Luke 19:28-40
Isaiah 50:4-7
Philippians 2:6-11
Luke 22:14-23,
56
What is the
measure of greatness in the human character?
Don’t believe me? Ask our new Pope. He gets it and is teaching us daily by his words and actions.
In fact,
Pope Francis sent out a message this week on the social media network Twitter. His message was quite profound. This is what the leader of 1.2 billion
Catholics tweeted:
“True power
is service. The Pope must serve all
people, especially the poor, the weak, the vulnerable.”
If it’s good
enough for Pope Francis, it should be good enough for all of us.
Our Church
calls us to serve the poor, the weak, the vulnerable. Not just in our Church, but outside our
church in our troubled world. The
homeless. The prisoner. The weak and powerless. The sick and dying. The poor.
And so did Father
William Thomas Cummings.
Never heard
of him?
I’ll bet you
recognize this famous saying: “There are no atheists in foxholes.” Sound familiar?
The wartime
priest delivered this line while serving Mass for American and Filipino troops in
Bataan, the Philippines.
One of those
troops was my Great Uncle Vernon Weldon.
He left to serve his country a few months before the Japanese bombed Pearl
Harbor in 1941, the same year his niece, my mother Suzanne, was born.
My mother
never knew her Uncle Vernon, but she heard lots about his heroic acts in
letters read to her by Vernon’s mother, my mother’s grandmother and my great
grandmother Elsie Weldon.
I heard
these stories, too, as a boy, and believed my uncle to be a saint for what he did;
the sacrifices he made in serving his fellow soldiers.
Men who
survived the Bataan Death March wrote my great grandmother to say Vernon was
the only reason they were still alive.
Vernon would give up his food so others could eat and get healthy again
after falling ill in the death camps.
This is
their story. The story of the Passion played
out in the lives of two men who understood, “I am among you as one who serves.”
Fr. Cummings
was running an orphanage in Manila as a Maryknoll missionary when Japanese
warplanes attacked the city, destroying his orphanage and killing the children
he loved and served there.
Father
Cummings survived and went immediately to the nearby U.S. military base where
servicemen were preparing their escape from the city.
Fr. Cummings
met my uncle there for the first time and asked if he could join the Army as a
Chaplain and serve the men as they fled from the expected Japanese invasion.
The base
commander granted his wish.
Their epic
retreat to the Bataan peninsula with General Douglas McArthur lasted months as
American and Filipino troops valiantly fought the Japanese Imperial Army.
General Douglas
MacArthur commanded all American and Filipino troops in the Philippines. He continually pleaded with Washington to send
relief forces to the Philippines. But
Washington refused due to the devastation of the U.S. Naval fleet at Pearl
Harbor.
MacArthur
was under great pressure by Roosevelt to leave the Philippines. The Army General offered to resign his
position and serve as a volunteer to lead his men.
Eventually,
MacArthur got a direct order from Roosevelt himself to evacuate now, abandoning his
troops, but promising them, “I shall return.”
Sadly, his
promise to return would be delayed for years.
It would come too late for my uncle and his friend the priest.
Father
Cummings became an Army legend due to his service. Before being captured, a nurse at a field
hospital undergoing bombardment witnessed Father Cummings in action.
Nurse Hattie
Bradley recounted the experience of Good Friday, 1942, “More piercing
screams. Scores of dead or dying… She dashed into the orthopedic ward for
help. There, panic was on the verge of
erupting. Then she saw the chaplain…
standing on a desk. Above the roar of
airplanes, the explosions and the shrieks of the wounded. His voice could be heard: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven…’ Calmed by his prayers, the patients quieted.”
Father
Cummings did all of this with one arm broken by shrapnel from a bomb.
Father
Cummings was always on the front lines with the boys doing innumerable Masses,
administering Last Rites to the dying and helping with the wounded.
His field
sermons were memorable and legendary.
In fact, in
one of his homilies he made his famous quotation when he said, “There are no
atheists in foxholes,” a line that would be published in a book by a Filipino
General who was evacuated from Bataan in 1942.
Before
capture, Father Cummings had a standing offer to be evacuated to
Australia. But he stayed with his men
and never left their sides. He would
serve them all until his dying day.
When
MacArthur fled, the troops left behind were captured and marched by the
Japanese after the fall of Bataan on a 60-mile trek “straight out of Dante’s
inferno.” They were given no food or
water. They were subject to random
beatings and casual executions especially of the weak and vulnerable.
Thousands of
men would die of starvation, malaria and murder on the Bataan Death March and
in Japanese concentration camps.
My uncle and
Father Cummings would survive the over two year ordeal and amazingly were among
a few thousand men still alive when the Japanese evacuated the Philippines sending
the men in the hull of a Japanese warship to Tokyo to be used as slave labor.
While in
Tokyo harbor, my uncle Vernon died when friendly fire partially destroyed their
ship. Father Cummings would give him his
Last Rites.
As the horror
continued aboard the vessel Oryoku Maru, dubbed “Hell Ship” by the survivors, Father
Cummings again tried to calm the men, by saying the “Our Father.”
From his
book “Give Us This Day” by my uncle’s friend Sidney Stewart comes this
first-hand account from a dark, fiery cargo hold as Sidney helped prop up
Father Cummings:
“Faltering,
he began to speak. “Men! Men, can you hear my voice? Slowly he began to pray. ‘Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name… '
The cries of
the men became still. I concentrated on
the voice that soothed me and gave me strength and the will to live. Then I felt his body shiver and tremble in my
arms. He gasped for air and there was a
pain written on his face. He gritted his
teeth, sighed and went on. ‘Thy will be done – on earth – as it is – in
Heaven.’
I felt him
tremble again as if he wanted to cough.
His hands fluttered and his eyelids almost closed. Then with superhuman
effort he spoke again. ‘Give Us This Day…’
I felt his
body go tense all over. He relaxed and
his hand fell by his side… I knew he was dead… I cradled his head against my
shoulder. I didn’t want to lay him down. I couldn’t bear to face the fact that he was
gone.”
Father
Cummings gave up his life in the service of his poor, weak and vulnerable
brothers. He followed the will of the Father and climbed the hill to Golgotha. He
experienced his Passion.
Service is
Christ’s commandment to us all. As
Christ reminds us in today’s Gospel, “I am among you as one who serves.”
No comments:
Post a Comment