Holy Spirit

1. The Holy Spirit is living in us,, reminding me to write a reflection on the dove representing the Spirit.


2. I wait now...


3. John

Summerset at Aotea

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My new home for a new period of my life. Thank God.

I shifted to Summerset because it was offered to me. My previous flat was quite comfortable and peaceful, close to the church St Theresa Plimmerton in a quiet street. Someone with name Gorden invited me to morning tea at Summerset. He showed me around and I was impressed, but told him that I was not ready for it yet.
Then after two weeks I woke up from a dream in which I was encouraged to go for it.
That day I went to see the manager and others involved and after a couple of days, ie 20th May I moved in. It took me another week to get everything I needed and I am now quit settled. The most important fact is that I meet dayly a lot of people in this retirement village and thus my life has given a new dimention. I enjoy it.

On sundays now we, Fr John Card, Barry Edwards and I, we take turns to celebrate Mass for the people in the home. Thank God.

Fr John Heijnen, 27 June 2011

advent

the race is on

The race is on is the last posting of Galilee. The picture of my painting

(see next) is called "the race is on"

and suggests that the Galilee blog has finished the long race of 51 of my stories and pictures, starting on 18th June 2006. That is part of my life which had its up and downs, but always supported by many friends.

Thank God.

John Heijnen

Liberation of Eindhoven

Liberation of Eindhoven 18 September 1944

Expectation-Consummation

EXPECTATION-CONSUMMATION

Whatever we do in life we have an expectation that things will work out in the end and that we one day experience the consummation of the best.

There is alway HOPE.

During World war II I was studying for the priesthood in a makeshift seminary. We were occupied by Nazi Germany. In spite of that we were always expecting that they would lose and that we one day would enjoy the the consummation of liberty.

There is always hope

18 September 1944
On that day I was standing outside the classroom of our minor seminary. Hundreds of aeroplanes thundered above us. We were told that my hometown Eindhoven in the Netherlands (30 Km from the town we were) was liberated from the German occupation. Finally the allied army were on their way to end the war, we thought.
A long train of lorries and tanks drove through the narrow main street, thousands of shouting people along side of which welcomed the English army from the south.
In the morning the American 101ste airborne division had liberated Eindhoven from the north. (See the picture above of the Liberation of Eindhoven.)

A sign of hope .

Although the next day the Germans bombed the city causing terrible damage with close the 200 civilian casualties, there was still hope in my heart that my family were alive and that the victory was in sight.

A patrol was fighting near a canal when an english soldier shot a german one. The english crawled forward and saw that the german was only wounded. Then he saw nearby a car approaching, stopped it and put the wounded soldier in it and drove straight to the german field hospital. They were surprised to see this and took the wounded one inside, shook hand with the english one and let him go back to his patrol. There was sign of hope that the end of war would end.

October 26 1944. After the operation "Market Garden" which started on 17 September failed at the bridge too far. The allied forces widened the front line and came close the city of Tilburg where I was. We had been for a night inside a concrete cellar under the church. During the afternoon one of the teacher opened the door on the top the stairs.
He was smoking a cigarette. Slowly the smoke wafted down and we smelled that it was not that awful smoke of ersatz tobacco but the real Virginia, A sign of hope.
We smelled our liberation.

Because there was no telephone or postal connection I was still waiting for some news about my family. But finally on the 11th of November 1944, my 16th birthday, a man on a motorbike arrived with a letter from my family. This was and still is the best birthday present I ever had, because I read in it that my family survived. The bombs fell only meters away in front of our house, but all my family were sheltering in the kitchen on the back. 18 people were killed on the road but my family were fine. What a relief!

There is always hope. Thank God.

Fr John Heijnen

23 September 2009

My Broken Friend

My broken friend

Sitting in a wheelchair, encircled by a small group of six woman, one a religious, and myself, is Warren, a man of about forty, paralised, except for a rocking movement of his head and hands. He is able to look around and see a large crowd of more then four hundred, gathered for a Retreat, animated by Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche and of Faith and Light, both communities with intellectually disabled people, in Merroo Centre, about an hour and a half by train from the centre of Sydney.
While listening in our sharing group and weaving our stories into a healing tapestry, I looked often at Warren. I was not able to read the mind of Warren but what I observed were the movements of his eyes, at times down and sad, or open and bright. I heard his groaning, his laughing, his crying. Why should he cry? Why did Jesus cry when he looked at Jerusalem and its people, or when he heard that his friend Lazarus was ill?
Why compare Warren with Jesus? Because Marilynne his caregiver told me that Warren often sees Jesus and that she sees Jesus in Warren. I agree. The image of Jesus is an icon of God. Jesus totally human, except sin but with all the brokennes of people, I recognised in Warren. Warren with his disability, his broken body, but also with his desire, his hope, his prayer for healing.
The theme of our retreat was "Our broken World: a Path to healing and Peace".
One of our favourite songs there, (favourite because I contributed part of it) composed by John Coleman, member of L’Arche Australia, was called "Broken".
Broken –all of us broken, all of us loved, chosen, each of us chosen, invited to life….Travel- each of us travel, companions together-walking the way; beauty, discovering beauty, lighting the darkness-surprising us all.
We traveled to Merroo, called a place of peace-giving water.
Where is peace? What is peace? Peace in the world, Iraq? Middle East? New Zealand? Our families? our hearts? We know that peace making is healing the broken world. Jean Vanier said, "Peace can only come when weaker members of society are made welcome". Warren is one of the weaker ones. His needs are exactly the same as mine (and yours): to be loved and to love, to make choices and develop their abilities. I believe that the L’Arche and the Faith & Light communities witness to the mysterious power in the heart of those who are weak. Warren, an icon of the weakness in our world, reminds me al the time that he is one of the "little ones", that God has chosen to reveal his mystery of love.
The " passion of Jesus" is such an icon, so is the cross, and the chalice, bread and wine; but the living icons are the broken people like Warren, like the suffering and the disabled, like parents of handicap children, displaced refuges, lonely and abandoned people. When I see in them the suffering Christ, and at the end of the road the risen Christ, then I experience a trickle of peace-making, a small sign of peace and hope. At the end of the road to Emmaus we see the breaking-down of a barrier, a wall that divides us, that holds us back is rediscovering our lost love.
When we risk the pain of the marginilised and come face-to-face with their grief and pain, when we invite them into our lives, we may receive the blessing of their friend Jesus. He will tell you that when he was vulnerable, you came to lift him up, when he was begging you for water, you gave him a cuppa.
At the end of our Retreat we were invited to wash each other feet, kneeling down and become a servant, like Jesus for his followers at the Last Supper. That example of Jesus I witnessed in our small sharing group with Warren. A very moving experience when his caregiver washed his hands (that is what he preferred) and dried them very gently, very tenderly. He, with help of caregiver, washed the hands of the girl next to him. She prayed over him, tenderly. In turn she washed my feet, bringing down the barrier of doubt, and make me see the loving, risen Christ, revealing the Holy.
In weakness our God is revealed, the wound must be opened before it will heal; when strangers are welcomed Jesus will be fed, revealing the Holy. The broken are invited to love, chosen to life.
All of us are invited to heal, invited to bring peace, chosen to life, to become an icon of Christ, like Warren.
I am very grateful to hold the hand of my broken friend Warren.
You will be too when holding the hand of a broken one.
Let me finish with a quote from Jean Vanier.
"If you and I seek today to live peace, to be peace-maker, to help create communities of peace, it is not just to seek success. If we find peace, live and work for peace, even if we see no tangible results, we can become fully human beings, walking together on the road of kindness, compassion, and peace. New hope is born".

John Heijnen April 2004 / August 2009