Called by name

4 VOCATIONS

CALLED BY NAME

I am pleased to announce that we have a new seminarian enrolling the fall. Mr. Richard Martin, Jr. (EJ) has been accepted to study for the priesthood for the Diocese of Jackson and will be enrolling at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans this August. EJ grew up at St. Richard Catholic Church and attended St. Richard and St. Joseph Catholic Schools. After graduating from Spring Hill College in Mobile, EJ was working in Austin, Texas, but discerned that the Diocese of Jackson is where he is called to continue his discernment. It has been a great gift to walk with EJ, who I had met a few times here and there as he came home to visit family when I was the parochial vicar at St. Richard. I have gotten to know him much better over the past year or so as we have embarked on a ‘pre-discernment’ process which has led him to this point. Our application process for the priestly formation program in the diocese is very involved, but it helps the applicant, and the church, decide whether or not the diocesan seminary is the right place for formal discernment. One of the aspects of the process which is particularly helpful is the vocations board. This is a group of parishioners from around the diocese (mostly the Jackson area) that agree to Father Nick Adam meet with an applicant after he has met all the other ‘objective’ requirements for admission. As the vocation director, I provide them with a review of the application process, and then every applicant meets speaks with them about his journey so far. The Board is then invited to ask any questions of the applicant, and of me, about the process and to discuss frankly whether seminary is the right choice for that man. This is a great opportunity for the church to speak with men who, God-willing, will be future priests, and it also gives me perspectives that are extremely valuable which are brought to the Bishop as he decides whether each applicant is a good fit for seminary formation.

I believe God is calling many more men to the seminary than are currently in the seminary, but we almost must be prudent, patient and collaborative in this process. I am so pleased that we have accepted another excellent applicant Richard (EJ) Martin to study for the priesthood. When we as a church send a man off to seminary, we simply can’t predict whether the Lord will call him ‘all the way’ to the priesthood, but we can do our best to ensure that he is a position spiritually, personally and emotionally to thrive in the seminary program, and whether or not he reaches ordination, he will be an great asset and continue to build up the Kingdom of God in the Diocese of Jackson.

Please keep EJ in your prayers as he embarks on this next step, I am excited to see what the Lord has in store for him, and I know he’ll be a great asset to our excellent group of seminarians!

– Father Nick Adam

If you are interested in learning more about religious orders or vocations to the priesthood and religious life, please email nick.adam@jacksondiocese.org.

Invite the Holy Spirit into your stewardship journey

STEWARDSHIP PATHS

By Julia Williams

JACKSON – The month of April is dedicated to the Third Person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Every time we recite the Nicene Creed, we worship the Holy Spirit as God. • The love of the Father for the Son is total. God the Father empties Himself completely, holding nothing back from the Son. • The love of the Son for the Father is total. God the Son empties Himself completely, holding nothing back from the Father. • The love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father is the Holy Spirit. The love that is the exchange of Persons between Father and Son is the Life that is the Spirit, with no beginning and no end.

Stewardship is a conversion journey of receiving God’s love and returning love to Him. A conversion requires prayer, reflection, and time to allow God to show us who we are and the person of love that we can become.

The apostle Jude reminds us to make every prayer in

the Holy Spirit; asking that He be showered upon us. The Holy Spirit is always there and “helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray POWERFUL PRAYER TO as we ought, but that THE HOLY SPIRIT very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and words.” (Romans 8:26kindle in them the fire of your love. 27) In your daily Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And prayers, invite the Holy You shall renew the face of the earth. Spirit into your stewO, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful. Grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, ardship journey, asking for guidance on how you can share your gifts in love of God and neighbor. Through Christ Our Lord, Amen. There are many variations of prayers available, but the prayer below is a very popular and powerful prayer. Together in our journey of stewardship, may God bless us and may we respond as faithful disciples – faithful stewards. “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and God will establish your plans” Proverbs 16:3 (To subscribe to the monthly Stewardship PATHS newsletter, scan the QR code. Excerpts: bigcatholics.blogspot.com) The Holy Spirit, traditionally depicted as a dove, is pictured in a stained-glass window at St. John Vianney Church in Lithia Springs, Ga. Other symbols include a flame, wind, lamp, rays of light and clouds. The feast of Pentecost, marking the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, is June 5 this year. (CNS photo/ Michael Alexander, Georgia Bulletin)

Straining to hear the voice of Good Friday

IN EXILE

By Father ron rolheiser, oMi

They shall look upon the one whom they have pierced! A phrase that names the voice that’s left behind on Good Friday.

In 1981, an anonymous young girl was brutally raped and murdered by the military at an obscure location in El Salvador, fittingly called La Cruz (the Cross). Her story was reported by a journalist named Mark Danner. In his account of this, Danner describes how after a particular massacre some soldiers shared how one of their victims haunted them and how they could not get her out of their minds long after her death.

They had plundered a village and raped many of the women. One of these was a young girl, an evangelical Christian, whom they had raped many times in a single afternoon and tortured. However, throughout it all, this young girl, clinging to her belief in Christ, had sung hymns. The soldiers who had violated and eventually executed her were haunted by that. Here are Danner’s words:

“She kept right on singing, too, even after they had done what had to be done and shot her in the chest. She had lain there on La Cruz with the blood flowing from her chest and had kept on singing – a bit weaker than before, but still singing. And the soldiers, stupefied, had watched and pointed. Then they had grown tired of the game and shot her again, and she sang still, and their wonder began to turn to fear – until finally they had unsheathed their machetes and hacked her neck, and at last the singing had stopped.” (The Massacre at El Mozote, N.Y., Vintage Books, 1994, pp. 78-79.)

They shall look upon her whom they have pierced! Notice the feminine pronoun here because in this instance the one who is looked upon after being pierced is a woman. Dying such a violent, unjust, and humiliating death with faith in her heart and on her lips makes her the crucified Christ, and not just because she (like all Christians) is a member of the Body of Christ. Rather because at this moment, in this manner of death, with this kind of faith overt in her person, like Jesus, she is leaving behind a voice that cannot be silenced and which will haunt those who have done violence to her and all the rest of us who hear about it.

What haunted those soldiers? The haunting here is not that of some wounded spirit that now seeks retribution by frightening us and forever unsettling our dreams. Nor is it the haunting we feel in bitter regret, when we recognize a huge, unredeemable mistake which had we foreseen the consequences of, we would never have made. Rather, this is the voice that haunts us whenever we silence, violate, or kill innocence. It’s a voice which we then know can never be silenced and which irrespective of the immediate emotions it evokes in us, we realize we can never be free from, and which paradoxically invites us not to fear and self-hatred but to what it embodies.

Gil Bailie, who makes this story a corner-piece in his monumental book on the cross and non-violence, notes not just the remarkable similarity between her manner of death and Jesus’, but also the fact that, in both cases, part of the resurrection is that their voices live on.

In Jesus’ case, nobody witnessing his humiliating death on a lonely hillside, with his followers absent, would have predicted that this would be the most remembered death in history. The same is true for this young girl. Her rape and murder occurred in a very remote place and all of those who might have wanted to immortalize her story were also killed. Yet her voice survives, and will no doubt continue to grow in history long after all those who violated her are forgotten. A death of this kind morally scars the conscience and leaves behind a permanent echo that nobody can ever silence.

When we parse out all that’s contained in that echo, when we take a reflective look at Jesus on the cross or at the death of this young evangelical, we cannot but feel a wound at a gut level. To gaze upon the one whom we have pierced, Jesus or any innocent victim, is to know (in a way that undercuts all culpable and invincible ignorance) that the voice of self-interest, injustice, violence, brutality, and rape will ultimately be silenced in favor of the voice of innocence, graciousness and gentleness. Yes, faith is true.

A critic reviewing Danner’s book in the New York Times tells how, after reading this story, he kept “straining hopelessly to hear the sound of that singing.”

In our churches on Good Friday, we read aloud the Gospel account of Jesus’ death. Listening to that story, like the soldiers who brutally murdered an innocent young, faith-filled woman, we are made to look upon the one whom we have pierced. We need to strain to hear more consciously the sound of that singing.

The Pope’s Corner

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

Blood of Bucha massacre victims ‘cries out to heaven’

By Junno arocho

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis once again pleaded for an end to the bloodshed and violence in Ukraine after images of innocent civilians apparently executed in Bucha sparked outrage and horror around the world.

“The recent news of the war in Ukraine, instead of bringing relief and hope, attest to new atrocities, such as the massacre of Bucha,” the pope said April 6 before concluding his weekly general audience.

The world is witnessing “ever-more horrendous acts of cruelty done against civilians, unarmed women and children, whose innocent blood cries out to heaven and implores, ‘End this war. Silence the weapons. Stop sowing death and destruction,’” he said.

Videos and photographs released April 3, after Russian troops retreated from Bucha and other towns, showed dead bodies in the streets and in the yards of homes. Many appeared to have been shot in the head, execution style, and the hands of many of the corpses were bound.

Although Russia dismissed the accusations of war crimes as “fake news,” evidence of mass executions sparked outrage, prompting several countries to expel Russian diplomats from their lands and leading to renewed calls for tougher actions against Russia.

After leading pilgrims in a silent prayer for the country, Pope Francis held up a Ukrainian flag that was sent to him “from that tormented city of Bucha.”

The pope then invited to the stage several Ukrainian children who recently arrived in Italy and asked the crowd to “greet them and pray together with them.” The children, accompanied by two women, went up to the pope. One young boy held a hand-made poster of the Ukrainian flag, with a smaller Italian flag in the center and outlines of small hands. The pilgrims present at the audience hall applauded loudly as the pope welcomed the children, with one shouting, “Slava Ukraini” (“Glory to Ukraine”).” Gently rolling up the Ukrainian flag, the pope reverently kissed it before handing out chocolate Easter eggs to the children, prompting one of the women, holding a baby in her arms, to wipe away tears from her eyes. “These children were forced to flee and come to a foreign land. This is one of the fruits of war,” Pope Francis said. “Let us not forget them and let us not forget the Ukrainian people.” Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju Pope Francis meets Ukrainian refugees during his general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican April 6, 2022. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

6 DIOCESE

MISSISSIPPI CATHOLIC APRIL 15, 2022 DIOCESE 7