)

Essay
Migration has always been part of human history. But because of widespread changes caused by globalization, more people are migrating than ever before, prompting some to call our own generation “the age of migration.”

In the last 25 years the number of people on the move has doubled from 100 million to nearly 200 million people. One out of every 35 people around the world are now living away from their homelands. This is roughly the equivalent of the population of Brazil, the fifth-largest country on the planet.

Many migrants are forcibly uprooted: Approximately 30 million to 40 million are undocumented, 24 million are internally displaced, and almost 10 million are refugees.

As one of the most complex issues in the world, migration underscores not only conflict at geographical borders but also between national security and human insecurity, sovereign rights and human rights, civil law and natural law, and citizenship and discipleship.

Hotly debated, much has been written about the social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of immigration, but surprisingly very little has been written from a theological perspective, even less from the vantage point of immigrants themselves.

Yet the theme of migration is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. From the call of Abraham to the exodus from Egypt and Israel’s wandering in the desert and later experience of exile, migration has been part of salvation history. From Jesus’ birth, understood as the movement of God into this alien world as a human being, to his resurrection as a return to the Father, and from the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt to the missionary activity of the church, the very identity of the people of God is inextricably intertwined with the story of movement, risk and hospitality.

Migration shapes the heart of who are as human beings before God.

The current global economy precipitates situations that push people out of their homelands while at the same time pulling them toward places of greater opportunity. At present 19 percent of the world lives on less than $1 a day, 48 percent lives on less than $2 a day, 75 percent lives on less than $10 a day, while 95 percent live on less than $50 a day. The richest 1 percent of the world has as much as the poorest 57 percent taken together. And the three wealthiest individuals have as much as the poorest 48 nations combined.

Given this economic reality, migration must be understood not as a problem in itself but as a symptom of deeper issues rooted in widespread inequities. Because the density of global capital resides in the Northern Hemisphere, migration flows tend to move in a South to North direction, not so much because people want to become rich but because many are seeking just to survive and live beyond the minimal exigencies of daily needs.

Two of the major “hot spots” along this South-North migration are at the U.S.-Mexican border and the Gibraltar Straits between Spain and Morocco. For many migrants around the world, these two areas mark the gateway between the slavery of their homeland and the promised land of better opportunities. After listening for many years to migrants talk about their experiences along these frontiers, I have tried to discern the spirituality of migrants and a theology of migration.

Last year in the Spanish-occupied colony of Ceuta along the Moroccan coast, I met a refugee named Emmanuel. For migrants and refugees like him, Ceuta marks the outer limits of fortress Europe. If he can cross over an 18-foot razor wire fence, he can avoid having to risk death by swimming across the boundary waters between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, where thousands have died in the last decade. Similar risks exist for migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border due to the terrain and climate in the deserts of the American Southwest.

 Emmanuel visits a church in Ceuta. (Daniel G. Groody)

Emmanuel spoke with me about his journey through Africa to Ceuta. He talked about leaving his homeland, crossing the Sahara desert on foot, the death of his sister due to the extreme heat, hiding out in mountains, living off plants and wild animals, going a whole year with only one shower, suffering human rights violations and many other indignities. He asked me about my priestly ministry at the university.

I told him that I teach on the subject of theology and migration, which led him to ask something he had pondered a long time: “Some people say the reason we are suffering so much in Africa is because we are descendants of Judas, and that because of what we did to Jesus we have to go through so much struggle. Is that true?”

His question only made me more aware of how migration needs to be recast not only politically, sociologically, culturally and economically, but theologically as well.

The basic premise of a theology of migration is that God, in Jesus, so loved the world that he migrated into the far and distant country of our broken human existence and laid down his life on a cross so that we could be reconciled to him and migrate back to our homeland with God and enjoy renewed fellowship at all levels of our relationships. Reading the Christian tradition from a migrant perspective involves perceiving what God is doing in the world through Jesus Christ and understanding God’s desire to cross over the various barriers that divide and alienate our relationships.

In linking the Christian tradition with his experience, I outlined four foundations of such a theology: the Imago Dei, crossing the problem-person divide; the Verbum Dei, crossing the divine-human divide; the Missio Dei, crossing the human-human divide; and the Visio Dei, crossing the country-Kingdom divide.

These foundations give expression to the ways in which God reconciles the world to himself, breaks down the divisions in our relationships, and helps us understand God’s movement into our world and our response to God’s grace.

The notion of the Imago Dei (Image of God) emerges in the earliest pages of scripture, where we learn that human beings are not just what we label them, but people who bear God’s own image and likeness. If people on the move are only seen as migrants or workers, or worse, as lawbreakers, aliens or criminals, then their suffering makes no moral claims on us, and we can rest content on our side of the dividing wall because we convince ourselves they are excluded for a reason.

At the core of the problem-person divide is the experience of dehumanization. What migrants often say is most difficult for them is not the pain and suffering of the physical journey, as horrendous as it may be when crossing deserts or oceans and stowing away in trains and cargo containers. “What hurts the most,” said one man from Mexico, “are the indignities, when people treat you like you are a dog, like you are a piece of dirt, like you are worth nothing as a human being.”

“Many animals live better than we do,” said another man from India. “It is as if we are worth nothing to people, and if we die in the ocean, it won’t matter.”

“Some call us cucarachas,” said a migrant from Honduras, “but we are not insects, but people who have feelings and families, who hope for a better future.” The most difficult part of being an immigrant for many is the experience of being no one to anyone.

God as refugee

The second theological notion central to the immigration debate is the Verbum Dei (Word of God). In the Incarnation, God, in Jesus, crosses the divide that exists between divine life and human life. In the Incarnation, God migrates to the human race, making his way into the far country of human discord and disorder, a place of division and dissension, a territory marked by death and the demeaning treatment of human beings. In Matthew’s account God not only takes on human flesh and migrates into our world but actually becomes a refugee when his family flees political persecution and escapes into Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15). Jesus assumes the human condition of the most vulnerable among us, undergoing hunger, thirst, rejection and injustice, walking the way of the cross, overcoming the forces of death that threaten human life. He enters into the broken territory of human experience and offers his own wounds in solidarity with those who are in pain. The Jesus story opens up for many migrants a reason to hope, especially in what often seems like a hopeless predicament.

A Somali mother waits with her child for supplemental food distribution at Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, June 8. (CNS/Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly)

If the Verbum Dei is about God crossing over the divine-human divide, the mission of the church, or the Missio Dei (Mission of God), is to cross the human-human divide. This Missio Dei proclaims a God of life by building up, in Pope Paul VI’s words, the “civilization of love.” In imitation of Jesus, it seeks to make real the practice of table fellowship through which Jesus crosses over the human borders that divide human beings from each other and invites people into the kingdom of God.

Finally, the Visio Dei (Vision of God) is about looking at the world in such a way that the Kingdom of God shapes our vision about who we are in the world. It acknowledges the role of national identities but recognizes that the deepest allegiances of Christians are predicated on a mission of reconciliation, meaning that the borders that define countries may have some relative value but are not ultimately those that define the body of Christ.

When bishops, priests and laypeople gather together each year in El Paso, Texas, to celebrate one Eucharist between two countries -- with the border wall in the middle -- they express God’s universal, undivided and unrestricted love for all people. In uniting people beyond the political constructions that divide us, such a Eucharist manifests the moral demands of the kingdom of God, the ethical possibilities of global solidarity and the Christian vision of a journey of hope.

When I finished speaking with Emmanuel, he stood up and, raising his arms high in the air, screamed, “Yeah, God. I can’t believe you would do that for me.” At that moment it became all the more clear to me that the church’s mission is simply a participation in Jesus’ own ministry, bringing glad tidings to the poor, proclaiming liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind and announcing the Lord’s desire for human liberation (Luke 4:18-19) for all people in this earthly sojourn.

Theology offers not just more information but a new imagination. It supplies a way of thinking about migration that keeps the human issues at the center of the debate and reminds us that our own existence as a pilgrim people is migratory in nature. In seeking to overcome all that divides us in order to reconcile us in all our relationships, Christian discipleship reminds us that the more difficult walls to cross are the ones that exist in the hearts of each of us. Unable to cross these divides by ourselves, Christian faith rests ultimately in the one who migrated from heaven to earth, and through his death and resurrection, passed over from death to life. If the term alien is to be used at all, it has little to do with one who lacks political documentation, but more with those who have so disconnected themselves from their neighbor in need that they fail to see in the eyes of the stranger a mirror of themselves, the image of Christ and the call to human solidarity.

A 34 week retreat for Everyday Life - A Ministry of the Collaborative Ministry Office at Creighton University.
http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/cmo-retreat.html

Sponsoring the Education of a Particular Child for One Year
A personal message from Dr. Kevin O Carroll:-

I would like to invite you all to participate in the individual sponsorship segment of our educational programme for Hill Tribe children.

This segment of the programme gives you, personally, the opportunity to sponsor an individual child, or several children, if you wish, for the next school year, to ensure that they get one more year of education, to help them break the cycle of extreme poverty in which they are otherwise trapped.

It is important that you understand that there are no administrative expenses related to this programme. All of the costs are borne by Seven Fountains. So, every baht of your contribution goes to the children. You may be aware that many of the children are not just poor, but come form otherwise disadvantaged families as well. Some parents are unemployed or even in jail. Some of the children are orphans. But none of that is the children’s fault. They still deserve an education.

The money is given to fourteen volunteers who live in the village and know the children well. These local coordinators are teachers, social workers, former Seven Fountains Catholic university students, religious sisters and two sisters of Fr. Vinai’s. In some villages there is a committee in the local school that selects the children who need help. Fr. Miguel knows these fourteen people, and so does Fr. Vinai, and they trust them completely Most of the coordinators buy the supplies and equipment for the children, or pay the transportation to the school directly to the truck driver. Only in rare instances, they give the money to the family in small installments. Every effort is made to ensure that all of the money is used for the direct benefit of the children.
A sponsorship could be as low as 1,000 Baht and up to 6,000 Baht, depending on the situation of each child. Indeed, this year, there are a few children who need as little as 500 Baht. The overall average for a sponsorship is 3,000 Baht a year.

For several years after I arrived in Chiang Mai, I bought Christmas presents for my four grown, or almost grown, daughters in the US. Having spent the money on the presents, I discovered that it cost me almost as much to mail them. Then I decided to offer my daughters a Hill Tribe sponsorship that I would pay for if they would be willing to forgo a Christmas present. Three of the four accepted immediately. The fourth was still in high school and said she would prefer a “real” present. But the next year, as a college student, she voluntary admitted that, if she really thought about it, she “didn’t really need anything,” and said she would like to have a sponsorship instead. So, now I provide a sponsorship for each of them and their husbands, for those who are married, and they really appreciate them.

There is no obligation to continue sponsoring a child from year to year, but many of you like to do that, and I will be happy to help you do that if you are interested.

I encourage you to consider sponsorships as Christmas presents for relatives and friends. And some people provide several sponsorships from year to year. People tell me that these gifts are really appreciated by many of the recipients.

Being able to ensure that a disadvantaged child stays in school for another year, is really very satisfying, and is a true manifestation of Christian generosity.

My wife, Apirum, (Noi) and I will staff a table after Mass for the next several Sundays, to help you select a child to sponsor. Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Kevin O Carroll.

To help deepen your grasp of your Christian faith

THE HEYTHROP INSTITUTE FOR RELIGION ETHICS AND PUBLIC LIFE
www.heythrop.ac.uk/HIREPL

Thinking Faith   http://www.thinkingfaith.org/index.htm

Thinking Faith is a free on-line publication of the British Jesuits.

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SOCIETY LAUNCHES SEVEN YEAR PLAN AT WINDSOR

Jesuits commit themselves to implement environmental objectives The British Provincial represented Father General at Windsor Castle at the beginning of month and accepted a certificate from HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and the UN Secretary -General , His
Excellency Mr Ban Ki-moon, for the work that the Society of Jesus has applied to drawing up
its Seven Year Plan for the Environment.

Father Michael Holman SJ was taking part in the Many Heavens, One Earth celebration, at which representatives from nine World Faiths were invited by the Duke of Edinburgh to propose long term initiatives to Protect the Living Planet. The Conference, organised jointly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), was attended by some 200 delegates and was taking
place a month before the Copenhagen Climate Change talks in December.

In the Society’s Plan, Jesuit Conferences, provinces, works, communities and individuals are encouraged to fulfil the mandate of the 35th General Congregation to “movebeyon doubts and indifference and take responsibility for our home, the earth.” The initiatives addressed by the Jesuit Plan range from giving priority to days of prayer, retreats and liturgies around the themes of Sustainability and Ecology to carrying out energy audits on communities and other works.

There are further commitments to ensure that institutions such as schools, universities and retreat centres are environmentally friendly, as well as incorporating care for the environment fully into the curriculum of Jesuits colleges.

“What impressed me was the trust which the Secretary General was placing in faith groups to show the way to governments in the matter of promoting environmentally responsible ways of living,” said the Provincial afterwards. “Governments talk about action; faiths take action. Faith groups, moreover, are able to inspire a change in people’s attitudes and in their life-styles which governments and secular
organisations are less well placed to do.

“Underpinning this trust, it seems, is an appreciation by the United Nations that a spiritual attitude to life acts as a necessary counter-balance to the all pervading consumerism of our time, a consumerism which leads to so much damage be ing done to the environment. Equally encouraging is the clear evidence that secular organisations are seeking to work more in partnership with faith groups and vice-versa. Just as faith groups need the scientific and technical know-how that secular organisations can provide, so these same organisations recognise that a faith perspective is necessary if their hopes for a changed world are to be realised.”

The Society of Jesus’s Seven Year Plan for the Environment can be downloaded from
www.sjweb.info/sjs/index.cfm

Celebration of Fr. M's 50th 18.00 hrs (6pm) Monday December 14th 2009 [kindly note the changed date and time]

50 years ago to the day, on 8th December 1959, a young Miguel Garaizabal entered the Jesuit Noviciate in Spain.

This year Fr. Miguel celebrates 50 years a Jesuit –
 a life of fidelity and dedication, to God and to others, particularly to those often overlooked by the world, and sometimes even by us. The Seven Fountains Community is hoping to celebrate the occasion in some appropriate manner.

Than Hartman has very kindly and very generously offered to co-ordinate our efforts. If you would like contribute to marking Fr. Miguel’s Golden Jubilee as a Jesuit, please contact Than.

Celebrating Christmas

Christmas celebrations as we know them today are a combination of many faiths and cultures.
 Early Christians wanted to create a special day in December to balance a Roman holiday.  They choose December 25 as the day to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  The Christians would celebrate special days by holding a mass.  On December 25, they held the Christ Mass.  Over the years the word has become Christmas.

The custom of decorating a tree as part of Christmas celebrations comes from Germany.  Martin Luther is credited with the custom of putting candles on the evergreen tree.  Prince Albert (Queen Victoria's husband) brought the custom to England in a wonderful example of two families and cultures blending their traditions.  In the 1800s the Pennsylvanian Germans continued the German custom in the new world.

Poinsettias are a beautiful red flower from Mexico that blooms in December.  According to legend, a brother and sister had no gift to give the Church in honor of the birth of Jesus.  They brought green weeds and decorated around the nativity scene.  Miraculously the flower bloomed in red and green stars.

During the 17th century, Franciscan priests used the flowers during nativity processions.  The first US ambassador to Mexico, Dr. Joel Poinsett brought the plant to the United States to be part of Christmas celebrations.

The story of Santa Claus has its origins in the life of St. Nicholas who was well known for his generosity and love of children.  The red costume is thought to come from red bishop's robes.  But many of the details of Santa Claus' Christmas Eve travels come from a poem composed by Dr. Clement Moore, called "The Night Before Christmas", in 1822.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer appeared in 1939.  He was part of a marketing idea for the Montgomery Ward department store in Chicago.  They were looking for something that Santa Claus could hand out to children.  The story, with illustrations, was printed as a booklet and given to children at Christmas time over the next 10 years.  The song was first recorded by Gene Autry in 1949 and went straight to the top of the Hit Parade.

Christmas is a celebration that blends the customs and stories of the both the old world and the new world.  Most importantly, like all the special celebrations held in December, it is a wonderful time for families to be together.

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Laus Deo Semper