breviary, a revolution from the heart?

I have to return the book today for others to also learn from. So let me share one of my favorite parts from the book REVOLUTION from the HEART:

I used to slip away each day from the babble of our cell to say my breviary in the prison yard. The other prisoners gradually learned to leave me alone for those minutes. As I read the Psalms, they took on a meaning they never had before. I had always seen them as hyperbole, poetic exaggeration, a little unsuited to our age, maybe any age. All this about being falsely accused, pursued by enemies, ensnared, hungry, sick, abandoned and forgotten. But now as I read them and looked around me I could see that they were literally true, word for word, and syllable for syllable:

Reach down from heaven and save me
Draw me out from the mighty waters
From the hands of foes
Whose mouths are filled with lies
Whose hands are raised in perjury.

So many of the prisoners waiting for me to finish could have written these very words. It was as if I were praying them now for the first time since I had come to the Philippines, twenty years before.

~ Fr Niall O'Brien, Revolution from the Heart, pp. 3-4 ~ 

I can almost imagine the looks in his eyes, begging, pitiful and hungry for justice; as is the situation of Negros at that time...I love praying the breviary though I couldn't pray so everyday. And I am truly struck by Fr Niall's testimony, for many times I found myself speaking in the lines of the psalms and readings. When one is disposed to it, the grace will work on. Even the unsaid prayers of the heart will find its way to the very heart of God...

Seeds of Injustice, a must read

Trying to run after time in my desire to work on my thesis fast, I asked for highly recommended readings for me to prioritize. Ideas are starting to unfold and I am overwhelmed with the many possible books on my list. So which one do I read first? Anne told me that the Seeds of Injustice (Reflections on the Murder Frame-up of the Negros Nine in the Philippines) from the Prison Diary of Niall O'Brien was the first of Fr Niall's books and is the basic. So I borrowed her one and only copy (assuring her that I will really take good care of it) and brought it along with me to the bank. Waiting for my turn, I started to turn on the cover, read the title and the commentaries at the back, the pictures...
Page 1 greeted me with this quotation,

Violence has a source, and that source is injustice.

Violence is the fruit of the tree of injustice

and hatred is its evil flower.

If we sow seeds of injustice, we reap violence.

If we want to remove violence, we must first remove injustice.

Niall O'Brien

This alone can bring one into a reflection on the truth of what he said. True, yes, true...
Continue on the pages...
Page 5 says,

para sila nanday

Digna, Nato, Arod, Clarita, Lina, Nanette, Boy, Putot (all are deceased)

para sa akon Ilog kag Amay

kag para man sa imo Nene

I love the way he put it, in Hiligaynon, our dialect... the pride of a native. And I really feel that he is talking to me still with the words, KAG PARA MAN SA IMO NENE, (and also to me). So do I identify myself with NENE as I try to pray for Fr Niall to help me with this reading that I may understand the words in the context that he wished for every Nene to understand. Kag para man sa imo Nene will be a good drive for me as I continue to read the pages...

So my journey of the recent past in this island of Negros, in the prison cell of the Negros Nine begins...

http://misyononline.com/new/jul-aug2009/the-Negros-Nine-Live-On