September 2008
Vol. XXIX, No. 9
Dear Oblates and Friends of
Portsmouth,
In the Lord's Prayer we are warned that unless we forgive others, we shall not be forgiven by our heavenly Father. This is not a teaching peculiar to Jesus. Centuries before, the sacred writer Sirach taught that vengeance belongs to the Lord, and that we must forgive our neighbor if we would be forgiven our offenses. What Jesus adds to this is the requirement of universal forgiveness; that everyone is our neighbor, not just those we know, as he taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan and that we must love even our enemies, those who have wronged us and have shown their ill will toward us. This is the part of forgiveness that is the true test of our Christian discipleship. It is not hard for us to forgive those we know any number of times, since we are constantly in the situation that either we need to be forgiven by those whom we have wronged or that they require our pardon for offending us. The difficult thing is to go one step further and return good for evil and see Christ in our enemy.
Two examples of this kind of Christian behavior have recently received attention in the press. The first concerns a bombardier, who was a prisoner of war during World War II and died in obscurity in Oregon at the age of 95 last March. The other is about a woman who has just been released from "an ordeal of horror" lasting six years as a hostage in Colombia. In July she was awarded the Legion d'honneur by Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, in recognition of her bravery and endurance.
Corporal Jacob DeShazer was aboard a bomber which took part in the famous raid over Japan commanded by Lt. Colonel James Doolittle in April 1942. His plane was shot down, the pilot and a crewman executed immediately, and the three other members of the crew taken into custody, where they were brutally tortured, starved and beaten in prisons in Japan and China until their release in August 1945 at the end of the war. Most of this time they spent in solitary confinement. In May 1944 Jacob asked one of the guards if he could have a Bible, which was given to him but for only three weeks. Eagerly he read the Scriptures and underwent a profound change of feeling toward his captors despite the inhuman treatment he and the others received. "I discovered," he wrote in a memoir written in 1950, "that God had given me new spiritual eyes and that when I looked at the enemy officers and guards who had starved and beaten my companions and me so cruelly, I found my bitter hatred for them changed to loving pity. I realized that these people knew nothing about my Savior and that if Christ is not in a heart, it is natural to be cruel."
After his release, Jacob DeShazar made a decision: to bring the message of the Gospel to his former enemies. In 1948 he received a bachelor's degree in biblical theology, married a fellow student, and both spent the next thirty years in Japan as Methodist missionaries. How effective his evangelizing was can be gauged from an extraordinary convert he made in 1950. Mitsuo Fuchida, the pilot who led the naval air force attack on Pearl Harbor, came upon Jacob's religious tract that had just been published and underwent a conversion, leading to his becoming an evangelist. "It was at this time that I met Jesus and accepted him as my personal savior." On several occasions the two men, who over thirty years before had fought on opposite sides in World War II, met as fellow Christians, the last time shortly before Fuchida's death in 1976. "We shared in that good wonderful thing that Christ has done," DeShazar observed.
Ingrid Betancourt, a Franco-Colombian, at the age of 40, was campaigning for the presidency of Colombia in 2002, when she was kidnapped and for the next six years experienced all the horrors of life as a prisoner of the guerilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. In a daring rescue coup, an armed squad of Colombian soldiers tricked Ms. Betancourt's captors into her being released into their custody under the delusion that she was being transferred to another detention area. During the first month of her captivity, Ms. Betancourt learned that her father had died, causing her to blame God for allowing this to happen. Gradually, her faith returned and it was through her reliance on prayer that she was able to survive her imprisonment. What she underwent she has refused to describe, unwilling to relive the experience and fearing to endanger the lives of those still in captivity. "Without Jesus at my side I would not have been able to grow through the pain." The prayer to "bless your enemy" was the means by which her hope was sustained. On her return to France where she will remain for the indefinite future, her first act was to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes in order to offer "thanksgiving to Mary for her freedom, for her life." The Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes praised her for "her ardent faith, her love for her family...;and for her engagement in the service of others." She is now devoting all her time and efforts in working to procure the release of the 700 prisoners that remain in the hands of the guerilla forces in Colombia.
Liturgical Calendar for September
Cycle of Prayer: Spread of Gospel; Harvest; Reverent Use of Creation; Justice and Peace in the World;
Prisoners and their Families; Victims of War
3 SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT
Pope & Doctor, Patron of Portsmouth
4 St. Cuthbert, Bishop
7 SUNDAY XXIII OF THE YEAR
8 Nativity of Our Lady
13 St. John Chrysostom, Bishop & Doctor
14 Triumph of the Holy Cross
(Sunday XXIV of the Year)
15 Our Lady of Sorrows
16 SS. Cornelius, Pope & Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs
17 St. Hildegard, "Sibyl of the
Rhine"
St. Robert Bellarmine, Bishop & Doctor
19 St. Januarius, Bishop & Martyr
20 SS. Andrew Kim & Paul Chung & Companions
Korean Martyrs
21 SUNDAY XXV OF THE YEAR
22 St. Ceolfrid (Geoffrey), Abbot
24 Our Lady of Walsingham
26 SS. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs
27 St. Vincent de Paul, Priest, Founder
28 SUNDAY XXVI OF THE YEAR
29 St. Michael and All Angels
30 St. Jerome, Priest & Doctor
October 12: SUNDAY XXVIII OF THE YEAR
OBLATE DAY OF RECOLLECTION
Dom Damian: (The Pauline Year) Other dates to be given next month.
Monastery Notes
On June 14th, a Turbine Festival was held at the site of the Abbey Wind Turbine as a promotional venture to educate the public on the environmental impact of wind and solar power, biodiesel and climate change and ways to become involved.
The two annual trips to Lourdes sponsored by friends of Portsmouth were made by Doms Christopher and Joseph, who accompanied a number of students from the School.
In early June Dom Gregory again served as art consultant on the School trip to Rome. Last year the group was fortunate in being able to visit the
Vatican gardens.
Dom Julian traveled to Worth Abbey in July. While he was there, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was making a retreat in preparation for the meeting of Anglican bishops at the Lambeth Conference.
A handsome gilt-framed tapestry from Indonesia has been presented to the monastery by a recent graduate from that country, Caroline Haryono. A significant addition to our growing collection of Asian art, it will be placed in Saint Mary's House.
A Votive Song of Erasmus composed during a visit to the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham shortly before its destruction by the agents of King Henry the Eighth. Note that Erasmus begs for spiritual, not material benefits: a pure heart that fears God.
Hail, Jesus' Virgin-Mother ever Blest,
Alone of women Mother eke and Maid,
Others to thee their several offerings make;
This one brings gold, that silver, while a third
Bears to thy shrine his gift of costly gems.
For these, each craves his boon - one strength of limb -
One wealth - one, through his spouse's fruitfulness,
The hope a father's pleasing name to bear -
One Nestor's eld would equal. I, poor bard,
Rich in goodwill, but poor in all beside,
Bring thee my verse -- nought have I else to bring -
And beg, in quital of this worthless gift,
That greatest meed -- a heart that feareth God,
And free for aye from sin's foul tyranny.
###
