4th Week, Saturday, Feb 4; St. John de Brito
Hebrews 13:15-17, 20-21 / Mark 6:30-34
To Christ be glory forever: He brings out in you what is pleasing.
Shortly after Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union, he completed a two-week run at the Kennedy Center. At the end of the two weeks, a critic wrote: “As the two weeks went by I realized something more amazing than the dancing of Baryshnikov was happening. A young woman, Gelsey Kirkland ...had been chosen by Baryshnikov to be his partner....“She sparkled; she was radiant; she was full of life.
And I realized that I was seeing the miracle of one person bringing out in another person her very best.” As today’s reading suggests, that’s what Jesus does for those who open their hearts to him.
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What facet of Jesus and his personality has had the deepest impact on our life? “We get no deeper into Christ than we allow him to get in us.” John Jowett
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In a final exhortation, the author of Hebrews sums up what he had said for the practical living of Christians. This is the blessing he wishes to his people. What a pity if our world would become so heartless as to do away with compassion? We hear in today’s good news that God shows in Jesus that he cares for us with a love deeper and more tender that that of a mother for the child to which she had given life. He is particularly close to those who need him most: the weak, those who suffer, the abandoned, and those who count for nothing. That is the love he showed us in Jesus; that is the love he invites us to have for one another: deep, tender, lasting, and not afraid of showing itself.
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The need for rest and recreation seemed to be like a missing element in our lives. In our fast-paced society, we can even feel guilty about having some rest and recreation when everyone seems so busy. We may have become so used to busyness and hurried lives that we forget about the necessity of rest and recreation. But rest and recreation is not about doing nothing and sleeping our time away. It is about a quiet time for prayer and to refocus our hearts on God.
In the gospel when the disciples came back from their mission and reported what they had done, the response of Jesus was for them to go to a lonely place and rest. Because the temptation to do more and more especially with success after success can make people lose focus and perspective. We have to realize that success cannot be created by our own hands.
It is God who will give success to the work of our hands. Only when we are rested in the hands of God in prayer will our busyness bear fruits that last.
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Encountering Christ:
1. Gathered and Reported: Jesus had sent them on a mission and the disciples opened their hearts to share their experiences with Christ: their challenges, the miracles, the excitement, and the changes brought about in their own selves. Like the disciples, we recap our daily experiences every evening as we share our joys and struggles and look for signs of his accompaniment throughout that day. Some days, we thank him for the miracles we witnessed; other days, when we feel the cross more poignantly, we thank Jesus for the suffering he has allowed. Always, we express our gratitude for his presence, recognizing that the good we do is his, and the evil is ours.
2. Come Away and Rest: Jesus must have been excited to hear from the disciples about their mission activity but he also knew the importance of rest. He invited them to “come away and rest” with him. Jesus asks us to stop sometimes as well, to recharge our spiritual and emotional batteries. Our rest might be a stop in the Adoration chapel for some peaceful silence, a “time out” from the computer and phone to read a good book, a nature walk, or a literal eyes-closed rest. He asks us to do all these things “with him.”
3. His Heart Was Moved with Pity: Imagine the concern, the tenderness, and the compassion in Christ’s eyes, as he looked upon the crowd so in need of instruction. And what disappointment the disciples must have felt! There would be no rest for the moment. God knows what we need at all times. It doesn’t matter whether we are actively engaged in life or resting, as long as we strive to discern the Lord’s will and act accordingly.
Conversing with Christ: Jesus, thank you for the experience of your love and tenderness toward me. Thank you for listening to me, for receiving me whenever I come to you, and for inviting me to rest in you. Give me the strength to continue loving, even when I am tired of loving and serving. I want to simply gaze into your eyes and, from there, learn to see the people and reality around me as you do. Open my eyes and my heart. Thank you, Lord, for your shepherding love.
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will reach out to someone who has shepherded me in the past to thank him or her for the gift he or she has been in my life.
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Opening Prayer
Our loving God, your Son Jesus, has revealed you to us as more warm-hearted, tender and compassionate than any mother could ever be. Be near to all who are wounded in life, care for the little people trampled upon. Make all those who follow your Son people who can forgive and heal, who make themselves like nourishing bread for all who are hungry in any way. Make us care for one another as you care for us through Jesus, your Son and our Lord for ever. Amen
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John de Brito (João de Brito, 1647-1693) was one of the earliest Jesuit missionaries in India to adopt elements of the local culture in his evangelization. He was eventually martyred because of his success and his steadfast refusal to accept honors and safety. He was born of Portuguese aristocracy and became a member of the royal court at age nine and a companion to the young prince later to become King Peter II. When de Brito was young, he almost died of an illness and his mother vowed he would wear a Jesuit cassock for a year if he were spared. He regained his health and walked around court like a miniature Jesuit, but there was nothing small about his heart or the desire that grew to actually become a Jesuit. Despite pressure from the prince and the king, he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Lisbon Dec. 17, 1662 when he was only 15 years-old. He studied classics, with an interruption because of health problems, then philosophy. He wrote to the superior general in 1668 asking to be sent to the east as a missionary, but had to finish theology first. He was ordained in February 1673 and left Lisbon for Goa in mid-March, arriving the following September. He studied more theology in Goa and was asked to remain as a teacher but he desired to be a missionary and to seek the glory of martyrdom.
Father de Brito worked in Madura, in the regions of Kolei and Tattuvanchery. When he studied the India caste system, he discovered that most Christians belonged to the lowest and most despised caste. He thought that members of the higher caste would also have to be converted for Christianity to have a future. He became an Indian ascetic, a pandaraswami since they were permitted to approach individuals of all castes. He changed his life style, eating just a bit of rice each day and sleeping on a mat, dressing in a red cloak and turban. He established a small retreat in the wilderness and was in time accepted as a pandaraswami. As he became well-known, the number of conversions greatly increased.
He was made superior in Madura after 11 years on the mission, but he also became the object of hostility from Brahmans, members of the highest caste, who resented his work and wanted to kill him. He and some catechists were captured by soldiers in 1686 and bound in heavy chains. When the soldiers threatened to kill the Jesuit, he simply offered his neck, but they did not act. After spending a month in prison, the Jesuit captive was released. When he got back to Madura, he was appointed to return to Portugal to report on the status of the mission in India. When he reached Lisbon ten months later, he was received like a hero. He toured the universities and colleges describing the adventurous life of an Indian missionary. His boyhood friend and now-king, Peter II noticed how thin, worn and tired his friend looked; he asked him to remain at home to tutor his two sons, but de Brito placed the needs in India above the comfort of the Portuguese court. De Brito sailed again to Goa and returned to the mission in Madura when he arrived in November 1690. He came back despite a death threat that the raja of Marava had made four years earlier. The Jesuit missionary travelled at night from station to station so he could celebrate Mass and baptize converts.
His success in converting Prince Tadaya Theva indirectly led to his death. The prince was interested in Christianity even before the prayers of a catechist helped him recover from a serious interest. De Brito insisted that the prince could keep only one of his several wives after his baptism; he agreed to this condition, but one of the rejected wives complained to her uncle, the raja of Marava who sent soldiers to arrest the missionary on January 28, 1690. Twenty days later the raja exiled de Brito to Oriyur, a neighboring province his brother governed. The raja instructed his brother to execute the troublesome Jesuit who was taken from prison on February 4 and led to a knoll overlooking a river where an executioner decapitated him with a scimitar.
