St. Anthony Messenger March 2020

Sharing the spirit of St. Francis with the world V O L . 1 2 7 / N O . 1 0 • MARCH 2020

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

Church in the News

pages 6–8

ST. PATRICK’S DAY

IN IRELAND

MARCH 2020 • $4.99 StAnthonyMessenger.org

LENTEN WISDOM FROM THE DESERT PRAYING MY WAY THROUGH DEMENTIA THE SOCIAL JUSTICE PROPHETS

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VOL. 127 NO. 10

2020 MARCH

34 34 St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland

COVER STORY

ABOVE: A statue of St. Patrick stands atop the Hill of Slane.

According to legend, the saint lit an Easter fire in defiance of a pagan high king of Ireland who had prohibited such celebrations.

By Daniel Imwalle

It’s a feast day rooted in faith and cultural identity.

How the Irish celebrate their patron saint sheds light on the meaning behind the festivities.

20 A Spirituality of Simplicity

By Joan Chittister, OSB

The wisdom of the Desert Monastics—holy men and women who left society to be closer to God—bears fruit for those looking for a deeper, no-frills faith.

24 Praying My Way through Dementia DERICK HUDSON/ISTOCK

Story by Gloria Hutchinson; photography by Tony Giese

As she faces daily torments of forgetfulness, hallucinations, and sleeplessness, this author finds strength and peace in prayer.

COVER: Photograph by Julien Behal

30 The Social Justice Prophets

By Mary Ann Getty

The prophets of old have quite a bit to say about today’s problems.

COMING NEXT

MONTH

A photo story centered on our faith’s call to care for creation A reflection on how to apply the good news of Easter to daily life StAnthonyMessenger.org | March 2020 • 1

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Saint Day

of the

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

generous 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.

Saints featured in the month of March include . . .

St. Frances of Rome March 9 St. Frances of Rome is a good example of what Vatican II hoped for—an active laity who take their baptismal call seriously.

Although she lived centuries before the council, her life shows that the call for an active, dedicated laity has been a part of the Church all along.

St. Katharine Drexel March 3 St. Katharine Drexel founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to minister to Native and African Americans in the United States. She entered religious life as a Sister of Mercy before founding her new community, which opened its first foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1894.

St. Patrick March 17 We probably know more legends about St. Patrick than facts. But from the work he did, we can understand what type of man he was. He toiled to spread the Gospel, at times against formidable odds. But as often happens, the legends prove more interesting than the facts.

St. Joseph, Husband of Mary March 19 We know little about St. Joseph, except that he was the husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus.

Scripture calls him a just man and points out a few incidences in which he showed virtuous behavior.

After he and Mary found Jesus in the Temple, St. Joseph is not mentioned again.

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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VOL. 127 NO. 10

“When we see or hear people speaking or doing evil or blaspheming God, we must say and do good, praising God, who is blessed forever.”

2020 MARCH

—St. Francis of Assisi

10 SPIRIT OF ST. FRANCIS

14 POINTS OF VIEW

10 Ask a Franciscan

14 I’d Like to Say

A Deep Wound

Not All Pharisees Were Hypocrites

12 Franciscan World

16 At Home on Earth

12 St. Anthony Stories

18 Faith Unpacked

13 Followers of St. Francis

19 Editorial

Lake Trasimene

Longing for Belonging

An Abundance of Blessings

What Jesus Taught Me about Families

Father Marcellino Micallef, OFM

Follow Your Conscience

46 Faith & Family

44

CULTURE

42 Media Reviews

E-Learning | DailyOM Online | BlessedIsShe.net

6

Room at the Table

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

44 Film Reviews 4 Dear Reader Bombshell JoJo Rabbit I Still Believe

5 Your Voice 6 Church in the News

47 Lighten Up 47 Pete & Repeat 48 Reflection

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dear reader

ST. ANTHONY

MESSENGER

Guideposts along the Way

PUBLISHER

T

here are certain things in life that just seem to go together: peanut butter and jelly, summer and baseball. That same thinking often applies to people too. For instance, when we think of St. Francis, we often go to animals and creation, don’t we? In that same way, it’s almost impossible to think of Ireland and not speak of St. Patrick.

Years ago, when I traveled to Ireland with my dad, we both quickly realized, though, that our across-the-ocean perspective of this beloved saint wasn’t the full story. No, the St. Patrick of Ireland and what he meant to the people of his adopted homeland were not what I had learned about. Sure, thanks to the many Irish immigrants who came and brought their faith to the United States, those of us in other countries have gotten a taste of what this beloved saint means to the Irish, but it’s just that—an outsider’s view.

That is why we wanted to provide you, our readers, with a more intimate look into how the people of Ireland celebrate their beloved patron saint on his blessed feast day. We hope you enjoy it!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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

Susan Hines-Brigger, Executive Editor

Sharon Lape

DIRECTOR OF SALES, MARKETING, AND DEVELOPMENT

Ray Taylor

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TONY GIESE

GLORIA HUTCHINSON

The Social Justice Prophets

Praying My Way through Dementia

Praying My Way through Dementia

PAGE 30

PAGE 24

PAGE 24

Tony Giese is a photographer in Port Orange, Florida. He found his way there after surviving years of bone-chilling winters while growing up in Minnesota. Once in the Sunshine State, he “set up a professional photographer’s studio . . . and never looked back.” Educated as a graphic artist, he started taking photographs in 1975 as a commercial photographer in the Daytona Beach area.

Gloria Hutchinson is an author whose books on religion and spirituality have been published by Franciscan Media, William H. Sadlier, Inc., and others. She was also the author of religious education texts, a workshop presenter for William H. Sadlier, Inc., and contributor for 30 years to the publications Sunday and Weekday Homily Helps.

She says her husband and caretaker, Dave, is her best friend.

writer

With her article in this issue, Mary Ann Getty returns to the pages of St. Anthony Messenger. She previously wrote “Forgotten Women of the New Testament” in the August 2016 issue.

Before retiring, Getty spent 40 years teaching Scripture in colleges, universities, and seminaries. She has a doctorate in theology from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and is also the author of many books.

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.

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ST. ANTHONY MESSENGER (ISSN #0036276X) (U.S.P.S. PUBLICATION #007956 CANADA PUBLICATION #PM40036350) Volume 127, Number 10, 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 An Exceptional February Issue I really enjoy the format of St. Anthony Messenger as a whole. The February issue was such a nice mix of content—film reviews, Church news stories, a variety of points of view, the “Reflection” page, and the “Sisterhood of Saints” excerpt.

The design and layout of the magazine is clear, clean, and spacious. The font sizes are appealing and make for easy reading. I read the February issue page by page. Excellent job!

God bless you!

Marta Alves, Sugar Land, Texas

Puzzled by Phrasing In the January issue of St. Anthony Messenger, author Mark P. Shea proposes, in his article titled “A Fresh Perspective on Being Pro-Life,” that the anti-abortion stance has taken over all the other pro-life issues. I agree with that point of view.

However, when he speaks of issues pertaining to the body, he includes responsible procreation along with issues like sterilization and prostitution. Does he mean to say that responsible procreation, which I infer as methods deemed proper by the Church, is wrong? I find this wording to be very confusing.

Mary Lou Dickerson, Schenectady, New York

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

call n the Single notice ption-

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Combating Scrupulosity I am writing in response to an item in Father Pat McCloskey’s “Ask a Franciscan” column from the January issue, titled “I Am Scrupulous.” Being that I at one time suffered with scrupulosity, I feel the need to weigh in on this. I agree with Father Pat’s comment that scrupulous people “tend to have some of their religious wires ‘crossed.’”

However, I think that the person who sent in the question could possibly have been left hanging as to how to overcome this problem.

In my opinion, it is a very difficult issue to address by oneself.

Many years ago, two priests helped me work on this problem. So I recommend this person seek a priest (confessor) whom they can sit down with and pour out their concerns. Sometimes, we need a variety of resources to help work on an issue. One of these priests also directed me toward a professional spiritual advisor versed in this subject.

There is also a very helpful website that is published monthly by the Redemptorists called ScrupulousAnonymous.org. There is also a book that I recommend that is very helpful written by Father Thomas M. Santa, CSsR, titled Understanding Scrupulosity. From time to time, my scrupulous tendencies still surface, but the guidance of those two priests many years ago and the resources I listed have helped tremendously.

Thank you, Father Pat and St. Anthony Messenger, for all the wonderful guidance regarding our Catholic faith.

Hank Schneider, Katy, Texas

The Sanctity of Life at All Its Stages This letter is in response to the letter from Mary A. Lombardo in the “Your Voice” column from the December 2019 issue (“Life Comes First”). I would agree that abortion is of top consideration when electing a president. However, I will not vote for a president who opposes abortion on one hand, but on the other has little, if any, consideration for those already born.

This is seen in a lack of care and protection of the environment, unnecessary and cruel family separations and treatment at the border, stifling established health care laws, and constant lies and obfuscating on many more subjects that affect human life at all stages. It’s obvious that some politicians’ considerations regarding the unborn are based more on their appetite for votes than anything else.

In his apostolic exhortation “Gaudete et Exsultate,” Pope Francis states: “Our defense of the innocent unborn . . . needs to be clear, firm, and passionate. . . . Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born.”

I don’t think any issue concerning the sanctity of life should be left out of consideration when voting for such a powerful position as president of the United States.

Judy Roy, Livonia, Michigan

Correction: It was incorrectly reported in January’s “Church in the News” column that Archbishop Fulton Sheen had been beatified in December 2019. The beatification ceremony was postponed by the Vatican in early December.

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church IN THE NEWS

people | events | trends

AUSTRALIAN BISHOPS PLEDGE NATIONAL CHURCH RESPONSE TO FIRES

By Susan Hines-Brigger

FRANCISCAN HOLY NAME PROVINCE TO WITHDRAW FROM NINE MINISTRIES

Father Patrick Tuttle, OFM, is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Church in Greenville, South Carolina. The Franciscan Friars of Holy Name Province are withdrawing from nine Fraternities-in-Mission, including this parish.

n response to the massive fires raging across Australia, Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge—president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference—issued a letter praising the heroic efforts of those fighting the fires and the resilience of communities affected but said: “We need more than words. Expressions of solidarity are important, but they are not enough.”

In the letter posted January 7 on the conference’s website, the archbishop pointed out, “While the bishops typically respond to challenges at a parish or diocesan level, the scale of this crisis requires a national response from the whole Church to complement and coordinate what is happening locally.”

Among those efforts, he said, will be a national network connecting people affected by the bushfires with people who can help with tasks such as preparing meals, clearing properties, and rebuilding communities, as well as pastoral and counseling support, collaboration with key national agencies to ensure as effective a response as possible from the wider Catholic community, and a special collection at parishes on Australia Day (January 26).

The archbishop noted: “Our experts on the ground— from agencies like Vinnies, CatholicCare, and CentaCare, in parishes and other Catholic communities, including Catholic hospitals and aged-care providers—know this will be a longterm process to help people and whole towns rebuild. With broad and deep roots across the nation, the Church stands ready to walk alongside people throughout their journey of recovery.”

he Franciscan Friars of Holy Name Province (HNP) announced in early January that they will be withdrawing from nine Fraternities-in-Mission in the northeast and southeast regions of the United States and turning them over to the respective dioceses by this summer, according to a news release from the province. The decision, the province said, was due to the declining friar population.

The move was the culmination of a more than two-year collegial process that HNP called “Fraternal Ecology”—an initiative that engaged the participation of virtually all friars, as well as local dioceses and lay partners, in evaluating the future sustainability of the province’s 30 Fraternities-inMission, among them parishes, elementary schools, colleges, urban ministry centers, soup kitchens, and other pastoral and social justice ministries.

Father Kevin Mullen, OFM, provincial minister of the New York City-based Holy Name Province, said: “It was collaborative and transparent discernment marked by frank discussion and honest assessment and evaluation by our friars and lay partners in ministry, as well as the dioceses where our Fraternities-in-Mission are located. The council made its final decisions after careful thought and prayerful reflection.” HNP is the largest of the Order of Friars Minor’s seven communities in the United States.

The province said the challenges of a declining friar population make it difficult for the province to staff all of the Fraternities-in-Mission it has served in the past. The ministries from which the province will withdraw this summer include: • St. Francis Chapel—Colonie, New York (a mall ministry that is closing) • St. Mary of the Angels Parish—Anderson, South Carolina

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CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: BOB ROLLER; RIGHT: KAYA TAITANO/SOCIAL MEDIA VIA REUTERS

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CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: DAN PELED/AAP IMAGE VIA REUTERS; RIGHT: COURTESY ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA CHURCH

Sharnie Moren and her 18-month-old daughter, Charlotte, look on as thick smoke rises from bushfires near Nana Glen, Australia, on November 12, 2019.

CNN SETTLES SUIT WITH COVINGTON CATHOLIC STUDENT

• Catholic Center at the University of Georgia—Athens, Georgia • St. Anthony of Padua Parish—Greenville, South Carolina • Parish of the Holy Name of Jesus-St. Gregory the Great— New York City, New York • St. Joseph-St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish—Orlando, Florida • St. Francis of Assisi Parish—Raleigh, North Carolina • St. Paul and St. Joseph Parishes—Wilmington, Delaware • Assumption of Our Blessed Lady Parish—Wood-Ridge, New Jersey

LAICIZED CARDINAL MOVES TO UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

Nick Sandmann (left), a student at Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Kentucky, recently reached a settlement with CNN for defamation.

O Former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington recently moved out of the friary where he has been living since late 2018.

CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: BOB ROLLER; RIGHT: KAYA TAITANO/SOCIAL MEDIA VIA REUTERS

CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: DAN PELED/AAP IMAGE VIA REUTERS; RIGHT: COURTESY ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA CHURCH

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n early January, former cardinal Theodore McCarrick moved from the Capuchin Franciscan friary in Kansas where he had been living since late 2018. According to Capuchin Father Joseph Mary Elder, director of communications and vocations for the province that oversees the friary, McCarrick made the move on his own accord. “There was nothing on our part” that suggested McCarrick leave, Father Elder said. “Our provincial was very clear with him.”

His new residence has not been publicly disclosed, but the website Church Militant posted that the Diocese of St. Augustine had arranged for McCarrick to move there—a claim the diocese strongly denies. In a January 8 statement, Kathleen Bagg, diocesan communications director, said: “Rumors that the former cardinal Theodore McCarrick has moved to Jacksonville and is staying at a priest retirement facility in the Diocese of St. Augustine are absolutely false.

The diocese has made no arrangements for McCarrick to stay at any of its church-owned properties.”

She added: “The diocese does not know the whereabouts of McCarrick, and it is not our responsibility to keep tabs on his movements. It is important to note that McCarrick was laicized in February 2019; therefore, like any person, he can travel where he wants without reporting his presence in a location within any diocese where he may visit.”

n January 7, the cable news outlet CNN reached an agreement with a Kentucky Catholic high school student who sued the station for defamation over its coverage of an incident that occurred after last year’s March for Life, reported Catholic News Service (CNS).

Nick Sandmann, a junior at Covington Catholic last year, sought $275 million in damages in his lawsuit filed against CNN last March for what he said was biased coverage of the event. He has also sued the Washington Post and NBC Universal. A federal judge let part of the suit against the Post continue after the paper filed a motion to dismiss it. Trial dates have not yet been set for these two cases. The amount of the settlement was not made public during a hearing at the federal courthouse in Covington, Kentucky.

Sandmann was at the center of the viral video controversy in which he was seen wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, smiling just inches away from Nathan Phillips, a Native American leader, as Phillips chanted and beat a drum.

The day after the encounter, clips from a video showing students surrounding Phillips while appearing to be mocking him went viral. The clip caused immediate outrage, particularly on social media. But by the next day, extended footage of the situation revealed that another group had taunted the students and some responded back. Phillips said he had walked over to the students and the group as an intervention.

As a result of the video, Sandmann says he “received physical and death threats via social media, as well as hateful insults.” A report by a third-party investigation into the situation was released by the Covington Diocese in February 2019. The report found no evidence that the students had issued “offensive or racist statements” as they had been accused of doing.

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church IN THE NEWS

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AMERICANS’ OPINIONS ON ABORTION

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Marist poll this past January shows that a strong majority of Americans want to elect candidates who support substantial abortion restrictions. The poll of 1,237 adults was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.

Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said, “The fact that such large numbers of Americans who identify as pro-choice nevertheless support restrictions and the revisiting of Roe v.

Wade shows how misleading it is to conflate the term ‘prochoice’ with support for a radically pro-abortion position that calls for unrestricted abortion.”

FIRST WOMAN APPOINTED TO VATICAN FOREIGN MINISTRY POST

According to the poll, most Americans agree laws can protect both a woman and the life of the unborn child.

BOSTON ARCHDIOCESE TO CELEBRATE YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST

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oting that, according to a recent study, many Catholics do not know or understand the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist, Boston’s Cardinal Seán O’Malley has declared a Year of the Eucharist for the archdiocese. The celebration is set to begin on Holy Thursday of this year.

In a letter posted on the archdiocese’s website, Cardinal O’Malley noted that the Pew study, entitled “What Americans Know About Religion,” showed that only 31 percent of Catholics believe that the bread and the wine consecrated during the Mass actually become the body and blood of Jesus, and that only half of Catholics know the Church’s teaching concerning the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. He said he hopes the year will “encourage our brothers and sisters to find consolation of the Lord through participation in the celebration of the Eucharist and in times of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.”

He went on to recount the importance of the Eucharist in his own life, writing: “The sacraments not only touch our lives, they mold our very being, and the Eucharist is the center of our sacramental life. That is why I am a Catholic.

That is why I am a priest. Without the Eucharist, I would ask myself, Is it all worth it? I know it’s worth it, because Christ really is present in the Eucharist.”

Pope Francis talks with Francesca Di Giovanni, whom he recently named as undersecretary in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.

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n January 15, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had appointed the first ever female as undersecretary in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State’s Section for Relations with States, reported CNS. Francesca Di Giovanni, a Vatican official with 27 years of experience, will head the multilateral sector, which deals with intergovernmental organizations and multilateral treaties.

In an interview with Vatican News, Di Giovanni said her role will “deal with relations between intergovernmental organizations at the international level and includes the network of multilateral treaties, which are important because they embody the political will of States with regard to the various issues concerning the international common good: This includes development, the environment, the protection of victims of conflicts, the situation of women, and so on.”

When asked about being the first woman appointed to such a role, Di Giovanni said, “I would like to be able to contribute to the realization of the Holy Father’s vision, with my other colleagues who work in this area of the Secretariat of State, but also with other women—and there are many of them—who are working to build fraternity in this international dimension too.” She pointed out, though, that “the responsibility is connected to the job, rather than to the fact of being a woman.”

CNS GRAPHICS: THE MARIST POLL/KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS; CNS PHOTO: RIGHT: VATICAN MEDIA

When asked to align with one side of the abortion debate, a majority of those polled describe themselves as pro-choice.

The Marist poll shows that 55 percent of Americans support a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, except to save the life of the mother.

8 • March 2020 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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SPIRITOFST.FRANCIS | ASK A FRANCISCAN

By Pat McCloskey, OFM

A Deep Wound How could God take my precious son at age 43 and yet allow rotten people who have stopped believing in God to keep on living?

My son was a great Catholic and spent eight years in Catholic schools.

Father Pat welcomes your questions!

ONLINE: StAnthonyMessenger.org E-MAIL: Ask@FranciscanMedia.org MAIL: Ask a Franciscan 28 W. Liberty St. Cincinnati, OH 45202

All questions sent by mail need to include a self-addressed stamped envelope.

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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!

water, or countless other ways of showing compassion with other suffering people? Are you honoring his memory if you allow his death to make you a bitter person, living in a progressively smaller world?

Those “rotten people who have stopped believing in God” may well have gotten that way because they have allowed their suffering or someone else’s to convince them that a loving God would never allow that suffering to happen.

Author Flannery O’Connor wrote to a friend about a mutual friend who had committed suicide, “His problem, I suppose, was that he didn’t know what to do with his suffering.”

No matter how we deal with suffering, we cannot erase it. We have only two basic choices: to make it the key to interpreting our whole life from that point on or to allow it to spur us toward greater compassion. Your example of greater compassion might help one of those “rotten people” to become more compassionate.

Why Bother with Confession?

When I became a Catholic at the age of 20, I loved the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Now, more than 40 years later, my behavior is morally acceptable, but I am tortured interiorly by inappropriate thoughts, lacking focus and concentration. While polite and kind outwardly, I get irked or offended by others’ behavior. I am impatient, judging inwardly in my mind.

As a result, I have stopped going to confession because it no longer gives me the joy it once did.

I have a hard time getting over the feeling of “You should know better at your age!”

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LANTAPIX/FOTOSEARCH

Pat McCloskey, OFM

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lease accept my condolences at the death of your son. I hope you have not given up on God. It sounds as though your son’s death has caused you to challenge all your previous ideas about God. None of us can change a past event (such as a death), but each of us has some freedom to decide how it will influence us moving forward. Great suffering produces a “new normal” for everyone who experiences it because such suffering always moves us in the direction of either greater compassion or greater bitterness. Life cannot be the same as it was before. Would your son want you to grieve in a way that denies belief in an allloving God? Even though we cannot reverse a past event, ultimately it has only the power that we give it. Prolonged anger with God is only one of many possible ways of dealing with a deep wound.

If your son could communicate with you about how you are grieving his death, what might he say? Would he encourage greater bitterness or compassion? Was your son especially involved in some work of mercy, for example, care of the sick, education, sheltering the homeless, supporting the digging of wells for people who lack access to clean

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hat you write has probably been true for many holy women and men throughout the centuries. Impatience with others is a common default position for many of us. Holy people become that precisely by increasingly opening themselves to the grace that God wants to give them—even though accepting that will require them to make difficult changes.

We cannot control all the thoughts that come into our minds, but we don’t act on each of them. In some way, every sin begins as a lie that we tell ourselves: that God’s ways are too difficult, take too much time, don’t pay off—and besides, this sin represents a shortcut around God’s ways. People may name different sins in confessions, but they all boil down to one: acknowledging supposed shortcuts that have turned out—as all sins do—to be dead ends.

Perhaps your difficulty with the Sacrament of Reconciliation is more a matter of not forgiving yourself than of accepting God’s forgiveness.

St. Augustine of Hippo, no stranger to sin, once described it as “curving in on oneself.” Confession can allow God to straighten out those curves. God doesn’t cringe when we confess our sins; God rejoices that we are living more completely in God’s truth and freedom. God isn’t finished with any of us yet!

Quick Questions and Answers

Before my sister died of lung cancer, she quit going to church. I tried daily to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for her. Is it possible that she is in heaven?

A Catholic whose parents were in a marriage not recognized by the Catholic Church once needed a dispensation in order to join a religious community.

Is that still the case?

No, it is not. The reason for that earlier practice was the presumption that couples married in the Catholic Church had a more stable relationship, which would ultimately benefit the person seeking to join a religious community.

I am perplexed by the Catholic Church’s involvement in the Inquisition. Can you shed any light on this?

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Yes, that is entirely possible. Each of us needs to resist the temptation to shove God aside and pass divine judgment on someone whom we cannot know nearly as well as our Creator does.

Holding an idea considered heretical was once a civil crime in many places.

The Catholic Church’s Inquisition judged that an accused person held such an idea; the civil government carried out a wide range of penalties for doing so. Luigi Accattoli’s book When a Pope Asks Forgiveness: The Mea Culpa’s of John Paul II (Alba House) gives quotes from three events when St. John Paul II addressed this issue before 1998. The Inquisition and similar injustices were the subject of two international meetings organized by the Holy See for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, which also included a liturgy of repentance at St. Peter’s on March 12, 2000.

Light a Lenten candle and get resources from the friars to enrich your Lenten journey!

StAnthony.org/Lent

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 “Be strengthened in the holy service which you have undertaken out of a burning desire for the poor, crucified Jesus.”

—First letter of St. Clare to St. Agnes

FRANCISCAN WORLD

Lake Trasimene

By Pat McCloskey, OFM

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AGNES (1205–1282) was the daughter of the king and queen of Bohemia. After she built in Prague a hospital for the poor, a residence for the Friars Minor, and a Poor Clare monastery, she and seven other noblewomen entered that monastery in 1236.

St. Clare sent five nuns from San Damiano to join the new monastery where Agnes served as abbess, though she preferred the title “senior sister.”

We have four of Clare’s letters to Agnes but unfortunately no letter from Agnes to her. She declined her royal brother’s offer to set up an endowment for her monastery.

Agnes was canonized in 1989.

Her feast is March 2.

—Pat McCloskey, OFM

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WANT MORE? Learn about your saints and blesseds by going to: SaintoftheDay.org

ST. ANTHONY STORIES

An Abundance of Blessings

S

t. Anthony always finds things for me. Some are minor, while others are very important, such as the blank checks that I misplaced yesterday. Yes, he found them.

On another occasion, as I was returning to my car in the grocery parking lot, I noticed that my keys were missing. I panicked, searching every inch of my purse and the area near my car. I started to walk back to the store, but then I looked around once more.

There the keys were—on a section of the parking lot where I hadn’t looked. It’s a miracle they were not crushed by the many cars driving by. Thank you, St. Anthony, for all the many favors.

—Madeline Lynch, Aurora, Illinois

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PHOTO COURTESY OF FATHER MARCELLINO MICALLEF, OFM

A king’s daughter, she declined three offers of a royal marriage and became a Poor Clare nun.

FAR LEFT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; TOP LEFT: LPLT/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; LOWER RIGHT: 1STUNNINGART/FOTOSEARCH

AGNES OF BOHEMIA

ne year, Francis spent Lent on an abandoned island in this lake near Perugia. A friend brought him there secretly the night before Ash Wednesday. When that friend returned 40 days later on Holy Thursday, he discovered that Francis had eaten only part of one loaf of bread that he had brought, imitating Christ’s 40-day fast in the desert (Little Flowers of St. Francis, VI).

People soon began to live on that island, and in the 13th century a friary was built there.

In Francis’ day, Lake Trasimene was much more isolated than the popular Francis kept as many as four Lents a year (one starting on the tourist site that it has become. One still senses here God’s grandeur.

Epiphany, the regular Lent, one starting on the feast of Mary’s assumption, and one starting on the feast of All Saints). Through all of these Lents, Francis grew in a deeper appreciation of his sins and of God’s boundless mercy.

Francis’ “alone time” enabled him to be an energetic and captivating preacher, inviting people to experience the same mercy and forgiveness that he had already encountered. The God whom he met in deeper solitude was the same God whom he later preached with greater conviction and transparency to people hungry for a closer encounter with God. In solitude, Francis developed a more profound appreciation for Scripture as God’s unique self-revelation. Francis’ frequent Lents kept him more grounded in gratitude and humility.

s

FOLLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS

ST. ANTHONY

Seeing the Gospel at Work in Malta

“Francis was not a person for the people, but he was with the people. The best university in the world—the university of the street!”

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PHOTO COURTESY OF FATHER MARCELLINO MICALLEF, OFM

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nd a nts

fter 17 years working with Maltese missionaries around the globe, Franciscan Father Marcellino Micallef came home to the island of Malta, where he serves as vicar provincial of the St. Paul the Apostle Province in the capital city of Valletta. In response to the growing number of refugees, poor, and the homeless, Father Marcellino and the friars decided to transform their historic monastery’s former refectory into a soup kitchen.

It took three years to obtain the necessary permits for the project, which involved transforming a large, high-ceilinged room built in 1584 into a soup kitchen that meets modern building codes. The friars hope to open Soup Kitchen OFM Valletta by Easter.

The rooms next to the refectory will be turned into a kitchen, storage, bathrooms, laundry, and office.

Father Marcellino and volunteers representing the building trades find inspiration in the words of Pope Francis, who said in December 2016: “I encourage you to address your resources to those who ask you for help: Listen to them, hear their story, learn from their experiences, and try to understand their needs.”

Homelessness, once hard to imagine, has increased because of the rising costs of housing. The city also has seen an influx of refugees from Libya, Syria, and other countries. “Our Mediterranean Sea has become the largest cemetery in the world,” he says.

The soup kitchen will also serve “mothers, elderly people, those who have low income, those suffering from mental illness, men who feel like a failure, couples and families going through marital and financial crises, and poor families,” he says. The friars will offer meals to 80 people five days per week.

Guests will also have opportunities for reading, meditation, music, computer classes, and discussion groups.

In the near future, Soup Kitchen Valletta OFM will provide training for women in preparing healthy food for their children. The friars also plan to work with the unemployed and partner with the United Nations Refugee Agency to assist immigrants.

“There is no need of another church from where one can talk about the Gospel. People need to see the Gospel,” according to the soup kitchen’s vision statement. Explains Father Marcellino, “They need to meet and touch ‘homeless Jesus’ in their neighbor.”

It is a vision inspired by St. Francis, he says. “Francis was not a person for the people, but he was with the people.

The best university in the world—the university of the street!” St. Francis has been a part of Father Marcellino’s life since before he was born. His childhood home was in the shadow of the belfry of the Franciscan church in Rabat, where he served as an altar boy and sang in the choir. The “enthusiasm of the young brothers in the friary” attracted young Marcellino to religious life. Father Marcellino became a Franciscan in 1976.

As he cares for the poor, Father Marcellino himself has been no stranger to hardship. His father died at a young age, leaving his mother to raise nine children. “My mother was an inspiration for me because she had to take all the responsibility for her family alone,” says Father Marcellino. Yet she attended Mass daily and “never gave up on her faith and always trusted in God.” Her faith continues to inspire Father Marcellino as he carries out the mission of Francis—saint and pope.

—Patricia Mish

FRANK JASPER, OFM

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on

Father Marcellino Micallef, OFM

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 Pat McCloskey, OFM

Not All Pharisees Were Hypocrites

Some Pharisees followed Jesus. The scribe praised in Mark 12:34 as being “not far from the kingdom of God” was actually a Pharisee (Mt 24:34–35).

Misunderstanding Pharisees contributes to anti-Semitism.

Christians from around the world participated in this ”March of the Nations” in Jerusalem to protest growing anti-Semitism. Attacks on synagogues, businesses, and private homes are increasing.

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WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

Pharisees in Jesus’ day were simply hypocrites, right?” many Catholics might say. Not really! Then and now Judaism has included a great variety among its members.

Pharisees were the main group influencing the rabbinic Judaism that we know today.

Of the six main groups within Palestinian Judaism in Jesus’ day, he was, in fact, closest to the Pharisees. He certainly wasn’t a Sadducee (collaborator with the Romans), a Zealot (Jews ready to take up arms against the Romans), a Nazirite (someone who made special vows about ritual purity), a Herodian (also collaborators with the Romans), or a member of the Qumran community near the Dead Sea (Jews who avoided the Temple in Jerusalem because Rome and the Sadducees controlled it).

Is it truly to the credit of Christians that the dictionaries they have written make the words Pharisee and hypocrite interchangeable? This equation illustrates the saying, “The less you know about something, the easier it is to generalize about it.”

The relationship of Jesus with the Pharisees is far more complicated than most Catholics and other Christians realize. That issue becomes especially important during the Lenten season when we hear several Gospel passages highly critical of the Pharisees. Passion plays once tended to present a caricatured view of them, but that has changed for the better in the past 50 years, mostly because of what Vatican II taught about Christianity’s relationship with Judaism.

Assuming that Jesus died and rose in AD 30, the Fourth Gospel reached its final form more than 60 years later. By then, Second Temple Judaism, which had arisen in the sixth century BC, had ended with the Romans’ destruction in AD 70 of the Temple in Jerusalem. The rabbinic Judaism that has shaped that faith until today was well underway, and Christians from a Jewish background were starting to be unwelcome in the synagogues they had once attended.

In short, a superficial reading of the New Testament suggests a much more hostile relationship between Jews and the followers of Jesus than existed when he died.

On May 7–9, 2019, Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute hosted “Jesus and the Pharisees: An Interdisciplinary Appraisal,” sponsored by the Pontifical Biblical Institute, the American Jewish Committee, the Italian Episcopal Conference, the Gregorian University Foundation, and Verbum. Exploring this theme were Jewish and Christian scholars from around the world, including Argentinean Rabbi Abraham Skorka, a longtime friend of Pope Francis.

How many Christians realize that: • Some Pharisees became followers of Jesus (Acts 15:5); • Gamaliel, a leading Pharisee, defended Peter and John before the Sanhedrin (Acts 5:34–39); • Nicodemus was a Pharisee (Jn 3:1); • The scribe to whom Jesus said, “You are not far from the

TOP AND LOWER LEFT: BIBLE ART LIBRARY/ISTOCK; TOP RIGHT: CNS PHOTO/RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS; LOWER RIGHT: CNS PHOTO/TOM GANNAM/REUTERS

Their relationship to Jesus was much more complicated than most of us realize.

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kingdom of God” (Mk 12:34) was actually a Pharisee according to Matthew 22:34–35; and • St. Paul was proud of his training as a Pharisee (Phil 3:5)?

The Gospels have 81 references to Pharisees, most of them negative, especially the “woe” statements in Matthew 23:13–16 and Luke 11:42–52. The Gospel of Matthew’s 29 references (the most of the four Gospels) probably reflect bitterness over growing exclusion of Jewish Christians from synagogues.

According to John 12:42, however, “Many, even among the authorities, believed in him [Jesus], but because of the Pharisees they did not acknowledge it openly in order not to be expelled from the synagogue.” Most members of the Sanhedrin were either Sadducees or Pharisees.

Anyone claiming that all Pharisees in Jesus’ day were hypocrites is simply rejecting much of the biblical evidence on this subject.

Speaking at the Vatican to conference participants last May, Pope Francis said: “May your conference find a broad echo within and outside the Catholic Church, and may your work receive abundant blessings from the Most High or, as many of our Jewish brothers and sisters would say, from Hashem. Thank you.”

The “Criteria” document affirms: • Jesus and his teachings should not be portrayed as opposed to or by “the Pharisees” as a group; • Jesus shared important Pharisaic doctrines that set the Pharisees apart from other Jewish groups of the time, such as the Sadducees; and • The Pharisees, in fact, are not mentioned in accounts of the Passion except once in Luke, where Pharisees attempt to warn Jesus of a plot against him by the followers of Herod.

THE CURRENT CHALLENGE

Follow-up documents include: • “Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis of the Roman Catholic Church” (Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, June 24, 1985);

The last statement above can easily be forgotten as we listen to preaching about the Passion accounts. Historically, Holy Week has been a dangerous time for Jewish people living among Christians and Christian rulers.

A distorted understanding of Pharisees in Jesus’ day can also contribute to the anti-Semitism that has dramatically increased in the United States and worldwide, as evidenced by recent shootings and stabbings in synagogues, stores, and private homes.

Catholics owe it to themselves, other Christians, Jewish people worldwide, and everyone else interested in honesty to reject the widespread but extremely dangerous lie that all Pharisees in Jesus’ day were hypocrites. That simply is not true.

It is possible that one or both of the disciples who accompanied Jesus to Emmaus and with whom he “broke bread” (Lk 24:13–31) were Pharisees. We know that some Pharisees became disciples of Jesus.

At the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, Missouri, 170 Jewish gravestones were vandalized in 2017. Five days later, 26 Jewish gravestones were vandalized at a cemetery in suburban Philadelphia.

A MORE HONEST APPROACH

Vatican II’s “Decree on the Relationship of Catholicism with Non-Christian Religions” (“Nostra Aetate,” promulgated on October 28, 1965) denied that all Jews then or now were or are responsible for the death of Jesus (4).

TOP AND LOWER LEFT: BIBLE ART LIBRARY/ISTOCK; TOP RIGHT: CNS PHOTO/RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS; LOWER RIGHT: CNS PHOTO/TOM GANNAM/REUTERS

• “Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion” (Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1988); and • “God’s Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching” (Committee on the Liturgy, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1989).

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POINTSOFVIEW | AT HOME ON EARTH

By Kyle Kramer

Longing for Belonging

EarthandSpiritCenter.org

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WANT MORE? Visit our website: StAnthonyMessenger.org

O

ver the Christmas holidays, our family hosted a visit from my wife’s sister, her husband, and their five children. Somehow, we found room for 12 of us under one roof with just three bedrooms. And though it was noisy and chaotic in some ways, we had a wonderful time together.

My brother-in-law teaches theology at a small Catholic college in a rural Midwestern town. Over the course of some long walks, stacking firewood, and spreading manure on our garden, he and I talked a lot about their life there. They live in a tightly knit neighborhood, do cooperative homeschooling and gardening, let their kids roam free-range among various nearby families, and help fellow parents/ friends/neighbors in a mutual exchange of care and concern. I told him it all sounded like Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show and, although he admitted that their town faces many challenges typical of small, rural towns, he said he is profoundly grateful to be where he is. He’s all in for his whole life.

Hearing about his experience made me happy for him and his family. Frankly, though, I also felt somewhat envious and sad. My family and I are on amicable terms with a few neighbors along our stretch of rural highway, but sometimes a year or more can go by between interactions. We’re

yearning for more and deeper connections beyond the wonderful relationships within our nuclear family and in my work community.

These hopes are a large part of our discernment about building or moving to a new home—especially because we hope that our kids will stay relatively close by when they are adults, and we want to settle in a place where they can thrive for the long term. But we haven’t found the right place, even after two years of searching and discernment, and I can’t help but be discouraged.

I suspect that most of us, on some level, are yearning for deeper and more meaningful ways to belong in the world. As I’ve written often in this column, I believe that we are relational beings—or, rather, “interbeings,” made in the image of the Trinity. We’re made for community: with each other, with the natural world, and with our Creator, who is in all and through all.

So then why does it seem so hard to find genuine belonging? How did we allow ourselves to become isolated from each other and from the rest of nature? Why have our churches and civic organizations waned, our politics become so dysfunctionally divided, our social fabric become so frayed, such that experiences like my brother-in-law’s are more the exception than the rule?

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VENERATIO/FOTOSEARCH

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.

LEFT: COURTESY OF KYLE KRAMER; RIGHT: ANNIE ANNIE/FOTOSEARCH

Kyle Kramer

DIVING DOWN INTO GRIEF

During Lent, one of my spiritual practices is to get in touch with the grief I feel about how such disconnection manifests in my own life and our culture more generally. Sometimes the first step in moving closer to something you long for is to lament how very far away and impossible it seems. For me, this often feels like a slippery slope to depression, but I honestly don’t see any other way around it that retains a sense of integrity.

Anything else feels like denial, which I think is an epidemic in our culture, manifested in the thousands of ways we keep ourselves distracted from this core wound. How else could we keep getting up every day, if we let the full weight of our disconnection settle on us?

David Whyte has a wonderful poem, “The Well of Grief,” which I treasure as a guide in this practice of facing my grief.

Once we “slip beneath/the still surface” and descend down “to the place we cannot breathe,” we might discover deep forms of energy, encouragement, and guidance that are unavailable to those unwilling to dive down into the dark waters of grief.

VENERATIO/FOTOSEARCH

LEFT: COURTESY OF KYLE KRAMER; RIGHT: ANNIE ANNIE/FOTOSEARCH

THE HOPE OF EASTER

Deep in my grief at what feels like the world’s unraveling, I’ve also felt a heartbreaking, but beautiful, connection to those who have also suffered—which, let’s face it, is every human being who has ever lived and other creatures as well.

I have to think this solidarity is some glimpse of what Jesus experienced on the cross, and Mary at the foot of it. It is a difficult gift, this love and belonging we find only at the bottom of the well of grief, but it feels real and true, like solid ground we might stand on as we help create a better world— possibly from the ashes of the current one.

As I long to belong more deeply among my fellow human travelers and within the rest of the natural world, I’m also trying to find hope and gratitude in the longing itself. Why else would my heart hurt at the lack of belonging, but that it was possible, however imperfectly?

Of course, with St. Augustine, I believe that our restless hearts will only find their ultimate belonging in God. But I also believe that God and the world are so interwoven that belonging in God will also and always mean belonging in the world, now and by whatever mysterious means lie on the other side of death.

Fortunately, I do feel that we’re at a point in history where we are beginning to acknowledge that so much that is manufactured, marketed, and monetized just isn’t working for us anymore—personally, environmentally, socially, or spiritually. I think this breakdown is a wonderful gift. It’s time to let go of what needs to die, provide whatever hospice care our current systems require, then lean into our longing for deeper and more beautiful ways to belong.

Here in the middle of Lent, some kind of Easter miracle can’t be too far away!

HELPFUL

TIPS

SEARCH FOR SOLIDARITY

1

Check out Joanna Macy’s “The Work That Reconnects” (JoannaMacy.net). It is a helpful guide and process for opening yourself to your grief about the world’s pain.

2

As you attend Good Friday liturgy, let it draw you into solidarity with all who suffer—both human and other-thanhuman creatures.

So that his work may continue...

Please remember Franciscan Media in your estate plans.

For more information please call Lisa at:

(513) 241-5615 ext. 104

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POINTSOFVIEW | FAITH UNPACKED

By David Dault, PhD

What Jesus Taught Me about Families

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 POWERFUL EXAMPLE

Not long after that moment in Mark’s Gospel cited above, Jesus sets up some boundaries with his biological family members who had been calling him crazy. He then looks at the circle of those sitting near him and says: “Here are my mother and my brothers. [For] whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

I feel a connection with Jesus in this. I don’t think Jesus carried the diagnoses that I have faced in my life, but in that moment of threat and rejection by his biological family and his religious leaders, he bore the social burden of mental illness: “He is out of his mind.” And, as I did in my teenage years, Jesus found his way to an alternate family who could accept him and offer him the support not given by his blood relatives.

A WORK IN PROGRESS

Many of us are on some form of this journey.

I am happy to say that, as I near my 50s, I have found solace and stability in my daily life that I could not have dreamed possible in my 20s. But it took work and continues to take work. Some days are better than others, and I take them one day at a time.

The mental health issues I have named are often characterized as individual problems. But they are part of family systems. My grandparents passed aspects to my parents who, in turn, affected me. Now as parents ourselves, Kira and I see some of these issues in our children as well. My son struggles with anxiety and my daughter with anger and depression. These stressors split apart my family of origin when I was a child, with every responsible adult retreating to a corner and saying to the others, in effect, “You’re out of your mind and possessed by the devil.”

As parents, Kira and I work to make a different set of choices. My wife and children are involved in my recovery, and I am involved in theirs. We have some bad days, it is true. But we have a lot more good days than bad.

Jesus tells us that those who do the will of God make up a kind of family. The will of God is love, forgiveness, and truth. That takes daily work, and I’m glad we’re working, one day at a time, to make our biological family into the kind that Jesus modeled for us.

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CNS PHOTO/PAUL HARING

David Dault, PhD

n the third chapter of the Gospel of Mark, right after Jesus commissions the Twelve Apostles, we are told that he returns to his home neighborhood. His family comes out to meet him, but instead of a warm reception, they question his sanity. “He is out of his mind,” they say. Soon after, the religious authorities arrive and proclaim that Jesus has been possessed by the devil.

For more than 30 years, I have lived with mental health issues. Much of my life has been colored by chronic and, at times, severe depression. Circumstances of my childhood, including domestic violence and my mother’s rage-filled alcoholism, have left me with bouts of anxiety and post-traumatic stress.

I learned to cope with these stresses by developing survival strategies that kept me alive into adulthood. Unfortunately, these same survival strategies made being in my company a challenge for much of my 20s.

Suffice to say that, once I was safely out of the dangerous and crazy situations of my home life, I was like a fish out of water. I didn’t mean to, but I often brought the crazy with me into sane situations.

It took me a good number of years, a lot of support from therapists, and 12-step programs like Al-Anon to get to a point where I felt more stable and secure in my day-to-day life. Several years into that process, I met my wife, Kira, and she and her family also became part of that system of support.

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POINTSOFVIEW | EDITORIAL

By Susan Hines-Brigger

Follow Your Conscience “. . . a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right.”

—Catechism of the Catholic Church

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A STURDY FOUNDATION

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ive years ago, Pope Francis stood in front of the members of the US Congress during his visit to the nation’s capital and told them: “Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics.”

His message seemed well received. But that was five years ago, and, while our political landscape was certainly divided, we could not have foreseen the current state of politics in our country.

The pope’s words seem especially pertinent right now as we watch the constitutional impeachment process of President Donald Trump play out before our eyes. For the past six months or so, it has been the lead story for most news outlets and at the forefront of most Americans’ attention. It is only the third time in our country’s history a president has faced a Senate trial over impeachment, the other two being Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, and it has been polarizing for our nation.

As of the writing of this editorial in late January, the Senate is currently hearing arguments regarding the potential removal of the president from office, so the situation is still very much in flux. But by the time you read this editorial, history will have spoken. It is a history that has stood upon the foundation of our Constitution for over 230 years.

It is important now for the same reason as when our country’s founders wrote the process into the Constitution.

Power cannot go unchecked. If we do not uphold the very foundation upon which our country was built, we are setting future generations up for further trouble and discord down the road.

The problem is, though, that both in Congress and among the American people, we have begun treating our political future something like a high-stakes playoff game— Democrats versus Republicans, my team versus yours, we win and you lose. If the news doesn’t fit our version of the narrative, we denounce it and vilify the messenger. Through

our behavior on both national and personal levels, we have managed to reduce our highest offices and ourselves to a new low.

That, however, isn’t the way our country will move forward and grow. Sometimes we need to demand accountability. This current situation is about drawing a line in the sand for the sake of future generations.

WE THE PEOPLE

What is our role in this process ? we may wonder. This impeachment is about more than just members of Congress.

As Americans, we all play a part in shaping our country and its principles by our own behavior. Although Pope Francis was speaking to elected officials in Congress when he spoke the words above, we, too, are called to “preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good.”

That is why, at a moment such as this, we need to find a way to step back and take a look at the bigger picture. We must ask ourselves: What is the desired outcome? Do we want to make our nation better, or do we just want to win at all costs?

What does our conscience tell us?

It is a question that Pope Francis also hit upon in his congressional speech: “The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States. The complexity, the gravity, and the urgency of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents, and resolve to support one another, with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.”

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, conscience is “a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right” (1778).

“Just and right”—that’s a very simple benchmark. It is an intriguing lens through which to view our current situation and one to carry with us as we move forward, just as we always have and will. We must. Our future generations are depending on it.

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A SPIRITUALITY OF SIMPLICITY

By Joan Chittister, OSB

The wisdom of the Desert Monastics—holy men and women who left society to be closer to God—bears fruit for those looking ANSONLU/FOTOSEARCH

for a deeper, no-frills faith.

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nce, the rule was made in Scetis that they should fast for the entire week before Easter. During this week, however, some brothers came from Egypt to see Abba Moses, and he made a modest meal for them. Seeing the smoke, the neighbors said to the priests of the church of that place, “Look, Moses has broken the rule and is cooking food at his place.” Then the priests said, “When he comes out, we will talk to him.” When the Sabbath came, the priests, who knew Abba Moses’ great way of life, said to him in public, “Oh, Abba Moses, you did break the commandment made by people, but you have firmly kept the commandment of God.”

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BEWARE BOGUS SPIRITUALITY

The Desert Monastics, thousands of monks and nuns who went into the Egyptian wastelands in the third to sixth centuries, have come to be seen as the Olympians of the spiritual life. They went to the desert deliberately in order to live very close to the basics of life: no comfort food, no superfluities, no excesses. They went to separate themselves even physically from the lures of the world around them—from gluttony, debauchery, materialism, pride—and in the process they became the spiritual athletes of the time. Like the great runners or discus throwers or gladiators, they denied themselves the comforts of life in order to excel in the pursuit of God. They did everything they could to eliminate the frills of life, to see and desire and listen to God alone.

It was an admirable and impressive array of people, whole

cities of them like Scetis, the one mentioned in this story, clustered together and concentrated on one thing alone— God. They devoted themselves totally to the rigors of fasting and the denial of the body in order to sharpen the sensitivities of the soul. Their lifestyle and their spiritual practices became legendary. Some of them prayed all night; others fasted all day; many sat alone with God their entire lives. All of them lived lives of prayer and bodily asceticism.

They became the mystics, the spiritual directors, and the counselors of the age. People flocked to the desert to hear from them a word, a spiritual parable, or maxim that would serve to guide their own lives once they returned to the city.

What could be more laudatory? What’s not to like about this kind of concentration on the important things of life?

Answer: the possibility of satisfaction, of self-conceit.

The truth is that the asceticism itself may become a substitute, a very flattering substitute, for the real spiritual life.

If the purpose of asceticism is misunderstood, misplaced, or exaggerated, asceticism, at least in our time, can discolor the whole spiritual life for many. In a period of humanistic psychology, the destruction of the body—for any reason under any form—is not easily seen as a sane response to life.

So why have this story? Precisely because it is so important to our understanding of what holiness really looks like when holiness is meant to be on our minds. In this story, the need for physical rigor as well as for rulemaking and lawkeeping as signs of holiness is embedded in popular opinion.

In fact, the religious watchdogs of the time go straight to religious authorities to complain about the spiritual mediocrity of one of the holiest men of the age, Abba Moses.

“This one,” they report, “breaks the great fast—eats with laypeople!—simply because company arrived. It’s a scandal; it’s a sin; do something about it.”

And the equally holy spiritual leaders of the time do: In public, on the Sabbath, they call Moses out to address the problem. Before the entire community of seekers, they confront Moses with his lapse of holy obedience to the rule.

And in doing so, they confirm real spirituality in the face of bogus spirituality. “Abba Moses,” they say, “you did break the commandment made by people.” (Let there be no doubt: They did understand the offense.) “But,” they go on, “you have firmly kept the commandment of God.” So much for human commands in the face of the commandments of God to love your neighbor, to be merciful, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, and to be clean of heart. The place of this story in the lexicon of the spiritual life is clear: We may not substitute the penances we do during Lent, for instance, for what we should be doing to meet the needs of the world around us. Our penances are meant to give us the spiritual and moral strength to do what needs to be done, to make life better for those who are in need around us. They are not meant to excuse us from doing it.

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bba Anthony said: “The time is coming when people will be insane, and when they see someone who is not insane, they will attack that person saying, ‘You are insane because you are not like us.’”

Never doubt for a minute that “keeping up with the Joneses” is not as much a religious phenomenon as an economic one.

Imitating the people we want to like us is a social phenomenon of major proportions. Grounded in fear or greed, it can cause whole populations to shift social behaviors the way schools of fish change direction.

Social psychologists call it “herd behavior” or the “mob mentality” and have been studying facets of it since the 19th century. No one knows better than economists the dangers of it now. And no small part of it happens in religion.

Because some people begin to predict the end of the world, other people set calendar dates for a world catastrophe and stack their backyard bunkers with supplies enough to last for years. Worse still, religious madness may well be more ingrained in social thought than other social ills. The witch burnings in the United States—the executions of women for “consorting with the devil”—completely belie the very founding ideals of the country. Suppression of religious freedom throughout the world exposes the grain of ignorance that runs through every society that claims concern about God. The attacks on churches in the Middle East, the tribal wars in Africa, the laws of exclusion that followed the great wars of religion in Europe right up to the 20th century: These are clear proof that we all have sinned. We name “difference” madness and make mad attempts to stamp out the other.

But the Desert Monastics, the most “catholic” of Catholics in an age of pristine revelation, would have none of it. Abba Anthony makes it crystal clear: Exclusion in the name of God is the very worst of religious sins. God speaks in many tongues and to every color and age of people. It is not ours to decide where God’s favor lies.

But it is ours to see as a spiritual task the obligation to come to our own opinions. We are not to buy thought cheaply. We are not to attach ourselves to someone else’s decisions like pilot fish and simply go with the crowd. We are meant to be thinking Christians.

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THE WORST RELIGIOUS SIN

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It is not ours to decide where God’s favor lies. But it is ours to see as a spiritual task the obligation to come to our own opinions. We are not to buy thought cheaply. We are not to attach ourselves to someone else’s decisions like pilot fish and simply go with the crowd. We are meant to be thinking Christians.

Religious persecution of blacks and Irish and Protestants and women and gays and Muslims, just because it is the tenor of the time, is to our eternal shame. To make these things acts of faith—which we have over time, all of us and each of us—is the greatest infidelity to our Creator God. It is the very kind of rejection that ranged against Jesus. He was a Galilean. And he had the gall to speak up for Canaanites and lepers and women and Samaritans and the poor and the stranger in the land. He refused to bow to the social pressure that comes with being “other.” So they cast him out of the pale of his religion; or, like Nicodemus, snuck in to see him only at night; or in the square called, “Crucify him, crucify him, crucify him!”

And Jesus left to all of us the obligation to speak up on issues that threaten to erode our humanity. To speak out for the innocent and oppressed. To speak on, however long it takes and whatever the pressures ranged against us. To speak up when we hear around us the strategies of those who would balance the national budget by denying the hungry food stamps, and children good education, and the unemployed and underpaid decent lives, and the strangers in the land a way to become community.

Our obligation this Lent and beyond is not to be like those who would secure themselves by making others insecure. Our obligation is to be like Jesus. And that is anything but insane.

This article is an excerpt from In God’s Holy Light: Wisdom from the Desert Monastics, by Sister Joan Chittister, OSB (Franciscan Media).

A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Pennsylvania, Sister Joan Chittister is an awardwinning author of over 50 books and has received much recognition for her work on behalf of women in the Church and society. She has received 14 Catholic Press Association awards for her books.

Visit our online store to order: Shop.FranciscanMedia.org

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Gloria prays a rosary made of Connemara marble that her husband purchased for her during a trip to Ireland in the 1990s. Prayer has provided a path through the darkness of dementia.

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PRAYING my way through DEMENTIA As she faces daily torments of forgetfulness, hallucinations, and sleeplessness, this author finds strength and peace in prayer.

Story by Gloria Hutchinson | Photography by Tony Giese

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n the day I was diagnosed, I awoke with an old Western song trudging through my head like a covered wagon on a rocky road. “I’m heading for the last roundup,” the singing cowboy mourned. No explanation presented itself. But later the point came home, loud and clear.

“I’m afraid you have probable Lewy body dementia,” the neurologist said.

Then, with a frankness most physicians would stifle, he added, “You’re in trouble.”

Lewy body dementia (LBD) is the second-most common cause of dementia behind Alzheimer’s disease, but is by far the least known. Although an estimated 1.4 million Americans have been diagnosed with LBD, it is the most misdiagnosed form of dementia, according to the Lewy Body Dementia Association. There are few current clinical trials. And many medications cause more problems than they solve.

LBD is an umbrella term for dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson’s disease with dementia. Its graceless name is the result of having been discovered by Dr. Friedrich Lewy in 1912. He recognized how tiny abnormal protein deposits in the brain affected thinking and/or movement.

If you are afflicted with LBD, you are indeed heading for the last roundup.

From the time of diagnosis, average life expectancy is 5 to 7 years, according to the Lewy Body Dementia Association. But it can range from 2 to 20, depending on factors such as health, severity of symptoms, and age. If you StAnthonyMessenger.org | March 2020 • 25

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SEEING THINGS

Good morning, my sweet Lord. I hope you don’t mind the intimacy of my address. Since we all call our loved ones by affectionate nicknames, I assume you must approve of the practice. Not to overstate my case, but I need you—now— before the disease I call “Evil Uncle Lewy” gets me down permanently! He invaded my life like a creature from the black lagoon, terrifying me with a hallucination of creepy characters crawling toward my bedroom in the middle of the night. My husband was away. I was completely alone. They kept coming toward me. I felt my heart shrink. I had no voice. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. Yet you heard me. And they withdrew.

I later learned that hallucinations, seeing things that are not there, are one of the key symptoms of LBD. They haven’t all been as disturbing as the night invaders. But the imaginary exotic insects and children hanging by their knees from tree branches are unsettling. It’s really unsettling, Lord. I know they are figments of my befogged brain. Yet I am still startled when they appear.

Please consider this a standing request: Steady me when I am seeing things. You know what I mean. I am relying on you, dear One. FORGETTING THINGS

Ever-attentive Listener, you know only too well that throughout my adult life I have secretly prided myself on my ability to earn my keep as a writer. As the first college graduate in my extended family, I was well pleased with my modest success. Uncle Lewy has made short work of that. LBD is shrinking my brain and wreaking havoc on my memory. I forget my address and phone number. I can’t remember the article I just read in the daily paper. Names escape me. I am at times unable to retain the facts on which a decision must be made.

I would complain that it is humiliating. But I sense that you would allow yourself a telegraphed smile at the mention of a virtue you personify. So yes, Lord, I will try to be more humble in accepting the limitations this disease imposes.

May I make two simple requests, which I trust you will honor? One: No matter how much damage Uncle Lewy does to my memory, I would be devastated if I forgot my husband, Dave, my primary caretaker, or our son, David, who died under tragic circumstances eight years ago. I pray for

them both daily, as you know. To forget would be a betrayal.

Two: Although it is awful to contemplate, what if, before the end, I forget you, my God? I do trust. Help, Thou, my lack of trust.

HEARING VOICES

Maternal Comforter, thank you for your unlimited patience in attending to my story. You embrace me as a mother holds her whining child on her lap, saying: “There, there, now. Tell me all about it.” No detail is too insignificant to hold your attention. Assured of your acceptance, I dare to complain of a symptom that may sound piddling. But to endure it, day after day, night after night, sometimes for hours, is becoming too much for me. My wrongly wired brain acts like a manic disc jockey who keeps playing the same requests over and over. However, the songs are never my choice. And they are sung in a metallic robotic voice that I find myself interiorly singing along with, against my will.

The playlist is a musician’s nightmare: “America the Beautiful” followed by “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” followed by “My Boyfriend’s Back” followed by “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”

Each is repeated ad infinitum. Only insistent prayer will make it stop for a time, Lord. Help me to grin and bear it. Or fire that DJ and set me free.

LOSING SLEEP

Heart Dweller, the psalmists testify that you give sleep to those who are deprived of it. As a fortunate one who slept eight to 10 hours a night until recently, I once took that gift for granted. LBD gave me reason to reform my thankless ways. Insomnia is a common symptom of Evil Uncle Lewy’s presence. And sleeping well is considered by many to be proof that all’s right in their undisturbed lives. When my 90-year-old father was asked if he had had a good night’s sleep, he invariably replied, “Of course. I’ve got a clear conscience.”

I hate to mention it, Lord, but I sometimes hate to go to bed because I know what most often comes next. First, there is the arranging and rearranging of the sheets, which are never quite right. Then come the mechanical singers who have left all their lullabies at home. Next are the leg and foot muscle cramps that grip like vises and won’t let go. Then there are the worn-out worries about the future plots Uncle Lewy has for my demise. Finally, there is the required clock watching to verify exactly how much sleep I am missing.

I hear a familiar voice that quiets me: “Be still and know that I am God!” (Ps 46:11).

I am well counseled. Thank you, who dwells in my heart.

You are my peace, whether I sleep or wake.

BREAKING DOWN

Mender of Broken Hearts, my body is beginning to betray me. My hands shake with the expected tremors. My toes curl up like aggravated turtles. I have fallen twice. When I consider the probable LBD late-stage symptoms, my brain comes to a full stop, unwilling to go any further. Who among

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PHOTO CREDIT HERE

are in your late 60s or 70s and have very good care, you may last longer, for example.

I am not younger than 80. And while I am still around, I want to share a way through the dark of dementia. In the process, I can shed some light on a disease that greatly diminishes those who have it.

The path is prayer. God is the divine physician, the first responder whenever we are in dire straits. And all of us will be embraced by a love that far surpasses whatever damage disease can inflict on us.

So here’s my story—told through the conversational prayers that have kept me sane and faithful.

PHOTO CREDIT HERE

Gloria and her husband, Dave, take in the blossoming oak trees at Sugar Mill Gardens in Port Orange, Florida, where the couple now live.

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Gloria at age 19

Suffering is something Gloria is acutely aware of, having lost her son, David (pictured above), in 2012.

I, who will seem to be lost to LBD, will be found by the one who has earned his title as Savior of the world.

An avid angler, Gloria shows off three bluefish she caught at New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

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Gloria enjoys a moment with granddaughters Jessica Danner and Kirsten Hutchinson.

HUTCHINSON FAMILY ARCHIVES (4)

—Gloria Hutchinson

1/29/20 4:06 PM

Gloria and Dave are walking through her illness together. Dave has been her primary caretaker as she faces the debilitating effects of Lewy body dementia.

us is ready to take on paralysis, inability to read or write or follow a simple conversation, garbled speech, choking on food or water, acting out with violent speech or physical attack, incontinence, and complete dependence on a caretaker? Although some people with LBD are fortunate enough to end their days at home or in hospice, many have no choice but to enter a nursing home. Help me to remember, Lord, that my own father (Alzheimer’s) and my sister Carole (multiple sclerosis) had to bear that placement. Yet I still fear that I will not be able to “age in place” or die among loved ones.

There is some comfort in the truism that not everyone experiences every symptom before death overtakes them. I’ll happily pass up any of the symptoms that evade Evil Uncle Lewy’s attention.

HUTCHINSON FAMILY ARCHIVES (4)

ARISING

My Love, my Light, my Life, do you remember when I was 16 and had a habit of walking to St. Peter’s Church in the late afternoons to pray before that larger-than-life crucifix?

It depicted you in all your beautiful dark-haired and darkeyed Jewishness, and it was impossible not to love you to death. One day I was so moved by your predicament on the cross that I had to do something. So I promised that I would

always try to hold you up in an effort to prevent your torso from hanging heavily from that cross. I pictured myself doing so through concentrated prayer, willing service, or painful self-sacrifice.

My promise even now calls me to lay down my objections to whatever LBD may do to my body and mind. It cannot destroy my soul. I, who will seem to be lost to LBD, will be found by the one who has earned his title as Savior of the world.

How fitting that this very morning, before the sun rose, I awoke in silence. No mechanized music polluted my head. Instead, a new song appeared, sung by a lovely voice.

Confident and unafraid.

“Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble. Be with me, Lord, I pray.”

Joy filled my being as I recognized that voice. The voice was mine. The voice was me. And I would rise.

Thanks be to God! To learn more about LBD, visit the website of the Lewy Body Dementia Association at www.LBDA.org. And pass it on.

Gloria Hutchinson is a freelance writer, retreat leader, and author of 14 books on prayer and spirituality. She and her husband, Dave, recently moved from Bangor, Maine, to Port Orange, Florida.

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S e h T

s t e h The prophets of p o r P Justice etty old have quite a bit G n n A

By Mary

to say about today’s problems.

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he rich are getting richer while the poor are taken advantage of, politicians are neglecting their responsibilities, priests are abusing people entrusted to their care, and children are disrespectful of their parents, who are neglected in old age.

The wicked get the best of the honorable.

Immigration restrictions are inhumane.

Nothing is getting done when the elders and leaders gather to legislate and judge.

The environment is being destroyed, and many see in its misuse the judgment of God. We’re talking, of course, about prophets’ complaints against Israel in the eighth century BC. Prophets such as Amos, Isaiah, and later Jeremiah warned that sins of social injustice were particularly loathsome in the sight of God and violated the covenant.

We all think we know what injustice looks like, but it might be harder to agree on what justice is. Social justice simply means the mutual responsibility humans have toward one another. Time and again the biblical writers remind us that God is just, but we are not. We need guidance and encouragement to follow in the way of justice, and we depend on prophets to show us the way.

The prophets’ message is hard to take for a variety of reasons. It is demanding. Human beings slip into conduct that benefits them although it may be harmful to others. We are tempted to prioritize our own needs and desires even if they are pursued at the expense of others. The prophets function as our conscience, especially when we lack one ourselves. They demand dedication and faithfulness to God. The prophets require us to persist in doing good and resisting evil; they urge us to a selflessness that we might prefer not to cultivate. Prophets are the better angels of our nature rather than the devilish voices of our selfish interests.

Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah are good examples of social justice prophets who minded God’s business above their own and paid a great personal price for doing so. They provide a model for prophets of succeeding ages who are challenged to listen to and interpret for God the way to justice in changing times.

Seek Justice for All “Let justice surge like waters,” said Amos (5:24), and he left no room for excuses from the Israelites—or from us.

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hile some prophets denounce idolatry and complain that the people neglect their obligations toward God, Amos stresses the importance of social justice as justice for all, especially the disadvantaged, the underprivileged, and the defenseless. When people come to worship, seeking some refuge and comfort in their religion, Amos meets them there and instead discomfits them. It is a time of relative prosperity, but the prophet brings threats of fire and brimstone. The Israelites claim to be eagerly awaiting the coming day of the Lord, hoping that divine retribution will come down hard on their enemy, Assyria, which has caused Israel so much suffering. But Amos informs them that it will be a day of judgment, fire, darkness, pestilence—a day of terror and regret.

Amos’ oracle against the Israelites is perhaps the most fearsome, including many reasons for God’s judgment against them and excluding every conceivable human excuse for their bad behavior. In chapter 2, he charges that “they hand over the just for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals.

They trample the heads of the destitute into the dust of the earth, and force the lowly out of the way.” Amos accuses Israel’s prophets of speaking falsely to curry favor and calls out religious leaders for corruption.

He warns that neither the strong nor the swift nor the warrior will elude God’s judgment. Worst of all is the hypocrisy of the religious-minded people who ask when a religious feast will be over so they can return to their cheating ways that fix the scales for injustice and trade on the dignity of the disadvantaged for their own profit (8:4–6). Business, political, and religious leaders of Israel are all indicted.

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Say No to Selfishness The prophet Isaiah warned the people of Judah to place their trust in God rather than in transient rulers. His words remain relevant for us today.

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mos was not alone in his complaints. The author of Isaiah 1—39, known as First Isaiah, was a near contemporary of Amos. The northern kingdom collapsed under Assyria’s oppression during the second half of the eighth century. According to First Isaiah, sometimes called the “Book of Judgment,” Isaiah tries every trick imaginable to attract the people’s attention—from shaming them to kindly inviting them to live their high calling as God’s own people. As if to start all over, God says through Isaiah, “Come now, let us set things right” (1:18).

Judah, the southern kingdom, places its hopes in foreign powers, even when those powers threaten and subdue their brothers to the north. Isaiah shows them how wrong they are to trust in transient powers to protect them. To themselves they say “in arrogance and pride of heart, ‘Bricks have fallen, but we will build with cut stone; sycamores have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars’” (9:8–9). Isaiah mocks them, noting that even animals recognize their creator (“An ox knows its owner, and an ass, its master’s manger,” 1:3), but the people do not know God. They oppress one another and their neighbors. The child defies his or her elders, and the wicked show up the honorable (3:5). God despises feasts and sacrifices when people say they believe, yet have no trust in God. The people might think they have the right to do as they wish, but in pursuit of selfish gains they are hurting those they should protect. Those who govern are indicted by the prophet in especially harsh language as “those who enact unjust statutes and who write oppressive decrees, depriving the needy of judgment and robbing my people’s poor of their rights, making widows their plunder, and orphans their prey.”

Rhetorically, Isaiah asks: “What will you do on the day of punishment? . . . To whom will you flee for help?”

(10:1–3). The selfish pursuits of the powerful are contrasted with the peaceful rule of Immanuel upon whom the spirit of the Lord rests (11:1–9).

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creation: “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel! The one who forms mountains and creates winds, and declares to mortals their thoughts; who makes dawn into darkness and strides upon the heights of the earth, the Lord, the God of hosts” (4:12–13) will appear on that day.

The judges are also corrupt, Amos protests. The odd leader who seeks justice and truth is mocked and threatened. Elders gather and govern at the city gates, but the poor cannot expect justice from them. Amos says: “Woe to those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground. . . . Therefore, because you tax the destitute and exact from them levies of grain” (5:7, 11), he tells them that they may build houses of stone but will not live in them, and they may plant vineyards but shall not drink their wine. How ironic that Amos should add, “Woe to those who yearn for the day of the Lord!” (5:18).

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Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, falsely accuses Amos of plotting to kill the king and denounces him, saying: “Off with you, seer, flee to the land of Judah and there earn your bread by prophesying! But never again prophesy in Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple” (7:10–13).

Amos charges rich merchants with gaining their wealth on the backs of the disadvantaged: “They do not know how to do what is right—oracle of the Lord—storing up in their strongholds violence and destruction” (3:10).

The natural environment also plays a role in Amos’ indictment of Israel. Famine, floods, and drought have been visited upon the people to get their attention, “yet you did not return to me—oracle of the Lord” (4:6–11). No disaster seems to motivate them to change their ways. The people are not fazed by blight or searing wind, locusts, pestilence, or sword. Thus the prophet relays the lament of the God of all

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Jeremiah grieves over his people’s suffering and repeats to God some 20 times his complaint, “They do not listen,” before he is proven right when the people he has loved so well put him to death. Jeremiah endures loneliness and alienation for his prophecy, but not in silence. He is told by God not to marry or have a family (16:2). He more than once curses the day he was born (15:10; 20:14) and laments becoming the object of ridicule and scorn (20:7–18).

Jeremiah is truly a spokesman for those who have no voice, a dedicated witness, a martyr to justice for all.

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Reform Your Lives Jeremiah served as the people’s conscience in Judah—as well as in the present—boldly speaking out against complacency and willfulness.

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ike Isaiah, Jeremiah invites hope when he offers the chance for a new beginning, a New Covenant (31:31– 34), written on our hearts. Jeremiah tries in vain to dislodge Judah’s stubborn complacency. But the repercussions of their sins catch up with the people of Judah who fail, time and again, to interpret the handwriting on the wall.

Jeremiah prods the people’s conscience when they otherwise hope to enjoy the comforts of the day. Just when they are justifying their own complacency, figuring they are safe from the threat of Assyria, Jeremiah throws water on their false hopes. He tells the people that “only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds; if each of you deals justly with your neighbor; if you no longer oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow; if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place,” will God remain with them and will they be able to live freely and peaceably “in the land I gave your ancestors long ago and forever” (7:5–7).

In chapter 7, the prophet challenges: “But look at you!

You put your trust in deceptive words to your own loss! Do you think you can steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury . . . and then come and stand in my presence in this house, which bears my name, and say: ‘We are safe! We can commit all these abominations again!’?” Jeremiah urges them to abandon their hopes in mindlessly repeating, “This is the temple of the Lord!” instead of reforming their ways and doing justice for the disadvantaged.

e may have evolved in many other ways, but we do not listen to prophetic voices any better now than people did some 28 centuries ago when Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah spoke. The prophets’ words are deliberately uncomfortable, and we feel vindicated for rejecting them. Yet God invites us to partnership in an ever new creation, saying to us in each generation, “You will be my people, and I will be your God” (Ez 36:28). This is the pact that was sealed by the Exodus experience when God, in effect, said to the people, “I freed you; now you free others.”

But how can I free others? I can take time to listen, really listen. I can comfort the frightened and give hope to the despairing. I can visit the sick. I can volunteer to drive an elderly relative or neighbor to doctors’ appointments and free them of the concern for getting there.

I can be patient and wait—and that is freeing to me too. I can see the problems of my diocese and parish as challenges to make my faith more active and a better example for others. I can be a more responsible steward of the environment and use its resources reverently. That will free future generations to enjoy nature, too, as I have done.

These actions are small steps toward social justice that can be translated into powerful examples in the service of the Gospel this Lent.

God’s expectations for us remain constant. We are called to live up to the covenant. Sometimes we neglect our responsibilities, relax our vigilance, and become comfortable with the idea of getting ahead at the expense of others. Along comes a prophet to remind us that injustice toward our neighbor or even our enemy—or toward the poor, the alien, the disenfranchised, the widow and orphan, the elderly, the young child, the unborn, the defenseless—is completely unacceptable. There will be grave consequences for taking advantage of others, especially those weaker than ourselves.

The prophets’ message on social justice is nothing new, yet somehow it never gets old. We need to hear it in contemporary language, but the meaning remains the same. Today, at last, we might be ready to hear.

Mary Ann Getty is retired after teaching Scripture full-time for over 40 years.

A popular lecturer and writer on Scripture topics, she makes her home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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By Daniel Imwalle

ST. PATRICK’S D It’s a feast day rooted in faith and cultural identity. How the Irish celebrate their patron saint sheds light on the meaning behind the festivities.

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hen you think of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, shamrocks, parades, rivers dyed green, and pints of Guinness might be some of the images that come to mind. But what’s behind all the rich symbolism and cultural pride on display?

Taking a look at how the Irish celebrate the feast day of their country’s patron saint sheds light on the history and significance of this popular holiday.

Many know St. Patrick as the saint who, according to legend, drove all the snakes out of Ireland and who is credited with having baptized thousands of people there in the fifth century. But some might be surprised to learn that he wasn’t actually Irish, but rather from Britain. According to his autobiographical Confession, Patrick was kidnapped by Irish pirates when he was 16, taken to Ireland, and forced into slavery for six years. After fleeing his captors and returning to Britain, he converted to Christianity and eventually became a priest. In a vision, the Irish people cried out to him: “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.” And walk he did, traveling around much of the island, converting people from paganism. According to legend, he used the shamrock— or three-leaf clover—to explain the notion of the Holy Trinity to Irish pagans.

After becoming a bishop, St. Patrick also ordained many priests, quickening the spread of Christianity across the land.

It’s widely held that St. Patrick died on March 17, which is why we celebrate his feast day then. His exact birthdate and birthplace are still a mystery. An Irish Franciscan priest from the 1600s, Father Luke Wadding, OFM, made strides to have St. Patrick’s feast day established. In an ironic twist that pairs nicely with the wit of Irish humor, the feast day would eventually become celebrated as a badge of pride for those with Irish heritage living abroad, first and foremost in the United States.

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ROBBIE REYNOLDS

The notion of a St. Patrick’s Day parade first came about in the 1700s in the United States, with some of the gatherings predating the Revolutionary War. Cities such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia hosted some of the first parades, but the celebration caught on quickly among Irish immigrants across the country and beyond.

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A WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON

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LEFT TO RIGHT: Erin Kirby, Lesancia Mohamed, Aoife Kenny, Eve Kirby, and Saoirse Kenny are literally jumping for joy during St. Patrick’s Day festivities in Dublin, Ireland. All five wear traditional attire—including solo dresses and soft shoes called ghillies—associated with Irish stepdance, a style of dance with origins that predate the introduction of Christianity to Ireland. It is typically performed at competitions, Gaelic arts and culture festivals, and St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Today, St. Patrick’s Day parades and festivities can be found in Australia, Latin America, and parts of Asia—basically, as far as the Irish diaspora has reached. On March 17, 2011, Irish American astronaut Catherine Coleman played traditional Celtic tunes on a flute while floating weightlessly in the International Space Station. In Ireland, the first state-sponsored St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin took place in 1931, well after annual parades were established in the United States and Canada.

In fact, St. Patrick’s Day is a relatively quiet day for many in Ireland to attend Mass, spend time with family, and enjoy a traditional meal together—something more akin to

Thanksgiving, with the added dimension of faith. Still, the sense of national pride is becoming more and more a part of the celebration, and people from around the world visit on this happy, holy day to partake in the festivities.

St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland is a celebration that finds itself at the crossroads of faith and culture. Both a national holiday and a holy day of obligation, it’s a feast day grounded in tradition but enlivened by a sense of the growing global reach and influence of those with Irish heritage.

Like millions of Americans, Daniel Imwalle has Irish heritage—a source of cultural pride and identity. He is the managing editor of this publication.

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THIS PAGE, TOP: A statue of St. Patrick, with his iconic shepherd’s staff, stands in a place in Ireland called the Hill of Tara. This location is one of pre-Christian significance, as it was a place where Irish pagan kings were inaugurated and seated. The shepherd’s staff has twofold significance. First, it refers to his time enslaved by Irish pirates, when he was forced into labor, eventually becoming a shepherd. The second layer of meaning to the staff is that, after returning to Ireland as a missionary, St. Patrick shepherded thousands to the Christian faith.

THIS PAGE, BOTTOM: The Custom House—one of Dublin’s most famous buildings—is bathed in green light on St. Patrick’s Day. The neoclassical structure was built in the late 18th century and currently houses local government offices.

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP: More than 1,500 years after the time of St. Patrick, a procession in Dublin on the famous saint’s feast day incorporates banners, colors, and symbols rooted in Irish culture, as well as signs of the Christian faith—such as the cross.

OPPOSITE PAGE, BOTTOM: The Timoleague Franciscan Friary, located in County Cork, has a number of Celtic high crosses that mark graves in its cemetery. The spirit of St. Patrick is profoundly felt across Ireland, as evidenced by the numerous Celtic crosses and other symbols associated with the saint found throughout the land.

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TOP LEFT: MANUEL VELASCO; TOP RIGHT: JULIEN BEHAL; LOWER LEFT: CEZZAR1981; LOWER RIGHT: MOF

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THIS PAGE, TOP: Following a special prayer service that honored the memories of the victims of the 2019 New Zealand mosque shootings—which had happened just two days before—Archbishop Diarmuid Martin celebrated Mass on St. Patrick’s Day at Dublin’s St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral. The Mass began with the annual blessing of shamrocks.

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THIS PAGE, BOTTOM: The Well of St. Patrick at Ballintubber Abbey marks the spot where the saint performed Baptisms in 441.

According to legend, there is an impression of St. Patrick’s knee on a stone next to the well.

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP: Resplendent stained glass windows depicting biblical figures and scenes provide a dramatic backdrop to the altar in the Lady Chapel, located in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, which is administered by the Church of Ireland. The veneration of St. Patrick extends beyond the Catholic Church and includes the Anglican, Lutheran, and Orthodox churches.

OPPOSITE PAGE, BOTTOM LEFT: Crowds gather for St. Patrick’s Day festivities and food—such as the famous baskets of fish and chips—on the street outside Dublin’s Christ Church, a beautiful Gothic church that dates back nearly 1,000 years.

OPPOSITE PAGE, BOTTOM RIGHT: At the Irish National Heritage Park in County Wexford, a striking replica of a Celtic cross depicts biblical figures. Legend has it that St. Patrick introduced the cross to the Irish people by combining the symbol of Christian identity with an image they would understand—the pagan sun cross.

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JULIEN BEHAL (5)

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BOTH PAGES: Paraders from all over Ireland and beyond show their love and respect for Irish culture against the historic backdrop of Dublin’s city streets.

THIS PAGE, TOP: Dancers sporting vibrant colors wear necklaces with traditional Irish symbols, such as Celtic crosses and knots.

THIS PAGE, MIDDLE: A marching band from Canada—a nation with about 5 million people with Irish heritage—joins in the festivities.

THIS PAGE, BOTTOM: A woman wears a headdress with an elaborate snakeskin pattern—a nod to the snakes (a symbol for paganism) that legend says St. Patrick drove out of Ireland over 1,500 years ago.

JULIEN BEHAL (5)

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP: The culmination of a five-day festival, Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Day parade is a high honor to participate in and quite a spectacle to behold.

Though the concept of a parade on this day may seem like a given to Americans, it’s a rather new element of celebrations in Ireland.

And you won’t be finding much green beer in pubs across the Emerald Isle, for this is the land where Guinness is king—served cool, but not cold, as the brewer recommends.

OPPOSITE PAGE, BOTTOM: A woman at the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day parade wears eyelashes patterned with the colors of the Irish flag. The green represents Catholics, the orange stands for Irish Protestants, and the white signifies the promise and hope for peace between the two. The sad history of violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland stretches back centuries, but significant strides toward harmony have been made in the past 30 years.

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E-LEARNING/ONLINE

By Mary Catherine Kozusko

You Are What You Think DailyOM.com

If you prefer, this imaginary place could be outdoors. You can add as many elements as you like and in any combination: a waterfall, babbling brook, mountain vistas, dense redwood forest—all within arm’s reach of a sandy beach. You may imagine yourself lounging in a comfortable hammock high up in a tree, a soft breeze carrying with it the scent of gardenia. The lesson calls for unbridled creative thinking, so don’t hold back.

This e-course is structured in such a way that each new lesson builds excitement and preparation for the next. It’s not recommended to work ahead, because it takes time to let the lessons soak in. Midway through, you may—as I did—notice a slight but positive change in yourself. The negative thoughts may still come, but they don’t have the power they once did. You may start getting better sleep and feel as if a weight is slowly being lifted. As you go through each lesson, you almost get the sense that the whole course was written just for you. However, the fact that so many people go to DailyOM for courses such as this one brings home the realization that we’re not alone in our struggles.

This e-course can do wonders for those seeking to quiet the negative chatter in their minds. A few months after completing this e-course, I find myself still enjoying the room that I built. The best part is that it’s never far, and it just gets better every time I go.

ICONS

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ectic work schedules, never-ending chores, and busy family lives have left many scrambling for shelter from what seems like a perpetual storm of stress. Fortunately, as a reaction to our society’s ratcheting up of the intensity of daily life, resources—many of which are online and free—are rapidly emerging to help keep us grounded.

DailyOM, one of the most popular digital self-help tools, was founded in 2004 with the goal of promoting well-being and balance for anyone stretched too thin with stress. Once you sign up, you receive free daily reflections via e-mail that cover a wide variety of topics—including meditation, relationship advice, and home and gardening tips.

Along with the free features, DailyOM offers e-courses that allow users to select an amount that they’re willing to pay ($15, $35, or $50). I selected a topic that many of us struggle with: negative thinking. The eight-week course, titled “You Are What You Think,” is presented by Eric Maisel, PhD, a retired family therapist, best-selling author, and expert on harnessing the power of creativity. Maisel utilizes cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to reframe unhealthy ways of thinking and change negative feedback loops into positive ones. When I saw the title and read through the description, I thought I might be in over my head. But this course was like a divine intervention for me.

The first week starts out by explaining how and why our thoughts are so powerful and the effect they can have on our daily lives, long-term health, and interactions with others. The course puts forth the challenge to imagine the most relaxing, positive room possible, with no limitations on budget, square footage, or location. Maisel frames this sacred space as somewhere you can go anytime you need to and for whatever reason. With a place this tranquil, why would anyone want to bring in any unwanted negativity? I thought.

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E-LEARNING/ONLINE

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By Daniel Imwalle

An Online Community for Catholic Women, by Catholic Women

PRACTICAL TIPS ON STUDENT LOAN DEBT

BlessedIsShe.net

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t first, it felt a bit odd, as a Catholic male, to review a digital resource for Catholic women. To be honest, it felt a little invasive to glimpse into their lives, their joys and struggles, and come back with a reaction that would do justice to the excellent, life-affirming content on this website that didn’t come across as, for lack of a better term, “mansplaining.” However, within a few moments of scrolling through the homepage of BlessedIsShe.net, I knew I was in a warm, inclusive virtual space that is geared toward spiritual nourishment and empowerment. For women? Absolutely. Can men gain something by visiting this popular website? Also absolutely.

On the About page on the website, visitors encounter these words: “You’ve come so far, sister. We are here to continue the journey with you. It can be hard to find the time to renew your faith and inspire your spirit. As a busy woman, you’re probably used to being pulled in 3,000 directions. . . . You want community that understands you and what you’re facing. You want to strengthen your spirituality—and you want to have the tools to live passionately—every single day.

Welcome to Blessed Is She.” There is an immediate awareness and recognition that Catholic women come from all walks of life, full of stories worth sharing, and in need of connection.

This felt need is met by Blessed Is She by way of free, daily Scripture devotionals sent to subscribers via e-mail. A quick but impactful reflection follows the Scripture passages that always finds a way to tie in to challenges women face in their lives—from marital relationships to fertility to achieving a work-life balance.

But this is only a foot in the door of what Blessed Is She has to offer. Founded in 2014 by Jenna Guizar—a Catholic wife and mother passionate about women’s ministry—the site now has 40 dedicated contributors, an expansive social media presence, and a list of over 60,000 subscribers to its daily e-mails.

Along with the Scripture devotionals, the website features a blog that expands on the themes touched upon in the daily e-mails, workshops that take a deep dive into a wide variety of topics, and, perhaps most important, a place for like-minded Catholic women to share their joy, pain, doubt, and wisdom as they step forward on their paths of faith.

he blog section of Blessed Is She is a treasure trove of spiritual resources and insights into a wide variety of topics. A recent entry titled “Student Loan Debt + Working in Ministry” would likely catch the attention of many millennial visitors—or their parents. In it, author Amanda Zurface walks readers through her experience of dealing with crippling debt after studying at a Catholic university. She relates her struggle with guilt for having chosen a field of study that may not quickly translate into a profitable career (canon law) and even prays to Mary, Undoer of Knots, to help her see clearly the path forward.

Zurface provides some practical tips for those facing similar financial hurdles, including reaching out to one’s parish community for help, getting a second job, and allowing oneself the time to discern a career path. She encourages readers who have paid off their student loans to consider how they might help others still mired in debt. Rounding out her short but impactful entry, Zurface ends with a list of additional resources on this timely topic.

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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

about

FILMS

WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT

Queen of Katwe Hidden Figures Erin Brockovich Wild Moana

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WANT MORE? Visit our website: StAnthonyMessenger.org

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n August 2015, Fox newscaster Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) becomes ill as she prepares to moderate the Republican debate.

Fox News CEO Roger Ailes (John Lithgow), who favors conspiracy theories, thinks she may have been poisoned. Kelly is criticized after asking then-candidate Donald J. Trump about his past sexist remarks and if a man of his temperament should be elected president.

He begins to tweet insulting remarks about her—and others follow suit. Fox hires security for Kelly after a photographer trespasses and takes a photo of her children at home.

Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) loses her position as cohost of Fox and Friends in 2013. She’s given her own daytime show, but ratings are low. After being fired by Fox in 2016, she files a sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes. Her lawyers inform her of how difficult this will be because of the combined power of Fox and Ailes, but Carlson persists.

She is certain that others will come forward to support her lawsuit, but they do not—at first.

Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie) is a young, ambitious new hire at Fox who wants her own show. When she visits Ailes in his office, he asks her to show her loyalty by pulling up her skirt. Pospisil is mortified, outraged, and confused, her hopes suddenly clouded.

Carlson’s lawsuit goes public. Almost

everyone at Fox News supports Ailes, while Kelly is surprisingly silent. When she refuses to speak up for Ailes and shares her own story with colleagues, the scene is set for the bombshell revelations of Carlson’s lawsuit and the consequences that follow.

Written by Charles Randolph and directed

by Jay Roach, Bombshell is not an easy film to watch. To see these women continually humiliated, demeaned, and harassed—both on-air and in private—is disgusting. However, the film is important for two reasons. In the context of the #MeToo movement in American culture, this is both a warning shot about male privilege and encouragement for women to speak up about respect and equity in the workplace. Bombshell gives insight into how the reporters and “entertainers” of Fox News seek to influence their audience by choosing stories that instill fear and elicit outrage.

The performances in the film are spot-on, especially Theron as Kelly. At times I didn’t know if I was watching—and hearing—the actor or Kelly herself. Robbie, also excellent, plays a character composite of several women who work or worked at Fox News.

L, R • Sexual situations, sexual harassment, some language.

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JOJO RABBIT: EPK.TV/LARRY HORRICKS, TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION; INSET: COURTESY OF FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES (2); I STILL BELIEVE: KINGDOM STUDIOS: TOP: JASON LAVERIS; LOWER LEFT AND RIGHT: MICHAEL KUBEISY

Sister Rose’s FAVORITE

BOMBSHELL

LEFT: COURTESY SISTER ROSE PACATTE, FSP/MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS; BOMBSHELL: EPK.TV/HILARY B. GAYLE (2)

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.

JOJO RABBIT

JOJO RABBIT: EPK.TV/LARRY HORRICKS, TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION; INSET: COURTESY OF FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES (2); I STILL BELIEVE: KINGDOM STUDIOS: TOP: JASON LAVERIS; LOWER LEFT AND RIGHT: MICHAEL KUBEISY

LEFT: COURTESY SISTER ROSE PACATTE, FSP/MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS; BOMBSHELL: EPK.TV/HILARY B. GAYLE (2)

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he film opens toward the end of World War II. We are introduced to a group of Hitler Youth in training, led by Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell) and Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson). Among the children, 10-year-old Johannes “JoJo” Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) stands out for his nationalistic fervor and enthusiasm. When he refuses to kill a rabbit, however, he is mocked and called “JoJo Rabbit” by his peers. To show he is brave, he throws a hand grenade that bounces off a tree and explodes in front of him, leaving his face scarred. No longer in training, his new job is distributing Nazi leaflets.

JoJo misses his father, whom he believes is fighting in Italy. He gets angry at his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), when he discovers she is hiding a Jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), in their house. When JoJo is overwhelmed, he takes refuge with his imaginary friend, an absurd and stupid Adolf Hitler (played by writer-director Taika Waititi), who promotes hatred of the Jews to the boy.

I didn’t expect to like JoJo Rabbit, for the idea of making light of Hitler, the Nazis, and anti-Semitism is wrong. However, Waititi’s film is very much an antihate satire. Rosie allows JoJo to participate in the Hitler Youth because it is a way to keep him safe while she undermines German aggression in secret. As JoJo and Elsa become friends, the boy stops repeating the anti-Semitic insults he has learned and watches out for her. Finally, when the Russians enter the town at the end of the war, some of the characters who seemed one-dimensional now show they are capable of being authentically human.

This affecting dramedy is based on the 2008 novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens. The performances are stellar. Sam Rockwell, as usual, is superb as the idiotic, would-be Nazi captain in charge of training children.

A-3, PG-13 • Racism, violence, peril.

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

I STILL BELIEVE

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t is 1999, and the musically gifted Jeremy (K.J. Apa) leaves home in Indiana for a Christian college in California. His father, Tom (Gary Sinise), gives him a guitar that he treasures. Once at school, Jeremy begins to perform and notices Melissa (Britt Robertson) in the audience. They meet and are immediately attracted to one another. At first hesitant, Melissa finally agrees to keep company with Jeremy.

Two years later, they are very much in love. Jeremy intends to propose, but his father thinks they are too young. But when Melissa is diagnosed with cancer, they marry.

This biopic of the real-life romance between the future contemporary Christian singer Jeremy Camp and the strong and good Melissa Henning is very touching. Apa, who does his own singing, is excellent, as is Robertson.

Directed by Andrew and Jon Erwin, the film lingers too long on Jeremy’s grief, but it offers a way to talk about illness, suffering, and death for young people.

The film is based on Jeremy Camp’s memoir I Still Believe.

Not yet rated, PG • Dying, death.

Source: USCCB.org/movies

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POINTSOFVIEW | FAITH & FAMILY

By Susan Hines-Brigger

Room at the Table

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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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A PERSONAL PURCHASE

So, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I have quite an affinity for tables and what they mean. I think maybe my Catholic faith might have something to do with that. We do, after all, gather around the altar/table together every week.

That is why I was so excited earlier this year when Mark and I purchased a big farmhouse table for our kitchen. It’s one of those tables you often see in magazine spreads that seem to go on and on. The kind that you can decorate, but still have room for plates and actual food. I’ve wanted one for years.

Truth be told, though, our decision to finally get one now seems a bit strange. That is because our children are growing up.

Suddenly, our dinners of six are often down to four with the oldest two gone most nights at their jobs.

On those nights, Mark and I sit with our two youngest at one end of the table. These days, the other end is more often cluttered with papers or a puzzle than with people, but it’s there, just in case we ever need the extra room.

A BIGGER MEANING

Unfortunately, though, there are some tables—family tables, conference tables, or altars—where people are not welcome. The reasons can be vast and varied. Sometimes it’s because of the way a person may look or what he or she believes. It can be a broken relationship or, thanks to these contentious times, differing views on a wide variety of topics.

Whatever the reason, people step away from the table and by doing so leave a void.

Imagine, though, how we would react as parents if we discovered that one of our children didn’t allow a classmate or friend to sit with him or her at lunch. Or that they stood by as someone ate alone. Certainly we would have something to say about it and would remind them of Christ’s example to welcome all to the table.

Yes, tables are important—no matter the size or shape. What matters most is the function, which is to gather people together in one common place. There should always be more room at the table. It’s what I was taught and what I hope I have taught my kids.

So I say to our family and friends: “Come on in and take a seat. We’ve got a nice, long table—with lots of extra seats—just waiting for you.”

46 • March 2020 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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TOP RIGHT: SAILORLUN/ISTOCK; 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: PRAIRIEPICS/ISTOCK

Susan Hines-Brigger

any people say the kitchen is the heart of the home. I completely agree with that statement. But I would take it even a step further and say that the table, which often resides in the kitchen, is the true heart of the home. I believe that because, if you stop and really think about it, you will see that tables play a pretty big part in our lives. I mean, do you remember what a big deal it was to move from the kids’ table at family functions to the grown-ups’ table?

Tables are where we gather with family and friends to share food and conversation. They can serve as a hub for family activities, such as homework, games, or crafts.

For my family, the kitchen table is very important, and that’s been deliberate. From the earliest days of our marriage, my husband, Mark, and I have always agreed that we wanted to try to eat family dinners at the table as often as possible. And over the years we have done our best to sit down for dinner together at our table. As the kids grew, our “no phones allowed at the table” policy reinforced that this was a special place that deserved their respect.

It’s the place where we discuss things, argue about things, and learn things from and about each other.

B

LIGHTENUp!

brainteasers | games | challenges

COLOR SOME IRISH LUCK

TRIVIA QUESTIONS 1: True or false: St. Patrick was from Ireland.

2: When did the first St. Patrick’s Day parade happen in Dublin, Ireland?

3: In which modern-day country did the Desert Monastics live?

4: How many Americans have been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia?

5: In which island nation is the soup kitchen operated by Father Marcellino Micallef, OFM, and his fellow friars located?

6: Whom does Charlize Theron portray in the film Bombshell?

FUN FACT: St. Patrick used the three-leaf clover to explain the Trinity to pagans converting to Christianity.

The four-leaf clover is a mutation of the three-leaf version, considered to be lucky because of its rarity. It is estimated that you may find just one four-leaf clover in a patch of 10,000 three-leaf clovers.

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

TOP RIGHT: SAILORLUN/ISTOCK; 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) The knot on the tree has changed shape. 2) There are more shoelaces on Sis’ right shoe. 3) The cloud now appears above the branch. 4) A button has been added to Sis’ sleeve. 5) A leaf is now bigger. 6) Part of a fencepost behind Sis is missing. 7) More of the base of the tree is visible. 8) A flower is missing a petal.

TOP LEFT: MC KOZUSKO/SAM; TOP RIGHT: PRAIRIEPICS/ISTOCK

PETE&REPEAT

StAnthonyMessenger.org | March 2020 • 47

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reflection

“Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.”

VIDOK/ISTOCK

—Virgil A. Kraft

48 • March 2020 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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Leave a Legacy that Reflects Your Values

Leave a legacy of mercy, compassion, and care for the poor through a bequest to our friars.

For more information about including a gift in your will, call 513-721-4700, ext. 3219.

You are the heart of our ministry.

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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28 W. Liberty Street Cincinnati, OH 45202-6498

From the Heart Rosary Bracelet

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Measures 8 inches.

The From the Heart Rosary Bracelet will be sent to you in gratitude for your gift of $10 or more. Your donation will support the ministries of the Missionary Oblates as we serve poor and needy people in our missions around the world.

Fr. David P. Uribe, O.M.I. Oblate Chaplain Director

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