St. Anthony Messenger September 2019

Sharing the spirit of St. Francis with the world V O L . 1 2 7 / N O . 4 • SEPTEMBER 2019

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Faith Unpacked with David Dault, PhD page 14

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VOL. 127 NO. 4

2019 SEPTEMBER

ABOVE: PHOTO COURTESY LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO/NATALIE BATTAGLIA; COVER: PHOTO COURTESY MOUNT ST. JOSEPH UNIVERSITY

Loyola student Chelsea Metivier helps to repair a home over her break while staying at Jerusalem Farm in Kansas City, Missouri, as part of Loyola’s Alternative Break Immersion. While at Jerusalem Farm, an “intentional community,” students engage in community service, prayer, and cooking healthy meals.

22 A Higher Education

COVER STORY

By Elizabeth Bookser Barkley, PhD

Catholic colleges that are rooted in mission draw students who want to put their faith into action while they learn.

18 When Someone You Love Loses Faith

By Caroline Rock

The younger generations are drifting from the Church.

What can we do to reach them?

32 Reconnect Brooklyn:

A Second Chance for At-Risk Youth

By Beth Griffin

This New York neighborhood, formerly a place of drugs and crime, is making a comeback. Father Jim O’Shea’s entrepreneurial movement has been instrumental in its recovery.

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COVER: During Welcome Week at Mount St. Joseph University, incoming freshman receive a warm reception from upperclassmen, faculty, and staff.

37 The Gift of Grandparenting

By Kathy Coffey

In the face of packed family schedules, technology overload, and a mobile society, grandparents have much to offer. This author describes creative ways grandparents can bring enduring light into the lives of their grandchildren.

42 Finding Beauty While Letting Go

By Trudelle Thomas; photography by Mary Catherine Kozusko

When confronted with her husband’s death, this woman turned to art journaling for comfort.

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VOL. 127 NO. 4

“Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us.”

2019 SEPTEMBER

—St. Francis of Assisi

12 SPIRIT OF ST. FRANCIS 10 Ask a Franciscan

Why Does a Baptized Person Need the RCIA?

POINTS OF VIEW 5

Your Voice

Letters from Readers

12 Franciscan World

14 Faith Unpacked

12 St. Anthony Stories

15 At Home on Earth

13 Followers of St. Francis

16 Editorial

Franciscans International Turns 30

St. Anthony and the Missing Medal

Father Jobe Abbass, OFM Conv

15

An Ongoing Injustice

The Paradox of Soil

Notre Dame Fire Shows Faith amid the Ashes

54 Faith & Family

Continuing Education

Price

❏

Logo & Address

48 MEDIA MATTERS ❏

Job Code

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

❏

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Tracking Code

48 ❏ Reel Time

The Lion King

Yellow Snipe

50 ❏ Channel Surfing

Shipping Service

Adios Amor: The Search for Maria Moreno

❏

51 Audio File Western Stars

52 Bookshelf

Symbol or Substance?

4 6 55 55 56

54

Dear Reader Church in the News Pete & Repeat Lighten Up! Reflection

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dear reader

ST. ANTHONY

MESSENGER

Thank a Teacher

H

ave you ever had that one teacher who had such a positive impact that you carried the lessons from her or him forward for years to come? I certainly did. That teacher was Elizabeth Bookser Barkley, author of our cover story on Catholic colleges on page 22 of this issue. In her classes at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio, I learned the best practices for interviewing and how to craft a good story out of those interviews. She also helped me hone my skills in editing and tune in to the mental aspects of what it means to be a writer.

Ironically, she also taught my fellow executive editor, Christopher Heffron, so she must be doing something right.

That is why we both knew she would be the perfect fit to write about the benefits of a Catholic college education. She has seen it firsthand, in addition to being a key part of providing such an environment for students.

As many students head back to school this month, we say “thank you” to all those teachers who work tirelessly and have made an impact on the lives of so many students. They are helping to shape our future.

PUBLISHER

Daniel Kroger, OFM PRESIDENT

Kelly McCracken EXECUTIVE EDITORS

Christopher Heffron Susan Hines-Brigger

FRANCISCAN EDITOR

Pat McCloskey, OFM ART DIRECTOR

Mary Catherine Kozusko DESIGN INTERN

Jessica Coors

MANAGING EDITOR

Daniel Imwalle

Susan Hines-Brigger, Executive Editor

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Sandy Howison

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Sharon Lape

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE ADVERTISING GREGORY A. SHEMITZ

Graham Galloway

ELIZABETH BOOKSER BARKLEY, PHD writer

A Higher Education

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Kingery Printing Co. Effingham, IL

BETH GRIFFIN writer

Reconnect Brooklyn

photographer

PAGE 32

Finding Beauty While Letting Go

Beth Griffin is an awardwinning freelance journalist based in Rye, New York. She is the New York correspondent for Catholic News Service and has worked in communications and media relations for Catholic Relief Services and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. She is a master at taking complex material and making it reader friendly, the mark of a true writer.

PAGE 42

PAGE 22

Dr. Elizabeth Bookser Barkley is a professor of English and chair of the Department of Liberal Arts at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she teaches courses in literature and writing. She is also the author of four books, including Life After Death: Practical Help for the Widowed (Franciscan Media), as well as numerous feature articles.

She is the mother of three daughters and grandmother of six.

MARY CATHERINE KOZUSKO

Mary Catherine “MC” Kozusko is the art director for this magazine, while also working on numerous other design projects for Franciscan Media.

Her extensive knowledge in conceptualized design, layout, and production helps get the issue to you looking good and on time. She is the beloved “mom” to Quinn, a malamute mix who keeps her company in the office.

ST. ANTHONY MESSENGER (ISSN #0036276X) (U.S.P.S. PUBLICATION #007956 CANADA PUBLICATION #PM40036350) Volume 127, Number 4, is published monthly 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.

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POINTSOFVIEW | YOUR VOICE A Disease’s Dark History I’m writing in regard to the excerpt from Sisterhood of Saints: Daily Guidance and Inspiration, by Melanie Rigney, which appeared in St. Anthony Messenger’s July issue.

In it, it was noted that St. Kateri Tekakwitha had been afflicted with smallpox, although she died at 24 of tuberculosis. How did smallpox manifest itself when it was nonexistent among Native American tribes prior to the arrival of Europeans?

Historical research reveals that the disease was brought to the New World by European colonists, including the British. The spread of the disease was not all pure accident, and some colonists and military leaders knew it could be used as a biological weapon. During the French and Indian War, Major William Trent wrote the following journal entry: “Out of our regard to them [Native Americans], we gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect.”

Louis H. Pumphrey, Shaker Heights, Ohio

Catching Up on Summer Reading I was glad to see a short fiction story in the July issue (“A Greater Peace,” written by Terry Sanville and illustrated by James Balkovek).

Then I noticed a letter in the “Your Voice” column (“Welcome Back, Fiction,” by Frank Jefferson) that expressed gratitude for the inclusion of a fiction story in the May issue.

I must be behind in my summer reading!

Thanks for the addition to my summer vacation must-read list.

Sara Guerrero-Duby, Dayton, Ohio

Difficult to Forgive, Harder to Forget A friend of mine shares your excellent magazine with me every month. After reading the special section in the June issue (“Sex Abuse in the Church: Help. Heal. Hope.”), I felt compelled to write in. I’m an 88-year-old mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. At this time in my life—and for many whom I dearly love—I am so shaken by the serious and vile problems in our Church. I’m finding it all very hard to believe, and it hurts so deeply. I honestly don’t feel I can talk to my pastor—or any priest.

In my mind, I call these men who would harm children in such a way “tools of the

devil.” Now, what will happen to our Church because of these rascals wearing holy vestments? Our dear pope, not knowing how to handle it all, has at times ignored it, postponed responding to it, and pretended that it isn’t true.

So I’m praying, “What else can we do?” I want these priest abusers to go to prison. I don’t mean to blaspheme, but so many of our “priests” have committed such terrible acts.

I can’t seem to forgive, let alone forget, the harm that has been done.

Helen Kane, New London, Connecticut

We All Have Scars St. Anthony Messenger is one of the few magazines I read from beginning to end. When I got to the July issue’s “Faith Unpacked” column, by David Dault, PhD, I had to stop and write! Thank you so much for including Dr. Dault as a regular contributor. Like him, I came from a dysfunctional family. We each have our own scars. Mine are not as severe as Dr. Dault’s, but my scars still hurt. Like him, I also struggle with pinpointing the why and then praying and moving on.

Thanks be to God for hearing my prayers and hearing the prayers of St. Padre Pio on my behalf.

Venita Gorneau, Severn, Maryland

All Are Worthy in Our Sacred World I’m writing in reply to Mr. Henry Kramer’s letter in the July issue’s “Your Voice” column (“Only Christ Makes Us Worthy”). His letter was a response to Father Richard Rohr’s May 2019 article, “Our Ordinary, Sacred World.”

Mr. Kramer misses the whole point of the article.

As a longtime student of Rohr’s writings, I must point out that his teachings are crystal clear. The article’s title says it all. Our whole world is sacred. Christ makes all of us worthy—even non-Catholics. It is this false sense of exclusiveness that has always been the downfall of organized religion. And this is what we all need to change.

Bill Bradley, Fairmont, West Virginia

CORRECTION: In last month’s “Church in the News” column (p. 8), we ran a picture of Cardinal Joseph Tobin instead of Bishop Thomas Tobin, whom the story was about.

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church IN THE NEWS

people | events | trends

By Susan Hines-Br ig ger

Catholic activists gathered at the US Capitol on July 18 to protest the treatment of immigrant children at the border. At least 70 men and women were arrested for civil disobedience.

n July 18, a few hundred Catholic activists—many of whom were women religious—gathered outside the US Capitol, where they protested the “inhumane treatment” of immigrant children at the border and called on people of faith to take a stronger stand against current US border policies, reported Catholic News Service (CNS). At least 70 men and women were arrested for civil disobedience.

The “Catholic Day of Action for Immigrant Children” was organized by the groups Faith in Public Life and Faith in Action.

Sister Carol Zinn, a Sister of St. Joseph of Philadelphia and executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, told the group: “Catholic sisters have a long history with immigrant communities. We have seen the pain, suffering, fear, and trauma firsthand. In recent months, as the humanitarian crisis has escalated, we have joined the tens of thousands who are outraged at the horrific situation at our southern border.”

Those arrested in the Russell Senate Office Building were released later that day after being charged with “incommoding, crowding, and obstructing.” They chose between paying a $50 fine or requesting a court date.

Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, sent a message to attendees denouncing the government policies that separated families, led to the detention of children in immigration custody, and kept would-be asylum seekers to the

United States in dangerous cities on the Mexican side until their petitions are heard by a court.

“There has been one chapter after another of serious atrocities intentionally perpetrated on some of the most vulnerable people: family separation, loss of children in custody, two dozen deaths in ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] custody since 2017, children in cages, living under bridges in extreme temperatures, shielded from public view, assaulted and brutalized, underfed, and without facilities for bathing or hygiene,” said Bishop Stowe, bishoppresident of Pax Christi USA. “Now we have raids targeting families—families who have fled situations of danger from gang violence, drug trafficking, and economic desperation—and changing rules about who qualifies for asylum right as people are fleeing for their lives,” he added.

Instead of comprehensive immigration reform, the government looks to enforce policies that “do not work no matter how much they are escalated,” he said.

“Cruelty toward the suffering and bullying the most vulnerable should not be national policy and we cannot allow it to continue,” said Bishop Stowe.

CNS PHOTOS: TYLER ORSBURN (3)

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CNS PHOTOS; TOP LEFT: COURTESY CHRIS CUGINI, LIVING BREAD RADIO; LOWER LEFT: COURTESY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND WALES; TOP RIGHT: VATICAN MEDIA (2)

CATHOLIC ACTIVISTS PROTEST TREATMENT OF IMMIGRANTS; 70 ARRESTED

FORENSIC EXPERTS SEARCH FOR REMAINS OF YOUNG WOMAN

NEW STREAMING SERVICE OFFERS CATHOLIC MUSIC

CNS PHOTOS; TOP LEFT: COURTESY CHRIS CUGINI, LIVING BREAD RADIO; LOWER LEFT: COURTESY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND WALES; TOP RIGHT: VATICAN MEDIA (2)

CNS PHOTOS: TYLER ORSBURN (3)

A

new free streaming music service, featuring a mix of pre- and post-Vatican II hymns and liturgical music, launched this past March.

The service is available at both Google Play and the Apple store.

According to its website, Great Catholic Music offers a wide range of music: “From the meditative chants of cloistered Benedictine monks to the traditional hymns of Sunday Mass like ‘How Great Thou Art,’ to the contemporary Catholic songs of Matt Maher and Audrey Assad, we have the music to bring you peace, lift your spirits, and transform your soul.”

Program director Michael Roberts told CNS that “part of this is to inspire. It’s not just music; we want to inspire people,” he said, adding that the website also takes breaks for psalms, Scripture readings, and prayers.

The service is a project of the Living Bread Radio Network, a group of Catholic radio stations in northeast Ohio.

POPE TO CANONIZE BLESSED JOHN HENRY NEWMAN THIS OCTOBER

P

ope Francis announced on July 11 that he will be canonizing Cardinal John Henry Newman at a Mass at the Vatican on October 13, reported CNS. Four others will also be canonized.

John Henry Newman was ordained an Anglican priest in 1825. He later founded the Oxford Movement, which emphasized the Catholic roots Blessed John Henry Newman of Anglicanism.

After a series of clashes with Anglican bishops, he joined the Catholic Church at the age of 44 and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1846. Pope Leo XIII made him a cardinal in 1879 while respecting his wishes not to be ordained a bishop.

Newman died in 1890, and his sainthood cause was opened in 1958. Pope Benedict XVI beatified him in Birmingham, England, in 2010. He will become Britain’s first new saint since the canonization of St. John Ogilvie by Pope Paul VI in 1976.

Workers open the tomb of Duchess Charlotte Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin during a forensic investigation in the Teutonic Cemetery at the Vatican July 11, 2019.

Emanuela Orlandi is pictured in a photo that was distributed after her disappearance in 1983.

O

n July 11, workers from the Vatican opened the tombs of two princesses in the Teutonic Cemetery in search of the remains of a 15-year-old girl who went missing in 1983.

The tombs, however, were completely devoid of human remains, coffins, urns, or bones.

Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee, disappeared mysteriously on her way home to the Vatican from a music lesson in downtown Rome. For decades, Orlandi’s case has been the object of conspiracy theorists who linked her disappearance to Freemasons, organized crime, the attempted assassination of St. John Paul II, and other unsubstantiated theories.

The Vatican agreed to open the two tombs after the Orlandi family received a letter that said, “Look where the angel is pointing.” The letter contained a photo of an angel above a tomb in the Vatican’s Teutonic Cemetery. The socalled “Tomb of the Angel” is that of Princess Sophie von Hohenlohe, who died in the mid-1700s. The adjacent one is that of Duchess Charlotte Frederica of MecklenburgSchwerin, who died over a century and a half ago.

The investigation was led by a Vatican-appointed specialist in forensic medicine, Giovanni Arcudi, and was being carried out according to internationally recognized protocols.

Following some investigation, the Vatican said it believes the remains of the noblewomen may have been moved when the Pontifical Teutonic College was expanded. That then led to the inspection of two other ossuaries next to the tombs of the noblewomen, during which investigators found vaults containing the bones of multiple persons.

Further studies on the remains began in late July, but officials said it was not yet possible to predict how long it would take to conduct a “detailed morphological analysis of the remains found in the ossuaries.”

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church IN THE NEWS

WOMEN NAMED AS MEMBERS OF CONGREGATION FOR RELIGIOUS

I

n a major change, the Vatican announced on July 8 that Pope Francis had appointed seven women as members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, reported CNS. Prior to this, the members of the congregation have all been men: cardinals, bishops, and priests who were superiors of large religious orders of men.

The new members include six superiors of women’s religious orders, a consecrated laywoman, and Brother Robert Schieler, the superior of the De La Salle Christian Brothers.

VATICAN CITY STATE TO END SALE OF SINGLE-USE PLASTICS

Ducks swim past plastic bottles and other debris floating on Rome’s Tiber River.

I

n an ongoing attempt to become more environmentally friendly, the Vatican City State has announced that it is limiting its sale of single-use plastics, and soon it will be completely stopped, reported CNS. Rafael Ignacio Tornini, head of the department handling Vatican City State’s gardens and waste collection, told the Italian news agency ANSA July 16 that after all previously stocked items are gone, no more single-use plastic will be sold. The European Union pledged in May to ban single-use plastic starting in 2021.

“We have been making an effort to sort as much [plastic] as possible, and the state has limited all sales of single-use plastic,” he said.

Single-use plastic includes bags, water bottles, cutlery, straws, and balloons. The top five single-use plastic items polluting European shores are cigarette butts, bottles and caps, food packaging, cotton swab sticks, and wet wipes, according to research in 2016 by the European Commission.

Tornini said, “We have been able to collect about 22 pounds of plastic a day” from containers under the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square. They also have had great success in recycling up to 98 percent of waste brought to its “ecostation” that handles special waste such as batteries, tires, expired pharmaceuticals, and other hazardous refuse, he said. Even with the recycling programs and equipment put into place, what was really needed, Tornini said, was a change in mentality.

“We took to heart the Holy Father’s guidelines in ‘Laudato Si’.’ Our common home needs safeguarding, and if it doesn’t start with us, . . .” he said.

POPE ISSUES SANCTIONS AGAINST RETIRED WEST VIRGINIA BISHOP

O

n July 19, the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, announced that Pope Francis has issued sanctions against retired Bishop Michael J. Bransfield, who stepped down last year under a cloud of allegations of sexual and financial misconduct, according to CNS. According to a letter from the Vatican’s apostolic nunciature to the United States, Bishop Bransfield can no longer reside in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston or participate “anywhere in any public celebration of the liturgy,” and he has an obligation to make amends for “some of the

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CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: TIM BISHOP/CATHOLIC SPIRIT; MIDDLE: MARIA GRAZIA PICCIARELLA, POOL; RIGHT: PAUL HARING

F

ather Edward J. Flanagan’s cause for sainthood took another step forward when, on July 22, a Vatican official presented a positio along with a letter of support from Omaha Archbishop George J. Lucas to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, reported the Catholic Voice, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Omaha.

Father Flanagan founded Boys Town in Nebraska in 1917.

The positio is a summary of the Father Edward J. Flanagan 4,600 pages of documents that were forwarded to the Vatican in 2015 by the archdiocese. It puts forth the case that Father Flanagan led a life of heroic virtue and is worthy of being declared venerable by the pope. It also is a statement of support that the cause should proceed.

“It has been a privilege to offer my support for the cause of Father Edward Flanagan at each stage of this process,” Archbishop Lucas said.

For Father Flanagan’s cause to advance, it needs approval by the historical consultants of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, then by the theological consultants, and finally by the bishops and cardinals who are members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

If approved, the congregation would then make a recommendation to Pope Francis that Father Flanagan be declared venerable. The next phase after that is beatification, when the person is declared “blessed,” following proof of a miracle through the person’s intercession, and then finally canonization, which requires a second proven miracle.

Leading the cause for sainthood is the Father Flanagan League Society of Devotion, which has supporters in 20 countries and more than 40,000 followers on Facebook.

CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: COURTESY BOYS TOWN; RIGHT: PAUL HARING

FATHER FLANAGAN’S SAINTHOOD CAUSE PROGRESSES

POPE AND PUTIN MEET AT VATICAN

CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: TIM BISHOP/CATHOLIC SPIRIT; MIDDLE: MARIA GRAZIA PICCIARELLA, POOL; RIGHT: PAUL HARING

CNS PHOTOS: LEFT: COURTESY BOYS TOWN; RIGHT: PAUL HARING

Bishop Michael J. Bransfield

harm he caused.” The sanctions were based on the findings of an investigation of Bishop Bransfield overseen by Archbishop William E. Lori, acting apostolic administrator of the diocese.

The findings had been sent to the Vatican.

In a statement issued the same day, the state’s Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said the sanctions were a good first step but that more information needs to be released.

“It is just that—only one step—since the public cannot know the full extent of harm caused by Bransfield’s actions until the diocese fully complies with our subpoena and releases the full Bransfield report,” he said. “It is time for the diocese to come clean with what it knows and release the Bransfield report and any other relevant materials.”

A few days later, the Vatican announced that Auxiliary Bishop Mark E. Brennan of Baltimore had been appointed to head the diocese.

Bishop Brennan told the Catholic Review, the news outlet for the Baltimore Archdiocese: “I hope I can be a bishop who listens to people and tries to help them make sense of their experience and honors what they’ve gone through, and who works with them to try to get to a better place. Can I personally bring healing? I don’t know— and I believe God’s the one who brings healing—but can I be an instrument in doing that? I hope and pray I can.”

P

ope Francis and Russian President Vladimir Putin met July 4 at the Vatican, where they discussed ongoing wars in Eastern Ukraine and Syria, reported CNS. The two met in private for 55 minutes.

Alessandro Gisotti, interim director of the Vatican press office, described the meeting as “cordial.” He said the two “expressed their satisfaction at the development of bilateral relations,” which included the signing that day of a collaboration agreement between the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital and pediatric hospitals in Russia.

They “then turned their attention to various questions of relevance to the life of the Catholic Church in Russia,” Gisotti said, as well as a discussion of “the ecological question and various themes relating to current international affairs, with particular reference to Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela,” where Russia has been supportive of embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

This was the third time Pope Francis and Putin have met at the Vatican. They previously met in November 2013 and then in June 2015. Putin arrived late for each of the meetings, including this one, for which he was an hour late.

WANT MORE? Visit our newspage:

FranciscanMedia.org/catholic-news StAnthonyMessenger.org | September 2019 • 9

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SPIRITOFST.FRANCIS | ASK A FRANCISCAN

By Pat McCloskey, OFM

Why Does a Baptized Person Need the RCIA?

Why does a baptized adult have to go through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA)?

Such a person may already know almost everything about the Catholic religion, its prayers, and the Ten Commandments.

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ONLINE: StAnthonyMessenger.org

Why So Few Catholic Bible Study Groups?

E-MAIL: Ask@FranciscanMedia.org

Why doesn’t the Catholic Church encourage its members to establish small groups for Bible study as evangelical churches do? Aren’t many Catholics joining nondenominational churches to go deeper into their faith and have a closer connection with other believers?

MAIL: Ask a Franciscan 28 W. Liberty St. Cincinnati, OH 45202

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

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WANT MORE? Visit our website: StAnthonyMessenger.org

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

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

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

here are some Catholic Bible study groups. I celebrate Mass three times a week at a parish that has such a monthly group. Unfortunately, many people have more time and energy for online gaming groups, watching TV, casino gambling, and countless other activities than for trying to grow in their understanding of God’s self-revelation.

Such growth can help them live more deeply as people made in the divine image. The Bible was given to believers and should be understood in communion with other believers, something that nondenominational churches tend not to emphasize.

After Vatican II, the Catholic Church has given stronger encouragement for Bible study and faith sharing in small groups.

Will I Know Him?

My husband died of cancer almost two years ago. He was the love of my life as I was his. Will I ever see him again and be with him?

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es, you will see him and be with him. Jesus’ teaching that those in heaven “neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Mt 22:30) is a caution against thinking that life in heaven is simply an extension of life on earth. Being in God’s immediate presence changes everything.

Saints there are aware of each other.

10 • September 2019 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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LEAF/FOTOSEARCH

Father Pat welcomes your questions!

TOP LEFT: MC KOZUSKO/SAM; TOP RIGHT: SVIATLANA LAZARENKA/ISTOCK; MIDDLE: DIGITALSKILLET/ISTOCK; BOTTOM: ALETIA/FOTOSEARCH

Pat McCloskey, OFM

aptized adults preparing for reception into full communion with the Catholic Church need some instruction about its distinctive beliefs but also an experience of other adult Catholics praying, continuing to grow in their faith, and living out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Conversion involves the mind and the heart. Many parishes are forming RCIA groups this month.

Quick Questions and Answers

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If someone becomes a Catholic as an adult, why are godparents necessary? When did the godparent tradition begin? Why is it important?

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Whether someone is baptized as an infant or as an adult, he or she is joining a community of believers; sponsors remind us of that. Prior to AD 500, Christian parents were sponsors of baptized infants. The Church changed that in the sixth century. In some cultures, sponsors have a role in the wedding ceremony of a godchild.

Was Jesus half God and half man?

No, he was fully human and fully divine, as the Councils of Nicaea (AD 325), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451) reaffirmed.

Will all people from prehistoric times on have the opportunity to go to heaven? Even if they did not know God?

Did John the Apostle write the Gospel of John? I have heard conflicting answers to this question.

Most biblical scholars now think that Gospel had a different author. Recent biblical commentaries can give the reasons for saying that. Only in the early second century AD were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John linked to the Gospels with which we associate them. Although all Christians accept these four Gospels as inspired by God, they do not make the same judgment about Gospels claiming to have been written by Peter, Thomas, or any other contemporary of Jesus.

People who dwell on past hurts sometimes become very vindictive about them. I am quick to anger when I hear anyone taking God’s name in vain, but I start praying for them. Where are God’s love and compassion found?

LEAF/FOTOSEARCH

TOP LEFT: MC KOZUSKO/SAM; TOP RIGHT: SVIATLANA LAZARENKA/ISTOCK; MIDDLE: DIGITALSKILLET/ISTOCK; BOTTOM: ALETIA/FOTOSEARCH

Yes, they can be saved. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that every person “who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved” (1260).

They are found first in the Bible, God’s unique self-revelation. But they are also found in the lives of Christians and many who are not Christians. Each person must accept responsibility for his or her actions; we dare not allow ourselves to become simply reactive to another person’s decision.

Donors like you make it possible for these children to attend school. Visit stanthony.org/gkts to help the kids in our Jamaican mission rise above poverty.

The Franciscan Friars, Province of St. John the Baptist 1615 Vine St., Ste 1 Cincinnati, OH 45202-6492

www.stanthony.org 513-721-4700 ext. 3219

StAnthonyMessenger.org | September 2019 • 11

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SPIRITOFST.FRANCIS “Charity is the Samaritan who pours oil on the wounds of the traveler who has been attacked. But it is justice’s role to prevent the attacks.”

FRANCISCAN WORLD

—Blessed Frédéric Ozanam

By Pat McCloskey, OFM

Franciscans International Turns 30

BORN IN 1813, he worked out his doubts through conversations with a priest friend.

While studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, Frédéric and a friend established the St. Vincent de Paul Society, dedicated to the works of mercy praised by Jesus.

Frédéric taught literature at the Sorbonne and established a newspaper that emphasized the Catholic Church’s social teaching.

A husband and father, he died in 1853 and was beatified during the 1997 World Youth Day in Paris. His feast is observed on September 9.

—Pat McCloskey, OFM

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

ince 1989, Franciscans International (FI) has been at the United Nations as a nonprofit, international, nongovernmental human rights organization. It seeks to promote and protect human rights and environmental justice.

FI has offices in New York (where the United Nations General Assembly meets) and in Geneva (where the United Nations’ human rights commission meets). Their advocacy work seeks to: On April 25, 2019, in New York City, Ms. Erileide Domingues • influence policy makers to bring about concrete changes, of the Great Assembly of the Kaiowa and Guarini Peoples • denounce human rights abuses and (Brazil) addressed a UN forum on protecting indigenous peoraise awareness about them, and ples. Luciano Maia is at the podium; Garlos Gabriel Stefanes • mobilize partners to participate in Pacheco (second from right) assisted with translation. decisions that affect them.

Both offices bring local people to testify before relevant UN commissions about violations of human rights and environmental justice in their part of the world.

Markus Heinze, OFM, the executive director, works with an international board of directors under the sponsorship of the Conference of the Franciscan Family (heads of the six branches of the Franciscan family’s male and female members worldwide).

FI can be contacted through FranciscansInternational.org and is also on Twitter and Facebook.

ST. ANTHONY STORIES

St. Anthony and the Missing Medal

W

hile painting an outdoor plant shelf attached to the house, I had to lie on my back in the dirt and squirm my way around for about 24 feet. In the process, I lost my Miraculous Medal, which I highly treasure, from the chain around my neck.

As it was getting dark, I put off searching for it to the following day, reminding myself that St. Anthony would surely help me find it. The following day I spent a great deal of time on my knees, searching through the dirt and leaves, to no avail.

Rising to my feet, I prayed out loud to St. Anthony to help me find the medal. At that moment, I looked down and there it was, on its edge, which made it hard to see. St. Anthony again came through with finding a lost item!

—Gary B., Connecticut

12 • September 2019 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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PHOTO COURTESY OF FATHER JOBE ABBASS, OFM CONV

Once doubtful about his faith, Frédéric Ozanam founded a group to assist poor people around the world.

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LEFT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; TOP RIGHT: COURTESY FRANCISCANS INTERNATIONAL; BOTTOM RIGHT: CHEPATCHET/ISTOCK

BLESSED FRÉDÉRIC OZANAM

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FOLLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS

ST. ANTHONY

Finding True Freedom in the Law

“I gave the Lord my foot through the door. He’s given me much more.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF FATHER JOBE ABBASS, OFM CONV

LEFT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; TOP RIGHT: COURTESY FRANCISCANS INTERNATIONAL; BOTTOM RIGHT: CHEPATCHET/ISTOCK

Just go for it.” Those four simple words proved life-changing for Jobe Abbass. The young Canadian lawyer had mustered the courage to write to a Conventual Franciscan he met at a retreat to tell him he was interested in joining the order. “He could have said, ‘Are you crazy? Are you really sure?

As a lawyer you could do so much,’” recalls Father Jobe. “If he had placed any doubt in my mind, I may not have entered.”

Enter he did, leaving a lucrative career and placing his juridical mind at the service of the Conventual Franciscans and the wider Church as a canon lawyer and the order’s only specialist in the Eastern Code of Canon Law. Father Jobe taught canon law in Rome and in Ottawa, Canada, all while following the example of St. Francis.

“I think St. Francis himself was a great man of the Church,” says Father Jobe.

“He followed the rules. . . . In his own life, he not only conformed to those rules, but conformed to the figure of Christ in the best way that he could.”

The road sign that led Father Jobe to the Franciscans might have seemed more like an unplanned detour at first. A civil lawyer in his hometown of Sydney, Nova Scotia, he reluctantly agreed to join his cousins at a charismatic renewal retreat while on vacation in California.

He remembers feeling cooped up in the church. Toward the end of the retreat, however, the gray-robed friar leading it invited him to open his Bible “to where God wants you to.”

He opened it to Jeremiah 31:10: “Hear the word of the Lord, you nations . . . proclaim it on distant coasts.”

“As I read there was this wonderful light sensation and a warmth that came over me,” recalls Father Jobe.

“The conversion experience was so

Father Jobe Abbass, OFM Conv

total, so foundational, it was like an earthquake.” A year later, he wrote that pivotal letter. He closed his bank accounts, gave away his possessions, and sold his 1975 Chrysler Cordoba. As he walked away after handing over the keys, he grabbed strands of grass and imagined a future unencumbered by material things.

After novitiate and theological studies, Father Jobe was ordained a priest of the Immaculate Conception Province on May 25, 1985. He went on to study Eastern canon law, earning his doctorate at the Pontifical Oriental Institute (POI) in Rome.

Father Jobe taught at the POI for 12 years. From 2004 until his retirement in 2018, he taught at the University of St. Paul in Ottawa, Canada. Today he continues to teach part-time. As a professor and canon lawyer, Father Jobe seeks to follow Francis’ example.

“He was a man of great love, not only for the Church but for everyone who makes up the Church. Canon law is the application of rules but most of all with respect for the greatest rule of all—that is love and the salvation of souls.”

Father Jobe devotes much of his time to the Our Lady of Angels Province, formed in 2014 when the Immaculate Conception Province merged with the St. Anthony Province.

He is also the guardian of the international St. André Bessette Friary in Ottawa and recently served as a delegate to the General Chapter in Rome.

As he looks back on a rich life of ministry, Father Jobe is filled with gratitude. “I gave the Lord my foot through the door,” he says. “He’s given me much more. I never thought I’d be receiving this many blessings.”

—Patricia Mish

FRANK JASPER, 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 | FAITH UNPACKED An Ongoing Injustice

By David Dault, PhD

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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.

FROM PAST TO PRESENT

On the third day, we traveled to San Antonio to visit the Alamo. Standing in front of it, I realized that the image in my head from the history books was not the fort, but rather the mission church. Along the back wall near the altar was where the “heroes” of the Alamo took their last stand against the Mexican army.

In 1829, Mexico had abolished slavery.

Davy Crockett and his compatriots were fighting to free Texas from Mexico in order

Statues of slave children are on display at the Whitney Plantation Museum.

to guarantee that they could continue to own slaves. They took their last bloody stand for this cause, using a church altar as their shield.

The fourth day found us near the US-Mexico border at the offices of LUPE (La Unión del Pueblo Entero), a farmworker and immigrant rights organization cofounded by César Chávez. The lust for exploitive farm labor that drove the horrors of the Whitney Plantation and the fields of Sugar Land are alive and well on our border. We met and talked with those who work every day to preserve and protect the human dignity of the most vulnerable among us on our borders.

A WAKE-UP CALL

At dawn on our final morning together, we drove through the endless croplands of McAllen, Texas. As we passed one field, surrounded by a fence, I recalled the words of Leviticus: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not be so thorough that you reap the field to its very edge. . . . These things you shall leave for the poor and the alien. I, the Lord, am your God” (19:9–10).

Over five days and 1,500 miles, I confronted my inheritance as an American. This is my history—and yours. The Lord commanded that we provide for the poor and the alien among us. Instead, we have stolen their bodies and their labor. We have denied the poor and the alien their dignity and even their lives. We have reaped to the edges, in defiance of the command of the Lord.

I invite you to join me as I repent for this grave sin and as I begin to learn to make amends.

TOP LEFT: PHOTO COURTESY OF CHICAGO SUNDAY EVENING CLUB/KHIEM TRAN; TOP RIGHT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/BILL LEISER

David Dault, PhD

arlier this summer, I took a plane from Chicago to the Mississippi Delta to go on a pilgrimage around the Gulf Coast and deep into southern Texas to the border of Mexico.

It was a five-day road trip put together by my friend Lisa Sharon Harper and her organization, FreedomRoad.us. The purpose was to look at the intersection of theology and economics in the deep history of the American South.

We spent the first day at the Whitney Plantation, about an hour outside New Orleans in St. John the Baptist Parish/County.

Established in 1752, the Whitney property was used to grow sugar, rice, and indigo. Like so many similar farms across the South, it was a forced-labor camp, and it now serves as a “museum of slavery.”

Our guide, Dr. Ibrahima Seck, led us on a journey across the property, helping us understand the physical and psychological brutality used to control and terrorize human beings for generations at Whitney.

From there, we traveled several hours west to Sugar Land, Texas, to visit a mass grave.

Here nearly a hundred African American convicts—themselves the descendants of slaves—had been worked literally to death in a forced-labor camp. They were rented out by the prison warden to the Imperial Sugar Company, and they died from starvation and exhaustion. They were buried where they dropped.

After the Civil War, the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery, except for felons. This clause was exploited for decades, into the early 20th century, to continue the practice of slavery by another name.

14 • September 2019 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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POINTSOFVIEW | AT HOME ON EARTH

By Kyle Kramer

T Kyle Kramer

TOP: COURTESY OF KYLE KRAMER; MIDDLE: BAPHOMETS/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.

EarthandSpiritCenter.org

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WANT MORE? Visit our website: StAnthonyMessenger.org

The Paradox of Soil

he heavy rains earlier this year have washed countless tons of topsoil down our waterways. Even in our own family garden, where I’ve taken a lot of pains to minimize erosion, we’ve had trouble.

This isn’t just a muddy mess. Healthy topsoil is the lifeblood of any civilization, and depleting it has been the downfall of many an empire. Given that it takes about 500 years to create just an inch of topsoil, we can’t afford to waste it.

There are plenty of obvious reasons why we’re reckless with our soil: apathy for most of us who don’t have much meaningful contact with it and perverse economic incentives for farmers who do.

But I think deeper dynamics are at play.

For one, our country was born out of two major antagonisms: our conflict with the native peoples of this land and our conflict with the British, with whom we fought to gain independence. In other words, we warred against history—the one that was already here, and the one from which we came. In forging a new path of nationhood, we cut ourselves off from our contexts, convincing ourselves that we need only focus on a future of independence and innovation. How many of us do something similar in our own lives, fleeing from our hometowns and our upbringing, denying the wounds of our past, and constantly reinventing ourselves in various ways?

Soil is the ultimate history and context.

In its dark, mysterious depths, soil holds the death of all that has gone before. Recently, and with a heavy heart, I pick-axed and shoveled out a small grave in the rock-hard, rock-strewn ground of our woods, preparing a place for “Honeybun,” one of our daughters’ pet rabbits. With a solemn ceremony, we committed Honeybun back to the earth. Dust inevitably returns to dust, but who doesn’t chafe against this hard truth of existence?

Might our carelessness with soil, then, have roots in the uniquely iconoclastic culture of our country and ultimately in our fear of death and the shadow side of existence, which soil represents on some archetypal level?

And yet, as anyone who composts will tell you, the paradox of soil is that by some strange, wonderful, sacred alchemy, soil transforms death into new life. It sustains every single living thing that dwells upon it.

I doubt we will really start caring about our soil until we both honor and reckon with our history and our context, whether national or personal. This means facing our fear of the darkness and death that soil represents, owning the shadows and sins of our individual and collective past, and opening our hearts to the truth that only from death and darkness can life and light be sustained.

These aren’t foreign ideas for us Catholics who follow a resurrected Lord, who have the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and whose 2,000-year history has been fertile ground for saints, mystics, and reformers. Might we pray that both souls and soil be saved?

HELPFUL

TIPS

1

Saving Soul and Soil

Nature hates bare soil, which is prone to erosion. If you garden, try to keep mulch or a cover crop on the soil.

2

Make an effort to support farmers who practice good stewardship of their soil. Eating grass-fed (rather than grain-fed) meat helps a lot, and cutting back on eating animal products helps even more.

3

Reflect on these questions: Are there parts of your past that you’ve been running from?

What would it take to allow God to heal them?

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POINTSOFVIEW | EDITORIAL

Notre Dame Fire Shows Faith amid the Ashes Faith may be deeper in France and elsewhere than many people have thought.

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‘SPIRITUAL BUT NOT RELIGIOUS’

Let’s not kid ourselves: Not everyone involved in the original construction of Notre Dame in the 13th and 14th centuries was motivated primarily by deep religious faith. But they built as best they could—for the ages.

Few of these builders would have self-identified as “spiritual but not religious.” I think readers will agree that people who use that term today are generally very negative about “institutional religion.” But are those same people very likely to commit themselves to building any structure that will outlive them by centuries?

Catholics believe that the Church will be spotless and without blemish only in heaven. In the meantime, however, the good news of Jesus must be preached and lived by imperfect men and women trying to respond more generously each day to God’s grace.

The term institutional Church is very often said with a sneer, but a Church serving concrete people here and now

A broadcast camera captures the fire damage done to Notre Dame Cathedral.

can hardly avoid being an institutional Church—warts and all. Many heated comments about “institutional religion” would be very different if the speakers instead used the term “incarnational religion.”

But this side of heaven, isn’t that all we have? The narrator of the Book of Revelation tells us, “I saw no temple in the [heavenly] city, for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb” (21:22). Here below, an incarnational Church needs somewhere to gather for worship, a place to be a focal point for growth in faith, where its members are urged to engage in the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

Isn’t that why, after the Our Father and a concluding prayer about waiting “in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ,” the presider at every Mass prays: “Lord Jesus Christ, who said to your apostles . . . look not on our sins but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom, where you live forever and ever”?

DEEPENING OUR FAITH

Nostalgia did not build Notre Dame, and it will certainly not sustain the present rebuilding effort. It’s extremely easy to rhapsodize about an “Age of Faith” that forever and brilliantly outshines our present time. But that requires abandoning an incarnational Church in favor of a completely spiritual and disincarnated Church—perfect in each person’s imagination.

Perhaps there was more faith in Paris and around the world on the day before Notre Dame burned than we realize.

That may help all of us meet the present challenge.

—Pat McCloskey, OFM

RAZVAN/ISTOCK

he tragic fire that ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris last April 15 brought great destruction, but it may also have uncovered tiny embers of faith that had been generally overlooked. Years of impassioned complaints about increasing secularism in France and around the world may have blinded us to a faith at a different stage from ours.

Almost all 30 minutes of the BBC and NBC news broadcasts that evening were devoted to covering the fire’s origins, the extent of the damage, possible rebuilding, those battling the flames, and the horror experienced by many Parisians and countless people around the world. Extensive coverage by print, digital, video, and audio services worldwide may reflect more faith than we realize.

Within days, groups were making pledges to assist in the rebuilding of this structure, which since 1905 has belonged not to the Archdiocese of Paris but rather to France’s national government. To date, about 10 percent of the money pledged has been collected. No official estimate of costs had been made when this editorial was finalized.

On July 4, the French National Assembly voted to adopt a bill, in the words of Minister of Culture Franck Riester, “to give Notre Dame a restoration worthy of the place it occupies in the hearts of the French people and throughout the world.” The government has set up a portal at don.rebatirnotredamedeparis.fr to receive donations.

Money is being raised at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, only one of many fund-raising initiatives underway outside France.

16 • September 2019 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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Love Faith

When Someone You

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Loses

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The younger generations are drifting from the Church.

What can we do to reach them?

By Caroline Rock

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he first half of Mass is distracting for me. I hear every foot shuffle on the slate floor and every squeak of the hinges on the heavy wooden doors behind me. I sit waiting for my children to arrive, yet once again this week they do not come.

My children are now in their late 20s. They are married with families of their own. For almost a decade, I have prayed that they will soon receive the grace of conversion, and I beg God to forgive me for any part I played in their falling away. While I know I am not the only Catholic to suffer the pain of watching a loved one leave the Church, I often feel very alone in my struggle.

Our faith is true and offers the grace of the sacraments and Jesus in the Eucharist. Nevertheless, according to a Pew Research poll, for every convert to Catholicism, six Catholics leave the Church. Many just leave religion altogether instead of switching to another Church. Even if our loved ones take up with other denominations, we should long for them to return to the fullness of faith. It is not always easy to carry the torch, however.

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WHY DO THEY LEAVE?

The reasons why young adults leave the Church are legion.

One may associate with friends who reject organized religion, another can’t seem to reconcile the faith with the corruption in the Church, and others simply fall out of practice as they grow into new responsibilities. It may seem as if we put our best efforts into raising our children in the faith, but for what end?

My husband and I homeschooled our children and socialized with the many other homeschooling families in our parish. We went to daily Mass when we could, read together the lives of the saints, and celebrated the liturgical life of the Church. I don’t know what the turning point was, but along the way to young adulthood, all but one of our children heard the voice of someone else who convinced them there was something more attractive than the Eucharist, Mass, prayer, and seeking the will of God for their lives. I have to hope, though, that those early years laid the foundation for their eventual return.

I have given up nagging them. For years, I sent group texts to my children in the weeks leading up to Lent, Easter, Advent, New Year’s, and other liturgical and nonliturgical seasons. In these messages, I gently reminded them how much God loves them and wants them to come back, to go

to confession, and to renew their devotion. For most of those messages, I never received a single word in response. It was a long time before I realized I had to get out of God’s way and let him do the work.

OUR PARTICIPATION IN THE MIRACLE

The story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes may illustrate how the Lord uses our prayers for our loved ones. The disciples express concern to Jesus that the crowd of 5,000 has nothing to eat and they are too far from town.

When the Lord tells his disciples to feed the crowd themselves, they begin to count the cost.

“Are we to buy two hundred days’ wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?” (Mk 6:37).

In John’s Gospel, Philip protests, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little [bit]” (6:7).

Do we do this too? Are we counting the cost of the sacrifices we make for our loved ones, or do we feel as if our prayers don’t really make much difference?

Jesus easily could have fed the crowd with little more than a word or a nod. Instead, he asked for the five loaves and two fish, saying, “Bring them here to me.” It was a pitiful offering in the face of more than 5,000 hungry people, but it was no doubt a great sacrifice to the soul who baked the bread and caught the fish. Jesus used that sacrifice to fill and satisfy the crowd.

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE FOOD

It is interesting to note where the loaves and fish come from in the different Gospel accounts. In all but John’s retelling, the disciples have brought the food themselves. They seem almost reluctant to part with it, even discussing with Jesus the alternative of going off and buying other food for the people who had gathered.

But in John’s Gospel, the disciples tell Jesus that a young boy has brought the food. Can you picture the disciples approaching the child and asking for his bread? Do you imagine the boy’s eyes lighting up with joy that Jesus has requested his help, perhaps insisting he be the one to present the bread and fish to the teacher? He does not protest that it won’t be enough, perhaps because his childlike faith allows him to see, as we should, that it is not really about the food.

The many leftovers attest to this.

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to us. As we pray, we can imagine ourselves handing our prayers—tiny fish and skimpy loaves—to Jesus and allowing him to work a miracle that will satisfy us beyond our wildest imaginings. Our prayers are signs of our faithfulness. He does not need them to bring about the conversion of our children, but he knows how strong faith can grow when we surrender our prayers and other offerings to his holy will. In the face of disappointment and seeming futility, our efforts to continue with these offerings may be a heavy burden. However, Jesus urges us not to give up.

Who knows how many souls in that crowd of thousands woke the next morning—their stomachs still satisfied and the sweet aftertaste of honeyed bread in their mouths—and renewed their dedication to God? In the same way, our prayers and offerings may be mysteriously moving the hearts of our children, grandchildren, and others through the grace of God, though we may never see the results in this world.

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JUANMONINO/ISTOCK

The best witness to the faith we can offer for others is through our own faith life and the example that we provide for them.

However, if we are open to the Holy Spirit, we will recognize where God wants us to put our efforts, just as he did with the disciples on that hillside of hungry people. “He gave [the loaves and fishes] to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds” (Mt 14:19).

Above all, we must be genuine in our faith. Our practice must be more than a show to convince our loved ones of what they should be doing.

Our loved ones must notice something unaffected and sincere in our lives and recognize that our Catholic faith is something we cherish and can’t do without. Catholics have much to compete with these days, but not even the roar of scandals and the lure of temptations can overcome the attraction of a life lived well and a faith expressed through love.

One example of this is the conversion of Norma McCorvey. McCorvey was “Jane Roe” in the infamous Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion in the United

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KEEPING IT REAL

lightning, or a voice from the sky, like those of St. Paul, St. Augustine, and Norma McCorvey. God, however, may require our patience for a more personal reason. It is not only the conversion of my children that God seeks. He can do that without me. It is my faith God is working on.

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THE PRIZE I MAY NEVER SEE

As ironic as it may seem, the goal of my prayers and offerings is not the return of my children to the Church. The goal is my faithfulness in the battle. I often wonder if God delays the miraculous conversions of my children that I beg for because he knows how quickly I am apt to credit myself for their return. I might also decide I no longer need to pray, since I have obtained my heart’s desire. In the long days and nights of waiting for God’s answer, it is comforting to believe that his slow timetable is drawing me closer to him, to the Blessed Mother, and to my brothers and sisters, the saints.

My devoutly Catholic grandmother died while only a As our children grow, we cannot control what their faith lives become. All we can few of her 14 adult children remained in the faith. One by one, however, they eventually came back, received holy do is pray and turn things over to God, trusting in his plan.

Communion, and died as faithful Catholics. Like her, I may not live to see the conversion of my children.

States. She went to Catholic Mass as a child and periodiCatholicism is rich and full of treasures that Our Lord cally in her adult life. Nevertheless, her true conversion came provides to help us strengthen our faith and assist souls along the way. In addition to having a regular prayer time around the age of 50, after she witnessed the sincere reverence and experienced the profound kindness of Catholics in each day and attending Mass on Sundays, perhaps we can the pro-life movement. commit to other devotions—other loaves and fishes we can offer—such as praying novenas to the patron saints of those Father John Hardon wrote, “The first and most fundafor whom we pray or praying the rosary. mental way in which parents can keep We may reach out to others whose chiltheir children Catholic is for the parents themselves to be authentic—and I mean dren have fallen away—not to gossip or Catholicism is rich and commiserate, but to join in prayer, fastauthentic—Catholics themselves.” This full of treasures that ing, and thanksgiving for our children. can apply not only to parents, but also to Our Lord provides to The goal is for me to remain on my everyone whose goal it is to be a light in help us strengthen our the world for others. knees for them, perhaps for the rest of faith and assist souls my life, in confident hope that Our Lord along the way.

OUR OWN GETHSEMANE desires their return even more desperThe story of Moses holding his arms to ately than I do. Like the meager loaves heaven while the Israelites fought the and fish, the success of my prayers for Amalekites (Ex 17:8–16) is a perfect the conversion of my children has nothexample of how important it is for us to remain faithful in ing to do with me or my efforts. Nevertheless, somehow my prayer for our fallen-away loved ones. As long as Moses kept perseverance is crucial to this mysterious process. his arms raised to God, the Israelites held the upper hand Perhaps God knows I can pray better for my children in battle. When he became weary and let his arms fall, the in the next life. Their return to the Lord may even happen enemy overcame the children of God. silently in their hearts at the end of their lives when no one For many parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and can witness it, and that is a joyful realization. The words of others who have watched our Catholic faith become less the prophet Baruch can bring us comfort during the long important in the lives of our loved ones, it is a very personal wait: “Led away on foot by their enemies they left you: but battle, one we cannot let the enemy win.

God will bring them back to you, borne aloft in glory as on Praying for the conversion or reversion of a family royal thrones” (5:6). member is often a long-term commitment with no reward in this lifetime. As such, it can be difficult—for some, imposCaroline Rock is a wife, mom of three, and grandmother to six. She works as sible—to stay faithful to the essential task of remaining on a legal copywriter in Maryland, where she still attends the same parish where our knees. she was baptized as an infant. Her writing has appeared in several Catholic We may be hoping for a miraculous event, a bolt of magazines.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY

PHOTO COURTESY OF GONZAGA UNIVERSITY

PHOTO COURTESY OF CLARKE UNIVERSITY

A Higher

Education

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PHOTO COURTESY OF XAVIER UNIVERSITY

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON

PHOTO COURTESY OF LOYOLA UNIVERSITY/LUKAS KEAPPROTH

Although public and secular private institutions have a lot to offer students by way of curriculum, athletics, and professional preparation, Catholic universities provide similar opportunities centered on a mission rooted in Catholic identity.

By Elizabeth Bookser Barkley, PhD

PHOTO COURTESY OF MOUNT ST. JOSEPH UNIVERSITY

n

Catholic colleges that are rooted in mission draw students who want to put their faith into action while they learn.

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F

Mount St. Joseph students take time to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity (left) and for quiet study at the university’s Quad (right).

Drew Shannon, an associate professor at Mount St. Joseph, is a noted Virginia Woolf scholar.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MOUNT ST. JOSEPH UNIVERSITY (4)

our years ago, Rebecca DeBurger, a college freshman, sat in her Common Ground class at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio, “surrounded by all new faces, each asking the same question: ‘What is the point of this class?’” Unlike many of her classmates, it didn’t take her long to figure it out.

“As the semester progressed, we were confronted with ethical dilemmas, exposed to the harsh realities that immigrants face on their journey to the United States, and debated about the impact and inhumanity of imposing the death penalty,” she remembers.

The course changed DeBurger’s life.

“I had never felt so small,” she continues. “I began to realize and appreciate that people all over the world and in my backyard face similar life and death decisions daily. I was beginning to put myself in the shoes of others, one class at a time.”

As her professor, I had no idea how this required class was affecting her.

A few years earlier, I had helped craft our university’s liberal arts curriculum around the theme of “the common good” and chaired the group, creating the first-year course, Common Ground, as an expression of our mission. Reading student evaluations at the end of the first semester, I realized that many students might not “get it” until years later. Nevertheless, at Mount St. Joseph (the Mount), one of many Catholic institutions of higher education in the United States, we remain committed to this core curriculum and to our mission.

Although public and secular private institutions have much to offer in the way of curriculum, athletics, and professional preparation, Catholic universities cluster similar opportunities around a mission rooted in Catholic identity and the graces and gifts of their founders. What they offer is a valuesdriven, cohesive educational experience.

Catholic institutions of higher education are focusing on mission and identifying ways that faculty and staff can carry on the vision of their

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF MOUNT ST. JOSEPH UNIVERSITY (4)

Sister Karen Elliott, CPPS, director of mission education at Mount St. Joseph, lays tile on a New Orleans mission trip.

founders, acknowledging the decreasing presence of priests, religious sisters, and brothers on campus. These days, mission is not only a Catholic university concern. Hospitals have missions, as do automakers and fast-food chains. If you work for Nike, for example, you strive “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”

For Catholic colleges, the mission statement answers the questions “Who are you?” and “How does this make you as a college different?” explains Sister Karen Elliott, CPPS, director of mission education at the Mount. The words of any mission statement, she contends, are important. “The mission is what we hope to be. Even though we may fall short, we are striving for the fullness of the statement,” she says.

In that mission statement, we acknowledge that we are “a Catholic academic community grounded in the spiritual values and vision of its founders, the Sisters of Charity” of Cincinnati. Although the Mount is a separate entity from this religious order, our values flow from their charism.

According to the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU), 90 percent of the nearly 200 Catholic colleges and universities in the United States were founded by religious orders. Many are deliberate about staying in touch with their founders’ visions.

The word charism comes from the Hebrew word nefesh, according to Sister Karen. “It’s hard to find a good translation. It’s your essence, the totality of who you are,” she says.

“It’s a passion given to a group of people by the Holy Spirit to do what you have to do. When God enters the occasion, it takes you deeper than you would have been on your own.”

SOLID VALUES

For the academic community at Villanova University near Philadelphia, the charism flows from the Augustinians, according to an article in the 2017 issue of its Heart of the Matter magazine, an annual publication from the Office for Mission and Ministry.

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“‘Augustinian principles of Veritas, Unitas, and Caritas (Truth, Unity, and Love) are the foundation upon which the Irish friars formed Villanova,’ . . . they remain ‘the ideals that continue to challenge us today and . . . that will propel us into the future.’”

—Father Peter Donohue, OSA, president of Villanova University

Father Peter Donohue is the president of Villanova, the oldest Catholic university in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

support the work of campus ministry. Recipients “will serve as leaders of interfaith prayer, assist with student retreat experiences, serve as prayer leaders for our athletic teams, engage in service activities, and assume leadership for other campus ministry events.”

MAKING MISSION REAL

While not every Catholic campus has designated mission ambassadors, it’s a goal of administrators overseeing student life at Catholic colleges to embed the mission into decisions affecting students. That’s the hope of Dr. Doug Frizzell, vice president for student life at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. A convert to Catholicism while he was in college before coming to Duquesne in July 2015, he worked at three universities, each affiliated with a religious denomination.

It was when working at a Lutheran college that he felt compelled to “give back to Catholicism,” a decision that led to 15 years at a small Catholic college, then to Duquesne.

Frizzell believes that “the mission gives you guidance so that people know who you are.”

Working with Duquesne staff in three centers at the university, Frizzell constantly reminds them to focus on the well-being of Duquesne’s students. His mantra is, “We serve God by serving students so they, in turn, can serve others.”

Integrating the mission into student activities is sometimes a balancing act, he says, recounting an incident a year

TOP: PHOTO COURTESY VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY; LOWER RIGHT AND INSET: PHOTOS COURTESY DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY

Father Peter Donohue, OSA, as he began his term as president of the university, “recalled that the ‘Augustinian principles of Veritas, Unitas, and Caritas (Truth, Unity, and Love) are the foundation upon which the Irish friars formed Villanova,’ that they remain ‘the ideals that continue to challenge us today, and . . . that will propel us into the future.’ “‘Every decision we make,’ he suggested, is to ‘be framed within these values.’ To avoid being ‘simply words we speak’ or allowed to become some historical artifact ‘engraved on a seal,’ he directed the community to take them into our hands [as clay] and ‘knead them into all that we do.’”

Like the president of Villanova, administrators at other Catholic universities embrace their school’s specific mission.

At the Mount, our president, Dr. H. James Williams, makes it clear from his frequent acknowledgment of the Sisters of Charity that he understands how essential their charism is to the identity of our academic community. In speeches and e-mails, he frequently quotes a line from the Sisters of Charity charism statement: “As pilgrims, we pray for the wisdom to know the needs of our sisters and brothers and we dare to risk a caring response.”

But beyond his words, Williams and his leadership team are putting money behind the mission. This year, the Mount announced that 10 incoming freshmen had been named mission ambassadors for the university. These students receive $1,000 a semester, renewable for four years as long as they 26 • September 2019 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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ago when he intervened with a fraternity to cancel a concert that had already been cleared through other channels before it was brought to his attention.

“The lyrics of the band’s music were inappropriate,” he says. “The students had already put a deposit on the venue and the band, so they were not happy when I told them it would be canceled.”

His conversation with fraternity leaders revolved around a question used as a litmus test at his university for mission fit: “Is it Duquesne-able?” The students agreed this event was not, and they were satisfied when Frizzell’s office reimbursed them for deposits that had not been refunded.

Not all students have to be educated about the value of a mission. Some students enroll in Catholic colleges already in touch with it even though they cannot yet articulate it.

TOP: PHOTO COURTESY VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY; LOWER RIGHT AND INSET: PHOTOS COURTESY DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY

Dr. Doug Frizzell, vice president for student life at Duquesne University, has devoted his life to Catholic higher education, integrating his school’s mission into student activities.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

This was true for Hattie Frana, a 2019 graduate of Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa. Founded by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM), Clarke states on its website that its outcomes for student learning “are grounded in a Catholic vision of education, particularly as we express it in the BVM core values of freedom, education, charity, and justice.”

For Frana, these values reinforced what her parents had emphasized over the years: “Help those who can’t help themselves.” With dual majors in history and philosophy, she feels prepared for law school at the University of Iowa, where she began this fall. Although she always intended to be a lawyer, it was during her years at Clarke that she zeroed in on immigration and children’s rights law.

She points to several experiences that led her “to discover this passion along the way” while she was at Clarke: a class in modern Latin American history, a local screening of a documentary about the 2008 raid on undocumented workers by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Agri Star slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, and conversations with a high school friend, a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy from the Obama presidency.

“We serve God by serving students so they, in turn, can serve others.”

—Dr. Doug Frizzell, vice president for student life at Duquesne University

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Clarke University is a learning community that lives by four core values: education, charity, justice, and freedom.

She remembers telling her DACA friend, “We need more immigration lawyers. Those attorneys are making a difference.”

While at Clarke, Frana was already making a difference in small ways. She volunteered at a local elementary school through the AmeriCorps Partners in Learning initiative, working with students in primary grades to develop reading fluency. She was also active in Clarke’s PB&J group (Peace, Betterment, and Justice), hosting open discussions on timely topics that promote the common good and initiating service activities beyond the two required annually of all Clarke students.

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WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/DADEROT

Clarke University, pictured above, inspires intellectual curiosity, cultural engagement, professional development, spiritual exploration, and a commitment to contributing to the common good of society, as its website maintains.

As active as she was, Frana made sure to take time to strengthen her spiritual life by singing with music ministers at Sunday Masses on campus. Although the congregations at those Masses were “not very big,” every Sunday she felt nourished by the homilies from a young priest “who was so easy to connect to.”

Even though most Catholic universities do not require attendance at Sunday Masses, the impact of sharing in the Eucharist as a music minister or as part of a dynamic congregation can be lasting for college students, leading to a strengthening of religious faith and their commitment to Catholicism.

When my eldest daughter, Katie Barkley Lavelle, began college in August 1999 at Xavier University in Cincinnati, she faced more than the typical challenges of first-year students.

She moved into her dorm, knowing that her father, who a month earlier had undergone neurosurgery for an aggressive form of brain cancer, might not have long to live. What a blessing that the 10 p.m. Sunday Mass at Bellarmine Chapel on campus became her primary community, a source of support leading up to her father’s death on October 26, and in the months and years afterward.

“By being able to share that time at Mass each week with

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CLARKE UNIVERSITY (2)

COMMUNITY THROUGH LITURGY

A BRIEF HISTORY

NEW B O O K F R OM

FR. A L B E R T H AAS E

Georgetown University in Washington, DC

RI CHARD R OH R Center for Action and Contemplation

As with most non-Catholic colleges of the 18th and 19th centuries, Catholic colleges did not admit women. The first four-year Catholic college for women, the College of Notre Dame in Maryland, was founded in 1896, according to Power. By 1955, that number had increased to 116.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/DADEROT

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CLARKE UNIVERSITY (2)

A DECADE AFTER THE birth of this nation, the first Catholic college opened in Washington, DC: Georgetown University, founded by Bishop John Carroll. By 1850, nine more permanent Catholic colleges followed, according to Edward J. Power in A History of Catholic Higher Education in the United States: Mt. St. Mary’s (Maryland), St. Louis University, Spring Hill, Xavier (Ohio), Fordham, the University of Notre Dame (Indiana), Holy Cross (Massachusetts), Villanova, and St. Vincent (Pennsylvania). These institutions shared three goals: to prepare men for the seminary, to support Catholic missionary efforts, and to lay a strong moral foundation for young men.

“With scriptural insights and practical exercises, Albert Haase reminds us that God has an ardent longing for a deeper and deeper relationship with each of us.”

Today, about 260 institutions of higher education in the United States identify as Catholic, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Serving 891,000 students, most are small to mid-size, with an average enrollment of about 3,550 students and an average annual tuition of $29,532, according to 2017–2018 data.

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some of my classmates outside of the academic setting, I connected with them at a deeper emotional and spiritual level,” Lavelle reflects. “Our 10 p.m. Mass community supported each other through deaths in families, relationship struggles, illness, career decisions, engagements, and more.”

As a spouse anticipating the death of my husband, the father of three daughters all in their teens, I was grateful for the support of Katie’s Xavier family and the bonds she formed through those weekly Masses. When she and Kevin married in 2004, it felt right that the nuptial Mass should be where they had formed such a tight community, Bellarmine Chapel, and that the celebrant would be a Jesuit who had been the dean of Kevin’s college, with whom he and Katie had forged a deep friendship.

Walking her down the aisle that July afternoon, I felt the absence of her father, and realized some of the tear-stained faces in the pews acknowledged the same. But there was more joy than sadness in that space because many knew how important that chapel had been to Katie as she grieved her father’s death. Her Catholic university—and that sacred place in the middle of campus—had been an anchor as she integrated her loss and matured in her faith.

DEALING WITH THE PRICE TAG

Even if they affirm the value of a mission-centered college, students and parents have to find ways to finance a Catholic college education. That was the experience of Rebecca DeBurger, introduced at the beginning of this article. After

her father’s death when she was in high school, “My mom was the only source of income for our family. Having a twin who also wished to attend the Mount meant serious cutbacks at the house. Luckily, we had received a few generous scholarships from high school and a few from the Mount.”

DeBurger’s reliance on financial aid mirrors the experience of many Catholic college students. More than 90 percent of first-year, full-time students in Catholic higher education receive grant aid from the institution, according to the ACCU. Overall, institutional grant aid has increased by 23 percent over the past five years, from $1.4 billion in 2010–11 (in 2015 dollars) to $1.7 billion in 2015–16.

Students rarely pay the published tuition at a Catholic college, according to Joseph Smith, chief financial officer at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Although in 2019 Gonzaga’s published tuition and fees were $41,330 per year, that year the average Gonzaga undergraduate student paid $23,109 (tuition and fees less institutional financial aid).

That compares to tuition and fees at neighboring fouryear public universities ranging from $7,323 to $11,207, according to Smith.

The choice of a college “is often a very personal decision and financial aid/price is one part of the dynamic,” says Smith. “A prospective student should consider factors such as course of study, majors, research, class size, geography, type of campus, safety, comfort and amenities, mission, legacy, pedagogy, and faith considerations.”

He adds that this choice “should address a more global

PHOTOS COURTESY OF XAVIER UNIVERSITY (2)

A statue of St. Francis Xavier welcomes students and visitors to Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1831, Xavier promotes a culture of inclusion, community engagement, and intellectual curiosity in the Jesuit tradition.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF XAVIER UNIVERSITY (2)

Bellarmine Chapel at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio

measure of success, that is to say, where will I have the best chance for short-term (through college) and long-term (in life) success to become the person I hope and aspire to be?

And what level of personal investment am I willing to make to that end?”

He quotes Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, former superior general of the Jesuits (the founding order of Gonzaga) in support of this view: “The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become.”

For DeBurger, who she is becoming is intimately linked to her first semester as an undergraduate in her challenging Common Ground course. “I carry Common Ground with me every day as I interact with patients as a future healthcare provider. I will work with my patients toward a common goal of improving their health,” she says. “Common Ground is about working to make strides in our community.

It is about taking the time to understand the struggles that our brothers and sisters in Christ are facing and influencing legislation together to better the lives of all.”

DeBurger is convinced that “my Catholic education is invaluable and something I will carry with me forever. The education I received from Mount St. Joseph University nourished not only my mind but also my soul.”

Elizabeth Bookser Barkley, PhD, is an English professor and chair of the department of liberal arts at Mount St. Joseph University. An author of four books, including Life after Death: Practical Help for the Widowed (Franciscan Media), she enjoys the arts and spending time with her grandchildren.

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RECONNECT BROOKLYN A SECOND CHANCE FOR AT-RISK YOUTH

This New York neighborhood, formerly a place of drugs and crime, is making a comeback. Father Jim O’Shea’s entrepreneurial movement has been instrumental in its recovery.

By Beth Griffin O’Shea used his background in social work to develop y his own description, Efrain Hernandez was “a terror” several initiatives for at-risk youth. “There was nothing for growing up in a single-parent home in the Bedfordthem to do but get into trouble. I saw bad outcomes for good Stuyvesant area of New York City. He did what he wanted guys,” he says. to do and drifted into selling drugs to have some money in One of his early activities was an after-school program his pocket. Eventually, Hernandez was arrested and spent 18 where young people could play basketball after they finished months in prison. their homework. The lanky Father O’Shea was often on the These days, Hernandez serves as associate director of Reconnect Brooklyn, an entrepreneurial movement of young court with the students. One of his first basketball players was Efrain Hernandez. men in his old neighborhood. How In 2010, Father O’Shea started the he traveled from where he was then to Vernon Avenue project, an organizawhere he is now is due in large part to “RECONNECT BROOKLYN tion whose mission was engaging one man: Passionist Father Jim O’Shea. neighborhood youth through entreWAS BORN WITH ONE preneurship, education, and leaderFILLING A NEED SIMPLE IDEA: IF YOUNG ship. “There was no entry-level work, New Yorkers and others who haven’t and there were a lot of unprepared visited “Bed-Stuy” since the neighborMEN AREN’T PREPARED young people. You had to imagine hood began to gentrify in the past TO LEAVE ‘THE CORNER,’ there was a place for them in the decade may still think of the area as world,” he says. one where selling drugs is the most THEN WE TRANSFORM common type of entry-level employThe initial idea was to take the ‘THE CORNER.’” skills they knew from selling drugs ment. Times have changed—a little.

—FROM RECONNECTBROOKLYN.ORG on the street corner to make money And Reconnect Brooklyn can take legally and without the deadly consome credit for helping the neighborsequences. “I hired four or five guys hood and its people come out of the from the corner,” Father O’Shea says. shadows.

“We grew vegetables in a community garden and sold them Father O’Shea is the cofounder and executive director at stands outside churches.” They also bought vegetables of Reconnect Brooklyn. He describes it as a neighborhood from a wholesale market to supplement what they produced. movement that offers an opportunity for young men to “We didn’t make any money,” he recalls with a laugh, “but it access employment and learn how to work at one of several was a way to start working on skills.” businesses Reconnect Brooklyn has started since 2014.

Other ideas followed, including a small bakery specialFather O’Shea first encountered the neighborhood in izing in fresh cookies. The sweet treats were also sold at 1997, when he was assigned to Our Lady of Montserrat, a local churches and a retreat house. Looking at the parade of church that has since merged with another parish. Drugs young professionals moving into the area, one of the bakers and violent crime had taken a toll on Bed-Stuy, and Father

PHOTO CREDIT: GREGORY A. SHEMITZ

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PHOTO CREDIT: GREGORY A. SHEMITZ

Reconnect Brooklyn is the brainchild of Father Jim O’Shea, provincial superior of the Passionist Fathers.

He describes the businesses of Reconnect Brooklyn as “schools of formation and connection” for at-risk youth.

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observed that the newcomers would likely want to buy coffee, so Reconnect Café was opened, a first for the neighborhood. Later, a fellow moving out of the area offered to sell his T-shirt printing equipment. Voilà! Reconnect Graphics was born.

Reconnect Brooklyn’s businesses, or social enterprises, “are the schools of formation and connection. Without them, the conversation doesn’t begin,” Father O’Shea says. “It’s not easy to gather people who are socially disconnected.”

HIGH EXPECTATIONS

In the neighborhood, one-third of the residents live in poverty, only 30 percent of students read at a grade-school level, and the school-to-prison pipeline is well-honed, Father O’Shea says. “It’s a familiar story: Good guys disconnect from school, start doing other things, stay on the streets, and are either locked up or killed.” For a long time, the area was so violent that young men risked being shot if they walked down the wrong block.

Reconnect Brooklyn’s social enterprises are places where people can learn about business and work on themselves at the same time. The process is designed to help access employment and ensure that each participant learns how to work. Father O’Shea says the entrepreneurial businesses distinguish Reconnect Brooklyn from more traditional job-training programs.

Despite the relaxed atmosphere at the businesses, Reconnect Brooklyn’s methods are clear and unambiguous.

Groups, or “cohorts,” of seven to 12 young men ages 17–23 begin their three-month experience at the same time. Some have never left the neighborhood; others have served jail time; many are in unstable living situations; most have a lot of stress.

But each participant is expected to arrive punctually at the work site, prepared to start the day, wearing the Reconnect Brooklyn uniform, and not carrying a cell phone. His work is evaluated every week by the manager of the enterprise, and he has a weekly

meeting with a social worker, a mentor, and a program director whose focus is education.

The support is critical to get the young men to the next step, which may be further training, employment elsewhere, or school. “We give them their first experience and the opportunity to get their legs steady. They get a lot of attention,” Father O’Shea says.

But the path is rarely straight or smooth. He says it would be unfair and delusional to expect the youth partners to have it all together in three months.

“It’s not just a tune-up that is needed.

Healing is a lifelong process.”

The young men work 20–25 hours a week at minimum wage.

If they arrive late, or in the wrong outfit, they are sent home. “It’s not a game.

This is life. You have to work. If you can’t smile and show up on time, you can’t get a job,” Father O’Shea says.

“I say: ‘You guys are creating your own legacy in the neighborhood. This is not Father O’Shea giving you something. You have to figure out how to work with other people, play your part, and actualize yourself.’”

MOVING FORWARD

The educational component of Reconnect Brooklyn helps young men prepare to matriculate at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York. It also works closely with Jesuit Worldwide Learning, whose aim is to bring higher education to the margins, in part via online learning.

Reconnect Brooklyn operates on a slim annual budget of approximately $600,000, drawn from the businesses, an annual fund-raising dinner, a municipal contract for wage subsidies, foundation grants, and private donations. The Passionists of St. Paul of the Cross Province have also been generous and supportive, Father O’Shea says.

In addition, the Ignatian Volunteer Corps has placed seasoned profession-

At Reconnect Graphics, a screen-printing company that makes T-shirts, sweatshirts, and tote bags, young people learn about business and about themselves.

ABOVE: Four employees— Michael Baker, Joe Norton, manager Peter McGouran, and Errol Coleman—work amid stacks of completed T-shirts. BOTTOM: Shykwill Johnson is all smiles as he helps box thousands of shirts for shipment. INSET: Christopher Brunson carefully applies color to a shirt.

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als with Reconnect Brooklyn, including Ron Oberdick, who has been the chief financial officer for five years and also serves as a mentor and tutor. Last year, Reconnect Brooklyn drew on the talents of an intern from the Fordham School of Social Work.

But it is Father O’Shea’s vision and tenacity that have kept Reconnect Brooklyn moving forward. In the early days, he connected with youth through parish-based basketball and church activities. “The church was a nice intersection with people on the margins,” he explains. “But the church is less visible in the community now. The youth have no connection to it and there is no common vocabulary through the church. How do you talk about morality and ethics when people don’t know the Ten Commandments?

“I’m not shy about talking about faith,” he says. “These are children of God, and that’s why I’m here—to help them see that in themselves. The world is drenched with God and signs that remind us of God—Reconnect Brooklyn is one of them.”

COURTESY OF RECONNECT BROOKLYN/RAMIRO AGREDO, GRAPHICS DIRECTOR (3)

A CHANGING NEIGHBORHOOD

Efrain Hernandez cofounded Reconnect Brooklyn with Father O’Shea. He is now the associate director and recently joined the organization’s board. He participated in many of Father O’Shea’s activities, including a Skills Academy that taught basketball and teamwork to local teens.

“It was the best thing for me—to sit down and take time to think about what I wanted to do with my life,” he says.

During Hernandez’s incarceration, Father O’Shea visited him twice a month. In the visitors room of the prison at Rikers Island, they developed the idea of Reconnect Brooklyn. “I jumped on board because I believe in the mission,” Hernandez says. It was a good decision because, among other things, “The people I grew up with here are either dead or in prison.”

The neighborhood has changed dramatically since Hernandez was a youth. On the positive side, streets

and parks are no longer littered with drug syringes, and the most prominent local crack house is now home to a real estate firm. The success of Reconnect Brooklyn’s trending enterprises is directly related to gentrification, an irony that is not lost on Hernandez. It squeezed out many longtime residents, including Hernandez himself, who now commutes from Manhattan.

“Landlords charge millennials $1,000 a month for an apartment the size of a jail cell,” he explains, and the frequent turnover of tenants bumps the rent to unaffordable levels for everyone. “Old folks and individuals with scarce opportunities feel it the worst. A lot of people are ending up in shelters.”

A federally funded housing voucher system provides relief to low-income residents, but many landlords now refuse to participate in the program, he says.

WORKING AND LEARNING

The group’s first brick-and-mortar business was Reconnect Bakery. It was an upbeat place that provided a learning experience for workers, but it closed after the death of one of its lead organizers.

At the second enterprise, Reconnect Café, a local coffee roaster helped young men learn the business, from ordering products and supplies to serving and cleaning. The café sold coffee, sandwiches, and pastries in a cozy storefront. But plumbing issues elsewhere in the building caused the shop to flood and its ceiling to leak.

The café closed for repairs and reopened several times before Reconnect Brooklyn decided to “cut its losses and move out,” according to Father O’Shea.

Reconnect Graphics was established in 2017. The popular enterprise designs and prints T-shirts for organizations and special events. It shares space with other local nonprofit groups in several stately brownstone buildings.

Reuben Felder and Jaben “Meek” Taylor were in one of the first cohorts at Reconnect Graphics. Felder says that the creative work and quiet space help him with his other interest, writing and

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performing music. “When I come here, there’s peace, and no one’s arguing with each other. The work’s not hard, but you have to be dedicated and want to get it done,” he says.

Taylor, also an aspiring musical performer, heard about Reconnect Graphics from a fellow member of a local car club. It was an opportunity to pick up a new skill in his quest

“to be bigger than what I am now,” he says. After his time with Reconnect, he landed a job in construction.

Reconnect Graphics expanded in 2018. With help from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, it designed and built a pop-up shop for use at the street fairs and festivals that are popular throughout New York City. The shop was decorated by a prominent graffiti artist and features T-shirts and cold brew coffee. There is talk about adding Reconnect Bakery’s popular cookie to the mix too. Hernandez, who formerly managed Reconnect Café, is running the new venture. He is being mentored by someone with sales experience and will eventually mentor others.

“The overall movement is healthy. It was difficult to lose the café, which was our signature enterprise, but we are always responding and looking for opportunities,” Father O’Shea says.

Jaben Taylor removes a newly printed T-shirt from the press. He took the opportunity to learn a new skill in order “to be bigger than what I am now.” The enterprises of Reconnect Brooklyn encourage workers to spread a positive message of change.

More than 150 young men have come through Reconnect Brooklyn. Many return to check in, share a meal, or ask for help. “That’s the kind of community you want to create—a place where people can come back, be welcomed and taken seriously, and know that someone will care,” Father O’Shea says.

He describes one former worker who subsequently spent two years in jail and was then “dumped in a men’s shelter, a horrible place to be.” He found his way back to Reconnect Brooklyn, where he was welcomed and given money to buy pants for a job interview.

Reconnect Brooklyn has evolved to meet the changing realities of the neighborhood and the young men it serves.

But the organization that Father O’Shea says is “built on the richness of relationships” may soon be challenged in a new way: His Passionist colleagues elected Father O’Shea provincial in May 2018. The province includes eastern Canada, the eastern United States, Jamaica, Haiti, and parts of the West Indies. Even as Father O’Shea’s considerable provincial leadership duties draw him away from the day-to-day world of Reconnect Brooklyn, he is confident in the organization and its ability to morph as needed.

“From the start, Reconnect Brooklyn has been doing what it was supposed to do: being a low-to-the-ground connection with young men who are having a difficult time in a difficult neighborhood,” he says. “And if it wasn’t for the Passionists, this would never have started. It has always been a point of pride for the province.”

Father O’Shea is sure the many people invested in Reconnect Brooklyn will advance the group’s straightforward mission. “This is the reality of human growth: You start and stop and figure it out and find better ways,” he says. “And this is what we say about lives too—it’s not about mapping it out, but figuring it out.”

Beth Griffin, the New York correspondent for Catholic News Service, is an awardwinning freelance journalist based in Rye, New York.

PHOTO CREDIT: GREGORY A. SHEMITZ

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

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of In the face of packed family schedules, technology overload, and a mobile society, grandparents have much to offer. This author describes creative ways grandparents can bring enduring light into the lives of their grandchildren.

By Kathy Coffey

PAUL BRADBURY/ISTOCK

A

s he arranged a game of tag with his younger cousins, my 6-year-old grandson breathlessly announced, “Grandma will be base!” At first I thought, Add that to the résumé! Then I wondered if it could work symbolically: Maybe Grandma gives some grounding? At least that’s what we hope, we who’ve embarked on this perilous, bewildering, awesome phase of life.

I’ve stood in many privileged places—at the podium before an audience of 1,000, at the altar sponsoring a dear

friend through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, leading retreat groups. Yet one place tops all: holding a small hand in each of mine as my grandchildren bravely approach something new. Sometimes it’s a first day of school, a dental appointment, or an unfamiliar setting such as an airport.

They don’t know what the journey holds, but we courageously move forward together, hand in hand. I pray that what I give them now might steady them in whatever lies ahead, long after I’m gone.

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But what, exactly, do we pass on? Since grannies no longer sit in rockers, saying the rosary, wearing long black dresses and granny shoes, we’re making up this role as we go. Among our many questions: What role does faith play? How might it support children in a future we can’t predict? And how do we deal with the challenges? Geographic distances, overbooked families, invasive technology, divorce, and custody battles loom large. Furthermore, many of the children’s parents come from different traditions or are too busy or uninterested to care about religion.

The Bible speaks of living to see one’s grandchildren as life’s greatest blessing. When Job’s fortunes are restored after great losses, one of God’s special blessings is allowing him to see “even his great-grandchildren” (Jb 42:16). In a society that tends to dismiss older people, how do we believe in our own power? Perhaps a start is to focus on the things that go well, not our ridiculous gaffes.

Many grandchildren say the one thing their grandparents have that their parents don’t is time. The wisdom and presence of an older generation may be just what children need most.

As an Episcopal priest from a dysfunctional family said, “My grandmother’s unconditional love saved my life.”

And let’s move past our stereotypes. Maybe a few families go to Sunday Mass with all the generations together, but we need to be realistic. Even if they went, it probably wouldn’t be to the same parish. From the year 2000 onward, 45 percent of marriages are interchurch or interfaith. Two-thirds of millennials claim no religious affiliation. We need to admit the sobering reality and discover other ways of bringing light to little lives. The possibilities are endless, and many grandparents have devised creative strategies.

GIVING EXPERIENCES, NOT STUFF

Children live in a world driven by screeching marketing of toys-you-can’t-live-without. Insidiously, they are targeted by corporate interests that know their vulnerability and want them whining and fussing until parent or grandparent capitulates and buys.

It’s countercultural and downright Christian to resist the pressure to spend and accumulate. No one wants to be a dour martyr, but a grandparent can be the creative genius who devises alternative gifts. For starters, try a handmade or computer-designed “ticket” to a zoo, library, concert, museum, etc. Children with siblings delight in being the

sole object of grandparental attention. Long after the toys are broken, the bond and memories endure. In no time, the child will be regularly requesting the birthday outing or breakfast adventure.

The culture bombards us with manufactured fun to buy, but young children play happily with a fort made of couch cushions, the tent of a blanket hung over a laundry line, a pile of stones, a pail and shovel. A grandparent has a brief and marvelous opportunity to open a child’s imagination to a world full of simple treasures and reinvigorate his or her own sense of fun. Such experiences instill a sense that we can rely on our inner resources, not what someone else wants us to do or buy. They can also reinvigorate older people who may have grown jaded and broaden horizons for those whose lives may have become narrow.

Teaching a skill such as skating, fishing, drawing, baking, playing checkers, canoeing, dancing, planting seeds, or singing equips children for the long haul— beat that, advertisers! In the process, children may find what they’re especially drawn to, which could become a lifelong hobby or profession.

MAKING RITUALS

Repeated routines give children security even when their lives are tumultuous.

Anyone who doubts this might see what havoc ensues when the usual morning ritual changes. Much of life is out of our control, so it’s comforting to have the stability of repetition. Furthermore, we’d probably prefer that children’s heads were filled with “This Little Light of Mine” instead of advertising jingles. The reality is that there may be some of both, but we want to landscape their imaginations with stories of kindness and images of beauty whenever we can.

Holidays and changes of season provide natural opportunities for ritual. For children, to do it once means, “We always do it.” Meals, rising in the morning, and bedtime are natural times for a prayer of praise or gratitude. If children hear their grandparents consistently thanking God for health, food, the beauties of sunset or snowfall, friends and relatives, teachers, doctors, and firefighters, they’ll adopt that attitude too. If they see that Mass or another religious ritual holds meaning for the older people they respect, they will seriously consider its inclusion in their adult lives.

Ritual needn’t always be expressed in words. In fact, it can be a wordless language of gesture, perfect when children are preverbal. Grandparents can adapt the practice of many Spanish-speaking people, who always bless their children before they leave the house for school or the playground.

It can be a simple touch on the forehead or hands with the

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‘BRINGING LIGHT TO LITTLE LIVES’

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We want those we love to know the redwoods and daffodils, waves and sunsets that have poured delight into our days.

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While some Christians once thought that creation came from a remote God, others believe that it is the overflow of God’s very nature. From the whorl of hair on the back of a child’s head to the cascade of red maple leaves in autumn, everything carries the sacred imprint of the Maker’s hand. The more we learn about the intricacies of science—the songs of whales, the wonders of the human body, the cosmos revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope— the more we are in awe of God’s abundance and wisdom. We should reverence the vast array of natural wonders and teach our grandchildren to do the same.

One gift a grandparent can give children as an alternative to pervasive electronic devices is this appreciation for the natural world. Enthusiasm for gardens, mountains, fishing streams, forests, oceans, starry skies, hummingbirds, rocks, lightning, insects, and waterfalls is contagious. We want those we love to know the redwoods and daffodils, waves and sunsets that have poured delight into our days. Children are concrete-minded, and before they read, keenly sensitive to the messages their five senses deliver. Later in school, when they learn about ecology and how to protect the environ-

Kathy Coffey is the author of 13 award-winning books and many articles in this magazine, including “Echoes of Exodus,” which appeared in our March 2019 issue. Her website is KathyJCoffey.com.

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ABOVE: RGSTUDIO/ISTOCK; BELOW: MASTER1305/FOTOSEARCH

ENGAGING WITH NATURE

ment, grandparents continue to learn from them. Surely they motivate us to hand on our rich natural resources, fresh as they came from God’s hand, not to exploit or destroy them.

Grounding in nature is not only a never-ending source of wonder. It is also an introduction to the Creator whose creativity, beauty, variety, and energy are reflected in the natural world. For some people, earth, sea, and sky form a temple; they pray better in the cathedral of the outdoors than in church. Jesus often drew on the natural world for his teaching, using images of vineyards, sheep, flowers, water, and birds to convey his message.

An illustration of grandparents’ remarkable influence comes from the story of John Muir (1838–1914), who wrote eloquently about Yosemite and was instrumental in making it one of the first of the spectacular US national parks. Yet few know of his childhood in Scotland: A strict, angry Calvinist father beat him, forcing him to memorize the Bible. But his grandfather gave him the Celtic strain of spirituality, reverence for the natural world. Grandpa showed the wide-eyed boy a different sacred text as they explored the coast near Dunbar: “winds, wells, and waters—all words of God.” Later when the adult Muir wrote eloquently about preserving forests and mountains as God’s temples, and that destroying them was sacrilege, his grandfather’s sense of wonder must have shone through his prose.

As a closing image, imagine this scene on a blustery, rainy day. A grandparent huddles beneath an umbrella with several grandchildren. Winds buffet them, but they form a little island, safe and dry beneath their portable roof. Then imagine that the umbrella represents gifts grandparents give: security, faith, affection. And it’s a two-way street: Grandchildren return the tender joy.

Furthermore, all are held within a larger circle of God’s love.

The learnings from “grandparent school” must be part of the process described by Father Thomas Keating in his book The Human Condition, “If we have not experienced ourselves as unconditional love, we have more work to do, because that is who we really are.”

BOBEX-73/ISTOCK

words, “God bless you.” Or it can be more elaborate, depending on the child and the time available. It’s a joy to see how children who have been consistently blessed will in turn bless their parents and grandparents. Consider a hulking quarterback who simply won’t board the plane bound for college without receiving a blessing first. The ritual has become vital to his comings and goings!

At the other end of the age spectrum, think about a grumpy 5-year-old going off to kindergarten. He grabs his sister’s coat and snarls at the chauffeur, his grandpa. So they don’t do their usual parting ritual of hug/kiss/high five/ fist bump and blessing.

Grandpa starts walking away a little unsettled.

But after a few minutes he hears a small voice calling across the parking lot, “Grandpa!”

Immediately reversing course, Grandpa returns, they hug and do their ritual, and the day is off to a better start.

FAMILIES TODAY FACE multiple challenges—whether being separated by long distances, children with too many extracurricular commitments, technology overload, or parents struggling with divorce. While faith may be a lifeline for grandparents, many young parents might not be as connected or interested in religion.

In the face of these realities, we grandparents have something to offer. All great teachers, especially Jesus, know that the most effective vehicle, the one people can’t resist, is a story. Everyone wants

FAMILY STORIES

ABOVE: RGSTUDIO/ISTOCK; BELOW: MASTER1305/FOTOSEARCH

BOBEX-73/ISTOCK

When Grandpa begins, “Remember the time we . . .,” the rest of the family may groan, but they relax into a familiar story.

It’s not important how often a story is repeated; what matters is what it tells us about ourselves, the kind of family we are.

And since we’re the heroes, we’re brave, resourceful, and strong! Or if we fail, we’re able to laugh at ourselves.

Either way, the story weaves us together, establishes our identity, and strengthens our bonds. If a child is experiencing a particular difficulty, it may help to hear how a grandparent also did: handling a bully on the playground or getting an “F” in math. Psychologists at Emory University researching family narratives found that the most resilient, self-confident children know they belong to something larger than themselves.

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to know “How does it end?” and relate to characters who are like or unlike ourselves. We want to cheer for the good over the bad, secure that right will triumph.

Similarly, any self-respecting child resists platitudes and rules. But the story slips past defenses and communicates volumes through an intensely pleasurable experience. While snuggled in bed, hearing or reading a good book is a habit begun with a parent or grandparent that can enrich for a lifetime.

FAITH STORIES

The Bible may be seen as a collection of family stories for people who didn’t have cameras or photo albums. They tell us about Jesus and his great-greatgrandparents. Just as in any family, Bible stories shape who we are and give meaning to our lives. They link us to those who came before, and place our small lives within a larger design. They reassure us that some mightily flawed people nevertheless played their parts.

God continues to cherish even those who are ignorant, arrogant, stubborn, and unethical—so maybe there’s hope for us too!

OTHER STORIES

Powerful, faith-filled messages are often presented in books that aren’t termed “religious.” The classics of children’s literature give grounding and assurance because good triumphs over evil. Wise grandparents begin with the annual Caldecott and Newbery winners and runners-up. They learn how to be good storytellers, using different voices, dramatic pauses, and props to engage listeners. Children’s librarians are often full of good suggestions and offer regular story times.

Grandparents can be gifted storytellers, whether through reading books to young children or sharing the twists and turns of the family narrative with teens and young adults.

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Finding Beauty While Letting Go When confronted with her husband’s death, this woman turned to art journaling for comfort.

By Trudelle Thomas | Photography by Mary Catherine Kozusko

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Trudelle Thomas pages through the art journal she created during her husband’s battle with late-stage abdominal cancer. An active man and skilled carpenter throughout his life, her husband, Bill, built the sturdy playset that granddaughter Selah still enjoys today after decades of use.

O

n Good Friday of 2018, the bottom fell out of my world when my husband, Bill, learned he had late-stage abdominal cancer. We’d been doctoring the previous nine months for a variety of symptoms—chiefly insomnia and an unsteady gait. His primary care doctor had ruled out cancer and other possible illnesses. Finally, back pain brought him to the ER where a scan revealed a “large suspicious mass around his vena cava.” Subsequent biopsies and scans in the next few days showed that the cancer had spread to his liver, lungs, and other internal organs. Because he’d felt no abdominal pain till now, all the specialists had missed it. At 74, Bill had at best six months to live. Chemotherapy might buy him a few more months, but it carried risks as well.

Bill and I had long ago signed advance directives for health care. Both his parents had been in hospice care during the last few weeks of their lives and wished they’d chosen it sooner because it was so much more humane than conventional medical treatment. Bill did not hesitate to accept this was the end of his life. “I’ve had a good life. I’m tired of being miserable. I’m done,” he insisted. We called hospice three days after the diagnosis.

ADJUSTING TO A TRANSITION

It was as if Bill had used up all his fighting spirit trying to stay active the past nine months. Before retirement, he’d owned a home inspection business that took him all over Cincinnati; he could navigate over 70 zip codes and understood houses from top to bottom. He was also a gifted

February 9, 2018: “We as Christians have a duty to delight. Even in times of heart-wrenching loss, the spirit is constantly pouring forth grace and joy. Peace that passes understanding. Have you LOVED + paid attention to the people I’ve given you? have you found Joy + DELIGHT in my gifts today?”

carpenter who remodeled our kitchen and improved nearly every other room; he’d built a two-story (6-by-18 feet) playset in our backyard that was still sturdy decades later.

In retirement he’d been busy as a community volunteer and activist in local politics. But nine months of insomnia drained all his energy.

Once Bill decided on hospice, he never left our home.

Almost immediately, he lost the ability to walk unaided.

Soon, he was no longer able to dress or bathe himself, or even to transfer from our bed to a wheelchair without my help. He was at risk for falling, so someone needed to be within earshot every moment of the day and night. At first, I was completely disoriented by the changes in my husband.

With his can-do spirit and goofy sense of humor, he’d been my rock through decades of our happy marriage. Now it was time for me to be his rock.

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A book about end-of-life care poses the question: “A year from now, when you look back, how would you like to remember this time of caring for your loved one?” I wanted to honor his wishes to stay at home and be cared for by family. Four of our five adult kids and their families lived nearby; I figured among us we could do whatever it took to make Bill’s remaining time as calm and comfortable as possible.

And in fact, I found within me an unstoppable river of love. I learned to manage his various, ever-changing medications. I found the physical strength to turn and lift and transfer him to a chair or bed when needed. I learned how to work with Bill’s near-falls and how to ease family tensions. (How much time should the grandkids spend with him? Who would give me breaks from caregiving? Would he receive better care in a nursing facility?) In the midst of turmoil, I tapped into more patience than I ever dreamed I had—sometimes when it was 3 a.m. and he needed help to the bathroom yet again, I got testy. But for the most part, I felt more love for Bill than ever before, and I was able to stay grounded in my best intentions. We even found things to joke about.

FINDING SOLACE IN ART

As the weeks went by, I realized I needed occasional breaks to keep up my own strength. I hired a home health aide to come four hours every Wednesday so I could continue attending my weekly art journaling class at a churchsponsored community center. It was a relief to drive to another part of town to be with a dozen strangers who knew nothing about Bill’s cancer. For three hours every week, I lost myself in color and texture as I experimented with watercolors, collage, lettering, and more. Teacher and accomplished abstract painter Barb Smucker has a rare talent for helping all us rookies believe we are artists too. She once called the art journal a “kitchen table for the soul”: a mixedmedia sketchbook where we could capture daily impressions and emotions with images.

Every week Barb set out a glorious array of art supplies.

She’d introduce a particular technique, offer a poem as a

May 10–12, 2018: “The heavens glowed with the splendor of an autumn sunset. Gold and purple clouds lay on the hilltops, and rising high into the ruddy light were silvery peaks that shone like the airy spires of some Celestial City. [Beth says,] ‘I don’t believe there are locks on that door or guards at the gate’ (Little Women pages 221–223).”

prompt, turn on music, and then set us free for “studio time.”

No grades, no fixed assignments, no critiques. As we worked, she’d move from table to table, offering encouragement.

Her smiling, caring demeanor made us eager to share our artwork with the group. Every Wednesday, I returned home refreshed for another week of caregiving.

Even better, I started projects in class that gained momentum through my week. It was as if Barb had unlocked a longneglected room in my mind, one that was sunny and spacious, a room where I could retreat during spare moments when Bill slept. I’d recently reread Little Women, which draws heavily on Pilgrim’s Progress, so I decided to read that classic allegory as well.

Written by John Bunyan while he was imprisoned in the 1500s, Pilgrim’s Progress tells of the main character’s journey from the City of Destruction (his selfish, worldly life) to the Celestial City (joyful union with God), and of the many challenges, setbacks, and stopovers along the way. Although

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LEFT: May 8, 2018: “We can expect storms & boulders on our climb to Eternity.”

BELOW: Trudelle Thomas found a tool for reflection and an outlet for her emotions through the practice of art journaling. She now shares her passion with her granddaughter Selah, passing on the importance of expressing one’s feelings on the journey through life.

the book has fallen out of fashion, it was extremely popular for over 300 years as a self-help guide for Christians.

I decided to use my art journal to complete several journal pages based on Pilgrim’s Progress. One drawing showed a figure of Everyman looking across a hilly landscape to a distant range of mountains resembling the Celestial City.

Another showed many tiny figures climbing uphill around boulders toward an alpine meadow that they could not yet see because of rain and cloud cover. To this drawing, I added text: “We can expect storms & boulders on our climb to Eternity.”

It was a welcome diversion to figure out how to capture my ideas on paper, using paints, colored pencils, and collage.

Which medium would work best to make the mountains?

How could I show the cloud cover? The art journal was small and required simple materials that were easy to keep handy on our dining room table. It became a portable studio that I could take anywhere in the house and still be available for Bill.

A PATH TO DEEPER INSIGHT

My art journal became far more than a diversion. It allowed me to create a visible frame of reference for Bill’s and my struggle with cancer. His body was caught up in an inner battle against disease that took all his energy, and I was fighting hard to find ways to care for him without totally exhausting myself. I already believed in eternal life, but my drawings of the Celestial City let me sense it more viscerally.

They helped me believe that our sorrow and struggles had meaning, that both of us were ultimately headed toward a joyful place. Even when others were saying, “It’s so unfair,” or “It’s such a tragedy,” I was able to see Bill’s dying as a normal part of life, one that had spiritual potential and was full of StAnthonyMessenger.org | September 2019 • 45

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ABOVE: (left-hand side, top) “I’m gone but not far. Still looking out for my PEACH.” (left-hand side, bottom) “We’re all in this together.” “I always knew Mom was a little cracked.” “Bill loved to feed the intrepid squirrels.” (right-hand side) “Ring the BELLS that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a CRACK in everything. That’s how the LIGHT gets in.” “‘Anthem’ [by] Leonard Cohen.” LEFT: Trudelle Thomas continues expressing herself in her newest art journal, also referred to as a “kitchen table for the soul” by her former art teacher.

opportunities for deeper love.

Bill had never been a religious person—he stonewalled the hospice chaplain and said to me: “He won’t make me religious! Don’t let him come back!” But as time went by, he softened. When I offered to pray over him, he no longer resisted. Holding his hand, I often prayed aloud for him to experience God’s love and to be released from his damaged body. His depression lifted some. My adult son and a neighbor also prayed with Bill.

Over time I kept adding to my art journal. Besides the Pilgrim drawings, I included sketches of Bill and other loved ones. I illustrated the nature poems Barb brought each week. I hand-lettered and illustrated various quotations that inspired hope. I called it my “noticing journal” because it really did help me to notice what was going on with me and Bill, and to notice the natural beauty of springtime unfolding in our backyard. The journal made me more attentive to our daily life together, as well as better able to imagine how our journey might fit into a larger story, a story of hope far larger than the awful cancer symptoms. Because it was filled with images, not just words, the journal was easy to share with visitors who asked how I was doing.

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ARTWORK & MODERNISM

WANTED

TOP DOLLAR PAID FOR QUALITY PIECES

Calder • Potthast • Picasso • Duveneck plus others

Also buying: Sculptures

• Modernism Furniture

August 2018: “Grief will not shrink—you must expand.”

ENDURING LOVE

As the weeks passed, Bill grew so weak that he could no longer speak clearly. We ordered a hospital bed and placed it by a picture window where he could see the treetops and sky. When our hospice nurse made her weekly visit, she commented on how peaceful our house was. Although I was often frustrated or exhausted, I did sense an underlying peace in both Bill and me. We were suffering in different ways, yet we appreciated being together so intimately in his last few months. Even when he could communicate only by hand signals and touch, Bill and I had many tender moments—moments I will carry with me always.

Most important, Bill felt safe and valued. He was certain that I would do everything in my power to keep him surrounded by love and free from pain. For example, one evening two adult sons were visiting Bill while I dashed to the grocery store. My cell phone rang. “Dad’s in pain. He said ‘Call Trudelle. She’ll know what to do.’” I was able to tell him how to make Bill more comfortable as well as which medicine to give him. By the time I got home 20 minutes later, his pain had subsided and he was drifting off to sleep. It meant a great deal to me that Bill trusted me so much.

When he began “actively dying” 11 weeks after his diagnosis, all five adult kids gathered at our house. There had been clashes along the way, but by this time we’d all found reserves of love and acceptance toward Bill and even made some happy new memories. On June 9, he died with us around his hospital bed in our living room.

Now, it’s time for me to buy a new art journal. The one I started before Bill’s illness is full—a precious reminder of all the beautiful and tender moments we shared during his last weeks of bodily life.

Trudelle Thomas is a professor emerita in Xavier University’s English department. Her expertise includes autobiography, women writers, children’s/young adult literature, composition, and creative writing. Her articles have appeared in many journals, including College Composition and Communication.

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This beautiful, limited-inventory hardcover journal

features inspiring quotes from St. Francis, St. Clare, and the early followers of the Franciscans.

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Shop.FranciscanMedia.org StAnthonyMessenger.org | September 2019 • 47

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media MATTERS

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By Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP

Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP

FAVORITE REMAKES Cinderella (2015) Enchanted April (1991) Les Misérables (2012) True Grit (2010) Shadowlands (1993)

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WANT MORE? Visit our website: StAnthonyMessenger.org

I

n time for the 25th anniversary of the original animated film, Disney returns to Africa for The Lion King, a magnificent CGI remake about Simba (voiced by JD McCrary and, later, Donald Glover), a lion cub born to be king.

Many of us know the story: The wise mandrill, Rafiki (John Kani), initiates the young cub into the community of animals from the lion’s perch on Pride Rock. The soaring chorus of voices singing “The Circle of Life” rises to welcome the prince. King Mufasa (James Earl Jones) and Queen Sarabi (Alfre Woodard) gaze on in happiness. But Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Mufasa’s brother, wants to be king. He tempts little Simba and his friend, Nala (Shahadi Wright Joseph and, later, Beyoncé), to go to the forbidden elephant graveyard where they are attacked by three hyenas, Scar’s bodyguards. Zazu (John Oliver), a yellow-billed hornbill and Mufasa’s majordomo, alerts Mufasa, who rescues the cubs.

Scar then sets into motion his dastardly plan to kill his brother and Simba so he can become king. He lures his curious nephew to a gorge and then gets the hyenas to cause a herd of wildebeest to stampede. Scar goes to tell Mufasa that Simba is in danger. Mufasa hastens to rescue the cub, but Scar makes sure Mufasa dies. Simba survives, and Scar blames the cub, telling him to leave and never return.

Comic characters Timon (Billy Eichner), a meerkat, and his friend, Pumbaa (Seth Rogen), a warthog, find Simba collapsed in the desert. They bring him to their home and teach him to get over his guilt. In time, the cub turns into a powerful, 400-pound adult.

Meanwhile, Scar is turning the Pride Lands into a community and environmental disaster. He wants Sarabi to be his queen, but she refuses. Nala goes for help. She thinks Simba is dead and is shocked to find him. At first, he refuses to return out of lingering shame over his father’s death. Rafiki appears and assures him that it is time to fulfill his destiny.

Fans of the original animated film will not be disappointed, for the story, with some small differences, remains true to the original.

It is a film that will fill your eyes with beauty and delight. Themes of character development, family, the common good, and care for creation are woven throughout. The songs are all from the original, but they are shorter, perhaps because this is more drama than musical. Not all remakes are successful, but this version of The Lion King shines.

A-2, PG-13 • Peril, violence.

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SKIN: COURTESY OF A24; YESTERDAY: CNS PHOTO/UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

Sister Rose’s

THE LION KING

LEFT: COURTESY SISTER ROSE PACATTE, FSP/MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS; THE LION KING: THE WALT DISNEY STUDIOS (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.

SKIN

YESTERDAY

SKIN: COURTESY OF A24; YESTERDAY: CNS PHOTO/UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

LEFT: COURTESY SISTER ROSE PACATTE, FSP/MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS; THE LION KING: THE WALT DISNEY STUDIOS (2)

B

ryon Widner (Jamie Bell) is a lost young man when Fred “Hammer” Krager (Bill Camp) takes him into his skinhead “family” in Columbus, Ohio.

Bryon is among a collection of runaway teens and young men who come from dysfunctional families, as well as Fred’s wife, Shareen (Vera Farmiga), who masquerades as a caring mother figure. In this new family, Bryon finds a cause and uses his design talents to get inked with white supremacist and Nazi tattoos that cover most of his body.

The group lives a life of sex, alcohol, and drugs, and travels around causing mayhem and marching for racial dominance. Bryon joins in to the point of violently disfiguring a black man in an alley. Amid all this, his conscience is trying to get his attention.

He meets Julie (Danielle Macdonald), a poor but strong woman, and her three children. At first Julie and the kids are distant: There have been too many men in their lives, all of whom were violent. But Bryon, Julie, and the children are drawn to each other. Even as Julie urges Bryon to leave the racist group, they decide to marry and try to live a normal life.

Bryon is befriended by Daryle (Mike Colter), who gives the young man three options if he stays in the hate group: dying young, life in prison, or listening to Daryle, who helps people exit racist groups and begin again. Things come to a violent climax when Fred accuses Bryon of losing his fervor and puts him to the test. Bryon, ever a flawed person, must make a choice.

Skin is inspired by the true story of Bryon Widner and the work of Daryle Jenkins, who counseled skinhead gang members. This film, written and directed by Oscar-winner Guy Nattiv, chronicles the painful two-year process of removing Bryon’s tattoos. Bell gives the performance of a lifetime, playing completely against type. Macdonald is wonderful as a woman who loves deeply but must put her children first and create a safe space between them and violence. The plans for this riveting film were coming together when the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville took place in 2017. Its relevance for today cannot be overstated.

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

Catholic News Service Media Review Office gives these ratings.

A-1 General patronage

A-2 Adults and adolescents

A-3 Adults

L Limited adult audience

O Morally offensive

J

ack (Himesh Patel) gives up teaching to be a musician and songwriter. He plays gigs that are set up by his manager and childhood friend, Ellie (Lily James), but he’s going nowhere fast.

During a global blackout, Jack is hit by a bus. When he comes to, he realizes that no one remembers the Beatles or their music. He starts singing and passing their songs off as his own and becomes famous overnight.

“Yesterday All my troubles seemed so far away.

Now it looks as though they’re here to stay.

Oh, I believe in yesterday.”

—from “Yesterday,” by the Beatles

This romantic comedy, written by Richard Curtis and directed by Danny Boyle, is funny, sweet, and guaranteed to make you smile. The music is excellent, even when singer Ed Sheeran urges Jack to change the title of the song “Hey, Jude” to “Hey, Dude.” It’s a loving send-up to the Beatles that John Lennon could never imagine. I loved it.

A-3, PG-13 • Some suggestive content.

Source: USCCB.org/movies

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media MATTERS

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By Christopher Heffron

Maria Moreno (pictured above, right, and below) became the first female farmworker in the United States to be hired as a union organizer. The Texas-born mother of 12 fought to improve wages and conditions for workers.

Adios Amor: The Search for Maria Moreno

oncerning Latino rights, farmworkers, and migrant advocacy, it’s impossible not to think of César Chávez.

The cofounder of the National Farm Workers Association, later renamed the United Farm Workers union, devoted his life to fighting for agricultural workers—and history has remembered him for it. But Chávez wasn’t the only one pushing for just wages and safe working conditions for Latino farmworkers. Maria Moreno, a Texas-born laborer, wife, and mother of 12, was the first female farmworker hired as a union representative. But her indelible life has nearly been written out of history—until now. Adios Amor: The Search for Maria Moreno is, on the surface, a look at her life as a laborer and union representative with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). But the documentary paints with wider strokes by including interviews with several of her children and journalists who profiled her in the ’50s and ’60s.

To say that the lives of agricultural workers in midcentury America—US-born or otherwise—were difficult is a gross understatement. Employment was hard to come

by, conditions were brutal, and the pay was nominal. Field workers could never afford the produce they picked for their own tables—an irony that was not lost on Moreno.

When a California flood destroyed crops and halted farm work in 1958, Moreno’s family nearly starved. A year later she was hired as an AWOC organizer—a role she was born to play. A powerful orator, Moreno traversed cities in defense of workers’ rights.

Her advocacy work was so celebrated that Chávez himself deemed Moreno a threat to his own legacy. History, sadly, chose to bury her life’s work. But this richly textured documentary may help to change that.

Directed and produced by Laurie Coyle, Adios Amor hops between past and present with ease. Ample photography and recordings of Moreno’s speeches breathe life into the narrative, as do her children, who frame their mother’s story with compassion, humor, and deep sadness.

Moreno died from breast cancer in the late ’80s having devoted her final years in Arizona to preaching and helping people on both sides of the border. Hopefully this film reinstates her as a titan in our nation’s bruised history.

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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: COLUMBIA; TOP RIGHT: CREATIVE COMMONS/BILL EBBESEN; THE BYRDS: COLUMBIA

C

COURTESY OF TAKE STOCK/GEORGE BALLIS (3)

September 27, 10 p.m., VOCES on PBS

reel time | channel surfing | audio file | bookshelf

By Daniel Imwalle

Editor’s Pick

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN | WESTERN STARS

Retro-spective THE BYRDS | TURN! TURN! TURN!

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: COLUMBIA; TOP RIGHT: CREATIVE COMMONS/BILL EBBESEN; THE BYRDS: COLUMBIA

COURTESY OF TAKE STOCK/GEORGE BALLIS (3)

M

ore than just the median year of a decade, 1965 was a major turning point in both music and society at large. Every month, new music came out that showed that the emerging counterculture was evolving by leaps and bounds. By the time the Byrds’ second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!, came out in early December, the attitudes of many young Americans had shifted strongly toward greater social awareness and unease about our nation’s increasing involvement in Vietnam.

The title track is a cover of a Pete Seeger song that the folk singer adapted from Ecclesiastes 3:1–8. The iconic guitar intro immediately hooks the listener and heralds in the vocals. Roger McGuinn’s lead vocals are supported by three other band members, including David Crosby, who would go on to become one of the great songwriters of the ’60s and ’70s. The richly layered music is the perfect canvas for the thought-provoking lyrics, which start with, “To everything (turn, turn, turn)/ There is a season (turn, turn, turn)/ And a time to every purpose, under heaven.”

Along with a number of original songs, as on their first album, the Byrds cover Bob Dylan, this time with “Lay Down Your Weary Tune” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” The latter demonstrates the band’s social consciousness and interest in protest music. Other highlights on this seminal ’60s album include the traditional “He Was a Friend of Mine” and a reworking of “Oh! Susannah,” originally penned in 1848 by Stephen Foster.

I

n a time when we can simply pull up an app on our smartphones to guide us from Point A to Point B, the idea and mythic quality of the open road may seem quaint or even bygone.

Bruce Springsteen, in his latest album, Western Stars, still sees the road, whether highway or country lane, as a rich resource for storytelling. Even more, Springsteen sees it as a reminder that, despite our many cultural, economic, and political differences, we are still called to walk the various ways that lead us to community and a recognition of shared humanity.

His 19th album in a career that has spanned nearly 50 years, Western Stars is Springsteen’s first release in five years. It’s hard not be entranced by this collection of songs, as the singer-songwriter pulls the listener into a world of dusty towns with lifelike characters, train rides through the Southwest, and, as the album cover suggests, American landscapes where horses still run free. These themes aren’t new to music in general or to Springsteen in particular, but he has an uncanny way of presenting them as fresh and realistic.

The opening track to this road music, “Hitch Hikin’,” is a natural place to start.

Springsteen sings of a carefree spirit who’s happy enough simply drifting around, untethered to society’s expectations: “Thumb stuck out as I go/I’m just travelin’ up the road/Maps don’t do much for me, friend/I follow the weather and the wind.”

For Springsteen, wandering is a kind of spiritual exercise where one paradoxically walks on a path, but without a destination in mind. Such an excursion opens up the realm of the possible, resulting in surprising encounters and profound connections with people we’d otherwise never meet.

Different voices seem to inhabit Springsteen throughout the album, giving the music a broader reach than if it were all autobiographical. In “Train to Tucson,” for example, the character in the song is a recovering addict, anxiously waiting at an Arizona train station for his lover to arrive. The beautiful and heartbreaking “Somewhere North of Nashville” is a Bruce Springsteen, pictured above performing at haunting portrayal of a failed musician Roskilde Festival in 2012, returns with Western Stars. whose regrets include half-written songs and a chance at love gone by. Sweeping orchestration and gentle melodies help smooth out some of the sadder tales. Well worth the time Springsteen invested in making it, Western Stars has the power to transport and transform listeners.

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media MATTERS

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By Julie Traubert

A Fictional Conversation among Christian Thinkers

P

SYMBOL OR SUBSTANCE?

BY PETER KREEFT Ignatius Press

“The Eucharist was the most passionate issue in the great divide of the Reformation, both between Catholics and Protestants and even among different Protestants.”

eter Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King’s College, but he states that he did not intend this book to be scholarly because he loves to imagine three-way conversations among famous people.

For this book, he picked “three of the most famous, loved, and respected representatives of each of the three main Christian theological traditions or churches in the English-speaking world: the most famous modern Protestant evangelist (Billy Graham), the most famous modern Anglican Christian writer (C.S. Lewis), and the most famous modern Roman Catholic writer (J.R.R. Tolkien).”

Kreeft claims the idea of such a three-part conversation is not too far-fetched because two other conversations, which were the seeds of his fictional one, did take place in this world. Some sources claim Graham sent two people from his Billy Graham Evangelistic Association to interview Lewis; however, in this book, during one of his evangelistic campaigns in England, Billy Graham has his personal driver secretly take him to a prearranged meeting with Lewis at Tolkien’s house in Oxford.

So from the start you know this conversation will be clever, and it is. He has these famous individuals concentrate on discussing the Eucharist, especially the real presence of Christ in it, because “the Eucharist was the most passionate issue in the great divide of the Reformation, both between Catholics and Protestants and even among different Protestants.”

It was during his own college years that Kreeft decided to convert to Catholicism, after considering C.S. Lewis’ trilemma (Jesus is either a lunatic, liar, or lord). He’s written over a hundred books on Christian philosophy, theology, and apologetics and wrote a similar book that was a best seller, which included Lewis, whom he considers “the most brilliant and effective Christian writer of the last century.” He also included Tolkien, whose Lord of the Rings was picked by three reader polls as ‘‘the greatest book of the 20th century’’ and by another one as “the greatest book of the millennium.”

Though he was not a religious apologist, preacher, or theologian, Tolkien called The Lord of the Rings ‘‘a fundamentally Catholic and religious work.”

This book is easy to read, not scholarly. Kreeft claims he would have loved to listen in on this conversation he imagines. “But the only way I can hear it is to invent it first. I write the books that I wish someone else would write, but they don’t, so I have to. If I’m to read them, I have to write them first.

The same holds true for conversations.

I invite readers to be fellow flies on the wall listening to these three great Christians discuss one great mystery.”

Those most interested in reading what these three famous Christians might have had to say in discussing the basic message and the one great mystery, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, will most enjoy this book.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Pilgrim, a professional copywriter and lover of books.

52 • September 2019 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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Ca on

BLESSED ARE THE REFUGEES

A STRANGER AND YOU WELCOMED ME

BY SCOTT ROSE Orbis Books

HAVING NOTHING, POSSESSING EVERYTHING

BY POPE FRANCIS

BY MICHAEL MATHER

Orbis Books

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

“The youth still come—to escape suffering that is difficult for most Americans to even imagine.”

“In this globalized world, we have fallen into globalized indifference.”

M

F

ost of us have an awareness of the struggles that refugees face.

The staff at the Esperanza Center, a resource center for immigrants in Baltimore, Maryland, see it firsthand every day and have written about their personal interactions with refugee children, specifically those who have fled Central America—without their families.

This short yet powerful book is brimming with incredible strength and hope. Each chapter is headed by one of the Eight Beatitudes, which is then reflected in the young life story of a refugee overcoming incredible obstacles. We have much to learn from these courageous and grace-filled children.

“I now tune . . . all of my senses . . . to see abundance instead of poverty.”

rom the beginning of his papacy in 2013, Pope Francis has stressed the importance of acknowledging and supporting migrants and refugees. This book is a collection of his addresses, homilies, and prayers given from Istanbul to the United States focusing on this crucial issue.

In his simple, straightforward manner, the pope offers one main message: Migrants and refugees are just like us.

They are human beings searching for peace and purpose in their daily lives, and we must rise up in solidarity and truly see them. The pope’s words call us to reflect on our own actions to support these brothers and sisters.

Catholic Best Sellers on Amazon The Catholic Gentleman: Living Authentic Manhood Today, by Sam Guzman Why We’re Catholic: Our Reasons for Faith, Hope, and Love, by Trent Horn

KIDS’

W

hen you see poverty, do you notice needs or gifts? Pastor Michael Mather, who has worked in two innercity congregations in Indiana for the past 30 years, relates experiences from his years of ministry that changed his perspective on the poor—they are in fact extremely gifted and capable. He stresses that you must ask the right questions to discover hidden skills within people.

Furthermore, he shows you can use that viewpoint when looking at yourself or your community: Focus on the gifts to find solutions, not on what you don’t have. These stories of transforming people and communities will change your outlook.

MOTHER TERESA

SPOT M

BY MARLYN EVANGELINA MONGE, FSP ILLUSTRATED BY SEUNG-BUM PARK

other Teresa’s feast day is September 5, and this book is a wonderful narrative detailing the saint’s life from childhood, through founding the Missionaries of Charity, to her tireless work among the poorest of the poor. For children, particularly ages 8–11, her story inspires readers to serve others

Salvation: What Every Catholic Should Know,

by Michael Patrick Barber

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The Mindful Catholic: Finding God One Moment at a Time, by Dr. Gregory Bottaro

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StAnthonyMessenger.org | September 2019 • 53

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POINTSOFVIEW | FAITH & FAMILY Continuing Education

By Susan Hines-Brigger

F

Susan welcomes your comments and suggestions!

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

?

WANT MORE? Visit our website: StAnthonyMessenger.org

As a parent in this tech-savvy world and a professional in the publishing/media industry, I pride myself on keeping up with the various forms of social media. My husband, Mark, and I have educated ourselves and very clearly laid out the rules for our kids to follow. Both of us have accounts on all the social media outlets and have connected with our kids on them. We try our best to keep up with the latest apps and sites that endlessly seem to pop up.

So I was feeling pretty confident when I recently came across an article about what parents need to know about their kids’ social media behavior. The article included a checklist and pertinent information for parents in order to make sure they were aware of the social media landscape. I perused the list, feeling sure in my knowledge.

Facebook and Instagram—check. Twitter, Snapchat, and Tumblr—check. YouTube—got it. Finstagram—wait, what? Where did that one come from? How did I not know about this? Obviously, it must have just come about and slid under my watchful radar. I asked my 13-year-old daughter, Riley, and her friend if they knew what it was. Of course they did.

In fact, they looked at me as if they couldn’t believe I didn’t.

Finstagram—Finsta, for short—is an Instagram account that people create in order to post things for only close friends to see, they explained. It’s the less-polished side of Instagram—an app that is typically all about presenting the perfect picture and image.

The sudden realization that I wasn’t completely on top of the game shook me.

Created with TheTeachersCorner.net Word Search Maker

AN EVER-CHANGING LANDSCAPE

BACK TO SCHOOL

Now, I’m not naive. I know that I cannot possibly keep track of all of my kids’ online activities. Maddie, my oldest, is forging her own path as an adult. I couldn’t track her if I wanted to. Alex, my next in line, devotes the bulk of his social media time to gaming with his friends. I have neither time for nor interest in that world.

Riley mostly uses social media for communication with her friends. And our 9-year-old daughter, Kacey, likes to watch silly videos on YouTube and play games on Roblox. Despite that realization, though, what I can do is keep learning and asking questions.

After the whole Finstagram incident, Mark and I had a good conversation with the kids about various aspects of social media. They brought me up to speed on a lot of things I was unaware of—though I’m sure those will have all changed by the time this goes to print.

And each kid seemed genuinely engaged in the conversation. I mean, after all, who wouldn’t like to inform his or her parents that they don’t know things?

The reality is that our kids do know more than most of us when it comes to social media. With that in mind, the best Mark and I—as well as all parents—can do is to try to keep informed and involved. Sometimes in life we have to take on the role of teacher based on our experiences and knowledge.

Other times, though, we have to admit that we are not as educated about something as we would like to be. In those situations, it’s best if we sit back, listen, and learn. When it comes to this subject, our kids might just be our best teachers.

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TOP RIGHT: CSP DAMEDEESO/FOTOSEARCH; 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: ALETIA/FOTOSEARCH

Susan Hines-Brigger

or many across the country, the school year is just getting underway. We parents will load our kids up with all the necessary supplies—except that one specific brand of glue on the list that I swear does not exist— and send them on their way. We will fill out forms and begin to share our experience and knowledge with them regarding subjects such as algebra, biology, literature, and more.

But there is one subject that we parents need to study up on more—and that is social media.

B

LIGHTENUp!

brainteasers | games | challenges

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FAITH

ART JOURNAL

FRANCE

FINSTAGRAM

GOSPEL OF JOHN

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SAINTHOOD

FRIAR

SISTER ROSE GRANDPARENTING TOLKIEN HALLELUJAH VATICAN

GETHSEMANE

MOTHER TERESA

GONZAGA

PARIS

GEORGETOWN

ECOLOGY

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AUTUMN

GIVING

MILLENNIALS NOTRE DAME RECONNECT

PETE&REPEAT

VILLANOVA XAVIER

YOUNG CATHOLICS

“My little angel is having a bad hair day.”

TRIVIA QUESTIONS 1: Which city is Villanova University close to?

2: What does “RCIA” stand for?

3: In which New York City neighborhood are Father Jim O’Shea and his organization helping at-risk youth?

4: When is Mother Teresa’s feast day?

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

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

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 flagpole is shorter. 2) Sis’ backpack has a side pocket. 3) There is a button on Pete’s collar. 4) A break has appeared in the clouds.

5) One of the windows no longer has panes. 6) There is a white gutter on the school building. 7) A bush is on the hill. 8) A line is missing from the top of Pete’s backpack.

TOP RIGHT: CSP DAMEDEESO/FOTOSEARCH; PETE & REPEAT: TOM GREENE

ZZ

LL

LL

ANTHONY

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

II

TT GG EE BB OO LL

EE AA OO TT

XX

NN TT HH OO OO DD

JACKIE SMITH OF DES MOINES, IOWA, wrote the winning caption for the image below from our July 2019 issue. Keep an eye out for the next Wordsmith Contest and send in your idea. You could be the next winner!

StAnthonyMessenger.org | September 2019 • 55

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reflection

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”

D-KEINE/ISTOCK

—Anne Frank

56 • September 2019 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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LOREN McCAULEY PSYCHOLOGY MAJOR AND BEHAVIORAL THERAPIST

WE ARE CALLED TO LISTEN To Loyolan Loren McCauley, low-income mothers and children are not statistics. That’s why, as a fellow in Loyola’s Center for Urban Research and Learning, she’s using data and other research methods to help improve their access to social services.

LEARN MORE • LUC.EDU/CalledToListen

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28 W. Liberty Street Cincinnati, OH 45202-6498

SAINT PADRE PIO, PRAY FOR US! • Saint Padre Pio’s feast day is September 23 • Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968) was a Capuchin monk and mystic whose life was marked with miracles and wonders, but who said that his only desire was “to be a poor friar who prays.” Observes the author: “When people write about Padre Pio, they tend to dwell on the penitential aspect of his life, thereby giving a somewhat dark and medieval tinge to his personality.”

Franciscan Media is releasing an updated version of this book with new chapters including the events that occurred after the original publishing date: the beatification of Padre Pio; the story of the miracle chosen by the ecclesiastical Tribunal; his canonization; and the spectacular miracle chosen for that last stage of the process.

What readers have said about this book: “Most amazing saint! I purchased several copies for family and friends! Padre Pio is a contemporary saint who is most inspiring and so faith-filled. Reading about him and his life enriched my life and strengthened my faith.” —Susan M. Marsh, 5 Stars “I read a lot of books on Padre Pio; I like this one the best. Straightforward, easy to read, with a lot more new information than other books.” —T.S.K, 5 Stars

30% OFF WITH DISCOUNT CODE SAMPio19 | ORDER TODAY AT

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