OND July AB Vol 69, No 13

VOL. 69, NO. 13

WWW.CROOKSTON.ORG

July 15, 2015

Glorifying God through prayer and work

Two from Diocese of Crookston living out vocation as Benedictine monks

By Katrina Genereux Staff Writer, OND CROOKSTON, MINN. — Brother Louie Bachand and Brother Nicholas Erickson have a number of things in common. They were both born on Sept. 12, they were both confirmed by Bishop Victor H. Balke and they are both members of the Benedictine monastic community at Assumption Abbey in Richardton, N.D. Brother Louie is from Oklee, and came to Assumption Abbey in 1983. He made his first vows in 1987.

“I didn’t think there was anything on the other side of Bismarck,” said Brother Nicholas, sharing his first thoughts upon hearing about the abbey. His family belonged to St. Francis de Sales, Moorhead, and he has been a member of the monastic community “on the other side of Bismarck” since 1992.

CALLED TO THE ABBEY “I had some inkling of some

Nicholas spent several weeks with the monks. During his time at the abbey, he was impressed by the community’s daily prayer life. Through the course of his visits, he was able to see the monks in every aspect of their lives. “I saw them as normal human beings,” he said. “They’re not perfect, you know, and that kind of impressed me too.”

Brother Nicholas had a profound experience while kneelBenedictine Brother Louie Bachand peels apples at Assumption Abbey. He has been the caretaker of the ing before the abbot during his first vows on Jan. 18, 1992. “I gardens and orchard at the abbey for more than 30 years. (Submitted photo) was kneeling before him and I sort of vocation,” said Brother tion Abbey after talking with is that a live-in program at As- was reading my vows out loud Nicholas. “But, I had never met his pastor who referred him to sumption Abbey was brought and all of a sudden I stopped and the only thing that came a monk. I had never heard of a the vocations director at Car- up. dinal Muench Seminary. All he “Something struck me, and into my head was ‘this is right’ monastery, period.”

He found out about Assump- remembers from the meeting I said ‘I want to go’.” Brother MONKS: Continued on Page 7

Fire kindled in hearts of 100 middle school students

By Katrina Genereux Staff Writer, OND

PARK RAPIDS, MINN. — The annual St. John Paul II Camp was held from July 5 to July 9 for students entering grades seven through nine at Northern Pines Retreat Center in Park Rapids.

Campers spent five days taking part in daily Mass, prayer, Confession, Adoration, talks, skits, testimonies, fun and games.

According to Elizabeth Rzepka, Coordinator of Catechesis and Youth Ministry for the Office of the New Evangelization, St. John Paul II Camp is held “to create a space, place and time for encounter with

INSIDE

VOL. 69, NO. 13:

Christ.” She added, “The whole point is always to have a meaningful encounter with the Lord in such a way that campers want to surrender their lives to him and be authentic disciples of Christ in a way that impacts their entire life. None of us can manufacture that or make that encounter happen.”

Rzepka hopes that giving the campers a chance to step away from daily life will help them hear God’s voice more clearly and in turn, respond with ease.

“It’s always really good to give them an experience of the diocesan Church, the wider Church and an experience of CAMP: Continued on Page 6

Staff and campers take a group photo on the final day of St. John Paul II Camp. (Submitted photo)

Pg. 3 - Pastoral Statement From Bishop Hoeppner Pg. 9 - New Safe Environment Module Ready Pg. 10 - Faith For Tomorrow Grants Awarded

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July 15, 2015

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COMMENTARY

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

Voice from the Valley

BY BISHOP MICHAEL J. HOEPPNER

‘LAUDATO SI’ In his Encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si,” Pope Francis says that he wants “to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home.”

He does so not as a scientist, but as a shepherd offering sound moral guidance on how we who inhabit this beautiful planet need to act in respecting “Mother Earth, our sister.”

In love, God the Creator fashioned the earth for all human beings and together, brothers and sisters, we share this common home. Together, we share a common responsibility to take care of one another and our home.

As I read the first pages of Pope Francis’ letter to us, interconnectedness is the word that came to my mind. Pope Francis reminds us that not only are all the people of the world united as brothers and sisters, but all human beings are united with everything God has created.

In this regard, Pope Francis quotes Pope Benedict XVI: “… ‘the book of nature is one and indivisible’, and includes the environment, life, sexuality, the family, social relations and so forth.” Because of this inter-

connectedness, Pope Francis reminds us that “nothing in this world is indifferent to us.” When we forget this interconnectedness; when we use creation for ourselves alone, selfishly, we misuse creation. Pope Francis quoted his predecessor again in the encyclical, writing: “The misuse of creation begins when we no longer recognize any higher instance than ourselves, when we see nothing else but ourselves.” Not only does our interconnectedness encompass all people and all of creation, it also includes the Creator whose “eternal power and divinity have been made known through his works since the creation of the world.” (Rom. 1:20) Pope Francis presents Saint Francis of Assisi as an “attractive and compelling” figure who can help us see that an “integral ecology” involves respect and dignity for all that exists – human and divine – which takes us “to the heart of what it is to be human.” He wrote, “Saint Francis’ response to the world around him was so much more than intellectual appreciation or economic calculus, for to him each and every creature was a sister united to him by bonds of affection. That is why he felt called to care for all that

exists.” (Laudato Si, 11) Pope Francis writes: “If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled.”

(Laudato Si, 11) In a conversation I had the other day, it was said that there is evidence to show that people spending too much time on the computer or using hand-held devices are losing the ability to experience real awe. “Awe” is an Old Testament virtue, often referred to as “Fear of the Lord.” This virtue is not so much being afraid of God, as it is “being amazed at God and God’s presence, God’s power, majesty, beauty and glory.” I hope we never lose our ability to know and feel awe, and our interconnectedness with all that

exists, human and divine. This brings us to the heart of what it is to be human, and will guide us both in forming an “integral ecology” and in our responsible use of all that God has entrusted into our hands.

NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING AWARENESS WEEK JULY 19-25 Before Pope Francis was Pope Francis, while he was still the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he commented: “Someone once told me that the Solemnity of the Annunciation is the most glorious day of the year because that’s the day when God began his earthly journey with us. God is welcomed by Mary; Mary’s womb became a sanctuary protected by the Holy Spirit, protected by the shadow of God. From the moment of the Annunciation, Mary strikes out on a path, a path of accompanying the life that she had just conceived, the life of Jesus.” At the Annunciation, God was involved in family planning. It is wonderful when couples know and celebrate God’s involvement in family planning. God helps them understand them-

BISHOP’S CALENDAR July 18

5:30 p.m.

Pastor’s Installation Mass, Sacred Heart, East Grand Forks

July 19

9:00 a.m.

Mass, St. Anne’s, Waubun

July 25

5:00 p.m.

Mass, St. Ann’s, Blackduck

July 26

8:00 a.m.

July 26

selves and the gift of sexuality he has given them to responsibly use in joining with him in the task of conceiving and bringing new human beings into the world.

The 2015 theme for Natural Family Planning (NFP) Awareness Week is “All Natural! Natural Family Planning – Good for the Body.” We delight in all who have the vocation of marriage and family and we pray that they all can live well their calling. Their witness to marriage and family is so desperately needed in our world these days. In the Diocese of Crookston and surrounding areas, there are certified teaching couples and instructors available to work with peopleand guide them in various NFP methods. For more information about Natural Family Planning, local instructors, course offerings and NFP physicians in our area, contact Amanda Zurface, Coordinator of Justice, Marriage and Family Life in the Office of the New Evangelization at 218-281-4533, ext. 425.

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VICTIM ASSISTANCE STATEMENT If you or someone you know has been sexually abused, your first call should be to law enforcement. If you have been abused by a Catholic priest or another person in Church ministry, the Diocese of Crookston Victim’s Assistance Coordinator is also available to offer you help and healing. Please contact Louann McGlynn at 218281-7895 (24-hour confidential number) or Lmcglynn@crookston.org.

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DIOCESAN

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July 15, 2015

COMMENTARY

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

Healing the culture begins with philosophy In the fall of 1941, the famed Christian apologist C.S. Lewis published an essay which has lasting significance unto our day. He posed for the reader’s consideration just how easy it is for us to substitute reality with something else.

Here is a brief paragraph from that essay: When I was a boy, gramophone records were not nearly as good as they are now. In the old recordings of an orchestral piece you could hardly hear the separate instruments at all, but only a single undifferentiated sound. That was the sort of music I grew up on.

And when, at a somewhat later age, I began to hear real orchestras, I was actually disappointed with them just because you didn’t get to hear that single sound. What one got in a concert room seemed to me to lack the unity I had grown to expect, to be not an orchestra but merely a number of individual musicians on the same platform. In fact, I felt it “wasn’t the Real Thing” … a gramophone is precisely a substitute, and an orchestra the reality. But owing to my musical miseducation, the reality appeared to be a substitute and the substitute a reality.

Lewis never knew of, nor did he experience, digital technologies. What would he do with a 4K UHD TV with digitally

CREDO

A NEW EVANGELIZATION WITNESS

By Father Robert Schreiner, S.T.L. Director of the Office of the New Evangelization

enhanced surround sound stereo?! And yet, for all our technological advances since 1941, Lewis’ point remains perhaps even more poignant now than in his own day. It seems that the more we advance technologically in reproducing “real” images and reproducing “real” sound, we delude ourselves into thinking we are the master manipulators of reality itself.

In fact, we become convinced that it is we who “make” reality real. We come to believe that we have the power to make anything what we want it to be. Or so the delusion goes …

Thus: marriage can be whatever we say it is. Love is love because it can take whatever form one intends it to be. Bruce can be Caitlyn, because s/he simply says so. DNA doesn’t matter, you can be whatever genus, species, gender or color you

want to be. We have the power to make “reality” whatever we desire it to be.

But there’s a problem here.

It’s not REAL. Reality is given to be received, not a product to be manufactured. Things are.

Or they are not. And things are what they are. Or they are not that thing. Only the height of Adam’s original arrogance could believe it to be otherwise.

Adam was tempted by the serpent to shift his original, REAL self-understanding as working with God in creation (given the right to “name the animals”) to instead believe himself to have become “… as like a god,” and delude himself into thinking he actually made everything in the garden.

The same old con-game sprung upon Adam in the garden is going on in philosophy departments in Universi-

ties around the world. Various forms of contemporary philosophy work overtime in attempting to destroy the idea of reality itself. They deny outright that there is any reality whatsoever. As the Italian “Catholic” philosopher Gianni Vattimo expressed it: Religion is helpful only if it gives up on the notion of “being” at all. This mindset has slowly, steadily trickled into science labs and advertising and politics and education, etc., infecting each sector with the notion that all we have available to us in life is whatever substitute we make, because reality doesn’t exist.

The irony here is while it’s only a very few of us who can be bothered with, or even care about philosophical questions, because it seems so far removed from daily life, every single one of us – without exception – is profoundly affected by philosophy’s effects in our everyday existence. We are awash in substitutes by our miseducation and we call it reality. The gramophone has become our symphony of choice – in everything.

This is why Pope St. John Paul II dedicated his secondto-last encyclical to the topic

of philosophy and its relationship to truth and faith. He ardently believed that the healing of modern intelligence (and culture) is a necessary component to the New Evangelization if man is to not live in fear of being destroyed by his own created realities.

He wrote: Philosophy moreover is the mirror which reflects the culture of a people. A philosophy which responds to the challenge of theology’s demands and evolves in harmony with faith is part of that “evangelization of culture” which Paul VI proposed as one of the fundamental goals of evangelization. I have unstintingly recalled the pressing need for a new evangelization; and I appeal now to philosophers to explore more comprehensively the dimensions of the true, the good and the beautiful to which the word of God gives access. This task becomes all the more urgent if we consider the challenges which the new millennium seems to entail, and which affect in a particular way regions and cultures which have a longstanding Christian tradition. This attention to philosophy too should be seen as a fundamental and original contribution in service of the new evangelization. (Fides et Ratio, 103)

It is official: The Catholic Church discriminates With the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing samesex marriage throughout the nation, we, as Catholics, must prepare for the consequences to follow. The moment the media and the press granted “civil rights” status to samesex marriage, the cat was out of the bag, there was no going back. America has no time for those who deny “civil rights,” so, the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage was a basic civil right, making the Catholic Church an institution which discriminates.

I found it odd how those who, in the name of tolerance for others, offered no tolerance for Christians with a different view point. Even the White House, the “People’s House,” was splashed with rainbow colored lights the night of the decision. Where was the tolerance and respect so passionately demanded by its occupant over recent years?

So, it is official: The Catholic Church discriminates. If we discriminate, if we are denying a basic civil right to anyone, it is logical to believe the conse-

LIFE FIRST

By Father Don Braukmann Parochial Vicar - St. Philip’s Parish, Bemidji and St. Charles Parish, Pennington

quences will soon come like a tsunami through the courts. It will change who we are as Catholics in our American culture.

We would not allow an organization which refuses to serve African-Americans to receive government funding. There would rightly be an outcry and the funds would end because basic civil rights were being denied. Discrimination is not acceptable.

The next logical step: The Catholic Church discriminates against those with same-sex attraction by not performing or recognizing same-sex marriage.

Therefore, the license to officiate at weddings given by the government to a Catholic priest

or deacon must be revoked. The government cannot condone or be part of an institution which discriminates. Catholic clergy, in a short while, will not be signing marriage licenses.

Because the Catholic Church discriminates against samesex married couples by not allowing them to adopt children from Catholic adoption agencies which work with the government, those agencies must be closed. This has already happened in Massachusetts where a vast majority of adoptions were done by Catholic Charities.

That service is no longer provided by the Catholic Church.

Because the Catholic Church discriminates against same-

sex married couples, Catholic Charities in New Hampshire is bracing itself for the end of its service to the state. Presently, nearly every charitable organization there is run by Catholic Charities – from food shelves and shelters for abused women to counseling services and help for immigrants.

Faith-based organizations, which the government depends upon to deliver many basic services, will be shut down. The Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization in the world.

Because the Catholic Church discriminates against samesex married couples, funding for Catholic hospitals coming from Medicare, etc., must end.

It is the next logical domino to fall in the cascade of dominoes set in motion by the Supreme Court.

Because the Catholic Church discriminates against same-sex married couples, any government aid for Catholic schools must end. Special education programs working in collaboration with public schools will be dropped, along with fed-

eral aid for breakfast and lunch programs in Catholic schools.

Catholic universities will no longer participate in the student loan programs or other financial aid programs offered by the state.

Because the Catholic Church discriminates against samesex married couples, Catholic small business owners will have to participate in events which go against their religious faith, such as the case now in the courts where a business owner refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding. The owner was on the radio this week explaining how they have lost their business and are fighting for their religious freedom in court. They don’t expect to win.

Because the Catholic Church discriminates against same-sex married couples, tax exemption will end for the Catholic Church. It is a logical step.

People have no idea how much our nation depends upon the Catholic Church; they are about to find out.

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

COMMENTARY

July 15, 2015

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Sexual brokenness and our need for relationship From our earliest moments of life, our capacity for intimacy grows. As we develop, the desire to live with connections to others – to love and be loved – is at the root of our relationship DNA. Unfortunately, our larger culture often equates intimacy with sexual desire or desires to acquire sexual pleasure as a replacement for real love in a giving and receiving relationship. We can see that utilitarian type relationships are not enough, and we recognize that to be loved has much more meaning than being used.

Relationships can be more meaningful, even in mundane everyday events, like little moments within family life where a parent is called to support the needs of the children. We also have a call from God which is written into the fabric of our lives. Our human connections reveal a call to relationship with God, who ultimately will meet our needs.

False intimacy is not the same as a fulfilling relationship. For example, recently I

INTEGRITY HUMAN PERSON INSIGHTS

By Dan Spadaro, MA, LPC Syndicated through The Colorado Catholic Herald

attended a presentation with Colorado Springs police detectives. A young woman shared her story about being trafficked for sex since the age of 10. A couple that pretended to have her interests in mind took her in, but soon revealed their manipulation to use her for profit.

She experienced two levels of abuse, first by the people who forced her into sexual slavery, second by the men or women who paid to use her for sex.

Often there is an accompanying fear to reach out for help.

These types of situations reveal people driven by lust – lust for power or money, and lust in

the sexual usury sense. Sexual slavery of children is becoming more widespread, likely due to the breakdown of supportive relationships in the lives of children, distortions of the family unit and clandestine sites on the Internet, which provide a vehicle to prostitute children.

How might this impact one’s ability to connect and love?

Certainly this can confuse someone’s development of healthy attachment. Some have referenced the analogous process of what is called “Stockholm Syndrome,” essentially where victims bond with those who are holding them captive.

We can see how fear and bonding connect. This happens with domestic violence as well as with children who are abused by caregivers. In the confusion of this distorted relationship, young people in particular can identify with those who “support,” while at the same time control and hurt them. Often the result is a disconnection or misconnection with human relationships (sometimes very legitimately). This is because our fundamental relationships in life form our capacity for future intimacy, but this is not the end of the story.

It can be difficult to understand intimacy when past relationships were mixed with fear and betrayal. Intimacy requires a level of transparency and trust that is not always easy.

Walls can be developed towards others due to rejection.

It is easier to control through distance than navigate the unknown. One negative core belief that can arise in these situations is, “I can’t trust others to know me or meet my needs.”

Rather than isolate, we can recognize the indicators of healthy relationships while maintaining respect for our personal dignity.

Intimacy requires that each person entering a relationship has a capacity to give. This requires the ability to care for the needs of the other, set limits, and sacrifice when needed.

These are required in marriage because they support the needs of the couple and the children.

Family is primarily where our intimacy needs are met and from this example we also learn to navigate our future connections. All of this is connected to our relationship with God; this is where our identity originates. Our existence as children of God reveals that our lives have a greater connection and hope. He is not like those who have caused pain. He is faithful and does not intend us harm.

We can find assurance in the words, “you are mine and I love you.” He can do for us what other relationships have failed to do.

Read the whole papal encyclical, not just your favorite part Pope Francis’s encyclical “Laudato Si” is a great gift to the Church and the world, calling everyone to an ecological conversion that embraces an ethic of right relationships – with God, our bodies, our neighbors, and all of creation.

Recognizing, with St. Francis of Assisi, that the sun is a “brother” and the water “a sister,” requires first embracing God as “Father.”

It will take some time for this profound moral and spiritual teaching document to be fully digested and disseminated so that its countercultural implications may serve as rich fertilizer for the life of faith.

In the meantime, however, there are many who, despite their best intentions, are minimizing the depth and breadth of the encyclical by focusing on short-term politics instead of on the long-term need for an ethical revolution.

Because of political polarization, the prevalence of ideology, and people’s aversion to politics generally, an approach to explaining the encyclical that is rooted in right/left political debates risks letting the abundant seeds present within its message fall on rocky ground, instead of fertile soil.

FAITH

IN THE PUBLIC ARENA

By Mr. Jason Adkins Executive Director Minnesota Catholic Conference

MORE THAN CLIMATE CHANGE AND PAPER VERSUS PLASTIC For many, “Laudato Si” is known as the “climate change encyclical.” The mainstream media, political activists, and others have relentlessly trumpeted Pope Francis’s exhortation that steps must be taken in the political arena to reduce the effects of greenhouse gases by, among other things, limiting carbon emissions and using more renewable sources of energy.

On the other hand, in more politically conservative circles, including religious ones, the conversation about “Laudato Si” has focused almost exclusively on personal stewardship, and the importance of cutting down on paper and plastic usage. In this view, the pope has essentially given us an extended

theological meditation on taking shorter showers and raising the thermostat.

Both approaches highlight important aspects of the encyclical, but both create a climate in which this rich, though admittedly lengthy, text will go unread. Filtered through political lenses, and with heavy demands on their time, people will assume “they have heard all about it,” because they saw a feature on television news or maybe even read a story online that supposedly boiled it all down to a nutshell.

The challenge, however, is to look at the whole message of “Laudato Si,” not just the parts that speak to us or those consistent with our political views.

SEEING THE WHOLE Pope Francis notes that though the technological ad-

vances of modernity have allowed us to see the entire earth from space within a single glance, we lack a vision of the whole, a comprehensive understanding of creation and our mission within it. His reflections, therefore, do not merely raise questions of the preservation of material resources; they ponder the vocation of the human person within a world which we have been created to steward.

Taken as a whole, the encyclical is about creation – more precisely, each creature – drawing our attention to God’s extraordinary care for each creature and its place within an ordered world of relationships.

Pope Francis asks us to meditate upon creation and to observe the way God has created and providentially ordered his handiwork. Special attention is given in the encyclical to that most unique of creatures, the human person, but the overall message is that everything in creation is interconnected. The pope calls this integral ecology – an ethic that sees the relationship between human well-being and the well-being of the environment, and seeks to protect both in a way that does justice to each.

Pope Francis challenges the dominant orthodoxy, particularly of the modern West, that all of creation – soil, water, animals, genetic material, other persons, even our own bodies – is just “raw material” which can be manipulated for personal gain, often at the expense of the poor and vulnerable. He refers to this mentality as the throwaway culture.

Instead, we must embrace new models of growth, development, and progress that are rooted in the perspective of integral ecology, and which nurture healthy communities, protect natural resources, and foster human flourishing.

This message undoubtedly has important personal and political implications, as many of the commentators have noted.

But until we undergo this deep conversion and embrace the God-given vocation to foster right relationships throughout creation, the encyclical will have only a marginal impact in saving us from our own destruction.

Clearly, the stakes are high, and, as Catholics, the pope’s encyclical merits our careful, prayerful attention.

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July 15, 2015

AROUND THE DIOCESE

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

JP II CAMP: Continued from Page 1 fellowship with their peers on a broader scale than the parish because we are such a small, rural diocese,” she said. Rzepka said she often speaks with former campers from different parishes who met at the camp and continue to encourage and support each other in their faith journeys.

Father Todd Arends, Associate Pastor at Holy Rosary, Detroit Lakes, was the spiritual director for this year’s camp, and has been involved with the camp since it began. He said that over the years he has come to realize that the negative parts of our modern culture impact kids at a younger age, which is why reaching out to this age group is so important.

“They have the free time and the innocence to hear the message,” he said. “We can equip them with the basic message of God and the tools our faith offers to help them continue to build a deep and personal relationship with God.” This year’s theme is Set a Fire. Each day campers learned how their hearts are set on fire for God through baptism and kept burning through personal prayer, frequenting the sacraments, service to others and bringing the message of the Gospel to the world.

“This year we really wanted to return to the Kerygma, the reality of being loved by God and all that entails,” said Father

Arends.

Rzepka said, “The aim is to have a particular emphasis on proclaiming the Kerygma, or the basic proclamation of the Gospel, this year.” She related it to the chosen theme saying, “It’s the personal appropriation of the Gospel message by each individual that allows someone’s life to be set on fire.”

According to Rzepka, the speeches delivered by various staff members throughout the camp focused on the proclamation of the Gospel, the story of salvation history and the implications of that story in their lives. Rzepka explained it further saying, “Jesus Christ became a man and died and rose for your sins … you’re a sinner, you need redemption, Christ came and died for your sins.”

Annette Haas, Youth Minister and Director of Religious Education at St. Peter the Apostle, Park Rapids, said she loves seeing the transformation of the campers throughout the week.

“When they first come, they are a little timid and unsure. I love seeing how confident they are when they leave … they are excited to share at home,” she said.

“It’s very exciting to watch the individuals grow throughout the week and through the years,” said Father Arends. Often, campers come back on the Service Team or as Camp Staff.

Sarah Glen, one of the em-

Staff and campers at St. John Paul II Camp have an intense moment while playing Schtick during recreation time on July 6. (Photo credit: Katrina Genereux/OND)

cees for this year’s camp, is a St. John Paul II Camp veteran.

She is from St. Philip’s, Bemidji and graduated from high school this spring. She attended as a camper for three years.

Glenn said that the camp had a huge impact on her faith life, and it is important to her to be a part of offering that same opportunity to others.

“Providing that for these kids – spreading the blessing we got … it’s kind of the highlight of my summer,” she said. “We’ve had that spark lit in our own lives. It’s a good reminder to focus in on that again.”

Carter Mosher of St. Joseph’s, Fertile, delivers his testimony following a talk at St. John Paul II Camp. Mosher served on the Service Team at the camp. (Photo credit: Katrina Genereux/OND)

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YEAR OF CONSECRATED LIFE

July 15, 2015

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MONKS: Continued from Page 1 ... maybe that was God saying, ‘this is where I want you to be and what I want you to be doing.’ … He took me as I am and I’ve been happy ever since.”

“I’ve never regretted coming here,” he added. “I remember when my parents would constantly ask me, are you happy, are you happy – you know they always want their kids to be happy in whatever their choice is – ... I quite often told them, ‘yes, I’m happy being here.’

They were satisfied.”

Brother Louie first found out about Assumption Abbey from reading his brother’s mail. “My brother, Duane, was actually looking into the religious life … and I read his mail, and I got hooked.” He read the Assumption Abbey pamphlet his brother received and liked that it was in a small, rural place.

“As a youngster, I was always working around the church, you know, mowing lawn, things like that, or helping father clean the church,” said Brother Louie. “I guess it was kind of a natural move for me to come and join the monastery.”

“It’s a good life,” he said.

“I’ve been here for 31 years or so. It’s gone by just like that, a snap of the fingers.”

A LIFE OF PRAYER AND WORK The Benedictine monks of Assumption Abbey take vows of obedience, stability and fidelity to monastic life. Through these vows, they live celibately and do not individually own property.

According to the abbey’s website, the two most important pieces of the monastic life are communal and individual prayer. In addition to daily Mass, the monks gather together to pray the Liturgy of the Hours four times a day, beginning with Morning Prayer at 6:20 a.m. and concluding with Compline in the evening. Each monk also makes time for at least an hour of individual Lectio Divina at some point each day.

“This is just a way of life that some people have been called to spend most of their life in prayer,” said Brother Nicholas, “and that’s the main vocation of Benedictines. The work is important too, but prayer is the big thing. … We are active, but yet our main function is our prayer life, just getting together and praying.”

Their website states: “Beyond this prayer is the regular

VOCATIONAL DISCERNMENT AT THE ABBEY VISIT: After some initial contact, the process of discernment will deepen. You might be invited to live in the community for a period of five to ten days. This is to give you a chance to see close-at-hand the monastic life as lived at Assumption Abbey.

CANDIDACY: If, after the stay in the community, you feel the draw of a vocation, you can ask to be allowed to enter the community as a candidate. The word candidate describes this period of discernment. It is putting the question before oneself and the monastic community, if going ahead is God’s will. This period is normally six months. Candidates for admission must be between 19 and 45 years old, mentally and emotionally mature, and prepared to undertake a life of stability, obedience and conversion of life.

NOVITIATE: This is a further step into the monastic life. It is at this stage that part of the monastic habit is given. The novitiate year is an intense time of formation and study. You live under the direction of a formation director and devote yourself to experiencing the Benedictine life as fully as possible, to aid the discernment of your monastic vocation.

Brother Nicholas Erickson assists Brother Mark Carmer in the courtyard at Assumption Abbey in Richardton, N.D. (Submitted photo)

work that needs to be done to earn a living and maintain our life. The work we do is divided into two aspects: work at the abbey and work outside the abbey.”

“We’re not a totally cloistered community,” said Brother Nicholas. “We do have some of our guys that work out in our diocese and other places and some of our guys have felt called to the priesthood and they have been allowed to go to the seminary and get ordained for our community.”

Work outside the abbey includes serving as pastors, pastoral assistants, professors or chaplains at hospitals, universities or convents.

Some of the work at the abbey includes administration tasks, hospitality, writing, giving conferences, cleaning, washing dishes and other general housekeeping tasks. The abbey also contains a farm, garden, orchard and apiary, all maintained by the monks. In addition, some of the monks make soap, pottery, woodcrafts and other items to sell in the abbey gift shop.

“I’ve been in the garden for 30 years,” said Brother Louie.

“When I came, Brother Steven had the garden, and the following year he passed away, so I had the garden. So see, God was calling looking for a gardener. The Lord works in mysterious ways sometimes.”

Brother Louie said the com-

munity has a fairly large garden.

“A lot of times I’ll plant enough potatoes that we can sell potatoes in the winter time.” He also cans and preserves the food from the garden and orchard. He makes pickles and freezes beans and corn. He also makes apple cider, apple butter and apple sauce in the winter.

Brother Louie also works in the garage maintaining the abbey’s vehicles.

Brother Nicholas has a variety of jobs, including breakfast and lunch duties, hospitality and answering the phone four days a week.

“The schedule can be challenging at times,” said Brother Louie. He said it can be difficult during busy times to complete everything that needs to be done while breaking for prayer.

“Getting up in the morning is sometimes a challenge, 5:30 comes around really fast,” he added.

“We didn’t choose the people that we’re living with,” said Brother Nicholas. “That’s a challenge because we’re all different … because you don’t get along with everybody, but you gotta be able to get along.”

“It’s a community of imperfect people and we’re trying to live the monastic life the best that we can, but we make mistakes and sin and we have to start all over,” he said.

Living in community, though challenging sometimes, is also a source of joy for both men.

TRIENNIAL VOWS: The first stage of commitment is a vowed period of three years. You are given the scapular and hood along with a new name. Anniversaries of vows in the monastic life are counted from this initial stage. Temporary commitment can be extended beyond three years if necessary.

SOLEMN VOWS: With solemn vows, the monk becomes a full member of the community for life. You are given the cuculla, the great pleated choir robe, as a symbol of your life-long commitment.

(Source: http://assumptionabbey.com)

ASSUMPTION ABBEY PO Box A, Richardton, ND 58652 701.974.3315

Brother Louie said his joys include, “living in community, and having the time for prayer time … being able to pray at church with the rest of the monks.”

Brother Nicholas said that it is important to him that the monks do not pretend to have reached perfection. “Sometimes people get this image of a monk or a priest, or whoever, has a closer relationship with God than they’ll ever have. …

I have to work on my relationship just as much as you have to.”

“Our prayer life here isn’t any better than your prayer life,” he added. “We’re praying with the rest of the Church and we’re all in it together.”

VOCATION ADVICE “This is my personal advice,” said Brother Louie, “it’s what my pastor told me when I told him I was interested in it, if you feel interested in it, go try it. Don’t really think about it too much, but you should go and at least try. If you feel that the Lord is calling you, you shouldn’t hold it off, go try it

and see.”

He also emphasized that discernment has stages. A man doesn’t become a monk the moment he walks through the doors of the monastery. It takes a few years for the discerner to get to know the community and to try on the life of a monk before he will take temporary vows, and then another few years before final vows are made.

“Come check us out,” said Brother Nicholas. He encouraged anyone who is exploring religious life to keep an open mind. “I see that some people come with preconceived ideas of what this life is about and when they see that we’re human beings, we’re not perfect … they have a hard time.”

Assumption Abbey has 35 members living at the monastery and 10 members in Bogota, Colombia. The monastery has a school in Colombia run by two American monks and eight Colombian monks that are gradually trying to become an independent community.

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July 15, 2015

AROUND THE DIOCESE

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

First Holy Communion St. Vincent de Paul Friends of the Poor walk scheduled for September

St. Andrew’s, Hawley (Submitted photo)

The next Friends of the Poor walk is scheduled for Sept. 26.

The walk is part of a national event coordinated by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, with funds going to local conferences to help poor in our local communities.

The St. Vincent de Paul conference from St. Joseph’s, Moorhead, as well as three from Fargo, St. Mary’s Cathedral, Holy Spirit and St. Anthony of Padua, will be participating in this event.

The local walk will be held at

Lindenwood Park at 1905 Roger Maris Drive South in Fargo.

Registration begins at 9 a.m. at the Rotary Shelter. Plan to walk or run in Lindenwood Park. To donate or provide sponsorship, go to http://www.fopwalk.org and search for walk locations in

North Dakota.

The Friends of the Poor Walk is a national program that provides funding for local Society of St. Vincent de Paul Conferences and Councils. Funds raised from these events remain local, allowing local conferences to provide emergency assistance to those in need, regardless of race, origin, religion, or gender. Last year, over 4,500 conferences and councils provided 11.5 million service hours to help almost 15 million people in the United States.

Confirmation celebrated

St. Patrick’s, Kelliher (Submitted photo)

St. Andrew’s, Hawley (Submitted photo)

St. Joseph’s, Red Lake Falls (Submitted photo)

Registration deadline: July 19

St. Ann’s, Blackduck (Submitted photo)

Sponsored by: Diocese of Crookston Office of Vocations For more information, contact: Fr. Xavier Ilango at 701.893.5006 or xavier.ilango@gmail.com

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

New Safe Environment training module now available online CROOKSTON, MINN. — The 20152016 Safe Environment training module for the Diocese of Crookston is now available.

This year’s module is Component A, “Reporting Child Abuse and Section 4 of the Code of Conduct for Church Leaders”.

Safe Environment certification is necessary for every adult, age 18 or over, clergy, visiting clergy, employee, independent contractor and volunteer in the Diocese of Crookston who has the potential for unsupervised contact with children or vulnerable adults.

Certification includes a criminal background check, training related to recognizing and reporting child abuse, and agreement to abide by the Diocesan Safe Environment Policy and Code of Conduct.

The training module fulfills the certification requirement and consists of educational information and an interactive quiz. Please go online at http://

www.crookston.org/ministriesoffices/safe-environment/certification to complete the certification.

If you have questions about the module or whether or not you need to complete it, please contact the Safe Environment Coordinator at your parish.

If you’d like more information about the Office of Safe Environment in the Diocese of Crookston, please contact the coordinator, Jim Clauson, at 218-281-4533, ext. 423.

AROUND THE DIOCESE

July 15, 2015

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Catholic Daughters of Detroit Lakes create mini gardens with Lakes Homes Residents

This spring Catholic Daughters Court Holy Rosary #1916 helped Lakes Homes residents at a digging in the dirt day. Residents were paired up with a guest. Together they planned and designed either a dish garden or planter.

Most of the residents enjoy gardening and enter their planters at the Becker county fair. Pictured are a Lakes Homes employee, Matt, Mary Buschette and Mary Frigstad (Submitted by Mary Buschette, Regent)

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July 15, 2015

AROUND THE DIOCESE

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

Faith for Tomorrow grant Graduates honored recipients announced

By Katrina Genereux Staff Writer, OND CROOKSTON, MINN. — On June 11, the Diocese of Crookston Catholic Community Foundation Board of Directors approved $105,171 to fund 49 grants at 25 parishes in the diocese.

According to CCF Director Joe Noel, the smallest grant amount approved was $300 and the largest was $7,900. He said that each of the eight Catholic schools in the diocese also received a subsidy grant of $3,750.

The Faith for Tomorrow Grant Committee received requests for approximately $189,000, but had only $120,000 available to award.

In information sent to grant recipients, Noel explained the board’s decision, saying: “To be as much help as possible in responding to these requests, the committee chose to partially fund many grants. Only a few grants were funded completely. In requests for grants for missions, retreats and other gatherings that required a speaker or facilitator, the committee chose to fund the cost of the speaker. In grants for curriculum and religious education materials the committee funded most of the requests at approximately two-thirds. In most cases, requests for hardware were not granted. The grants that were funded completely were unique situations that didn’t fall under the above categories.”

In addition to the Catholic schools of the diocese, the following parishes received Faith for Tomorrow grants: Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Crookston; Holy Rosary, Detroit Lakes; Our Lady of the Pines, Nevis; Sacred Heart, East Grand Forks; Sacred Heart, Roseau; St. Ann’s, Blackduck; St. Bernard’s, Thief River Falls; St. Francis de Sales, Moorhead; Holy Spirit Newman Center, Bemidji; St. Michael’s, Mahnomen; St. John’s, Nebish; St. Joseph’s, Ada; St. Joseph’s, Bagley; St. Joseph’s, Moorhead; St. Mary’s, Fosston; St. Mary’s, Warroad; St. Patrick’s, Hallock; St. Patrick’s Kelliher; Sts. Peter and Paul, Warren; St. Peter the Apostle’s, Park Rapids; St. Philip’s, Bemidji; and St. Theodore’s, Laporte.

The goal of the Faith for Tomorrow Endowment is to invest in the future of this rural diocese by investing in religious education and moral formation. The funding priorities established for this endowment during the grant cycles from 2015 through 2020 are continuing education for lay leaders, parish religious education and formation, Catholic school subsidies and evangelization.

To learn more about CCF and the Faith for Tomorrow endowment, visit http://www. crookston.org/ccf.

FULL-TIME YOUTH MINISTER NEEDED The newly merged parish of St. Alice is currently seeking a full-time Youth Minister. The applicant should be knowledgeable of, and in love with the Catholic faith and our Church. We are seeking an individual who is a confirmed, practicing Catholic in good standing with the Church. He or she should be able to communicate well with both parish staff and parents. This outgoing person must be able to relate well with our youth and have good organizational skills.

To view a general job description and apply for the postition, stop by our parish office in Pequot Lakes, MN or contact Kari at 218-568-4760.

APPLICATION DEADLINE IS AUGUST 6, 2015 WITH THE HOPE OF STARTING BY SEPTEMBER.

St. Peter’s, Gentilly (Submitted photo)

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

DIOCESAN

The Church is built at home

By Kristi Anderson The Visitor WADENA, MINN. – Christian and Tamara Breczinski, parishioners of St. Ann in Wadena, Minn., will celebrate 10 years of marriage in August. They adopted a piece of wisdom early in their relationship that keeps them grounded and helps them persevere through tough times.

“We recognized early on that by getting married, we were not two individuals committing our lives to each other, but were two individuals coming together on a journey, committing to something much larger than the sum of our two lives,” Christian said. “We were being converted

by God, daily, to the married way of life.”

Christian is the director of student development services at Minnesota State Community and Technical College, and Tamara is a spiritual director and works at home raising their three children, Andrew, 7, John, 6, Sophia, 3, and a fourth child expected in late fall.

“Parenting is a vocation in and of itself but is always subject to our vocation of marriage,” Tamara said. “We view this endeavor as a joint effort, one in which we need to be a team. As in any sport, if the team is not strong, the game goes poorly. Parenting is a fruit of the marriage vocation.”

Christian grew up in the Marshall, Minn., area and Tamara’s father was in the Navy, so she said she called many places around the globe home. Since they live far from their natural families, they rely on their parish, local community and friends for support.

“Knowing you are not going it alone and understanding that the community can rejoice and suffer along with you has been a real blessing,” Tamara said.

FAMILY, THE DOMESTIC CHURCH Like most young families, the Breczinskis say their children are not always quiet at Mass.

Their priest encouraged them not to worry about distracting others but to feel free to get up if necessary and move around with their kids.

“We may not be ‘getting’ as much from Mass attendance as we did before children,” Christian said, “but we are demonstrating to our children that attending Mass is worth the effort.”

The Breczinskis pray together often – at meal times, when they notice the beauty of cre-

Christian and Tamara Breczinski are pictured with their children Andrew, left, Sophia, center, and John, right. (Submitted photo)

WORLD MEETING OF FAMILIES SERIES: Our Northland Diocese is running a series of articles, in conjuction with publications from all Minnesota dioceses, highlighting the themes of the catechesis document: Love is our MIssion and profiling families throughout the state.

To learn more, visit: http://www. worldmeeting2015.org/about-the-event/ catechesis/

ation, at bedtime, before embarking on a road trip, when they hear emergency sirens, for friends in need of prayer and other times when, they say, the urge comes on. But most of all, they bring spiritual awareness into daily interactions.

“We highlight how their lives are intermingled with the sacred presence of God,” Tamara said. “For example, when our son was struggling with telling the truth, we spoke about temptations and how God’s angels will help us to overcome those. The next day he came to us and told us that he was being tempted but then he was able to step away from it. We took that moment to thank God for his grace to help him overcome that.”

The Second Vatican Council called the family a “domestic church,” saying that parents are the first to preach the faith to their children. The Breczinskis try not to let teachable moments pass them by.

“We talk to our children about what is happening during the Mass and answer their questions when they ask us about it,” Christian said. “We help them participate by pointing out the parts in the missal or hymnal. We are both eager to study the faith, and we use

this zeal to communicate to our children the truths we have come to own.”

They are grateful that their children ask questions about the faith and say it is humbling to be comfortable saying, “I’m not sure,” and then search out the answers.

“Then we explore the answer together through prayer, community discussion and study of the catechism,” Christian said.

FAMILY OF FAMILIES The parish as a “family of families” is a notion that the Breczinskis say calls them to be welcoming.

“We are bound to family by love whether we agree or not with their politics, personal choices or piety,” Christian said. “There is a greater context that goes beyond these worldly things. Mass becomes a ‘family reunion’ each Sunday where we put petty differences aside and focus on more important matters.

“Blood is thicker than water,” Christian added. “The phrase is often used in the context of how families stick together in challenging times, but it can also be viewed through the lens of Christ’s sacrifice. In this sense, the sacrificial lamb, Christ, whose blood we share at

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CATECHESIS ON THE FAMILY:

CREATING THE FUTURE

By Chris Codden The first commandment God imparted to us is in the book of Genesis: to be fertile and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it (Gn 1:28). From the moment of creation, we have understood that marriage is not just a biological function – only to co-create with God the next generation – it is also meant to provide for the spiritual lives of our children, to bring them to holiness.

In marriage, this promise is stated on our wedding day as we declare our intentions. The presider asks each couple to affirm that they will “accept children lovingly from God and educate them according to the law of Christ and his church.” From the moment of their assent, married couples begin to build their domestic church.

Since this is such an important job, great care is taken during marriage preparation to highlight steps and ideas on how to achieve this goal: how to pray together, the importance of frequenting the sacraments, etc., and being challenged to love as Christ does, unconditionally, with trust in God, forming our consciences to the will of God. This prepares couples to bring these practices to the next generation. In this way, they realize the great responsibility they have accepted, to strive to meet their ultimate goal to form their children with faith and foster a deep relationship with God. In modern terms, we call this building up our “domestic church,” creating our homes as schools of faith by forming a community of life and love. While grandparents, godparents and others assist in formation, it is the parents’ responsibility as primary educators of the faith to carry this out because children will not learn if they are not taught.

Pope Francis, in a general audience in May, said: “It is time that fathers and mothers return from their exile – because they have exiled themselves from the education of their children – and reassume fully their educational role.

We hope that the Lord will give parents this grace: not to exile themselves from the education of their children. And only love, tenderness and patience can do this.”

Pope Francis added that couples are not asked to do this in isolation. The community of believers – the parish – is also involved. That is why each parish is called a “family of families,” a place where the church of the home intersects with the world. It is in this way that each family can reach out to fulfill its baptismal call of hospitality and generosity.

It is in the parish that the domestic church can fulfill its mission of service, sacrifice, trust and openness to God’s generosity.

A parish, to live out its role as a “family of families,” is called to serve the family as the family is called to be of service to the parish. It is in these acts of service that the family grows and thrives. And it’s through these acts of service at the local parish that parents teach their children how to be in the world without belonging to the world.

The relationship that is nurtured in the domestic church and in the “family of families” provides the balance needed in today’s world. It allows families to open their doors to those in need and to show Christ’s love and mercy. It also teaches children to embrace the values, virtues and character that are so needed in the world today.

Codden is director of the Office of Marriage and Family in the Diocese of St. Cloud.

Communion, binds us together as we nourish ourselves at the altar.

“This is most readily experienced in our parish community through the outreach we experience from fellow parishioners and the opportunities we are presented with to serve our fellow parishioners,” Christian

said. “Whether this be in the form of Communion to the homebound, delivering meals or a welcome smile and earnest sign of peace, the embrace of the larger community is vital to the support of the family – the ‘little church’ – which then builds back the ‘big Church.’ ”

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NATIONAL

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

Independence Day Mass closes U.S. bishops’ annual Fortnight for Freedom

By Julie Asher Catholic News Service WASHINGTON – Religious freedom is “the human right that guarantees all other rights,” Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski said July 4 in his homily at the closing Mass of the U.S. bishops’ fourth annual Fortnight for Freedom.

That right “has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person,” he said at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. “Peace and creative living together will only be possible if freedom of religion is fully respected.”

Two recent events have given U.S. Catholics both the opportunity and duty, he said, “to engage the world and witness to our teachings, to our vision of the life and dignity of the human person in a world which we recognize as both fallen and redeemed.”

Archbishop Wenski referenced Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home” and to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision that legalized “so-called same-sex marriage” across the country.

The Catholic Church’s teaching embraces what the pope in his encyclical “has called an ‘integral ecology,’” a natural and human ecology, the archbishop said.

“An integral ecology demands that rain forests be protected -because of what they do potentially and actually for the flourishing of the human species on this earth,” Archbishop Wenski continued. “Likewise, an integral ecology tells us that marriage, understood for millennia as a union of one man and one woman, ought to be respected and protected.”

Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington was the main celebrant of the Mass that brought to an end the fortnight observance, which had as its theme this year “Freedom to Bear Witness.”

Archbishop Wenski concelebrated along with Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty; Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio and Auxiliary Bishop Richard B. Higgins

A man and children play music July 4 outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington before attending a Mass on the final day of the U.S. bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom campaign. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services; and Auxiliary Bishops Barry C. Knestout and Mario E. Dorsonville of Washington.

Among the 30 or so priests concelebrating were Msgr. Walter R. Rossi, rector of the national shrine, and Msgr. Ronny Jenkins and Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield, general secretary and associate general secretary, respectively, of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

It is clear the nation faces challenges to religious liberty, “one of our most cherished freedoms as Americans,” Msgr.

Rossi said in welcoming remarks. “The freedom to live our lives according to our faith is fundamental, enshrined in the First Amendment.”

Religious freedom is under stress throughout the world, Archbishop Wenski said in his homily.

The International Society for Human Rights reports that “atrocities are committed against peoples and institutions of all the world’s religions,” he said, but it also notes that “80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians.

Some 150,000 Christians are killed for the faith every year.”

In liberal Western democracies, he continued, “discrimination against religion in general and Catholic Christianity in particular is growing -- albeit in perhaps more sophisticated and less violent ways.”

Archbishop Wenski said a “hard despotism is decimating the Christian populations of the Middle East.”

In the U.S. and other Western countries, “people of faith are being increasingly subjected to a soft despotism in which ridicule, ostracism and denial of

employment opportunities (or) advancement are being used to marginalize us,” added the archbishop, who is chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

“We see this when butchers and bakers and candlestickmakers are being put into the legal dock for refusing to renounce their religious beliefs” about traditional marriage, he said.

Archbishop Wenski said the Catholic Church by upholding its doctrine and serving all those in need illustrates the day’s reading from St. John’s Gospel about Jesus teaching his disciples that they were in the world and not “of the world,” but never against the world.

Jesus “calls us to be always for the world,” the archbishop said, which “explains why the church is concerned with education, with health care; it explains our involvement in civic affairs and why we define politics as something honorable and as a legitimate, and even noble, vocation for the Christian ... why we as a church advocate for the poor and seek greater economic and social justice for all.”

The Catholic Church, he said, is committed to upholding “the dignity of every human life from the moment of conception until natural death, to the family built on marriage understood as a permanent and exclusive union of one man and one woman, to the right ordering of society for the common good and in conformity to the natural law because she feels that such commitments help promote hu-

man flourishing.”

Because of religious freedom, Catholics prospered in America, he said. “We built parishes, schools, hospitals, orphanages and other charitable institutions; we started businesses; we served honorably in our nation’s wars.”

Now courts in the U.S. and other Western countries “are chipping away,” he said, at that original meaning of religious freedom to reinterpret it narrowly as merely the “freedom to worship,” excluding freedom to serve and witness, and “to delegitimize the church’s participation in the public debate.”

Religious freedom also must protect institutions “that nourish the individual’s free exercise of religion,” he said.

Faith communities always have been able “to play an active role in society and express their own vision of the human person and of the policies that rule society,” he explained, noting that civil rights movement of the 1960s, for example, was a “religiously inspired movement.”

“Some today resent the public advocacy of religious people and communities,” Archbishop Wenski said. “They accuse us of trying to impose our views on others. Yet, as St. John Paul II explained, the church does not impose, she proposes.”

On Independence Day, he said, “we remember that the glory of our government is its protection of religious freedom.”

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Analyzing ruling’s implications will take time, say church officials

By Julie Asher Catholic News Service WASHINGTON – Analyzing the ramifications of the June 26 same-sex marriage ruling for the Catholic Church at the national, state and local levels will take time, said Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore.

It has implications for “hundreds, if not thousands” of laws at all levels, and there is “a difficult road ahead for people of faith,” he said.

Archbishop Lori, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, made the comments in a teleconference for news media held about three hours after the Supreme Court issued its 5-4 decision that states must license same-sex marriage.

Joining him in the media briefing were two members of the bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military, and Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas; and Anthony Picarello, associate general secretary and general counsel at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Tragically, the court was wrong,” said Archbishop Broglio, adding that this is “not the first time” a “false understanding of marriage” has been forced on the country, as by lower court rulings.

“Clearly the decision was not

required by the Constitution (and) the narrowness of the decision reveals it is not settled,” he continued. “Marriage is unchangeable.”

Echoing an earlier statement by Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, USCCB president, Archbishop Broglio said the church will continue to follow Christ, “in solidarity with pope,” in adhering to the church’s teaching on marriage being between one man and one woman.

Archbishop Lori acknowledged that the court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges “makes a nod in the direction of religious liberty.” But that, he said, is too narrow.

The ruling “recognizes free speech, the right of religion to teach or advocate with regard to the true definition of marriage, but it does not acknowledge (that) the First Amendment also protects freedom of religion and the right to follow our teaching,” he said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, recognized in several places the role of religious beliefs in the questions surrounding same-sex marriage, saying that “it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.”

Kennedy also said in part

that “those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate.”

But Archbishop Lori said free speech is not at issue. Under the ruling, “we retain the right to think what we want at home and within the confines of the church” but it does not address the First Amendment’s guarantee to free exercise of religion.

The church should be able to operate “our ministries ... without fear of being silenced, penalized,” he said.

Through social services, “we serve millions of people every day. We do it well and we do it lovingly,” he added.

He foresees many legal challenges and controversies as the church seeks to protect itself from the fallout of the marriage ruling by advocating at the federal, state and local levels for protections for its faith-based practices.

Some areas where there will be legal disputes, Picarello said, were outlined by Chief Justice John Roberts, including tax exemptions, campus housing, academic accreditation, employment and employee benefits.

The U.S. Catholic Church will have to look at internal ways to protect itself against legal challenges, Picarello said, and “advocate externally for legislation,

regulation and, if necessary, litigation.”

Picarello said free speech protections for opponents of same-sex marriage were already under attack. Within a couple of hours of the decision being issued, he said, a newspaper in Pennsylvania announced it will no longer accept op-eds criticizing same-sex marriage.

“Some things will happen immediately,” as seen by that newspaper’s announcement, he said, and some will take time to unfold,” like challenges to churches receiving tax exemptions.

Another area that will require study, Archbishop Broglio said, is the military chaplaincy, because the Catholic priestchaplains whom his archdiocese oversees also come under civil authorities.

While polls show a majority of Catholics say they approve of same-sex marriage, Catholic teaching is “never determined by numbers but by the truth,” Archbishop Broglio said. “We have to be faithful to the teaching of the Gospel.”

“In a pastoral context we respond to the individual in his or her need and that’s quite different than what we teach concretely,” he added. The church must make its “teaching on marriage very, very clear,” while at the time be pastoral to individuals.

The church teaches marriage is between a man and a woman

and that sex outside marriage is a sin. At the same time the church upholds the human dignity of all people, Archbishop Lori said, adding, “We preach the truth with love in season and out of season.”

“It is evident we are living in an age of dramatic cultural shift,” said Bishop Flores, and the church has to think about how to share its teaching and “announce the good news ... as creatively as possible in current cultural context.”

But he added that the church’s teaching on marriage “also has something to do with bringing children into the world” and about stable families. “We ought to have our eye not on ourselves or our own emotional needs ... but the needs of the young.”

Bishop Flores said rhetoric such as calling opponents of same-sex marriage bigots is used at times “to avoid understanding the rationale” of what the church teaches.

“For our part we have to be prepared for that kind of rhetoric and simply respond with charitable but persuasive” explanations of the church’s rationale and what word “marriage” means and the way it has been understood for millennia, he added.

Archbishop Broglio added that the Catholic Church survived the anti-Catholicism of the Know-Nothing period, “so we will survive this.”

Pope’s address to Congress will be broadcast to crowd outside Capitol WASHINGTON (CNS) – Pope Francis’ address to a joint meeting of Congress Sept. 24 will be broadcast live to members of the public on the West Front of the Capitol, House Speaker John Boehner announced July 8.

“The visit of Pope Francis to the U.S. Capitol is a historic moment for the country,” he said

in a statement, adding that “the unprecedented nature of his visit” prompted the decision to broadcast his address.

Pope Francis also “has expressed an interest in making a brief appearance on the West Front,” the Ohio Republican said. “We look forward to welcoming Pope Francis and Americans from all walks of life

to our Capitol on Sept. 24.”

The release from Boehner’s office said details on the availability of tickets will be announced at a later date.

Pope Francis will arrive late Sept. 22 at Andrews Field at Joint Base Andrews just outside of Washington. He will be in the nation’s capital Sept. 23-24, then in New York Sept. 25 and in Philadelphia Sept. 26-27.

Most of the events on the pope’s itinerary for all three cities are for select groups and not open to the general public, though organizers of the trip expect crowds to form along the various routes any papal motorcade might take from one venue to another.

In New York Pope Francis will celebrate an evening Mass Sept. 25 at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, where the seating is more than 19,000.

Tickets will be required for the

Mass and will be primarily distributed to parishes within the Archdiocese of New York. A limited number also will be available for distribution by Catholic organizations and institutions throughout the archdiocese, the other New York dioceses and a couple of out-of-state neighboring dioceses.

In Philadelphia the pontiff will celebrate a public Mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway the afternoon of Sept. 27.

No tickets are required for that event.

In March 2014, when there was speculation Pope Francis would visit the U.S. to attend the last day of the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, Boehner issued a formal, open invitation to the pontiff to address a joint meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate as a visiting head of state.

Boehner, who is Catholic, issued the invitation as the constitutional officer of Congress.

This January the pope confirmed he would visit the U.S. in September and in February Boehner announced he accepted the invitation to speak to Congress.

The pontiff ’s “historic visit” would make him the “first leader of the Holy See to address a joint meeting of Congress,” Boehner said in a statement, adding that he was “truly grateful that Pope Francis has accepted our invitation.”

“In a time of global upheaval, the Holy Father’s message of compassion and human dignity has moved people of all faiths and backgrounds,” the House speaker added. “His teachings, prayers, and very example bring us back to the blessings of simple things and our obligations to one another.”

14 July 15, 2015

INTERNATIONAL

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

Families need prayers, mercy, courage, including from synod, Pope Francis says

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY – Even if a pastoral proposal for helping a Catholic family with problems seems scandalous at first, it is possible God could use that proposal to bring healing and holiness, Pope Francis said.

Encouraging and celebrating family life during a Mass July 6 in Guayaquil, Pope Francis asked people to pray for the October Synod of Bishops on the family, and he tied the synod to the Jubilee of Mercy, a yearlong celebration that will begin in December.

The synod will be a time for the church to “deepen her spiritual discernment and consider concrete solutions to the many difficult and significant challenges facing families in our time,” the pope said.

Celebrating Mass with as many as 1 million people gathered under the hot sun in Los Samanes Park, Pope Francis asked them “to pray fervently for this intention, so that Christ can take even what might seem to us impure, scandalous or threatening, and turn it -- by making it part of his ‘hour’ -- into a miracle. Families today need this miracle!”

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters Pope Francis was not referring to any specific proposal discussed in anticipation of the synod; one of the most common -- and most debated pastoral suggestions -- was to develop a process or “penitential path” for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who want to receive Communion but have not received an annulment.

The pope, Father Lombardi said, hopes the synod “will find a way to help people move from a situation of sin to a situation of grace.”

Pope Francis acknowledged the suffering and hope of young people who do not experience happiness and love at home, the “many women, sad and lonely,” who wonder how their love “slipped away,” and the elderly who feel cast aside.

In a family, “no one is rejected; all have the same value,” he said, telling the crowd that when he asked his own mother which of her five children she loved best, she would say that they were like her five fingers: all were important and if one finger was hurt,

Faithful gather at Los Samanes Park in Guayaquil, Ecuador, July 6 for a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis. (CNS photo/Jose Miguel Gomez, Reuters)

the pain would be the same as if another finger was hurt.

The Gospel reading at the Mass recounted the story of the wedding feast at Cana where the wine ran out and Mary asked Jesus to do something about it. Jesus turned water into wine.

Despite the 90-degree heat, the 78-year-old pope was upbeat during the Mass and confident -even cheerful and playful -- in his homily about the family.

The joy of the wedding feast at Cana, he said, began when Mary was attentive to the needs of others “and acted sensibly and courageously.”

“Mary is not a ‘demanding’ mother, a mother-in-law who revels in our lack of experience, our mistakes and the things we forget to do,” he said. “Mary is a mother! She is there, attentive and concerned.”

As with the guests at the Cana wedding, who were offered the finest wine at the end of the celebration, Pope Francis insisted, so, too, for families today “the richest, deepest and most beautiful things are yet to come.”

“The time is coming when we will taste love daily, when our children will come to appreciate the home we share and our elderly will be present each day in the joys of life,” he said. “The finest of wines will come for every person who stakes everything on love.”

“The time is coming when we will taste love daily, when our children will come to appreciate the home we share and our elderly will be present each day in the joys of life,” he said. “The finest of wines will come for every person who stakes everything on love.”

- Pope Francis July 6 Homily

Pope Francis said he knows “all the variables and statistics which say otherwise,” but “the best wine is yet to come for those who today feel hopelessly lost.”

Speeding up his delivery and increasing his volume, the pope made “the best wine is yet to come” into a litany. “Say it until you are convinced of it,” he told the crowd. “The best wine is yet to come.”

“Whisper it to the hopeless and the loveless,” the pope

Pope Francis arrives to lead Mass at Los Samanes Park in Guayaquil, Ecuador, July 6. (CNS photo/Alessandro Bianchi, Reuters)

urged.

The whole story of God’s involvement with humanity, he said, demonstrates that he always seeks out those on the margins of society, “those who have run out of wine, those who drink only of discouragement.”

Jesus, he said, will provide flasks of the finest wine “for those who, for whatever reason, feel that all their jars have been broken.”

Strong families, he said, help build strong individuals and

strong societies. They are the place where “our hearts find rest in strong, fruitful and joyful love.” Families teach people to be attentive to the needs of others and to place those needs ahead of one’s own.

“Service is the sign of true love,” he said.

When the church asks governments to assist families, he said, it is not asking for “alms,” but rather payment of the “social debt” societies owe to families.

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

COMMENTARY

WORD to LIFE July 19

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Jeremiah 23:1-6; Gospel: Mark 6:30-34

Psalm 23:1-6;

Ephesians 2:13-18

July 15, 2015

15

FOR FAITH-SHARING GROUPS

July 26

SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Kings 4:42-44; Gospel: John 6:1-15

Psalm: 145:10-11, 15-18;

Ephesians 4:1-6

By Catholic News Service

By Catholic News Service I work with college students at a public university. Most of the students that I know take about five classes a semester, work one or two jobs, study many hours a week and try to have a good social life when they can squeeze it in.

As much as they would like to, they seldom find the time to heed the invitation from Jesus we see in this week’s Gospel: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” I imagine that if I were to offer this same idea I would be met with exasperation. Come away? Rest? By myself ? Who has time for that?

I also can imagine that many people reading this who are not in college might have similar reactions. Between work, kids, laundry, homework, bath time, meals and a hundred other daily tasks, the idea of coming away to a lonely place to rest with Jesus -- while exactly what we want, need and long for -- is an unreasonable notion.

The Gospel reveals that achieving this solitude proved to be a difficult task even for Jesus and his disciples. I don’t know about you, but I can’t just jump in a boat and spend a few hours on the water. Even if I did, I would still have all my set-aside responsibilities waiting for me on the other side of the lake.

Yet, as hard as it is to carve out some time for rest and reflection, it is exactly what we need. For left to our own devices, we become exactly what Jesus saw in the crowd: “sheep without a shepherd.”

When the Lord Jesus is our shepherd,

there really is nothing we want. Want comes when we are our own shepherds.

I realize that Jesus is not going to come back to earth and do your eight loads of laundry, or pull your all-nighter cramming for a test, or finish that project at work, but what a little time alone beside the still waters of his presence will do is refresh your soul for the tasks ahead.

It is not magic, but if done regularly it could just possibly border on mystical.

Questions: Where do you go for quiet solitude with Jesus?

Do you do this enough?

What could you do to find more time like this in your life?

“COME AWAY BY YOURSELVES TO A DESERTED PLACE AND REST A WHILE.” — MARK 6:31

In many dioceses in the United States, parishes tend to be clustered in larger cities and towns. But in the more rural areas, Catholic churches are fewer and farther between, and often their congregations are small. This is certainly the case in our 25-county diocese.

With small congregations come small Sunday collections and fewer material resources, so it’s understandable for parishioners in these places to compare themselves with larger urban parishes and consider themselves lacking. At a recent meeting where some of our rural parishes were represented, I heard several remarks that bordered on helplessness: “How can we have a good religious education program with so few catechists?” or, “We’re a dying parish because we don’t have enough altar servers/classrooms/supplies/ money/fill in the blank.”

Without discounting such valid concerns, I am also reminded of today’s readings. Elisha’s servant wondered aloud whether 20 barley loaves could feed 100 people; Philip’s skepticism echoed his fellow disciple Andrew’s – “What good are these for so many?”.

There are at present many situations in our world in which the immensity of human need and suffering seem to have no way of being remedied, and despair is a most natural reaction.

But near the feast of Passover, the commemoration of God’s mighty works of deliverance and provision on Israel’s behalf, Jesus leads his disciples, the “new Israel,” through a similar

test of faith. Rather than allowing them to focus on scarcity, Jesus simply asks, “What do you have?” Then he multiplies their meager offering to the point where their needs are met with plenty left over to share.

The “loaves and fishes” story is a favorite Gospel for children preparing to make their first Communion. But what Jesus is doing here is not child’s play. It’s a challenge for grown-ups to take seriously the works he is able to do when we entrust to him the resources we have, without reservation. It happens at every celebration of the Eucharist. In the offering of bread and wine we offer all that we are and have to the Father of Jesus.

In the blessing, breaking and sharing, it’s not only the bread that is changed.

We are changed – made into more – enabled to bring God’s abundance of love, peace and provision to a hungry world.

Question: Think of a time when you were tempted to despair because of an overwhelming need. How did God’s provision bring you from an attitude of scarcity to one of abundance?

“THE HAND OF THE LORD FEEDS US; HE ANSWERS ALL OUR NEEDS.” — PSALM 145:16

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16 July 15, 2015

PRAYER CALENDAR

AUGUST 2015

AUGUST 16 TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Fr. Tom Friedl AUGUST 17 WEEKDAY Fr. Augie Gothman AUGUST 18 WEEKDAY Msgr. Roger Grundhaus (retired) AUGUST 19 ST. JOHN EUDES, PRIEST Fr. Adam Hamness AUGUST 20 ST. BERNARD, ABBOT, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH Fr. Joseph Hitpas, OMI AUGUST 21 ST. PIUS X, POPE Fr. Chuck Huck AUGUST 22 THE QUEENSHIP OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Fr. Xavier Ilango AUGUST 7 ST. SIXTUS II, POPE AND AUGUST 23 COMPANIONS, MARTYRS; ST. TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN CAJETAN, PRIEST ORDINARY TIME Fr. James Bernauer (retired) Fr. Joe Kieselbach (retired) AUGUST 8 AUGUST 24 ST. DOMINIC, PRIEST ST. BARTHOLOMEW, APOSTLE Fr. Tim Bushy Fr. John Kleinwachter AUGUST 9 AUGUST 25 NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ST. LOUIS; ST. JOSEPH ORDINARY TIME CALASANZ, PRIEST Fr. John Christianson Msgr. Donald Krebs (retired) AUGUST 10 AUGUST 26 ST. LAWRENCE, DEACON, WEEKDAY MARTYR Fr. Bryan Kujawa Fr. John Cox, OMI AUGUST 27 AUGUST 11 ST. MONICA ST. CLARE, VIRGIN Fr. Frank Kulhawik (retired) Fr. Bill DeCrans AUGUST 28 AUGUST 12 ST. AUGUSTINE, BISHOP, DOCTOR ST. JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL, OF THE CHURCH RELIGIOUS Fr. Rick Lambert Fr. Joe DeCrans AUGUST 29 AUGUST 13 THE PASSION OF ST. JOHN THE ST. PONTIAN, POPE, AND BAPTIST HIPPOLYTUS, PRIEST, MARTYRS Fr. Gary LaMoine Fr. Larry Delaney AUGUST 30 AUGUST 14 TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ST. MAXIMILLIAN KOLBE, ORDINARY TIME PRIEST, MARTYR Fr. Bob LaPlante Fr. Antony Fernando AUGUST 31 AUGUST 15 WEEKDAY THE ASSUMPTION OF THE Msgr. Tim McGee BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Msgr. Mike Foltz AUGUST 1 ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, BISHOP, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH Fr. Dennis Wieland AUGUST 2 EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Fr. Larry Wieseler (retired) AUGUST 3 WEEKDAY Bishop Michael J. Hoeppner AUGUST 4 ST. JOHN VIANNEY, PRIEST Bishop Victor H. Balke (retired) AUGUST 5 THE DEDICATION OF THE BASILICA OF ST. MARY MAJOR Fr. Todd Arends AUGUST 6 THE TRANSFIGURATION OF THE LORD Msgr. David Baumgartner

VOCATION PRAYER OF POPE ST. JOHN PAUL II: Lord Jesus, as you once called the first disciples to make them fishers of men, let your sweet invitation continue to resound: Come follow me! Give young men and women the grace of responding quickly to your voice. Support our bishops, priests, and consecrated people in their apostolic labor. Grant perseverance to our seminarians and to all those who are carrying out the ideal of a life totally consecrated to your service. Awaken in our community a missionary eagerness. Lord, send workers to your harvest and do not allow humanity to be lost for the lack of pastors, missionaries, and people dedicated to the cause of the Gospel. Mary, Mother of the Church, the model of every vocation, help us to say “yes” to the Lord who calls us to cooperate in the divine plan of salvation. Amen.

DIOCESAN

OUR NORTHLAND DIOCESE

POPE FRANCIS’ PRAYER INTENTIONS

AUGUST 2015

UNIVERSAL INTENTION: VOLUNTEERS

That volunteers may give themselves generously to the service of the needy.

EVANGELIZATION INTENTION: OUTREACH TO THE MARGINALIZED

That setting aside our very selves we may learn to be neighbors to those who find themselves on the margins of human life and society.

(Photo credit: CNS)

DAILY SCRIPTURE AUGUST 1 - Lv 25:1, 8-17; Ps 67:2-3, 5, 7-8; Mt 14:1-12 AUGUST 2 - Ex 16:2-4, 12-15; Ps 78:3-4, 23-25, 54; Eph 4:17, 20-24; Jn 6:24-35 AUGUST 3 - Nm 11:4b-15; Ps 81:12-17; Mt 14:13-21 AUGUST 4 - Nm 12:1-13; Ps 51:1, 3-7, 1213; Mt 14:22-36 or 15:1-2, 10-14 AUGUST 5 - Nm 13:1-2, 25-14:1, 26-29a, 34-35; Ps 106:6-7b, 13-14, 21-23; Mt 15:2128 AUGUST 6 - Dn 7:9-10, 13-14; Ps 97 1-2, 5-6, 9; 2 Pt 1:16-19; Mk 9:2-10 AUGUST 7 - Dt 4:32-40; Ps 77:12-16, 21; Mt 16:24-28 AUGUST 8 - Dt 6:4-13; Ps 18:2-4, 47, 51; Mt 17:14-20 AUGUST 9 - 1 Kgs 19:4-8; Ps 34:2-9; Eph 4:30-5:2; Jn 6:41-51 AUGUST 10 - 2 Cor 9:6-10; Ps 112:1-2, 5-9; Jn 12:24-26 AUGUST 11 - Dt 31:1-8; (Ps) Dt 32:3-4b, 7-9, 12; Mt 18:1-5, 10, 12-14 AUGUST 12 - Dt 34:1-12; Ps 66:1-3a, 5, 8, 16-17; Mt 18:15-20 AUGUST 13 - Jos 3:7-10a, 11, 13-17; Ps 114:1-6; Mt 18:21-19:1 AUGUST 14 - Jos 24:1-13; Ps 136:1-3, 1618, 21-22, 24; Mt 19:3-12 AUGUST 15 - Rv 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab; Ps 45:10-12, 16; 1 Cor 15:54b-57; Lk 11:27-28 AUGUST 16 - Prv 9:1-6; Ps 34:2-7; Eph 5:15-20; Jn 6:51-58 AUGUST 17 - Jgs 2:11-19; Ps 106:34-37, 39-40, 43ab, 44; Mt 19:16-22 AUGUST 18 - Jgs 6:11-24a; Ps 85:9, 11-14;

AUGUST 2015 Mt 19:23-30 AUGUST 19 - Jgs 9:6-15; Ps 21:2-7; Mt 20:1-16 AUGUST 20 - Jgs 11:29-39a; Ps 40:5, 7-10; Mt 22:1-14 AUGUST 21 - Ru 1:1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22; Ps 146:5-10; Mt 22:34-40 AUGUST 22 - Ru 2:1-3, 8-11, 4:13-17; Ps 128:1b-5; Mt 23:1-12 AUGUST 23 - Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b; Ps 34:2-3, 16-21; Eph 5:21-32 or 5:2a, 25-32; Jn 6:60-69 AUGUST 24 - Rv 21:9b-14; Ps 145: 10-13, 17-18; Jn 1:45-51 AUGUST 25 - 1 Thes 2:1-8; Ps 139:1-3, 4-6; Mt 23:23-26 AUGUST 26 - 1 Thes 2:9-13; Ps 139:7-12b; Mt 23:27-32 AUGUST 27 - 1 Thes 3:7-13; Ps 90:3-5a, 1214, 17; Mt 24:42-51 AUGUST 28 - 1 Thes 4:1-8; Ps 97:1-2b, 5-6, 10-12; Mt 25:1-13 AUGUST 29 - 1 Thes 4:9-11; Ps 98:1, 7-9; Mk 6:17-29 AUGUST 30 - Dt 4:1-2, 6-8; Ps 15:2-5; Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27; Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 AUGUST 31 - 1 Thes 4:13-18; Ps 96:1, 3-5, 11-13; Lk 4:16-30