St. Anthony Messenger April 2020

Sharing the spirit of St. Francis with the world ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

V O L . 1 2 7 / N O . 1 1 • APRIL 2020

Let’s Stop Fighting over Climate Change pages 14–15

PRAISED BEE THE STORY OF

MARKLIN CANDLES

APRIL 2020 • $4.99 StAnthonyMessenger.org

POPE FRANCIS AND CREATION EVERYDAY RESURRECTIONS FICTION: THE BIRD FEEDER

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St. Anthony IS A

Powerful Intercessor Before God.

You are invited to join us in praying a nine-week Solemn Novena to St. Anthony, beginning on Tuesday, April 14, 2020.

Visit StAnthony.org/PrayNovena to sign up for weekly St. Anthony Novena email reminders. Each weekly email includes everything you need to participate in the novena—complete with St. Anthony stories and audio options to aid your prayer.

Any prayer intentions you send us will be placed at the National Shrine of St. Anthony in Cincinnati, Ohio!

Visit StAnthony.org to learn more or to post your prayer request.

The Franciscan Friars, Province of St. John the Baptist 1615 Vine St., Ste 1 • Cincinnati, OH 45202-6492 Franciscan.org • StAnthony.org • 513-721-4700, ext. 3219

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VOL. 127 NO. 11

2020 APRIL

20 20 Praised Bee

COVER STORY

ABOVE: Each Marklin candle is hand-carved and then filled with colored wax to create beautifully intricate designs.

COVER: A honeybee rests for a moment on a Marklin candle. The hardworking insects make wax, which is used to produce the candles.

By Susan Hines-Brigger

This month, parishes across the country will light their paschal candles before the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Chances are, some of them were made by this self-taught candlemaker.

27 Our Common Home

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARKLIN CANDLE DESIGN (2)

Introduction by Alicia von Stamwitz; photography by Frank Jasper, OFM

“The poetry of earth is never dead,” John Keats wrote.

These images from a friar-photographer and quotes from Pope Francis illuminate that truth.

34 Everyday Resurrections

By Kathy Coffey

Being Easter people means celebrating the good news of the risen Christ and opening our hearts and eyes to the signs of new life within and around us.

38 Fiction: The Bird Feeder

By Bonnie Wasser

A returning veteran looks for a job—and a reason to be hopeful.

COMING NEXT

MONTH

An article about a newsletter written by inmates on death row A meditation on how the Psalms can help us through life’s difficulties StAnthonyMessenger.org | April 2020 • 1

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Saint Day

of the

T

he saints were real people with real stories—just like us! Their surrender to God’s love was so gen-

erous that the Church recognizes them as heroes and heroines worthy to be held up for our inspiration. Join Franciscan Media in our daily celebration of these holy men and women of God. Sign up for Saint of the Day, a free resource delivered right to your inbox.

Go to SaintoftheDay.org to start your journey.

St. Benedict the African

St. Bernadette Soubirous

St. Gianna Beretta Molla

April 3 St. Benedict the African, also called St. Benedict the Moor and St. Benedict the Black, lived the life of a slave until he was 18. After joining the Franciscans, he held positions of leadership. He was known for his poverty and humility.

April 16 St. Bernadette was a poor, uneducated peasant girl who no one would believe had seen apparitions of the Blessed Mother. But Mary had appeared to her, and Lourdes has become a popular shrine of devotion to Mary, the Immaculate Conception, and of healing.

April 19 St. Gianna Beretta Molla was a wife, mother, and pediatrician. During her last pregnancy, she was found to have a noncancerous uterine fibroid. While she allowed the doctors to remove the tumor, she made sure that her pregnancy was protected. St. Gianna Molla died of complications shortly after her daughter’s birth.

www.FranciscanMedia.org Go to www.FranciscanMedia.org/Alexa to learn how to add Saint of the Day to your Alexa-enabled device.

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St. Mark April 25 Most likely the first of the four Gospels, the Gospel of Mark is brief and pointed. Mark has one goal—to present Jesus as God’s crucified Messiah— and he fulfills that goal concisely. Mark’s Gospel seems to have been one of the sources used by Sts. Matthew and Luke for their works.

LEFT TO RIGHT: SIDNEY DE ALMEIDA/ISTOCK; WELTWOCHE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; JOSÉ LUIZ BERNARDES RIBEIRO/CREATIVE COMMONS; STÄDEL MUSEUM/PUBLIC DOMAIN/C. 1450

Saints featured in the month of April include . . .

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VOL. 127 NO. 11

“At all times and seasons, in every country and place, every day and all day, we must have a true and humble faith.”

2020 APRIL

—St. Francis of Assisi

SPIRIT OF ST. FRANCIS 10 Ask a Franciscan

12 POINTS OF VIEW 14 I’d Like to Say

Who Was the ‘Beloved Disciple’?

LEFT TO RIGHT: SIDNEY DE ALMEIDA/ISTOCK; WELTWOCHE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; JOSÉ LUIZ BERNARDES RIBEIRO/CREATIVE COMMONS; STÄDEL MUSEUM/PUBLIC DOMAIN/C. 1450

14

Let’s Stop Fighting over Climate Change

12 Franciscan World

16 At Home on Earth

12 St. Anthony Stories

18 Faith Unpacked

13 Followers of St. Francis

19 Editorial

La Foresta

Small Acts, Big Picture

A Birthday Gift from St. Anthony

We’re All Right

Paula Voborsky, OFS

A Legacy of Hate

46 Faith & Family Go Your Own Way

CULTURE

42 Media Reviews

Television | Inside the Vatican Book | On Thomas Merton Book Briefs | Faces of Easter and Blessed Broken Given

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42

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

44 Film Reviews 4 Dear Reader The Call of the Wild Burden Troop Zero

5 Your Voice 6 Church in the News

6

47 Lighten Up 47 Pete & Repeat 48 Reflection

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dear reader News Blues

I

’ve made a concerted effort this year to divest from the 24-hour news cycle— a much harder task than I had anticipated. With smartphones in our pockets, radios in our cars, and multiple televisions in our homes, unearthing ourselves from the daily avalanche of information can be a job. I started small: I unfollowed all news organizations on social media. I unfavorited news channels on my cable menu. I even deleted the Facebook and Huffington Post apps on my phone. Small measures, but they’ve helped.

And there’s some scholarship to back me up. According to a 2019 report by the American Psychological Association, two-thirds of Americans are under emotional strain because of the perpetual news cycle. Dr. Steven Stosny, a Washington, DC-based therapist, even coined the phrase “headline stress disorder.” The struggle, folks, is real.

But burying our heads in the sand isn’t the right answer either. With 2020 being an election year, there’s too much on the line for us to turn a blind eye. Head to page 14 of this issue to read “Let’s Stop Fighting over Climate Change,” the first installment of our new column by Patrick Carolan, director of Catholic outreach for Vote Common Good. Starting with this issue and through November, Patrick will tackle the most important issues facing conscientious voters—deconstructed through a Franciscan lens. We think you’ll like his writing.

It’s easy to lose heart at the state of our country and the world, but this quote from Pope Francis could bring us to a place of peace: “There is never a reason to lose hope. Jesus says: ‘I am with you until the end of the world.’”

Amen.

PUBLISHER

Daniel Kroger, OFM PRESIDENT

Kelly McCracken EXECUTIVE EDITORS

Christopher Heffron Susan Hines-Brigger

FRANCISCAN EDITOR

Pat McCloskey, OFM ART DIRECTOR

Mary Catherine Kozusko MANAGING EDITOR

Daniel Imwalle

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Sandy Howison

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Sharon Lape

DIRECTOR OF SALES, MARKETING, AND DEVELOPMENT

Ray Taylor

PRINTING

Christopher Heffron, Executive Editor

Kingery Printing Co. Effingham, IL

FRANK JASPER, OFM

BONNIE WASSER

Everyday Resurrections

Our Common Home

The Bird Feeder

PAGE 34

PAGE 27

PAGE 38

Frank J. Jasper, a Franciscan from Cincinnati, Ohio, spent most of his ministry as a clinical psychologist and administrator in the Midwest. Father Frank’s hobby of photography has been developing since he was young, and he has contributed his photos regularly to St. Anthony Messenger.

Bonnie Wasser is the author of two devotional books, A Time for Everything and A Time to Laugh, A Time to Cry. As the mother of many children, she continues to write about families in both her fiction and nonfiction.

writer

Kathy Coffey is a longtime contributor to St. Anthony Messenger and has written for several other publications.

In addition to her writing, she has spoken at a number of national conventions as well as many diocesan gatherings.

You can find some of her work at KathyJCoffey.com.

photographer

writer

To subscribe, write to the above address or call 866-543-6870. Yearly subscription price: $39.00 in the United States; $69.00 in Canada and other countries. Single copy price: $4.99. For change of address, four weeks’ notice is necessary. See FranciscanMedia.org/subscriptionservices for information on your digital edition.

Writer’s guidelines can be found at FranciscanMedia.org/ writers-guide. The publishers are not responsible for manuscripts or photos lost or damaged in transit. Names in fiction do not refer to living or dead persons.

Member of the Catholic Press Association Published with ecclesiastical approval Copyright ©2020. All rights reserved.

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PHOTO CREDIT HERE

KATHY COFFEY

ST. ANTHONY MESSENGER (ISSN #0036276X) (U.S.P.S. PUBLICATION #007956 CANADA PUBLICATION #PM40036350) Volume 127, Number 11, is published 10 times per year for $39.00 a year by the Franciscan Friars of St. John the Baptist Province, 28 W. Liberty Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-6498. Phone 513-241-5615.

Periodicals postage paid at Cincinnati, Ohio, and additional entry offices. US POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: St. Anthony Messenger, PO Box 189, Congers, NY 10920-0189. CANADA RETURN ADDRESS: c/o AIM, 7289 Torbram Rd., Mississauga, ON, Canada L4T 1G8.

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POINTSOFVIEW | YOUR VOICE Lessons from the Passion Narrative Wow! Patrick Gallagher’s article “A New Look at the Passion” in the February issue of St. Anthony Messenger is a precious blessing to its subscribers and to anyone else who discovers it. Soul-searching is foundational to the pursuit of true freedom. Gallagher skillfully described the cowardly decisions of a number of biblical figures during Jesus’ Passion.

Moreover, Gallagher pointed out that we, too, may make the same mistakes as these characters in the Passion narrative and explored what we can learn from acknowledging that fact, which I found to be quite powerful. May wise and faithful decisions prevail in following our lord Jesus. Deo gratias!

Pam Juergens, Springfield, Ohio

The Sanctity of All Life

.S.P.S. TION ed 10 Friars Street, 5615. addiddress ngers, AIM, 8.

call n the Single notice ption-

PHOTO CREDIT HERE

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This letter is in response to Mark P. Shea’s article in the January issue, “A Fresh Perspective on Being Pro-Life.” Shea has totally illuminated the truth about what the pro-life movement should be. And that is: Being pro-life means protecting all life. It seems that many Catholics have narrowed this down to being only pro-fetus. After the baby is born, many pro-lifers just forget about the well-being of people.

Many people need Medicaid, food stamps, or affordable health insurance, and some need financial assistance and disability supplements. If we care about children being born, then let’s vote appropriately for government assistance to help people who need it. Sadly, there are some who take advantage of these programs. Yes, they need to be taken off.

Shea also touched on the subject of the just war theory, which also falls under the pro-life movement. He points out the dangers of technologies that enable “states to annihilate entire populations via weapons of mass destruction, genocide, or technologically enforced famines . . . .”

I found the quote from a 1982 homily from St. John Paul II to be profound. “Today, the scale and the horror of modern warfare— whether nuclear or not—makes it totally unacceptable as a means of settling differences between nations,” St. John Paul II said. “War should belong to the tragic past, to history; it should find no place on humanity’s agenda for the future.”

Shea goes on to quote Pope Benedict XVI, who, in a 2003 interview with Zenit News Agency, wondered “if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a ‘just war.’”

Shea also writes that people are made in the image and likeness of God. We may concentrate on abortion, but we are not to ignore other life issues. “The Church’s whole-life teaching is about the right to live, not merely the right to be born,” he writes in the concluding paragraph. To paraphrase, human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and it is our duty to protect the dignity of our God-given life.

Thank you, Mr. Shea, for helping us to focus—especially during an election year—on one of the most important issues facing the world today.

Nick Wineriter, OFS, Ocala, Florida

CONTACT INFO We want to hear from you!

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January Article on Being Present Makes an Impact I’m writing in to comment on how much I enjoyed the January issue. “The Power of Now,” by Terry Hershey, was especially inspiring and spoke to me. The style is refreshing with a wonderful message.

I am looking forward to ordering the book—This Is the Life (Franciscan Media).

Nannette Mitchell, Bakersfield, California

WEBSITES: StAnthonyMessenger.org FranciscanMedia.org PHONE NUMBERS: (866) 543-6870 (toll-free) (845) 267-3051 (Canada toll-free) (513) 241-5615 ext.137 (advertising) FAX NUMBER: (845) 267-3478 (subscriptions)

Franciscan Values Needed Now More Than Ever I observe the current political discourse as a Franciscan layman. The values currently argued by our politicians center on seeking power, self-aggrandizement, growing personal wealth, and controlling the taxpayers’ budgets.

Values such as truthfulness, love or respect for others—including enemies—personal honesty, and humility appear less important.

Political strife today is similar to that experienced during St. Francis of Assisi’s period in history. But St. Francis, after trying to be a heroic, grand knight, decided to forgo fame and family wealth. Instead, he followed Jesus and worked in poverty for love and peace. He was way ahead of the world in his love for all living beings and the care for creation.

How much more unified and peaceful could our country be today if we tried to emulate Franciscan values in our lives?

Jim Beck, OFS, Sarasota, Florida

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people | events | trends

A

ccording to a newly released report by L’Arche International, Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities, used his status to have “manipulative” sexual relationships with at least six women. The report was released following an internal investigation commissioned by the organization. It noted that none of the abuse took place in the United States.

L’Arche communities Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, has provide group homes and been accused of sexually abusing six spiritual support for people with intellectual disabilities. women.

The alleged acts were brought forward by six adult women, none of them with intellectual disabilities, and the inquiry found the allegations to be credible. The incidents took place in Trosly-Breuil, France, where L’Arche was founded in 1964, and where Vanier and his spiritual director, Father Thomas Philippe, lived predominantly until their deaths.

The report also notes that Father Philippe had sexually abused adult women who were not disabled; the organization learned about it in 2015, 22 years after the priest’s death. In a Church trial in the 1950s, the priest was banned from exercising any public or private ministry. It is believed that Vanier adopted some of Philippe’s “deviant theories and practices,” noted the letter from the leaders of L’Arche International, Stephan Posner and Stacy Cates-Carney.

The findings of the investigation note that Vanier “has been accused of manipulative sexual relationships and emotional abuse between 1970 and 2005, usually within a relational context where he exercised significant power and a psychological hold over the alleged victims. . . .

Independently from one another, the witnesses describe similar occurrences, which had a long-lasting and negative impact on their personal lives and subsequent relationships.”

The women said that Vanier, who died in 2019, initiated sexual relations with them. Each of them reported receiving an invitation to go to Vanier’s room, under the pretext of receiving spiritual direction. Vanier asked the women to keep their relations secret.

The leaders of L’Arche International said: “For many of us, Jean was one of the people we loved and respected the

most. Jean inspired and comforted many people around the world . . . and we are aware that this information will cause many of us, both inside and outside L’Arche, deep confusion and pain. While the considerable good he did throughout his life is not in question, we will nevertheless have to mourn a certain image we may have had of Jean and of the origins of L’Arche.”

In a letter to the L’Arche USA community, national leader and executive director Tina Broverman acknowledged “the incredible courage of the witnesses who testified during this investigation. The bravery of these women calls us to recognize the importance of truth-telling and its alignment with our core values. While many questions will yet be answered in the coming months and years, we stand today on the side of those who have been harmed.”

The investigation was carried out by GCPS, an independent UK consultancy that specializes in improving procedures for the prevention and reporting of abuse.

VATICAN RELEASES DOCUMENT ON AMAZON SYNOD

A

t a February 12 news conference, the Vatican released “Querida Amazonia” (“Beloved Amazonia”), the final document from the 2019 Synod of Bishops from the Amazon, reported Catholic News Service (CNS). In the document, the pope called for a Church with “Amazonian features.”

The pope pointed out that the synod profited from “the participation of many people who know better than myself or the Roman Curia the problems and issues of the Amazon region, since they live there, they experience its suffering, and they love it passionately.”

At the beginning of the document, Pope Francis noted four dreams that he had for the Amazonian region, writing: “I dream of an Amazon region that fights for the rights of

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CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: PAUL HARING; RIGHT: OCTAVIO DURAN

CREDIBLE SEX-ABUSE ALLEGATIONS MADE AGAINST JEAN VANIER

By Susan Hines-Brigger

CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: NANCY WIECHEC; RIGHT: PAUL HARING

church IN THE NEWS

CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: PAUL HARING; RIGHT: OCTAVIO DURAN

CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: NANCY WIECHEC; RIGHT: PAUL HARING

the poor, the original peoples, and the least of our brothers and sisters, where their voices can be heard and their dignity advanced.

“I dream of an Amazon region that can preserve its distinctive cultural riches, where the beauty of our humanity shines forth in so many varied ways.

“I dream of an Amazon region that can jealously preserve its overwhelming natural beauty and the superabundant life teeming in its rivers and forests.

“I dream of Christian communities capable of generous commitment, incarnate in the Amazon region, and giving the Church new faces with Amazonian features.”

A good part of the document addressed the exploitation of the region’s indigenous communities and poor inhabitants and the destruction of its natural resources.

Following the synod last October, many people had been hoping that the document would address the subject of married priests, which it did not. Instead, Pope Francis stated that “every effort should be made to ensure that the Amazonian people do not lack this food of new life and the sacrament of forgiveness. This urgent need leads me to urge all bishops, especially those in Latin America, not only to promote prayer for priestly vocations, but also to be more generous in encouraging those who display a missionary vocation to opt for the Amazon region.”

The document also did not specifically address the theft during the synod of wooden statues of a pregnant woman, usually referred to by the media as “Pachamama” or described as a symbol of life and fertility by synod participants. The statues were thrown into the Tiber River but later recovered.

However, the pope noted: “Let us not be quick to describe as superstition or paganism certain religious practices that arise spontaneously from the life of peoples. . . . It is possible to take up an indigenous symbol in some way, without necessarily considering it as idolatry. A myth charged with spiritual meaning can be used to advantage and not always considered a pagan error.”

“The inescapable truth,” the pope wrote, “is that, as things stand, this way of treating the Amazon territory spells the end for so much life, for so much beauty, even though people would like to keep thinking that nothing is happening.”

SALVADORAN JESUIT MARTYR, COMPANIONS TO BE BEATIFIED

O

n February 22, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has recognized the martyrdom of Salvadoran Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande and two companions who were murdered en route to a novena in 1977 in El Salvador, according to CNS. Father Grande died March 12, 1977, near his hometown of El Paisnal in rural El Salvador after being shot a dozen times or more, along with elderly parishioner Manuel Solorzano Father Rutilio Grande has been and teenager Nelson Rutilio declared a martyr, along with two of Lemus, who were accompahis companions. nying him to the novena for the feast of St. Joseph. Their bodies were found lifeless in an overturned Jeep that the priest had been driving. As in the case of the assassination of St. Oscar Romero and tens of thousands of other Salvadorans, no one was ever charged with Father Grande’s murder or that of his parishioners.

The official recognition of martyrdom means Father Grande and his companions will be beatified without a miracle being attributed to them, though Pope Francis has, in the past, been quoted as saying that Father Grande’s first miracle was St. Romero. No date for the beatification has been announced. Beatification is the step just before sainthood; in order for Father Grande and his companions to be canonized, a miracle would have to be attributed to their intercession.

In an audio interview with CNS, Salvadoran Bishop Oswaldo Escobar Aguilar of Chalatenango, El Salvador, said this step is a great one not only for the Church but for all of those who have suffered. “The beatification is a great joy for everyone, for peasants, for the oppressed, for those who experienced violence,” the bishop said. “As I like to say, when they canonized Romero, Romero did not go to heaven alone.

Behind Romero, many martyrs followed: all the murdered and persecuted [Salvadorans]. It’s the same with Rutilio. He is being beatified with two peasants, two laypeople, a symbol of many who were martyred.”

Ana Grande, Father Grande’s niece and an executive at a nonprofit organization in California, said she was overjoyed by the news.

“For years we have prayed that the beatification of our uncle, Father Grande, come at a time to encourage our Salvadoran community, to keep lifting their voices,” she told CNS. “I can only imagine the feast Romero and Rutilio will have as they join the communion of saints.”

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church IN THE NEWS

RAPHAEL TAPESTRIES ON DISPLAY IN SISTINE CHAPEL

MISSAL USED BY ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI ON DISPLAY

F

ollowing a two-year restoration, a missal used by St. Francis of Assisi is on display for the first time in 40 years. Walters Art Museum in Baltimore will display the missal through May 31. The missal is part of an intimate exhibition that features approximately 17 objects, including manuscripts, paintings, ivories, ceramics, and documentation of the missal’s recent two-year conservation funded by the Mellon Foundation.

The history of the book is that St. Francis and two of his followers were debating what God’s plan for them might be. Unable to agree, they sought answers at the Church of San Nicolò in Assisi. They opened the missal three times at random, and, in every case, the text on the page urged the renouncement of earthly goods. Following the experience, Francis established a rule of life governing what would become his Order of Friars Minor.

Because the missal was touched by a saint, it is not only considered a historical artifact but also regarded by many to be a religious relic.

Lynley Herbert, curator of rare books and manuscripts at Walters, said the missal is their most requested book, according to an article on the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s website.

“We’ve become a site of pilgrimage. I’m contacted probably monthly, if not weekly, with requests to see this book,” she said.

According to Herbert, Henry Walters, whose art collection became the basis for the Walters Art Museum, bought the missal from an art dealer in 1924.

MARRIAGE, FAMILY THERAPIST TO HEAD NATIONAL REVIEW BOARD

L

os Angeles Archbishop José Gómez, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has appointed Suzanne Healy, the former victims assistance coordinator for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, to be the new chair of the National Review Board, according to CNS. Her term will begin in June. Healy has been a member of the Suzanne Healy board for the past three years. She is a retired marriage and family therapist.

In his announcement, Archbishop Gómez said: “[The] last several years have witnessed great strides and challenges in the continued and ongoing efforts of the Catholic Church in the United States to strengthen and renew our efforts for the protection of young people and healing for survivors.”

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CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: VATICAN SECRET ARCHIVES HANDOUT; RIGHT: PAUL HARING

After a lengthy conservation effort, the St. Francis Missal is on display in Baltimore. It is believed that St. Francis and two of his followers used the missal and received spiritual direction from its use.

n honor of the 500th anniversary of the death of the Renaissance artist Raphael, 10 enormous tapestries designed by the artist were on display for one week this past February, reported CNS. The tapestries were displayed in the Sistine Chapel, which is the original location for which they were intended.

Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums, told Vatican News, “It’s an important moment” and a way to celebrate a truly great artist.

The tapestries depict the lives of Sts. Peter and Paul and events from the Acts of the Apostles. Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael to create 10 designs for a special set of tapestries for the chapel’s lower walls. They were designed to specifically correspond to the frescoed images higher on the walls depicting scenes from the lives of Moses and Jesus, and Michelangelo’s images from the story of Genesis.

The tapestries are normally displayed behind glass on a rotating basis in the so-called “Raphael Room” in the Vatican Museums.

CNS PHOTOS: TOP LEFT: COURTESY WALTERS ART MUSEUM (2); TOP RIGHT: PAUL HARING; LOWER RIGHT: ALEXANDRA COOPER, COURTESY ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES

I

The National Review Board advises the bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People and works closely with the USCCB’s Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection in accordance with the “Charter for Protection of Children and Young People,” which the bishops first adopted in 2002.

Healy will succeed Francesco Cesareo, who will conclude his term as chair after the bishops’ June 2020 meeting.

Cesareo, president of Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, has served as the review board chair since 2013.

A cabinet displays a selection of books from the Vatican secret archives. The Vatican has recently released its archives on the 1939–1958 pontificate of Pope Pius XII.

O

CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: VATICAN SECRET ARCHIVES HANDOUT; RIGHT: PAUL HARING

CNS PHOTOS: TOP LEFT: COURTESY WALTERS ART MUSEUM (2); TOP RIGHT: PAUL HARING; LOWER RIGHT: ALEXANDRA COOPER, COURTESY ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES

VATICAN OPENS WARTIME ARCHIVES

n March 2, the Vatican Apostolic Library opened the Holy See’s archives to researchers on the pontificate of Pope Pius XII between the years 1939 and 1958, reported Vatican News.

Prior to the opening of the archives, 85 researchers from around the world had requested and been granted access to review the files. Bishop Sergio Pagano, prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Archives, said he expected to see an increase in requests after March 2.

The first wave of researchers included 10 experts from the United States, including two from the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The museum has been working with the Vatican archives for more than a decade, Bishop Pagano said, ever since Pope Benedict XVI authorized the early opening of materials pertaining to the pre-World War II pontificate of Pope Pius XI. The materials come not only from the Vatican Apostolic Archives, but also from multiple other archives, such as the Vatican Secretariat of State, which include documents regarding internal Church governance and the Holy See’s relations with states, nongovernmental organizations, and the international community.

At a February 20 press conference, Johan Ickx, director of the archive of the section for relations with states, said that

Johan Ickx, director of one of the historical archives at the Vatican, speaks to reporters on February 20.

staffers have digitized almost their entire archive, starting with 1939 and reaching just shy of 1958, since they only “started doing it nine years ago.

“We are now past 1.3 million documents” already scanned and available online for study or to request printed copies, he said.

Cardinal Jose Tolentino Calaca de Mendonca told reporters, “We have to have the patience to wait and listen to the results” that dozens of scholars are expected to produce over the coming years. He said the work will be “inevitably slow and complex.”

He added, “The Church is not afraid of history and faces the assessment of historians and researchers with trusting certainty” that the meaning and spirit of what was done will be understood.

“Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these, they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve.”

—St. FranciS oF aSSiSi

Please remember Franciscan Media in your family’s estate planning.

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SPIRITOFST.FRANCIS | ASK A FRANCISCAN

By Pat McCloskey, OFM

Who Was the ‘Beloved Disciple’?

In the Gospel of John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is at the foot of the cross (19:26) and is entrusted with caring for the mother of Jesus (19:27). Who is this disciple and what makes him more loved than anyone else?

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or centuries, most Christians have thought it was the Apostle John, but biblical scholars have more recently questioned this. The “Beloved Disciple,” who appears only in the Gospel of John, is introduced in 13:23 with later references in 18:15–16; 19:26–27; 20:2–4, 8; and 21:7, 20, 23–24.

In his Introduction to the New Testament, Sulpician Father Raymond Brown summarizes three main theories about this disciple’s identity: 1) Apostle John or another man in the New Testament, 2) a symbol for the perfect disciple, or 3) a minor figure during Jesus’ ministry but one who later became very important to the Christian community addressed in the Gospel of John. Brown

thought the third possibility was probably correct.

The term “Beloved Disciple” is not a profound theological statement but more likely reflects what sports people refer to as “a home field advantage”: the disciple whom that group of Christians knew best and whom they considered—after Mary—the model disciple. The name of Jesus’ mother does not appear in the Gospel of John. Each of us is called to show the belief the Beloved Disciple exhibited outside the empty tomb of Jesus (20:8) and lived thereafter.

Forgive an Adulterous Husband?

Is it wrong to divorce a husband who commits adultery? My husband and I were married in the Catholic Church almost 30 years ago. Several years ago he committed adultery, and the pain still remains with me. I have tried to forgive him but long for something much more important: healing.

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WE HAVE A DIGITAL archive of Q & As, going back to March 2013.

Just click: • the Ask link and then • the Archive link.

Material is grouped thematically under headings such as forgiveness, Jesus, moral issues, prayer, saints, redemption, sacraments, Scripture—and many more!

o, a civil divorce is an option. Depending on evidence provided, a canonical “declaration of nullity” may also be possible.

Before you do that, however, you might consider the Retrouvaille program that has helped many couples with a serious problem in their marriage, including infidelity.

More information is available at HelpOurMarriage.org, with a calendar to search dates and locations. Both spouses must want to save their present marriage for this program to work.

Unfortunately, people often use the terms forgiveness and reconciliation as though they are the same thing. They are definitely not!

Forgiveness is one-sided; reconciliation must be two-sided (mutual). Forgiveness cannot change a past injustice, but it may put it in a different context. In your situation, it can move this betrayal from “This totally defines who I am” to “This was very painful, but it does not totally define who I am.”

Forgiveness is not a reward that an innocent party gives to the guilty party; forgiveness is a

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Father Pat welcomes your questions!

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Pat McCloskey, OFM

reward that an innocent party gives to herself or himself, a reward of refusing to allow a previous injury to determine totally the innocent party’s future. In that sense, forgiveness is a gift to oneself.

Forgiveness does not change a past action, but it is a decision about that event’s ongoing effect on the person who chooses to forgive. Eva Kors, a survivor of the Shoah (Holocaust), has said, “I forgave the Nazis not because they deserve it, but because I deserve it.”

May God help you find the peace that you were always meant to have—with or without the man you married almost 30 years ago.

Quick Questions and Answers What governs whether we stand or kneel when receiving holy Communion?

The biggest factor should be safety. While distributing Communion, I have seen a person who kneels abruptly almost trip the unsuspecting next person in line. Kneeling is not necessarily more reverent than standing. Safety should be our default in such situations.

The Bible warns against vain repetition in prayer (Mt 6:7).

Isn’t that what Catholics are doing when they pray the rosary?

How should I dispose of religious magazines, newspapers, or holy cards that have pictures of Jesus, Mary, or the saints? Similarly, what about statues or medals?

What can be burned or buried should be. If that is not feasible, recycling by using a box or opaque envelope is recommended.

At the conclusion of the penitential rite at Mass, the celebrant says, “May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.” In the Gloria, we pray, “You take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.” Which is it: Is God merciful or not? Is God forgiving or not?

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No. When Jesus criticizes vain repetition in prayer, he is saying that prayer does not force God into some corner and guarantee that God will provide what the praying person seeks. Prayer does not lay down the terms of a contract; instead, it opens the praying person to all that God wants to provide—just as Mary opened her heart to God even without knowing all the details about where her “Let it be done to me as you have said” might lead.

God is always merciful and forgiving but refuses to force these on us. These prayers express our willingness to receive these gifts and avoid whatever in the future would interfere with them (for example, holding a grudge against someone).

Celebrate the Feast of Feasts

by lighting an

Easter candle!

When you light a candle on StAnthony.org, it will burn for three days at the National Shrine of St. Anthony in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Br. Vince DeLorenzo is ready to light a candle for you.

Visit StAnthony.org

The Franciscan Friars, Province of St. John the Baptist 1615 Vine St, Ste 1 Cincinnati, OH 45202-6492 friarworks@franciscan.org 513-721-4700, ext. 3219

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SPIRITOFST.FRANCIS “A simple and uneducated old woman can love God and be greater than [minister general] Brother Bonaventure.”

—Giles of Assisi

FRANCISCAN WORLD

La Foresta

By Pat McCloskey, OFM

T

Giles (1190–1262) was one of the first friars to join Francis of Assisi and one of the last to die. Prayer and hard work obviously agreed with him.

After pilgrimages to the Holy Land and the shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela, Giles went to Tunis to preach to the Muslims but was promptly put on a boat back to Italy.

After years working as a day laborer, he moved to the friars’ hermitage in Monte Ripido near Perugia. His advice was collected in The Golden Sayings of Brother Giles.

He was beatified in 1777; his feast is April 23.

—Pat McCloskey, OFM

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ST. ANTHONY STORIES

A Birthday Gift from St. Anthony

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n a recent Sunday afternoon, my 20-year-old granddaughter discovered that her wallet was missing from her backpack. Her wallet contained several hundred dollars in birthday money. She had last used her wallet at a local store a few days prior, but the store did not have it when she checked with them.

She and her dad searched the whole house from top to bottom several times and for many hours, even going through the trash cans outside.

During this time, our family members prayed to St. Anthony, patron of lost things. Later that evening, my granddaughter was watching a movie, feeling very sad about her loss. After she walked back from the kitchen, she sat down on the couch to continue watching the movie. She felt that she was sitting on something. She looked under the cushion and saw that it was her wallet! Where had it come from? There were no pockets in the clothes she was wearing, and all of the cushions had been removed from the couch during the search. It truly was a miracle! Thank you, St. Anthony!

—Michele Gonzalez, West Covina, California

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He joined hard work to a life of contemplative prayer, becoming a master of the spiritual life.

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GILES OF ASSISI

hree miles from the city of Rieti lies the sanctuary of Santa Maria della Foresta. In the summer of 1225, nine months after having received the stigmata (the marks of Christ’s wounds), Francis was very sick and came here with Brother Masseo and other companions to recuperate, enjoying the hospitality of the priest at the small church of San Fabiano.

The priest had a vineyard next to the church. After the many In 1225, Francis of Assisi stayed here while on a trip to nearby Rieti to consult people who wanted to see Francis trampled the grapes, the saint Tebald the Saracen, the papal surgeon, about treatment for his eyes. promised that the priest would get 20 measures of wine, although the vineyard typically yielded only 13 each year. And so it happened (Assisi Compilation, 67).

The friars eventually accepted responsibility for this church, now named Santa Maria della Foresta, and built a friary there. Francis enjoyed La Foresta’s solitude, once Brother Masseo and the other friars kept away the many pious but overly curious visitors who wished to see Francis.

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FOLLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS

ST. ANTHONY

Freed by the Franciscan Spirit

“If you come from the perspective that all is gift, not deserved and not earned, to be used and shared, it doesn’t matter if you lose it.”

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the

aula Voborsky, OFS, has a personal mantra based on the writings of St. Clare: “Once in her body, the Virgin of Virgins bore the word of God. Now in my spirit, I, in my weakness, bear the word of God.” It’s no wonder those words (penned by author Josef Raischl) resonate so deeply with Voborsky, whose challenges or “weaknesses” have paradoxically freed her to see life through a spiritual lens and bear the Word in action.

In 1978, she had a near-death experience. Her daughter was born at 30 weeks, causing Voborsky’s blood pressure to plummet. She fell into an unconscious state where she says she suddenly felt as if she was “on the other side—a place where there was an absence of all negativity.” In this blissful, heavenly state, she says that God asked her to return to her life in order to raise her daughter. Ten years later, a house fire uprooted Voborsky and her two children. Suspecting arson by a family member, Voborsky and her children fled to California for their safety.

They started all over, with practically nothing, in Sacramento.

In 1997, a stage-4 breast cancer diagnosis threatened her life as a single mom and nearly derailed her pursuit of a master of divinity degree at the Franciscan School of Theology (Berkeley). She got her degree anyway and fell in love with Franciscan spirituality, which paved a path to full-time ministry.

Her challenges have helped her to live with a contagious freedom that is all about serving others. To give you a taste of that freedom, five years ago she sold (or donated) almost all her belongings, then drove cross-country with her 90-year-old parents, as their primary caregiver, in hopes of finding

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a ministry job in the Midwest. Most wouldn’t even consider moving without a plan in place. She ended up in Ohio, the seventh state she has lived in.

After all she’s suffered through, she says she has an underlying trust that God will “put you in the right spot.”

“One notion of Francis is that if you cling to possessions, you bring violence into the world because then you have to protect your possessions,” Voborsky says. “If you come from the perspective that all is gift, not deserved and not earned, to be used and shared, it doesn’t matter if you lose it.”

Life is about service, Voborsky says. She lights up when talking about ministry, something that animated her life even before she obtained her master’s degree and became a Secular Franciscan. For example, her parish and two Protestant churches in Wisconsin worked together to create a permanent group home for men with disabilities (which included employment services).

Voborsky retired from her position as a family service advisor with Catholic Cemeteries in Cincinnati in 2017, but it’s unlikely she’ll be slowing down anytime soon. She has centered her life on Luke 4:18–19: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

Voborsky is a reminder that our sufferings and weaknesses help us to see others as they are—to meet them where they are, honor their stories, and uplift their souls. As her mantra states, “Now in my spirit, I, in my weakness, bear the word of God.” —Stephen Copeland

FRANK JASPER, OFM

P

nta mer ng of ry

Paula Voborsky, OFS

BREAD s

The National Shrine of St. Anthony is located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Consecrated in 1889, it includes a first-class relic of St. Anthony and serves as a center for daily prayer and contemplation.

The Franciscan friars minister from the shrine. To help them in their work among the poor, you may send a monetary offering called St. Anthony Bread. Make checks or money orders payable to “Franciscans” and mail to the address below.

Every Tuesday, a Mass is offered for benefactors and petitioners at the shrine. To seek St. Anthony’s intercession, mail your petition to the address below. Petitions are taken to the shrine each week. viSit our webSite to:

StAnthony.org

s

mAil poStAl communicAtionS to:

St. Anthony Bread 1615 Vine St. Cincinnati, OH 45202-6498

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POINTSOFVIEW | I’D LIKE TO SAY

By Patrick Carolan

Let’s Stop Fighting over Climate Change

Patrick Carolan

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cientific studies have long shown the connection between human behavior and climate change. Over 97 percent of climate scientists agree on this. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in its 2014 report: “Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.”

The climate crisis conversation is more about intellectual arguments than about the profound spiritual and moral implications of our failure to care for God’s creation.

Many years of advocacy by hardworking environmental groups have failed to produce even modest climate legislation in a dysfunctional US Congress.

In a November 2019 speech

at the Vatican, Pope Francis called for adding to the Catechism “the sin against ecology, the ecological sin against the common home.” Commenting on this, Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond, director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute (LSRI) at Oxford University, said, “Defining ecological sin in this way is a natural outcome of the idea of integral ecology, that is, the ontological basis for why everything is interconnected, which is grounded in a doctrine of creation.”

JUSTICE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

This concept of integral ecology or interconnectedness is not new. Eight hundred years ago, St. Francis of Assisi looked at life through a lens of all creation. He had a relational connection from which blossomed a perspective of deep empathy. In his poetry, when Francis

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In recent years, areas throughout the country have experienced an increase in incidents of excessive flooding, leaving devastation—and even death—in their wake. Many scientists believe climate change is a driving factor in this increase.

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Patrick previously served as executive director of the Franciscan Action Network. He is also a cofounder of the Global Catholic Climate Movement.

He currently serves as director of Catholic outreach for Vote Common Good. He is a recipient of the 2015 White House Champion for Change Award and is personally dedicated to social justice through individual and societal transformation.

talked about Brother Sun and Sister Moon, it was not just flowery language; it was a belief in the connectedness of all creation, a wholeness of being. In her book A Franciscan View of Creation, Dr. Ilia Delio, OSF, talks about the link between creation and the Incarnation: “Francis’ respect for creation was not a duty or obligation but arose out of an inner love by which creation and the source of creation were intimately united.”

St. Francis, who understood this intimate unity, was not alone. St. Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century mystic and doctor of the Church, said: “The Spirit of the Lord fills the earth. This means that no creature, whether visible or invisible, lacks a spiritual life.” Her poetry describes how God is in all things, and all things are in God. Centuries before we discovered that the Earth and the universe are not a static creation, Hildegard understood the universe and Earth as one evolving being connected to all.

St. Bonaventure, a 13th-century Franciscan, described the created universe as the “fountain fullness of God’s expressed being.” In other words, as God is expressed in creation, creation in turn expresses the creator. Also in the 13th century, Dominican theologian Meister Eckhart said, “Every creature is a word of God and a book about God.”

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RETURNING TO THE GARDEN

Even though we have become aware through science that some of our sacred stories cannot be taken literally, it doesn’t make their spiritual message less relevant. We should not think about the creation story as a static event, where two people disobeyed God by eating an apple. Instead, we should apply the creation story to our current reality, where we as a people choose to separate ourselves from the creator by consciously leaving the Garden.

Perhaps instead of thinking of the story as a single event that happened thousands of years ago, for which God has continuously punished us, contemplate this theory: We are in a continuum where every day each of us—individuals and society as a whole—makes a conscious decision to leave the Garden. Maybe this is the “ecological sin” that Pope Francis talks about. In 2014, speaking in Latin America, the pope said, “An economic system centered on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it.”

We are waiting for Jesus to come again and open the Garden. Yet, in Matthew 28:20, Jesus says, “Behold, I am with you always.” The question we should be asking is not when will Jesus return, but when will we return to the Garden?

This year marks the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si.’” In it, he says that “many things have to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change.” Francis is talking about a change of both attitude and action. We need to stop living in a world where we are all separate and come together in a world of interbeing, a world where we are part of God’s creation, not separate from creation.

IT’S TIME FOR ACTION

Our everyday choices may seem simplistic or even irrelevant.

But St. Bonaventure tells us that how we choose and what we choose make a difference—first, in what we become by our choices, and second, in what the world becomes by our choices.

Faith organizations such as Franciscan Action Network, Greenfaith, and others have jointly created a project called “Living the Change: Faithful Choices for a Flourishing World” (LivingtheChange.net). The project is based on the concept that Earth is sacred, and that each of us individually and all of us collectively are responsible for our sacred Earth.

Every choice we make—whether it’s what we eat, the energy we use, how we travel, or any other choices—should be made as if we have come home to the Garden.

As Gandhi said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” Simple changes such as eating a more plant-based diet, choosing renewable energy over fossil fuels, and walking or riding a bike instead of using a car can make a difference.

This is even more effective if we make these changes a vital part of our spiritual practice.

If we are prayerful and intentional in our actions—understanding, as St. Hildegard taught us, that “God is life; God lives in all created things”—then we will be taking a step toward returning to the Garden.

Each of us is responsible for protecting our planet.

Small actions, such as riding a bike instead of driving your car, can have an impact on the environment. Though such actions may seem inconsequential, we need to take those first steps in order to work toward lasting change.

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POINTSOFVIEW | AT HOME ON EARTH

By Kyle Kramer

Small Acts, Big Picture

Kyle Kramer

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recently taught a course on the “Great Work,” in which my students and I discussed the late Passionist Father Thomas Berry’s ideas about healing our many social and ecological challenges and bringing about flourishing relationships among human beings and with our planet. We grappled together with the fact that as individuals, or even as our little class community, we seem to have no way to bring about the kinds of large-scale changes that need to happen. The work to be done is overwhelming. We lack the numbers, the money, and the power to change what needs to change.

As a writer and a teacher, I ponder this conundrum a great deal. Is it really fair to try to motivate my readers and my students to engage in social and environmental healing, only for them to dash their heads and hearts against the brick wall of reality?

The reality we’re crashing against is one that was handed to us by Isaac Newton and the Enlightenment: that we are all separate, disconnected individuals, subject to forces that act according to clear and immutable physical laws. If you want to move something really big, for example, you need an equally big force to do so. Within this version of reality, we have every reason to be discouraged, because most of us will probably always lack sufficient power to overcome the forces of destruction that plague our world.

But what if we tuned in to a different reality? What if we believed Jesus’ radical notion that with faith as small as a mustard seed, we could move mountains? What if we took Jesus at his word that a small amount of leaven can work its way through the entire dough?

MODELS OF CHANGE

Perhaps because I’m often discouraged, I’ve been looking for examples of when what seemed small and powerless ended up having a big impact. The more I look for them, the more I find. Gandhi found a way to mobilize an entire country against British rule.

Civil rights activists managed to change the American segregation policy. Rachel Carson sparked a movement that saved countless creatures from the dangers of DDT. Margaret Mead observed that small groups of thoughtful, committed citizens have always been the primary catalysts of significant change.

Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth, through her historical research on tipping points in social change, has uncovered the “3.5 percent rule,” demonstrating that no nonviolent movement that has actively engaged at least 3.5 percent of the population has ever failed. Just 3.5 percent!

There’s evidence everywhere that small things can collectively add up to big change.

These are certainly inspiring examples, but what about the countless small acts of goodness and kindness, which most of us do every day, that garner little attention and seem

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Kyle is the executive director of the Passionist Earth & Spirit Center, which offers interfaith educational programming in meditation, ecology, and social compassion.

He serves as a Catholic climate ambassador for the US Conference of Catholic Bishopssponsored Catholic Climate Covenant and is the author of A Time to Plant: Life Lessons in Work, Prayer, and Dirt (Ave Maria Press, 2010).

He speaks across the country on issues of ecology and spirituality.

He and his family spent 15 years as organic farmers and homesteaders in Spencer County, Indiana.

to have no discernable effect in the face of all our pressing challenges? Do they, in the end, really matter? Do they, too, have any significance in the Big Picture?

I’ll be honest: I don’t really know. But my heart tells me that they do, and I think there are some good reasons for my faith. Modern science, in fact, is showing us what mystics have been telling us for centuries: that the world does indeed work in ways far more complex and mysterious than Newton and his ilk described. With quantum entanglement, dark matter and energy, hypercomplex ecosystems, plus the entire unseen realm of spiritual reality, who can really know exactly how and why things happen?

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WHAT IF?

Think about it: How did you meet your beloved, land your dream job, or be in just the right place at the right time for some life-changing opportunity? Was it a clear, linear chain of intentional decisions and actions, of direct cause and effect? Or was it, as is certainly the case in my own life, chock-full of randomness, whim, and blind luck?

Chaos theorists have observed that, in complex systems, even small changes in initial conditions can have enormous consequences. This phenomenon has been called “the butterfly effect,” referring to Edward Lorenz’s metaphorical example that the slight atmospheric disturbance of a butterfly flapping its wings could ultimately cause a tornado to occur across the globe, several weeks later.

The upshot of the butterfly effect is that it is practically impossible to know all of the consequences of any action, however small.

It gets even more interesting. What if you also believe, as my mustard-seed-sized faith invites me to do, that divine love is the underlying fabric of reality, and that we are all connected by its threads and guided by its purpose, direction, will, and power?

If you can wrap your heart around that reality, then all of a sudden, “making a difference” is no longer a herculean lift, but a graceful surrender, allowing ourselves to be guided by mystery, and trusting that God will make good use of our intentions and actions, for outcomes that we can’t possibly predict and that are far larger and more wonderful than we could ever comprehend. Isn’t this the message of Paul, who claimed that he could do all things, not by his own power, but in and through Christ?

As I look forward to Easter, I am beginning to see how untamed Jesus’ resurrection really is. The Risen One, I am coming to believe, beckons us Christians to a wild, unreasonable faith—one that acknowledges mystery, miracles, complexity, and spontaneity, all woven together in love’s ubiquitous fabric, all unfolding within its inscrutable designs. If we align our hearts, minds, and actions with Jesus, we enter into a wonderfully unpredictable world, where anything could happen: Weakness could be strength, the poor could be rich, and a little child could lead us all into God’s beckoning future.

HELPFUL

TIPS

DO YOUR PART

1

This Easter season, see if you can do a “fiveminute favor” for someone else at least four or five days a week.

These small acts of kindness may have far more consequence than you realize.

2

As you go about your daily rounds this month, start to pay attention to how your days are composed of thousands of small acts. How can you bring more intentionality and love to things that may feel ordinary and inconsequential?

3

Mountains take a long time to move. Involve yourself in a cause or a project that you know will take longer than your lifetime to complete.

FAT I M A C L I E N T: CD

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POINTSOFVIEW | FAITH UNPACKED

By David Dault, PhD

We’re All Right

David hosts the weekly radio show Things Not Seen: Conversations about Culture and Faith.

He also cohosts The Francis Effect podcast with Father Dan Horan, OFM. He lives with his family on the South Side of Chicago.

Want a certain topic covered? Send us your request.

E-MAIL:

FaithUnpacked@ FranciscanMedia.org MAIL:

Faith Unpacked 28 W. Liberty St. Cincinnati, OH 45202 PODCAST:

The Francis Effect podcast can be streamed live at FrancisFXPod.com.

A SAINT AND A ROCK BAND

Way back in the 14th century, the great mystic Julian of Norwich wrote a work called The Revelations of Divine Love. In the 27th chapter, Julian meditates on the effects of sin, which causes us endless pain and suffering. Strangely, however, throughout the chapter, Julian returns to this hopeful refrain: “It behooved that there should be sin; but

all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

When I listen to the end of that Cheap Trick song, I hear that same hope. In the fallen world in which we live, we are beset with perpetual misunderstandings and often deep, painful separations. We look at those to whom we should be the closest, and we think they seem a little weird.

But into this confusion and pain walk Cheap Trick and Julian of Norwich, each reminding us that sin and separation do not have the last word. Instead, “we’re all all right; we’re all all right, and all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

I believe these words are pointing us to the kingdom of God. I hear in them the echo of the words of our Lord, when he chose to quote the prophetic vision of Isaiah: “He has sent me to bring good news to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God; to comfort all who mourn” (61:1–2).

INTERGENERATIONAL CONNECTION

I know that, in the days ahead, there will be times when my children and I will misunderstand each other. We will look across the room and feel the separation of the generations between us. Even when we do our best, we will think the other is a little weird.

But I live in that promise that stretches from Isaiah to Jesus to Julian to Cheap Trick, and to my family through the radio: All shall be well, and in the end, with God’s grace, we’ll all be all right.

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David Dault, PhD

y kids have recently discovered the classic rock radio station here in Chicago.

Since I was their age in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it has been fun for me to watch them discover some of the musicians and groups from my youth. While I was growing up, I loved listening to Journey, Billy Joel, and (though I don’t like to admit it much now) Air Supply.

They often have the radio on during the day while they are playing and sometimes when they are going to bed at night. So I have gotten to hear a good deal of the selection that station plays.

Every once in a while, one particular song will come up in the rotation, and it catches my ear. That song is “Surrender,” by a band called Cheap Trick. If you know the song, you probably recall that it’s the one with the chorus that says, “Mommy’s all right; Daddy’s all right. . . . They just seem a little weird.”

The song is about different generations misunderstanding each other, with each side believing they are actually the wise ones in the family.

It is interesting to revisit that song now and hear it not only from the perspective of a child, but also as a parent—in particular, one who is in recovery from trauma and trying hard not to pass along that trauma to his kids.

My favorite part of the song, though, comes at the very end. The chorus of “Mommy’s all right; Daddy’s all right” becomes a repeating chant. After a moment, the chant includes the names of the band members, again with the affirmation that they are all right. Finally, the chant builds to a crescendo, with the singing voices proclaiming—even shouting—over and over, “We’re all all right; we’re all all right.”

It might sound strange, but that part of the song always chokes me up a bit.

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POINTSOFVIEW | EDITORIAL

By Christopher Heffron

A Legacy of Hate

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n a Nazi-orchestrated raid on November 9–10, 1938, paramilitary forces and nationalists destroyed more than 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses and some 267 synagogues throughout Germany and Austria. Kristallnacht, or “The Night of Broken Glass,” was more than just the handiwork of violent anarchists. The central message intended for European Jews was simple and direct: You are no longer welcome here. Less than a year later, World War II would begin. Six million Jews would lose their lives in the death camps before their liberation in 1944 and 1945.

While our minds may immediately go to Nazi Germany as the birthplace of modern anti-Semitism, that brand of hatred took root in the United States long before the advent of World War II. In the 17th century, when the island of Manhattan was a Dutch colony, the director general at the time called Jewish immigrants “repugnant, hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ.” His name isn’t worth repeating here; better he should stay a forgotten footnote in history.

Anti-Semitism only grew from there. During the Civil War, when slavery divided our nation, many on both sides of the conflict inexplicably agreed on the negative influence of Jewish Americans on 19th-century life. Major General Ulysses S. Grant, himself an anti-Semite, likened Jews to shiftless vagabonds and called them “intolerable nuisances.”

Sadly, such bigotry has taken root in this century as well.

SLGCKGC/FLICKR

TOP LEFT: PHOTO COURTESY OF CHICAGO SUNDAY EVENING CLUB/KHIEM TRAN; RIGHT: DARK DWARF/FLICKER/CREATIVE COMMONS

RISE IN VIOLENCE

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization that started after the wrongful conviction of Jewish American businessman Leo Frank in 1913—and his lynching two years later—tracks hate crimes here and abroad. While some of the ADL’s policies and positions have been controversial in the past, as a watchdog group, their advocacy on behalf of Jewish people is unmatched. The ADL tracked a noticeable spike in anti-Semitic activity with 2017’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where many participants chanted “Jews will not replace us!” while flashing the Nazi salute.

Time could not remedy the anti-Jewish sentiment after the rally ended. In the first month of 2020, the ADL cited over 50 anti-Semitic incidents. These included synagogues in Seattle, Washington; Springfield, Virginia; and Washington, DC, which received the same letter denouncing Jews as members of the “Synagogue of Satan.”

The swastika, once a symbol of good luck until it was hijacked by the Nazi Party in 1920, has become more visible in recent years. In January alone, the city hall in Pendleton, Oregon, was befouled with the symbol. In that same month, universities in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, Montana, and West Virginia were vandalized with swastikas and cries for violence against Jewish people, the ADL reports.

“A little bit of light pushes away a lot of darkness.”

—Jewish proverb

Most startling is that much of the anti-Jewish activity (read: domestic terrorism) of late can be traced back to pseudo-Christian groups such as the White Aryan Resistance, the Ku Klux Klan, and Westboro Baptist Church, all of whom espouse an anti-Christian message in the name of Christ.

Real Christians should weep at the irony.

LEARN, SEEK, PRAY

April seems the perfect time to address this growing divide.

Passover begins this month, celebrating the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt. But clearly the damaged members of our Christian family are the ones in need of deliverance.

And though it is a small minority who commit acts of violence against those outside our faith, we should search our own hearts for residues of hatred and intolerance. To do that, let us . . .

• Learn about the Jewish religion and its followers. A good resource is My Jewish Learning (MyJewishLearning.com), a site that provides history, weekly Torah readings, and blogs about the blessings and challenges of the Jewish faith.

• Seek connection and reconciliation. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops offers a range of useful resources on Catholic-Jewish relations, our shared history, and ways to fortify the bridge between us. Go to usccb.org to get started.

• Pray for peace in our minds and hearts. Looking inward before we move outward is a good first step. We should ask ourselves what prejudices prevent us from truly living the Gospel message—a message that is disregarded when we allow our lower selves to take over.

We cannot rewrite history—though it is our duty to learn from it. And there is a legacy for us to fall back on. On June 12, 1941, in an address to the Allied delegates, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had this to say of Adolf Hitler and the evil his party was spreading like a virus: “We cannot see how deliverance will come or when it will come, but nothing is more certain than that every trace of Hitler’s footsteps, every stain of his infected, corroding fingers will be sponged and purged and, if need be, blasted from the surface of the earth.”

May that legacy of hatred suffer the same fate.

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f you are looking for Martin Marklin, you will likely find him in one of two places—either tending to the 100–150 beehives on his farm in New Hampshire or handcrafting candles made from the fruits of those bees’ labor. That is because, for Martin, the two are spiritually connected.

Martin is the founder and owner of Marklin Candle Design (MarklinCandle.com), which makes liturgical candles for churches throughout the world. The company has also made candles for four papal visits— two by St. John Paul II and one each for Popes Benedict XVI and Francis—and has expanded into making liturgical furnishings. The present company is a far cry, though, from the small operation Martin started in his parents’ basement in the mid-’80s.

HUMBLE ROOTS

Martin, who grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, was named after Monsignor Martin Hellriegel, pastor of Holy Cross Church, the Marklin family’s parish.

The priest was a forerunner to the Catholic Liturgical Movement in the United States prior to Vatican II, so Martin says the parish “was a hotbed of liturgical renewal.”

As an altar server, Martin says he became fascinated with the liturgical candles he saw in the church. He recalls that every year, a couple in the parish would hand-decorate the paschal candle—carving out intricate and beautiful designs and filling them with melted colored wax. Martin says he remembers observing these candles and being mystified by how this technique was accomplished.

At the age of 13, Martin went off to the seminary in Hays, Kansas, to become a Capuchin Franciscan. When he returned home for Easter, he saw a less-than-beautiful paschal candle standing in the church. When he asked why, he was told that the couple who always provided the beautiful candles were no longer doing it, and no one else knew how.

Martin says he told Sister Mary Grace, “You get me a plain candle when

This month, parishes across the country will light their paschal candles before the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Chances are, some of them were made by this self-taught candlemaker.

Praised

Bee

By Susan Hines-Brigger

BEESWAX TEXTURE: JONNYSEK/FOTOSEARCH; PHOTOS COURTESY MARKLIN CANDLE DESIGN (2)

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BEESWAX TEXTURE: JONNYSEK/FOTOSEARCH; PHOTOS COURTESY MARKLIN CANDLE DESIGN (2)

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I come home for Christmas, and I’ll decorate the candle and try to replicate the process.” And that’s exactly what he did— in his parents’ kitchen.

The kitchen, he says, “was a mess. It took my mom years to forgive me for all the melted colored wax I had on her stove.” From that moment on, Martin continued to refine his skills, and he developed a technique where he could make the candles proficiently and artistically. After he “built a workbench, got a couple beakers and a hot pot,” he moved production of his candles into his parents’ basement in 1985.

MARKLIN CANDLES IS BORN

In the first year of his candlemaking business, Martin sold only six candles. He would go door-to-door trying to make sales. By the time his company’s third anniversary rolled around, he was up to 35 candles. Sales continued to grow steadily each year, going from 75 candles in the fourth year to 150 in his fifth year of business.

He started attending trade shows and tapped into the liturgical renewal in the United States. His numbers kept growing. Eventually, he moved his one-man business to New Hampshire where, in 1989, he met his future wife, Christine.

She was teaching at the time, but it wouldn’t be long before she joined Martin in the candlemaking business.

Christine says watching Martin decorate the candles was always fascinating; that’s how she eventually picked up the skill. In fact, she decorated her first candle when Martin left

the room to take a phone call.

“I sat down and finished it. He came back and said, ‘Wait a minute, I didn’t finish this one.’ I learned how to decorate the candles basically from spending a lot of time watching him. Then I eventually started helping decorate,” she says.

Christine left teaching and joined Martin in working full-time on the business, which has proven invaluable. In addition to their candle business, the Marklins also have a retail store, make church furniture, and manage 14 acres of land, which is home to an array of animals.

The couple have four children—Matthias, Judith, Simeon, and Anna—ranging in age from 20 to 26, who have all helped with the business at some time or another. But Christine is clear that while she and Martin love working with their kids, they are not “putting any pressure on them to come take over the family business.”

The Marklins have 15–20 employees who help with many aspects of the business, but Christine points out that they still “have more than enough to keep us busy.”

But being busy didn’t stop Martin from taking on one more thing.

A LIFE-CHANGING DISCOVERY

Marklin Candles are made using 51 percent beeswax, which equates to the company using about 30,000 pounds of beeswax a year. As Martin says in a video on the company’s website, that means “1.5 billion bees are working in the world for

PHOTOS COURTESY MARKLIN CANDLE DESIGN (5)

Martin and Christine Marklin take great pride in the fact that each of their candles is completely handmade—from the molding to the dipping, carving, decorating, and, eventually, packaging. That fact, they say, is reflected in the company’s trademark, which is “The Mark of Human Hands.” The beeswax candles are decorated by carving the design and then filling the grooves with molten colored wax to create beautifully intricate and unique designs. In addition to paschal candles, the company also produces candles to mark significant life moments, such as Baptisms and birthdays.

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“But now we know the praises of this pillar, which glowing fire ignites for God’s honor, a fire into many flames divided, yet never dimmed by sharing of its light, for it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a torch so precious.”

PHOTOS COURTESY MARKLIN CANDLE DESIGN (5)

—the “Exsultet,” sung at the lighting of the paschal candle before the Easter Vigil RIGHT (TOP TO BOTTOM): Each year at the Easter Vigil, celebrated the night of Holy Saturday, the paschal candle (also called the Easter candle) is lit from a fire in a metal bowl, called a brazier. The church is darkened, though often lit by individual candles, as the paschal candle is brought inside. The priest or deacon processes into church with the candle. It is blessed by the priest who inscribes, or traces with his finger, a cross; the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and omega (“the beginning and the end”); and the current year, as he chants the “Exsultet” (words in box above). Afterward, he affixes the five nails of incense.

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Marklin Candle.” Yet it wasn’t until about 11 years ago that Martin realized just how little he knew about how the wax he was using was created.

“How did these bees make wax, which was the source of our livelihood for all these years?” Martin asked himself. “I would be embarrassed if someone asked me about that.”

At that very time, a priest friend who was a beekeeper told Martin he should get into it. Martin took up the hobby, deciding it was “a good time for a midlife crisis,” he says with a laugh. The hobby, however, has been life-changing for him.

“This one singular creature has transformed how I choose to live my life, how I try to operate our business. It really has pervaded many aspects of my life—in virtue of the facts of sustainability, stewardship of creation, living in community, and social justice,” says Martin.

The phrase be the bee, Martin says, is a good directive for us all to follow. The honeybee, he says, has much to teach us about community and serving others.

“When you think of a bee as a forager, what does it do? It seeks in the world that which is fragrant, colorful, beautiful, and she visits those flowers and ingests the nectar, adds some enzymes to it, and makes honey. And the analogy is that we similarly should be like the bee. We should be in the world, seeking out that which is beautiful, noble, true; and we should be, in our own lives, transforming it. But not for our own personal enrichment, because everything about a bee is for the society. The honeybee is a social creature and cannot live by itself.”

“The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others.”

—St. John Chrysostom

Martin takes part in a prayer service during the “Migrants and Justice and Bees, Oh My!” retreat at the Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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PHOTO COURTESY MARKLIN CANDLE DESIGN

That sense of community is something that Martin has instilled in his business too. Marklin Candle Design’s tagline is “The Mark of Human Hands,” which Martin says the company takes very seriously. “Of the seven companies in the United States that make candles for churches, we believe we’re the only ones who make the candles entirely by hand— hand-molded, hand-dipped, and hand-decorated. Every candle that goes from our door always has multiple hands that touch it along the way. That’s not only important but significant, particularly in light of the fact that these candles are going to be used in a liturgical service.”

The company also makes candles to mark births, deaths, and Baptisms, as well as other significant life events. Because of the personal nature of many of these products, Christine says workers end up working directly with the customer. In doing so, workers often get the story behind the candle, she says. Sometimes those stories are delightful, but other times they are heartbreaking. Oftentimes, she says, she ends up saying a prayer for the person or the family, “so it does really become a ministry.”

Paschal candles are also a mainstay of the company’s workload. The paschal candle is lit every year before the Easter Vigil and remains lit in the sanctuary of the church until Pentecost. It is a symbol of the light of Christ.

Usually, Martin says, paschal candles are decorated with

PHOTOS COURTESY OF RICHARD GUERRA/FRANCISCAN RENEWAL CENTER (2)

A WORK OF FAITH AND ART

Exsultet Paschal Candle

™

Marklin Candle Design (MarklinCandle.com) has a large selection of paschal candles. The style shown here was created in 2003. Its name, Exsultet, is taken from the first word of the traditional Easter Proclamation.

The term paschal comes from the Latin word Pascha, which is from the Hebrew word Pesach, which means “Passover.”

The five incense nails that are placed in the paschal candle represent the five wounds Christ suffered in his hands, feet, and side during his crucifixion.

The origins of the paschal candle date back to the early days of Christianity, when they may have been used for providing light. The larger meaning, however, was that the candle represented Christ as the light of the world. The candle’s wick represents Christ’s humanity.

PHOTO COURTESY MARKLIN CANDLE DESIGN

PHOTOS COURTESY OF RICHARD GUERRA/FRANCISCAN RENEWAL CENTER (2)

The white beeswax used to make the paschal candle is a representation of Jesus’ purity.

When the Easter season has ended, the paschal candle is moved to a place somewhere near the baptismal font. It is lit for baptismal and often funeral services as a reminder of Christ’s resurrection.

This particular candle is decorated with ornate gold bands.

Candles are often decorated with designs and symbols such as a tau cross or Easter symbols like the lamb.

The letter “A” stands for alpha, representing Christ as the beginning.

The cross, which makes up the center of the candle, represents Christ’s death on the cross for our salvation.

The date is often inscribed on the paschal candle as a representation of the church’s continued participation in the life and celebrations of the universal Church.

Just as Christ is the beginning, as indicated with the “A” above, he is also the end, represented by the omega symbol to the left.

Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet.

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the following elements: a cross, the alpha and the omega, the date, and five wax nails. Over time, though, he says the Church has provided artists with a bit more license regarding the design of the candles, which he sees as a bit of “a return to the days when the Church was a patron of the artist and would commission works of art.”

Martin says the words of the US bishops’ document “Built of Living Stones” form his thinking about how his company goes about creating their candles. The document notes, “Quality is evident in the honesty and genuineness of the materials that are used, the nobility of the form embodied in them, the love and care that goes into the creation of a work of art, and the personal stamp of the artist whose special gift produces a harmonious whole, a well-crafted work.”

Christine Marklin teaches women in Machakos, Kenya, how to make candles. The training was part of the Mama Smile program at Stella Cometa, which offers support and vocational training. The women had previously tried to produce their own candles, but sales dried up because the candles didn’t burn well. After the training session, the women are ready to start making paschal candles for this Easter.

GO LIGHT YOUR CANDLE

Martin says candles play an important role in all of our lives, not just his. For instance, he asks, “When do we light candles?” and then runs down a list of the many ways we use candles—birthdays, deaths, peace marches, candlelight dinners, roadside memorials, even the Olympic flame.

“We have this very strong relationship between candles and light and flame and significant moments in our life,” he says. “Put that in the context of our faith, and that candle takes on a new significance. I can have my candle and light your candle and a multitude of candles, but the candle doesn’t lose any of its luminosity.”

The Marklins say they will continue to assist local artists by setting up, training, and sponsoring candlemaking initiatives. They will also help another group of artists learn to decorate the candles, specifically the paschal candles. These candles will then be sold to local churches.

RIGHT: During a trip to Kenya, the Marklins discovered that beekeepers in the area were discarding the wax they collected­—seen inside the hive (top left). The traditional method of beekeeping in Kenya is to suspend log hives in trees (far right).

Moving forward, the Marklins­, along with experts in the region, will work with the beekeepers to harvest beeswax and sell it to vocational centers.

PHOTOS COURTESY MARKLIN CANDLE DESIGN (5)

Susan Hines-Brigger is a coexecutive editor of this publication. She has been writing for over 25 years.

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OUR COMMON HOME Introduction by Alicia von Stamwitz | Photography by Frank Jasper, OFM

“The poetry of earth is never dead,” John Keats wrote. These images from a friar-photographer and quotes from Pope Francis illuminate that truth.

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ince his inaugural Mass seven years ago, Pope Francis has frequently reminded a global audience that care for creation is among his highest priorities. In June 2015, he released his long-awaited encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si’” (“Praise Be to You”), addressing it to “every person living on this planet.” Named after a canticle by St. Francis of Assisi, the encyclical pairs religious insights with scientific facts to spotlight the gravity of the environmental crisis.

As a world leader with a background in science who heads a 2,000-year-old Church, the pope is uniquely qualified to articulate a compelling vision and mission for the future.

The writings, homilies, prayers, talks, and even tweets of Pope Francis gather his most important and inspiring words about our shared responsibility to protect, nurture, and care for “our common home.”

Our planet is in peril, the pope is telling us, along with the well-being of the poor who depend on the earth’s natural resources.

He chastises world leaders and challenges ordinary people, reminding us that our foolish actions and careless decisions are placing lives at risk. He decries our current assaults on the natural environment and warns of the consequences of climate change.

Still, Pope Francis’ message is always ultimately one of hope and optimism. In his environmental communications over the years, Pope Francis’ words reveal that he believes we can move toward a new kind of conversion—a higher level of consciousness, action, and advocacy that will spark “a bold cultural revolution.”

The following quotes, tweets, and reflections are from Pope Francis. May his words challenge us to be good stewards of our planet.

Alicia von Stamwitz is an award-winning writer and longtime editor with the religious press. She currently works with Franciscan Media as a contract book acquisitions editor and foreign rights manager.

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe and in the smallest of your creatures.

You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.

Pour out upon us the power of your love, that we may protect life and beauty.

—Pope Francis, “A Prayer for the Earth”

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Our time cannot ignore the issue of ecology, which is vital to man’s survival, nor reduce it to merely a political question: Indeed, it has a moral dimension that affects everyone, such that no one can ignore it. As disciples of Christ, we have a further reason to join with all men and women of good will to protect and defend nature and the environment. Creation is, in fact, a gift entrusted to us from the hands of the Creator.

—Address to the Italian Catholic Scout Movement for Adults (MASCI)

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Ecology is essential for the survival of mankind; it is a moral issue which affects all of us. —@Pontifex

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Every creature is the object of the Father’s tenderness, who gives it its place in the world.

—@Pontifex

The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely.

Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things.

God Is in All Things

—“Laudato Si’” (233)

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By learning to see and appreciate beauty, we learn to reject self-interested pragmatism. If someone has not learned to stop and admire something beautiful, we should not be surprised if he or she treats everything as an object to be used and abused without scruple. If we want to bring about deep change, we need to realize that certain mindsets really do influence our behavior. Our efforts at education will be inadequate and ineffectual unless we strive to promote a new way of thinking about human beings, life, society, and our relationship with nature.

—“Laudato Si’” (215)

All photographs are by Father Frank Jasper, a Franciscan from Cincinnati, Ohio. He has developed his hobby of photography for many years and has contributed photos regularly to St. Anthony Messenger.

Take Care of God’s Beautiful Gifts

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This is the invitation which I address to everyone: Let us accept the grace of Christ’s Resurrection! Let us be renewed by God’s mercy, let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation, and make justice and peace flourish.

—Urbi et orbi, a blessing on Easter Sunday 2013, delivered from the Loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica

These texts are excerpted from Caring for Creation (Franciscan Media).

The book does not include photographs.

Visit our online store:

Shop.FranciscanMedia.org

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By Kathy Coffey

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ISTOCK IMAGES: LEFT: ALKALYNE; ABOVE: VM JONES

everyday resurrections

Being Easter people means celebrating the good news of the risen Christ and opening our hearts and eyes to the signs of new life within and around us.

ISTOCK IMAGES: LEFT: ALKALYNE; ABOVE: VM JONES

D

uring the Easter season, I often ask workshop or retreat groups to name their own “small r” resurrections. I do so because it seems impossible to appreciate Jesus’ resurrection with a capital R without some grounding in our own experience. Participants generate impressive lists: health after serious illness, a relationship transformed, a shaft of sun piercing a depressing day, a new venture late in life. One woman even described seeing the ultrasound of her new grandbaby two weeks after her husband’s death. Life and death brush hands in a mysterious dance, and sometimes we catch a heartening glimpse.

Such resurgence of life, bursts of energy, and banners of hope—are these not hints of the Resurrection? When Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins asks Christ to “Easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us,” he captures this rooting of a lofty, hard-to-grasp doctrine in ordinary lives. The good news remains an unchanging, steady beacon, but the way we receive it is colored by our own experience. We may join half-heartedly in songs and celebration because we’re worried about the rent increase; it’s altogether different to sing full-throated alleluias because the biopsy was benign.

As we sow seeds this spring, it helps to notice how hard, small, and unpromising they look. Parents, grandparents, and teachers are sometimes blessed to see a seed they planted—skill with numbers, a commitment to justice, or talent for music—emerge in a later generation. But some people never see the seeds they plant blossom. In his book Taking Flight, Anthony de Mello tells the story of a woman who enters a store and finds God behind the counter. “What do you sell here?” she asks. “Everything your heart desires,” God replies. So she asks for peace, love, freedom from fear, and happiness for all humanity. God smiles: “I’m afraid you misunderstood. We don’t sell fruits here. Only seeds.”

Maybe the seed of the good news needs to lie fallow in us for a while, awaiting the right conditions to flourish. Maybe we need to tend the rich soil of grief, probing what we can learn from it. At such times, we pray that the tiny seed of hope may grow into the flowering tree of resurrection. If we look closely, we can probably see around us in nature a tangible symbol of hope. The laciest green fuzz appears on tree

limbs. The blades of grass may be only one-eighth-inch high, but they soon will carpet the hillsides. No wonder a popular Easter song is “Now the Green Blade Rises.”

THE FIRST WITNESSES—AND US

Easter comes to us as fitfully as it did to the first disciples. We carry to the tombs of our lives the same mixture of doubt, fear, certainty, anxiety, and joy that the disciples brought to Jesus’ tomb. He always seems to choose for witnesses the most unlikely prospects, ourselves included.

Take Thomas, for instance. If Thomas—stubbornly insistent on tangible proof—can believe, maybe there’s hope for everyone. Doubt isn’t evil; it’s the entryway to hope.

For us as it was for Thomas, Jesus extends the same merciful invitation: “Touch me and see.” Where we might have expected glory and trumpets the first Sunday after Easter, instead the Gospel tells the story of honest, human groping toward truth. A sunny reunion between Jesus and his friends, who dazzle with their resilient faith? Not quite. But maybe something better: Jesus’ mercy, meeting them where they (and we) are, extending his hand toward Thomas in genuine understanding and compassion. Only by coming dangerously close to this wounded Lord will we, too, know transformation of our wounds—and resurrection.

In beautiful symmetry, the story of Jesus’ human sojourn on earth begins and ends with an angel bringing astonishing news to a woman named Mary. As Mary Magdalene waits outside the tomb, she discovers the boulder rolled away, the stunning emptiness within. Readers of John’s Gospel do not know her thoughts, only her posture. Why does she remain when Peter and the beloved disciple return home?

Her persistence is clear: “But Mary stayed outside the tomb, weeping” (20:11).

Did she have a glimmer of hope, a faint suspicion based on her friendship with Jesus, that the story hadn’t quite ended? Did her intimacy with him suggest surprises still lay ahead, despite the limp, lifeless corpse, the heavy clunk of stone, the finality of soldiers sealing it? Did her curiosity trump her fear? Did she weep because she felt bereft and hopeless?

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When Mary Magdalene was blinded by sorrow, engulfed in grief, she was too numb to understand the full dimensions of what was happening, as we often are. But sometimes when we look back, we appreciate better. For instance, John 20:17 is the first time in the fourth Gospel that Jesus calls his disciples “brothers and sisters.” When he refers to “my Father and your Father, to my God and your God,” he shows that he has accomplished the purpose of the Incarnation, stated in John’s prologue.

Jesus’ becoming human made all people the children of God (1:12).

Mary is puzzled because, initially, she looks for the historical Jesus she has always known, in a concrete, physical body. But her dramatic “turn” (Jn 20:16) means seeing him as the universal Christ, accessible everywhere and present within everyone.

She can no longer cling to the individual limited by time and space, fatigue and hunger, as all humans are. His new presence moves through doors, appears in two places simultaneously, and surpasses all the constraints of gender, nationality, or tribalism to become “Savior of the world.” Mary wasn’t completely wrong to think Jesus was the gardener (20:15), because now he has become every man and woman who ever lived or will ever live.

What does Mary’s “turn” mean for us? First, we must pivot from a narrow definition of Christ that limits him to Catholics who look like us, think like us, speak like us, believe like us, and agree with us. His mission is to everyone from the beginning of time, whether Buddhist, Hindu, Navajo, or Muslim. Could God ever exclude any of God’s beloved creatures from the best news ever: that they won’t die?

To put Mary’s experience into more common language: Do we ever realize what it is to be God’s daughter or son, eternally sharing God’s life? Probably no more than we fully appreciate the blessing of a beloved face, the startling clarity of blue sky, the warmth of a familiar voice or touch. If we begin

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calls his sheep by name (Jn 10:3); in this case he uses Aramaic, the familiar language of childhood, the instinctive language of prayer.

He comes to her as she is—disheveled, red-eyed, exhausted—not in some idealized, perfectly coiffed version. Jesus’ focus on Mary here is touching. He doesn’t rehash his own terrible ordeal or triumph in his Resurrection. He asks: “Whom do you seek? Why do you weep?” Those are good questions for reflection: Whom do we seek? Why do we weep? Often the first, easy answers aren’t true. If we respond, “Oh, I’m just fine, thank you very much!” we need to probe deeper. Maybe “fine” is the answer the culture expects; Jesus knows us better.

BELOVED SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF GOD

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Or perhaps she was simply tired, too emotionally drained to think of the next step. When the future is unclear, it is wise to stay grounded in the present until a direction emerges.

Maybe Mary was completely depleted, but she knew deeper down that the God who had been faithful before would be faithful again; God wouldn’t abandon her now. No matter how bleak the picture seemed, she waited with silent intention: focused, because she knew something would change.

Her waiting led to surprise: She heard a familiar voice softly speak her name and ask gently why she wept. In the Gospel account of the Good Shepherd, Jesus

with those tangible experiences, maybe we can take small steps toward the astounding news that what we never thought we’d have, we have. What we never thought we’d see, we see.

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STIRRINGS OF THE RESURRECTION

How, then, do we live as Easter people? For starters, we can rewire our negativity, our fearful obsessions that threaten to blot out hope and smother life. Instead, attend to the prophetic message “as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pt 1:19).

Of course, we have reasons that tempt us to despair. But we have even better ones to build hope on Christ’s promise.

Whatever evils this life contains, they don’t have a permanent hold on God’s beloved.

Despite the brutality and outrage of the Crucifixion, the disciples were held in a deeper love. Fearfully, they relied on locked doors, a natural instinct.

On the road to Emmaus, however, Jesus converses with the disciples who “stopped, looking downcast” (Lk 24:17). He gets them moving again, having them recount the events of the past three days. Then he shows them how those events are only one part of a larger story. He also asks us: What could hover beyond the fear? If we are Easter people as we name ourselves, we can become more comfortable with our questions, more open-ended in our waiting.

As Brother David Steindl-Rast points out in Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, the angel’s message to the bewildered disciples doesn’t say that Jesus has come back to life. Our concept of life always ends with death. But Jesus has already passed through and transformed that portal. “He is not here” means that Jesus has gone far beyond our limited understanding. All we know is that “the tomb is open and empty, a fitting image for wide-open hope,” writes Brother David.

For years after her meeting in the garden, Mary Magdalene must have cherished the tender tones of a beloved voice calling her name. All the women

must have held in their hearts the words, “He is not here but has risen.” What words do we cherish? At some time, we must have received news or an assurance we thought we didn’t deserve. The person we loved from afar loves us too; the harvest has been spectacular; despite many setbacks, the children have turned out splendidly; the health scare was groundless. Or even: The health scare was genuine, but we’ve come to peace with it. This is the season to savor our personal good news, our entryway to the stunning news that we will live forever.

We can also delight in stirrings of resurrection within, signals of our inner growth. Sometimes we’ll say in surprise, “I handled that difficult conversation

rather well!” or, “I didn’t get tripped up, depressed, or unhinged by that situation that has always bugged me.” Insert personal triumphs here: “I turned that rocky patch into a garden.” “I’m learning to say no more gracefully, or assert myself, or keep a lid on the anger.” “I’ve been building in quiet time for reflection every day.”

They may seem like small signals, but all form stepping-stones to resurrected life, even here, even now.

Kathy Coffey is the author of 13 award-winning books and many articles in this magazine. She has also had work published in America, U.S. Catholic, and National Catholic Reporter. Her website is KathyJCoffey.com.

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Bird Feeder

By Bonnie Wasser

A returning veteran looks for a job—and a reason to be hopeful.

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onas picked up the dwindling bag of birdseed and filled the feeder, being careful not to spill. He’d spent his last six dollars on this bag, hoping and praying that a job would come through. He put away the remaining seed and made a cup of instant coffee and a piece of toast. Sitting at the kitchen table, he felt his mood lift as he watched first one bird and then another land on a perch and feast. They obviously had no idea that their free meals were almost over.

“Maybe I should have reenlisted in the Army,” Jonas muttered, taking another sip of coffee. But after eight years of watching the suffering of so many and losing two good friends, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. What he hadn’t expected was that jobs would be so scarce. At least he had a roof over his head, thanks to Aunt Liz leaving him her rental home in her will. But I wasn’t even here for her funeral, thought Jonas.

She’d also left him some money, and that, added to his small savings, made it possible for him to exist these past few months. But it was now almost gone—just like the birdseed.

“Well, God, now what?” he muttered, setting his cup in the dishwasher. “OK, I’ll head out one more time and hit my best chances.” With a last glance at the birds feeding so freely at the feeder, he shook his head. It felt like he was letting them down.

He headed down the front steps to his car. He had a full tank of gas, now to make good use of it. Backing out, he returned his next-door neighbor’s wave before heading down the street. Several months ago she had asked if he was interested in doing some minor repairs around her house. He felt ashamed at how he’d blown it off. At that time he had plenty of money and thought getting a job would happen quickly.

Should he stop later today and ask her? Well, if I don’t get anything today, he thought.

That’s pretty crummy of me, Jonas decided. Maybe I should at least follow the right path here. He decided that whether or not he got a job, he’d go over later today and ask what he could do for her. After all the cookies she’d shared with him these past months, it was the least he could do. His heart felt a little lighter with the decision.

With determination he picked up the notebook from the passenger seat and decided to start over with his list. He knew who was at the top. It had been his first choice and seemed to be made for him with the training he’d picked up in the Army, working on engines to keep trucks running with all the sand coming through them. But there were a lot of other things he knew how to work on, too, like plumbing and even some electrical stuff. He’d even learned to work with computers to diagnose problems.

In hindsight, he probably should have enrolled at the community college when he got back. That would have con-

vinced employers that he was willing to learn new things. But now without money . . . He let the thought slide away as he turned into the parking lot for his first stop.

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our hours and 11 stops later, he felt like punching his steering wheel as he slid into his car and sat watching the clouds gather on the horizon. It was amazing how quickly everybody found a way to say: “We’ll keep your application on file. Come back another time. We aren’t hiring right now.”

Across the street he saw a church. Its front door was open, unusual these days with so much vandalism. Impulsively he left his car and crossed the street, telling himself if someone was there he’d just say he was curious and leave. They’d probably think he was out to steal something, but so what?

Then the raindrops started falling, and he ran up the last few steps and hurried inside.

He’d heard other guys say there was never an atheist on a battlefield. He stood in the quiet of the darkened church and wondered if he was an atheist. No, he was sure there was a God. He’d made it home, hadn’t he? Why did he make it home, but so many others didn’t? It was a question that often nagged at him.

Slipping into a pew, he found himself studying the cross over the altar. He thought of the cross he’d made the summer he was 6, and Aunt Liz talked Mom and Dad into letting her take him to Vacation Bible School at her church. He’d given the cross to Aunt Liz and felt like he’d given her the winning lottery ticket. He knew she’d kept it hanging in her bedroom for a long time and wondered what had happened to it.

“Guess I haven’t spent much time thinking about you, God. Is this my punishment?”

He felt a heavy burden in his heart. But where should he start? Pushing the thought aside, he studied the small stained glass window near him. It seemed to be just a field with flowers and a lot of birds. Whoever had made it must be pretty good, Jonas decided, because some of the birds looked just like those that came to his bird feeder. He vaguely remembered hearing a Bible verse about feeding birds, but as he tried to pull it from his memory, it slipped away.

He felt somewhat comforted as he walked outside to his car. The rain had stopped. The sun was reappearing, and he saw a rainbow in the distant fields. Again a memory tugged at him, but it was gone before he could grasp it.

Maybe I’m just hungry, thought Jonas. At least he had stuff in his freezer, refrigerator, and cupboards. He wouldn’t starve—for a while.

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ack home, as he parked his car, he saw Mrs. Goshen walking from her mailbox and felt another twinge that he hadn’t found out what she needed to be done. Now it seemed

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everal hours later, after making a dent in her to-do list, Jonas sat at Mrs. Goshen’s kitchen table enjoying the large meatball sub she’d made after she heard his stomach growling. “This has to be the best I’ve ever had,” said Jonas, wiping sauce from his chin. “Thanks.”

“I’m glad you like it. I love to cook; but since my husband died, I’ve cut back a lot. At least I have a freezer so I can save my leftovers for future meals.

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hat evening as he sat at his kitchen table, enjoying a piece of Mrs. Goshen’s chocolate cake, Jonas repeated her words: “So if God takes care of the birds, we have nothing to worry about either.” Was that what the stained glass window was about? Was it possible that God really did care about Jonas Jackson that much to take him into that church today to show him? Did God have a reason for bringing him back home safely?

Suddenly he felt like a little kid again, eager to go back to Vacation Bible School to learn more. Why hadn’t he kept going to church with Aunt Liz? Maybe it was time to take Mrs. Goshen up on her invitation to go to church with her on Sunday.

Well, I still don’t have a job, Jonas thought to himself as he put the empty cake plate and fork into the dishwasher. But Mrs. Goshen had told him she knew a lot of people in the community. Maybe he’d ask if he could add her name to his applications as a reference.

I sure feel better than I did this morning, he thought. I guess that’s what hope does.

Bonnie Wasser is the author of two devotional books and numerous fiction and nonfiction stories on the topic of families. She resides in Riverview, Florida.

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wrong to ask because he needed money. “So what do I do, God?” He realized he’d spoken aloud. Then as if someone had answered him, Jonas thought, Mrs. Goshen doesn’t know I need money. Maybe he could still do something right.

Before he could change his mind, he got out of his car, crossed her lawn, and said: “Glad I caught you. I’ve been meaning to find out what you need to be done in your house. I have some time now if you do.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” she replied. “I think you’re my answer to prayer. The water won’t stop in my toilet, so every time I use it I have to turn the water on and then off again after it’s flushed. I know it isn’t a hard thing to fix, but for me it’s impossible.”

“Any chance you have the new parts?”

“Actually, I do. The guy at the hardware store showed me what to buy, but I don’t know how to change it. Silly, isn’t it?”

Jonas returned her smile. “Lead me to your toolbox.”

“You know, I have an idea. You said you didn’t want money for all you’re doing, but I can’t ask you to keep working without pay. How about if I send home meals for your freezer? You’d actually be doing me a favor because then I can bake more.” She smiled at him, and he found himself smiling back.

“It’s a deal,” replied Jonas. Thoughtfully he added, “You know, even after I find a job, if that ever happens, I’ll still have time to help out here. OK?” He fell silent as he saw the concern on her face.

“I can’t believe you haven’t found anything. You’re good at so many things.”

“Economy’s not good, so no one is hiring right now.” To change the subject he said, “Where’s that broken bird feeder?

Maybe I can fix it.”

“I was going to buy another, but I’ve been watching the birds feeding at yours. I can see it better than I could see mine. What if I just gave you birdseed for your feeder?

Would you mind?”

“Not at all,” he slowly replied. “You sure?”

“I’m sure. Doesn’t God want us to take care of his creatures? At 88 years old, this is a way for me to keep doing that.

Like Jesus says in Matthew, ‘The birds don’t plant things or harvest things, but our Father feeds them.’ In this case, using you and me. So if God takes care of the birds, we have nothing to worry about either.”

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TV/STREAMING

By Christopher Heffron

Inside the Vatican

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hose lucky enough to visit Italy will notice something different about Vatican City. Set against the frenetic backdrop of Rome, Vatican City might seem a slower speed, save the footprints of tourists. There is a kind of deliberate order to this independent city-state, but few pilgrims understand what makes it hum. In PBS’ thoughtful, leisurely paced documentary Inside the Vatican, filmmakers give armchair explorers access rarely granted.

A quick lesson: Vatican City—a small country within a bigger country—encompasses 110 acres and is home to a little over 1,000 residents. Documents suggest that St. Peter was crucified at the foot of Vatican Hill and buried under the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica. It is entirely self-governed, with the pope as the lone sovereign and head of state, and is complete with its own media corporation, telephone system, and pharmacy. As the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church worldwide, it’s also a country rocked by scandal.

But PBS’ documentary—at a generous 120 minutes—is less interested in salacious reporting, opting for the more palatable, and far safer, lead-up to the Easter festivities, as well as the legion of dedicated women and men who make them happen. These include government employees, gardeners, construction workers, industrial cleaning crews, choir

singers, and security personnel. We see that running even a tiny country takes many hands.

The camera bobs and weaves like a silent prizefighter, but slows down long enough to capture perspective from Archbishop Paul Gallagher, foreign minister to the Holy See, the always fascinating Christopher Lamb from The Tablet, and Mark Spyropoulos, the young baritone for the Sistine Chapel Choir, who wages a battle with nerves as the Easter celebrations near. He lends a human voice to an ambitious undertaking.

Gliding along the periphery of the film is Pope Francis himself. Inside the Vatican is no papal exposé, but you cannot separate the sovereign from the sovereign state. One imagines that the gorgeous-but-garish surroundings of Vatican City might conflict with the pope’s scaled-back style—and it does. Francis shunned the Papal Palace, opting for simpler digs. As Christopher Lamb suggests in the documentary, the pope is a shepherd who has risen to the challenge of his station without neglecting his flock: The Vatican, the pope believes, is a parish, not a power trip.

With Inside the Vatican, what we are treated to is a feast to fuel our wanderlust.

While international travel may not be possible for many of us, we can, thanks to this gem from PBS, marvel at the sights and soak in the splendor without the crowds and jet lag.

COPYRIGHT GOVERNATORATO DELLO S.C.V. – DIREZIONE DEI MUSEI (2)

April 28, 8 p.m., PBS

ICONS

music

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books

podcast tv & streaming

film

video

e-learning & online 2/27/20 3:24 PM

BOOKS

ron

BOOK BRIEFS

By Julie Traubert

A Closer Look at Merton

ON THOMAS MERTON

BY MARY GORDON

FACES OF EASTER

Shambhala

BY ALBERT HOLTZ, OSB; ILLUSTRATIONS BY DANIEL PARTAIN Liturgical Press

Paperback

Hardcover

“If Thomas Merton had been a writer and not a monk, we would never have heard of him. If Thomas Merton had been a monk and not a writer, we would never have heard of him.”

COPYRIGHT GOVERNATORATO DELLO S.C.V. – DIREZIONE DEI MUSEI (2)

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ne of the most enigmatic Catholics of the 20th century, Thomas Merton was a member not only of the Catholic Church but of the world writ large. Mary Gordon presents, in a tidy and compact analysis, the writings of this monastic to whom Pope Francis alluded in his 2015 speech before a joint session of Congress, saying that Americans should take Merton’s counsel and that of his contemporaries, Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Rather than serving as a biography, Gordon has taken on Merton “writer to writer” and has done a masterful job of distilling the words and writings of this singular, complicated figure who was a force while he was alive and remains a force 50 years after his untimely death. The pope called Merton “a man of dialogue.” This dialogue was both internal and external as Merton tried for much of his life to figure out who he was, why he was, and what God intended for him. He was both a man of the spirit and a man of the world at the same time.

Gordon probes three of Merton’s volumes: The Seven Storey Mountain, My Argument with the Gestapo, and his voluminous journals. As any critic, Gordon is forthright in her analysis that Merton could get too caught up in himself, took himself too seriously, and that at times his writing is dense. Yet that did not detract from his wide readership during the Cold War, Vietnam, and the civil rights movement, when people needed a prophetic voice.

Like others, Gordon has picked up on Merton’s self-loathing in part because he had a hard time determining his identity: Was he an American?

A European? A monk? A writer? These themes collided periodically as he set pen to paper. Yet, at his core, Merton remained a passionate man of God; and while his readings can sometimes be plodding, it is always a sincere relationship. For Gordon, that is the glory of Merton and “what makes Merton so approachable and so lovable,” not necessarily his writings but his lifelong quest to uncover who he was in relationship to the God he so adored.

Reviewed by James A. Percoco, a nationally recognized history educator with over 35 years of teaching experience.

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his book will breathe new life into your Easter journey. Benedictine monk Albert Holtz leads you through the seven weeks of Easter to the culmination of Pentecost, sharing 50 stories that show the Easter mystery in daily life. He challenges you to see the mystery of Easter in those around you.

BLESSED BROKEN GIVEN

BY GLENN PACKIAM Multnomah

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astor Glenn Packiam says that even if you feel you have a mundane life or feel less than, God’s specialty is transforming the ordinary to the extraordinary. It is never too late to change your perspective on how you view yourself. Read this book and be uplifted in God’s glory.

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HAVE A FAVORITE CULTURE ITEM YOU WANT TO SHARE WITH READERS? Let us know about it: Editors@FranciscanMedia.org

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CULTURE

FILMS

By Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP

Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP

FILMS KIDS Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) The War (1994) Matilda (1996) Spy Kids (2001) The Wizard of Oz (1939)

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et in the 1890s, the film centers on Buck, a large St. Bernard-Scotch Collie mix, who has the run of his owner’s mansion in Santa Clara, California. The excitement for the Yukon gold rush is in full steam. The way to get to the Yukon gold fields is through Skagway, Alaska.

One day, Buck is stolen and sold to a cruel man who collects dogs to sell to prospectors going north. Buck cowers when the man beats him with a club, though he doesn’t lose his faith in humanity. Buck’s new owner, the kind Perrault (Omar Sy), runs a dogsled mail service from Alaska to Dawson along the Yukon River. Perrault likes Buck because of his size and strength but places him toward the back because he is untrained.

When a scruffy older man named John Thornton (Harrison Ford) drops his harmonica in the snow, Buck picks it up for him.

Thornton learns the dog’s name and thanks him before he moves on. After several mail trips, Perrault receives word that he’s lost his job and must sell the team. Soon Buck falls in with Thornton, a loner who has left his family behind after the death of his son. Thornton

and Buck decide to go farther north, not for gold, but for adventure.

By my calculation, this CGI-enriched adaptation of Jack London’s 1903 novella is the fifth film version. As Buck endures captivity and mistreatment, he loses his carefree nature and matures into a leader. Little by little, he embraces his primitive nature, especially when he becomes friendly with a pack of timber wolves. I didn’t realize Buck and just about everything else in the film was computer generated until halfway through. I was relieved, because Buck and the other dogs are mistreated terribly.

Harrison Ford is perfect as the gruff companion to Buck, who is the star of this show.

Care for the environment and forgoing greed are themes explored in the film, but another theme that stood out for me is communication. When the sled brings mail to people starved for word from home, there is great rejoicing that brings people together. The film may be named The Call of the Wild, but it’s really a call to community.

A-2, PG • Peril, animal cruelty, fighting.

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TROOP ZERO: EPK.TV/CURTIS BONDS BAKER/AMAZON; BURDEN: EPK.TV/MARK HILL

about

Sister Rose’s FAVORITE

THE CALL OF THE WILD LEFT: COURTESY SISTER ROSE PACATTE, FSP/MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS; THE CALL OF THE WILD: EPK.TV/MERIE WALLACE/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX (3)

Sister Rose is a Daughter of St. Paul and the founding director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies. She has been the award-winning film columnist for St. Anthony Messenger since 2003 and is the author of several books on Scripture and film, as well as media literacy education.

TROOP ZERO

I BURDEN

TROOP ZERO: EPK.TV/CURTIS BONDS BAKER/AMAZON; BURDEN: EPK.TV/MARK HILL

LEFT: COURTESY SISTER ROSE PACATTE, FSP/MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS; THE CALL OF THE WILD: EPK.TV/MERIE WALLACE/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX (3)

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ike Burden (Garrett Hedlund) is an orphan raised by Tom (Tom Wilkinson) and Hazel (Tess Harper), members of the KKK, in a small South Carolina town. Mike and Clint (Austin Hébert) work as repo men during the day.

In their off hours, they join Tom and Hazel in remodeling an old theater into the Redneck Shop and KKK Museum. When Rev. Kennedy (Forest Whitaker) and his congregation protest the museum, Tom threatens them. To ensure that the property will remain in the hands of a committed KKK member, Tom deeds it to Mike as long as Tom can run the museum for life.

When Mike visits the trailer home of Judy (Andrea Riseborough) to repossess her television, they become friends. Over time, they fall in love and, with her son, move in with Tom and Hazel. Judy begins to show Mike another way than that of the Klan. Mike decides to sign over the deed to the Redneck Shop and KKK Museum building to Rev. Kennedy. When word gets around, Mike, Judy, and her son find themselves homeless. Rev. Kennedy, to the surprise and resistance of his family, takes them to dinner and gives them shelter in his home. Now Mike must find a way to leave the KKK once and for all.

Directed and written by Andrew Heckler, Burden, which is inspired by true events, tells a difficult story with simplicity and courage. The acting is understated by all. Hedlund is believable as the army veteran who is trying to find himself but stuck in poverty. Wilkinson and Whitaker are formidable: One is motivated by hate, while the other is motivated by the Gospels.

Not yet rated, R • Racism, violence, language.

Catholic News Service Media Review Office gives these ratings.

A-1 General patronage

A-2 Adults and adolescents

A-3 Adults

L Limited adult audience

O Morally offensive

t is the late 1970s in rural Georgia.

Christmas Flint (Mckenna Grace) lives with her widowed father, Ramsey (Jim Gaffigan), and is watched over

by Miss Rayleen (Viola Davis), his underpaid and long-suffering secretary. Christmas, and some of her fellow misfits at school, are at odds with the obnoxious Birdie Scouts, led by the snobbish principal, Miss Massey (Allison Janey).

Christmas, who has an interest in NASA’s space program, is excited to learn that a recording of human voices is being made for the Voyager spacecraft to take into space. A contest is held to decide whose voice will be on the record. She wants to win so that her mother will hear her and know she loves her.

Because only Birdie Scouts can be in the competition, Miss Rayleen is recruited to be the leader of a misfit troop of kids, which includes Christmas. They are given the number zero because Miss Massey says all the other numbers are taken.

Troop Zero captures the community nature of scouting as well as the excitement of NASA’s space program at that time. Christmas, who epitomizes hope, points out to the nasty Miss Massey that zero doesn’t mean nothing—it means infinity. This is a touching film about inclusivity, children’s need for adult supervision and interaction, forgiveness, and kindness. It is currently available for streaming on Amazon.

Not yet rated, PG • Bullying, fighting.

Source: USCCB.org/movies

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POINTSOFVIEW | FAITH & FAMILY

By Susan Hines-Brigger

Go Your Own Way

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STEPPING INTO ADULTHOOD

Susan welcomes your comments and suggestions!

E-MAIL: CatholicFamily@ FranciscanMedia.org MAIL: Faith & Family 28 W. Liberty St. Cincinnati, OH 45202

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My first real gut punch over truly letting go came a few years ago when our oldest daughter, Maddie, moved out. She was more than ready to take off on her own, and her dad and I knew she would be fine. As much as I wanted her to stay, the move made sense. The apartment was closer to her school and work.

It broke my heart, though, knowing that she was probably leaving for good.

It was OK, though, because I still had the other three at home with me, I told myself.

But then this year we have had to start the discussion about college with our son, Alex. I guess I just assumed all along that he would go to a college or university nearby. There are plenty of really good schools right here near home, so why wouldn’t he? Of course, the fact that I went to a college five minutes from my house may have clouded my thinking about staying home.

But he didn’t want to stay here. He said he definitely wanted to go away for college. And when he started naming the schools he was considering, my stomach sank. He wasn’t just talking about an hour or two away. He was

talking more like a plane ride away.

I asked him why. He said that he felt that if he didn’t step out of his comfort zone now, he might not ever do it. His answer should have brought me joy, knowing that my husband, Mark, and I had raised him to be confident enough to challenge himself in such a way.

For some reason, though, it didn’t. Because as much as I wanted him to and had raised him to go find his own path, I didn’t want him to leave.

MOTHER MARY, HELP ME

As I have done more than once while raising my kids, I turned to Mary. Over the years, I have often wondered how Mary felt at the different stages of Jesus’ life. Was there an age she found particularly challenging? Did she struggle with watching him take each step away from her? Right now, I’m wondering how she felt when Jesus stepped away from her side and took off on his own ministry, followed his own path. Did she, too, know that he needed to go but desperately want him to stay?

And so, just as every parent must do, I will watch my kids grow, step away from my side, and spread their wings—with Mary by my side.

46 • April 2020 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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BEE ILLUSTRATIONS: 3DALIA/FOTOSEARCH (5); PETE & REPEAT: TOM GREENE

Susan has worked at St. Anthony Messenger for 25 years and is an executive editor. She and her husband, Mark, are the proud parents of four kids—Maddie, Alex, Riley, and Kacey. Aside from her family, her loves are Disney, traveling, and sports.

TOP LEFT: MC KOZUSKO/SAM; TOP RIGHT: FURTAEV/FOTOSEARCH

Susan Hines-Brigger

s parents, we know that our main job is to raise our children to become responsible adults who will eventually step away from us and forge their own paths. We hope that when doing so, they will take with them all that we have tried to teach them. That’s the way it works. We do our best and then step aside.

So by the time our kids get ready to take the big steps away from us, you would think we would be kind of used to it. After all, the whole process starts very young, from the moment they let go of our fingers and take their first steps. We cheer, telling ourselves that it’s just a couple of steps, and we still have a lot of time. Before we know it, they take off running, and we have to chase after them.

They make friends and take more steps away from us and toward their own lives. And then, suddenly, they’re old enough to drive, and we lose our grip on them just a little bit more.

The older they get, the bigger the steps and the farther away they go.

B

LIGHTENUp! Did You Know?

brainteasers | games | challenges

Facts about Honeybees

For every 60 pounds of honey produced, one pound of beeswax will be made.

Approximately one-third of all the food Americans eat is directly or indirectly derived from honeybee pollination.

The science of beekeeping is called “apiculture.”

The average bee will make only 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

Due to colony collapse disorder, bees have been dying off at a rate of approximately 30 percent per year.

There is only one queen bee in a populous colony containing 40,000 to 60,000 bees during the late spring or early summer.

Beeswax is found in many of our everyday products, including furniture polishes, cosmetics, and medicines.

Source: beepods.com/101-fun-bee-facts-about-bees-and-beekeeping

1: Where did candlemaker Martin Marklin grow up?

2: Which African nation did the Marklins visit earlier this year?

3: Who wrote, “The poetry of earth is never dead”?

In their lifetime, honeybees will fly the equivalent of one and a half times the circumference of the earth.

A honeybee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.

TRIVIA QUESTIONS

4: When was Giles of Assisi beatified?

Honeybees must consume about 17–20 pounds of honey to be able to biochemically produce each pound of beeswax.

5: To which religious order does monk and author Albert Holtz belong?

6: Who wrote the 1903 novella The Call of the Wild?

7: Which NASA spacecraft took recordings of the human voice into space?

HINT: All answers can be found in the pages of this issue.

ANSWERS: E-mail your answers to: MagazineEditors@FranciscanMedia.org, or mail to: St. Anthony Messenger 28 W. Liberty St. Cincinnati, OH 45202

BEE ILLUSTRATIONS: 3DALIA/FOTOSEARCH (5); PETE & REPEAT: TOM GREENE

These scenes may seem alike to you, But there are changes in the two.

So look and see if you can name Eight ways in which they’re not the same.

(Answers below)

GET THE BOOK

FUN FOR ALL AGES!

Go online to order: Shop.FranciscanMedia.org For ONLY $3.99 Use Code: SAMPETE ANSWERS to PETE & REPEAT: 1) Sis has put her hood up. 2) It’s raining harder. 3) The tree is farther back. 4) The molding around the windows on the left is gone. 5) Sis is no longer wearing rain boots. 6) The chimney is thinner. 7) The top of the umbrella is now rounded. 8) The hill behind Pete is higher.

TOP LEFT: MC KOZUSKO/SAM; TOP RIGHT: FURTAEV/FOTOSEARCH

PETE&REPEAT

StAnthonyMessenger.org | April 2020 • 47

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reflection “We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.”

48 • April 2020 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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Nearly 85 percent of wildland fires in the United States are caused by humans. —NPS.gov

CNS PHOTO/DAN HIMBRECHTS, REUTERS

—Barbara Ward

2/27/20 3:19 PM

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