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HARD TO BE HUMBLE: 7 Steps Towards Humility

800 YEARS LATER: St Dominic Today

SAINT OF THE MONTH: St John Vianney – with poster

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SHEILA PIRES: VERITAS’ VOICE FOR WOMEN

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This is Women’s Month

A

Dear Reader,

UGUST IS WOMEN’S MONTH IN South Africa, so we are delighted that several articles in this edition are about impressive women: Sheila Pires of Radio Veritas, the social activists Catherine De Heuck Doherty and Quinta Titus, and the astonishing Olympian athletes Simone Biles (who graces the cover this month) and Katie Ledecky. They are all inspiring women indeed. However, they are not featuring in this edition just because it is Women’s Month. They might as easily have featured at any other time, on their own merit and independently of the issue date.

Women’s Day and Month is a time when we, as a nation, are called to work for the empowerment and emancipation of women — something which our society still struggles with. In South Africa, for all the progress that has been made, women are still discriminated against and still subject to sexual, physical, and mental abuse. Gender injustice continues to afflict.

Indeed, the gains that have been made even provoke a reaction from those who insist on the primacy of the patriarchal system, to the point where some absurdly rationalise domestic violence by reference to the perceived emasculation of men that supposedly accompanies the empowerment of women.

The commercialisation of Women’s Day as a glorified Mother’s Day is an unwelcome subversion of the meaning of this public holiday. No empowerment or emancipation has ever resulted from breakfast in bed, fancy chocolates or meaningless speeches filled with platitudes.

This concerns the Church, too, as Pope Francis has acknowledged. We need to recognise that the empowerment of women will come about by structural change, not by condescending references to the “feminine genius”. The Church must include women, consecrated and lay, in decision-making positions — and our bishops’ conference is doing better in that regard than many others — and argue forcefully for the emancipation of women where they are subjugated, and the equality of women

where they are discriminated against.

Of course, the word “empowerment” itself scares many men (and some women, too), who interpret it as implying that the patriarchy, in which men have most of the power, will be replaced by a dictatorial matriarchy, in which women would seize all control from men.

But women’s emancipation and empowerment isn’t a war of genders for total control. And yet, we might do well to ponder whether the world would really be a worse place if it was run by women?

L

oyal readers will notice the absence in these pages of our popular columnist Nthabiseng Maphisa. But please do not be alarmed: our talented writer is well and her column has not been discontinued. The mundane fact is that Nthabiseng asked to be liberated from the task of writing her column this month, and she will return in September.

This month sees the start of a fourpart series by family researcher and activist Imelda Diouf. The inaugural article concerns the family as a subject of care; and the other articles will look at the family in the context of the economy, education and citizenship. These are important discussions, more so if we want to give substance to our pro-family position.

Also in this issue, we profile Archbishop Siegfried Mandla Jwara, whom the Holy Father has appointed to lead the faithful of the archdiocese of Durban.

We have no doubt that the faithful and clergy of Durban will take their new archbishop to heart, especially after they have read his life story in this issue of The Southern Cross. We pray for Archbishop Jwara, and all our bishops, in their difficult ministry.

Thank you for reading The Southern Cross, and please tell your friends about your monthly Catholic magazine.

Yours in Christ,

Günther simmermacher (Editor)

Contents AUGUST 2021

10

Tribute to an Unsung Hero Rosanne Shields recalls the impact made by a late community activist in Namaqualand

14

The Baroness Who Chose Poverty The amazing life of a spiritual pioneer

16

All About the Assumption Here’s what you need to know about South Africa’s national patronal feast on August 15

21

The faith of two Catholic sports legends

15

7 Simple Ways to Find Humility Our faith calls us to humility — but how can we live that virtue?

22

With pull-out poster!

St Dominic, 800 Years Later 800 years after St Dominic’s death, Fr Joe Falkiner OP looks at the saint’s relevance today

25

The Gospel In Action Prof Mpume Zondi explains how small acts of kindness can make a big impact

26

Focus on the Family In a new series of articles, Imelda Diouf looks at the family as units of care

27

You’ve Got a Friend Chris McConnell looks at the value of real friendship in the time of the Covid pandemic

EVERY MONTH 5

FROM OUR VAULTS The Southern Cross 59 years ago

6

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED You ask, and our team of experts replies

24

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Have your say!

28

RAYMOND PERRIER On spreading the virus of rumours

29

FR RON ROLHEISER OMI On sex, love and making a home

30

PRAY WITH THE POPE Fr Chris Chatteris SJ reflects on the pope’s universal prayer intention for August

31

PRAYER CORNER

8

Veritas presenter Sheila Pires

The life of St John Vianney

17

Did you know?

In our digital editio n, all links to websites are live.

Just click, and the site opens in your br owser!

Try IT!

Your illustrated prayers, to cut out and collect

32

TWO PAGES OF PUZZLES Two Crosswords, Wordsearch, Dropped Letters, Catholic Trivia Quiz, and Anagram Challenge

34

COOKING WITH SAINTS Grazia Barletta tries out recipes from the past.

This month: St Thomas’ Rice Pudding

36

...AND FINALLY History in Colour, Inspiring Quotes on the Bible, and a Last Laugh

Meet the new archbishop of Durban

12

Cover image of Simone Biles in action: Kai Pfaffenbach, Reuters/CNS

59 Years Ago: August 8, 1962

FROM OUR VAULTS Cardinal Montini in SA

Visiting South Africa, Cardinal Giovanni Montini [the future Pope Paul VI] laid the foundation stone of Regina Mundi church in Moroka, Soweto. On his two-day visit, the archbishop of Milan visited various places in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Krugersdorp.

He expressed particular appreciation for the work of the Companions of St Angela, a locally-founded congregation linked to the Ursulines. In Johannesburg’s Christ the King cathedral, he presided at Mass with 3 000 lay people in attendance. Cardinal Montini also visited Southern Rhodesia [today’s Zimbabwe].

Vatican Council: All’s still open

Commenting on talk that conservatives within the Roman curia will scupper attempts at reforms at the Second Vatican Council, Austrian Cardinal Franz König said his work on the preparatory committee assures him that nothing will be decided and all questions will be open when the council begins later in the year.

Editorial: Laity and clergy

In his editorial, Fr Louis Stubbs argues with a view to the Second Vatican Council that the call for greater lay involvement in the running of the Church requires reality checks on all sides. Clergy will have to accept that the laity will have certain views “which, to be legitimate, need not necessarily be a mere reflection of the clerical view”.

But, he adds, the laity “must fit into a Church which is not a democracy”. While both clergy and laity “have their places in the Church, the decision as to where these places are must rest with the hierarchy”.

What else made news in August 1962:

• African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela is arrested on August 5 at a roadblock near Durban. He was posing as a chauffeur when his car was stopped.

• Ghana’s President Kwame Nkrumah and French President Charles de Gaulle both survive assassination attempts.

• Jamaica gets its independence after three centuries of British colonial rule. Trinidad & Tobago lowers the Union Jack at the end of the month.

An advert for Panama-style regulation school hats.

• US civil rights activists Rev Martin Luther King Jr and Rev Ralph Abernathy are released from jail in Albany, Georgia, after two weeks of detention. They were arrested for praying outside the city hall after the mayor broke his promise to meet with them.

• 18-year-old Peter Fechter bleeds to death at the Berlin Wall after being shot by East German border guards as hundreds of shocked West Germans look on helplessly.

• Actress Marilyn Monroe dies at 36 on August 4.

An architect’s drawing of the new Regina Mundi church in Moroka, Soweto, which will hold 3 000 people. The foundation stone was laid by the future Pope Paul VI.

The Southern Cross

5

Who owns the church of the Holy Sepulchre?

Q. On a pilgrimage to the Holy Land some years ago, I noticed that most holy sites there were run by the Catholic Church, but the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is owned by several denominations.

How did that come about?

The door to the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

W

HEN THE CHURCH OF THE Holy Sepulchre, site of the Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection, was built in the first half of the 4th century, it was owned by one single Church. Over time, that Church split into various denominations: Catholicism and Orthodoxism, with its many off-shoots. All of them believe in apostolic succession through the apostles. And since all of them believe themselves to be true successors of the apostles, they all lay a claim to the Christian faith’s most sacred site.

The original church of the Holy Sepulchre was razed in 1009 during a persecution of Christians. When the Crusaders conquered the Holy Land 90 years later, they built the present church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was consecrated in 1149. Although the church was built by the Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Churches argued that they, too, had property rights, because before the great schism of 1054, the pre-

vious church had been administered by the Eastern patriarchates.

For two centuries after the Crusaders were expelled from the Holy Land, control of the church changed hands between Latins and Greeks (or neither), until in 1342 the Franciscans were put in charge of it. That arrangement worked reasonably well for the next three centuries, with the friars giving generous access to the other denominations.

Your Questions answered Do you have questions about our faith? Send them to: editor@scross.co.za Subject line: Q&A

But after the Ottoman conquest, that arrangement crumbled. The Greek Orthodox now benefited from their presence in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire. Supremacy over the church again changed at the whim of the Muslim rulers.

After a Palm Sunday raid on the tomb by the Orthodox in 1757, the Ottomans implemented the Status Quo, which divided the church into several territories over which each denomination, including the Armenians, would have control. The Greeks were given control over both the tomb and the place of the crucifixion, but had to give prescribed access to those sites by other denominations. The Coptic, Syriac and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches also have a presence in the church.

The Status Quo remains in place to this day, but relations between the denominations have improved a lot in recent years. It also applies to some other sites, including the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

(Günther Simmermacher)

When will we be judged by God?

Q. The Nicene Creed states that Christ “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”.

But we are also taught that we are judged individually upon our death. So when are we actually judged by God: when we die or only when Christ returns?

B

OTH ARE TRUE. THE CATHOLIC Church has always believed in a twofold judgment by God: a particular judgment at the moment of death and a general judgment at the end of time, when Christ will come again.

So immediately when we die, each individual is judged as either worthy of eternal life in heaven (there may be a temporary stop in purgatory for purification from the remnants of sin) or deserving of

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The Southern Cross

eternal punishment in hell.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that each of us receives our eternal retribution in our immortal soul at the very moment of our death, “in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ” (1022). That particular judgment will be private.

But then at the end of the world, when Jesus returns in glory, there will be a public “general” judgment at which each one’s particular judgment will be confirmed and revealed to all.

Again, in the words of the Catechism: “The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during [their] earthly life” (1039).

(Fr Kenneth Doyle)

The Last Judgment, as depicted

by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

Will SA get a new cardinal?

Q. With Cardinal Wilfrid Napier’s retirement as archbishop of Durban, will his successor, Archbishop Siegfried Mandla Jwara, become a cardinal?

T

HAT IS ENTIRELY UP TO THE POPE — AND FRANCIS has a way of defying all expectations when it comes to awarding the “red hat”. So far, South Africa has had only two cardinals: Owen McCann of Cape Town (elevated in 1965) and Wilfrid Napier of Durban (2001).

Between the death of the former in 1994 and appointment of the latter, almost seven years had lapsed.

There are various criteria that influence the appointment of cardinals, whose basic function is to serve as counsellors to the Holy Father and to elect his successor. Here are some of the important ones, but since appointments to the College of Cardinals are the pope’s prerogative, he need not explain his choices.

Curial Appointments: Certain dicasteries (or departments) in the Roman curia are required to be headed by a cardinal. If an appointee to such dicasteries isn’t a cardinal yet, he will be made one at the soonest consistory (the meeting at which cardinals are officially raised to their new rank).

Cardinalate Sees: These are dioceses whose archbishops traditionally are expected to be made cardinals, such as Venice, Paris, Madrid, Philadelphia and so on. But Pope Francis often bypasses these dioceses and appoints bishops from smaller dioceses or countries that have never had a cardinal. In any case, neither Cape Town nor Durban can be considered a cardinalate see; South Africa’s next cardinal could come from any diocese, or even from Botswana or Eswatini, which form part of our local bishops’ conference.

Leadership Qualities: Some people just stand out as great leaders, regardless of the diocese they are heading.

And here we note that newly-appointed cardinals usually are bishops already. Pope Francis was happy to bypass this unwritten rule when he named Fr Michael Czerny SJ to the College of Cardinals in 2019 (in line with the norms, Czerny was consecrated a bishop the day before the consistory).

Public Expectations: Sometimes a pope’s hand is forced by public pressure. That was the case in 2001, when Pope John Paul II excluded Archbishop Karl Lehmann, then president of the German bishops’ conference, from a list of 39 new appointees (which, incidentally, included the future Pope Francis). The outcry by the German press and Church leadership persuaded the pope to publish a second list with five additional appointees a week later.

This list did include Archbishop Lehmann, as well as Archbishop Napier of Durban. According to a veteran Vatican correspondent at the time, a Southern Cross article which had briefly bemoaned the absence of a Southern African name on the original list of cardinals helped persuade the pope to include the archbishop of Durban on his second list — a sign that the Holy See has an open ear for the views of the Catholic press.

Long-Service Reward: Often a pope will award a red hat to priests who are over the age of 80 — and therefore too old to participate in a conclave — as a recognition of their distinguished service to the Church. In 2016, for example, Pope Francis named 87-year-old Bishop Emeritus Sebastian Khoarai OMI of Lesotho a cardinal, in honour of his long episcopal service and witness to Christ. And last

Cardinal Owen McCann lands in Cape Town in February 1965 after returning from Rome, where he became South Africa’s first cardinal. Behind him is his secretary, Fr Jerry Morrow.

year, the pope made 86-year-old Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa a cardinal, in appreciation of the priest’s long service as the preacher of the papal household.

So, in short, there is no way of knowing whether or when another South African might become a cardinal, or where he might come from. But we may pray that if a pope should choose a cardinal from South Africa’s episcopate, his choice will be wise and fruitful.

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7

A voice for

WOMEN

Radio Veritas broadcaster Sheila Pires aims to use her presence on the airwaves to empower

women. She spoke to DALUXOLO MOLOANTOA.

H

ER VOICE SURFS THE Catholic radio world as one of a few women broadcasters in a sea of male voices.

Radio Veritas presenter Sheila Pires — the host of the “Catholic View” show on weekday evenings between 18:30 and 19:00 — is on a quest to empower and give a voice to Catholic women through the medium of radio. And she has done so not only on South Africa’s Catholic station but also on Catholic radio in Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau.

Born in Xai-Xai, in the southern Mozambique province of Gaza, Sheila is one of five siblings, three sisters and a brother. Her maternal family’s Catholic piety has produced a bishop, a priest and two nuns within the family — and Cardinal Júlio Duarte Langa, emeritus bishop of Xai-Xai, who is her great-uncle.

When she was two years old, Sheila’s family moved to Maputo, the country’s capital. “It was here where I was baptised and received First Holy Communion, both at the city’s cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception,” she tells The Southern Cross. While attending catechism classes, she also became a member of the children’s choir.

“My entire family was quite involved with Church activities. My mom was a member of the Legion of Mary, and my brother was a proclaimer, sacristan, lay minister of Holy Communion and catechist. My three sisters also helped with catechism classes. My family and I, together with the missionary Fathers, also visited the sick at Maputo Central Hospital. Those were mainly victims of the Mozambican war,” she recalls.

Sheila’s love for radio and sports

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The Southern Cross

started in Maputo. From the age of eight, she attended the Rádio Moçambique Music School. She was also a member of the Rádio Moçambique Orchestra, where she played the bass melodica. Prior to this, she and her three sisters had become members of a gymnastics club, and also played basketball.

Coming to SA

In the early 1990s, the family was on the move again: this time to South Africa, when the country was on the brink of a new democratic dispensation. Upon the family’s arrival in Johannesburg, Sheila resumed her love of sports, this time by playing both netball and tennis at primary and high school level. “When basketball was introduced in my high school in 1998, I joined the team. I went on to simultaneously play for the basketball club next to my high school, and I also played for the Wits University team in my late teens,” she says.

In Johannesburg, the family attended Mass at the cathedral of Christ

the King, where they are still parishioners. Sheila took up various activities at the cathedral throughout her teens, becoming a member of the parish youth at 14. When she was 16, Sheila was asked to serve as the secretary of the Portuguese community liturgy committee and two years later to chair it. She was also a member of a group of lay people chosen to assist deacons in various capacities, and was a member of the choir. Sheila’s Portuguese-speaking background is important to her. “I did my profession of faith as per Portuguese culture, and I was a proclaimer for the Portuguese community.”

Following the death of Portuguesespeaking chaplain Fr Justino de Zanove, the Portuguese community at the cathedral dwindled in numbers, and so the remaining members joined the English-speaking community, which Sheila still serves as a proclaimer. It was in this capacity that she also helped set up the parish structures of the new Ss Cosmas & Damian parish in Cosmo City in 2007.

Left: Sheila Pires in St Peter’s Square in January 2020, and (above) interviewing actor Idris Elba while presenting on “Good Morning Africa”.

Sheila has been a radio journalist with Radio Veritas since 2004. “Working at Radio Veritas is a ministry. I believe I’ve continued working at Veritas all these years because that’s where God wants me to be. I have learned to accept God’s will in my life,” she says.

And ministry of service is important to her. “When I was a teenager, I once visited a convent in Maputo to see whether this was the future for me. But after ill treatment by the mother superior I decided to come back to South Africa, and vowed before God to serve the Church as a lay woman.”

Her work at Radio Veritas has broadened Sheila’s focus within the Church — and eventually took her to Rome. She travelled to Italy for the first time in 2018. This was to be the precursor for frequent trips over the next two years, in various capacities. “In 2018, Dr Nontando Hadebe, a philosophy lecturer at St Augustine College, and I were invited to attend a symposium hosted by the Catholic Women Speak network in Rome. Prior to the invitation, Dr Hadebe and I had done a couple of radio interviews about issues pertaining to women and youth in the Church and in society.”

At the symposium, Sheila was invited to chair a roundtable discussion titled “Sharing Our Stories: Cultures and Catholicism”. The exchanges highlighted the roles of culture and Church life in building better societies and a better world. The symposium coincided with the Synod of Bishops on Young People. Sheila stayed on in Rome to cover the synod for Radio Veritas.

“It was quite an eye-opening experience to observe the synod, from a media point of view. It was also an exhilarating experience to be part of the press conferences, and the press corps

at Pope Francis’ meeting with young people from all over the world,” Sheila recalls. “I also visited Vatican Radio to do interviews. It was as a result of this that a partnership was formed between myself and Vatican Radio to syndicate my radio show, and to provide content in Portuguese to the Catholic stations Radio Nova of Cape Verde, Radio Jibular in Guinea Bissau, and Radio PaxBeira in my homeland Mozambique.”

Sheila’s attendance at the Catholic Women Speak symposium encouraged her to continue advocating for the inclusion of women in leadership structures especially — in the Church and in society at large. Since then she has travelled back to Rome for a pilgrimage about the role of women in early Christian life which was led by the Future Church, an organisation which aims to provide all Catholics with the opportunity to participate fully in Church life, in early 2019.

It was followed by a trip sponsored

by Voices of Faith, which works to increase leadership role of women in the

ing personalities from Africa and beyond, including star actor Idris Elba.

Sheila says the most memorable programme in her years in radio broadcasting was a show on the abuse of religious Sisters. “I had the opportunity of interviewing two former religious Sisters, Doris Reisinger and Roccio Figueroa, who were abused and have since left the convent, and a young Sister from KwaZulu-Natal who courageously talked about the different types of abuse religious Sisters experience. I feel that more has to be done to address the abuse of women in the consecrated life.”

The great majority of guests on her “Catholic View” programme are women. “This is by intention. My radio show aims to empower women who are often not recognised for their efforts. Much too often when one switches on the radio or the television, one is confronted by male voices.

Women all over the world are not given the same opportunities as their male counterparts. We do the same work — and at times do it better than men — but we get fewer opportunities and are even paid less for the same efforts. We women are far too often not considered for leadership positions. Women, youth and children are the main victims of crime and domestic abuse.”

Sheila believes that Women’s Month is important in South Africa, but notes that “women should be celebrated every day”. Women’s Month is a reminder of women’s daily struggles — at work, at home — and of their significant role during the apartheid era. “I believe that it is very important to teach future generations of women about where they come from. The month highlights the plight of women, and to have an ongoing dialogue, to empower each other in order to build a better society,” she says.

“Through my radio show, I hope that I am playing my part — to educate and to inspire... To change the narrative.”

‘My radio show aims to empower women whose efforts are often unrecognised’ Church. The last trip in early 2020 was for the establishment of the Catholic Women’s Council. In all her trips to Italy, she met women, young and old, from across the globe who are doing great work to ensure that women are given the voice and the opportunities they need to advance themselves and the cause for gender equality, both within the Church and elsewhere.

A radio and TV career

During her early days at Radio Veritas, Sheila also worked part-time as a co-host of the “Good Morning Africa” television programme on DStv’s Africa Magic channel. The programme was geared towards young adults from across the continent. It was during this time that she interviewed many lead-

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The Southern Cross

9

Making an

IMpAcT

Most communities have them: the unsung heroes who give their all to make life better for others.

ROSANNE SHIELDS recalls one such hero.

O

NCE A YEAR, THE DRY VELD of Namaqualand is transformed into a carpet of wild flowers, a spectacle of great abundance and beauty. Many people take a drive up the West Coast, thinking they are going to Namaqualand.

They’re not.

Namaqualand is hard-earned through a long trek up the N7 into the Northern Cape, past Bitterfontein and Garies. When you reach Kamieskroon the terrain changes, becoming more rugged and undulating. By evening you know you have arrived in the heart of Namaqualand when the mountains turn a shade of pink. Here you are cradled by Springbok, Okiep and Nababeep, in a world of Nama legends, with its own distinct Afrikaans dialect, and a people as unique as the blushing mountains.

In 1992, while working for the national Church organisation Rural Development Support Program (RDSP), my colleague Jane de Sousa and I ventured up there on our first fieldtrip. A request had come from the French ambassador, via Cardinal Owen McCann of Cape Town, to check on the welfare of French religious Sisters based in the area and further afield towards Keimoes, the seat of the diocese of Keimoes-Upington.

There was also interest from the Community Chest in supporting some kind of outreach work up there.

A group of interested parties had gathered in Cape Town, under the steady gaze of the cardinal, and it was decided that RDSP would undertake the work. We had no idea where to even begin. So we turned to Mary Lack, one of the founders of what be-

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The Southern Cross

came Catholic Welfare & Development. She had a good knowledge of the area, having carried out numerous trips as far north as Namibia when volunteering for the Apostleship of the Sea. Jane and I set off with wild enthusiasm but returned home initially defeated.

Times of tumult

The year 1992 was a tricky time in our country’s transition from the horror of apartheid to democracy. We forget how tumultuous that in-between time was and how much jostling for position had to take place politically.

We naively launched ourselves into the task of visiting the few civil society organisations we could find in Na-

Quinta was inspired and driven by an inner force to serve God maqualand in an effort to introduce ourselves and to find out how we could be of help. We were met with total distrust, and in some cases disbelief that we could possibly think anything helpful could come out of Cape Town for the people of this forgotten territory. We understood, but spent much time licking our wounds at roadside picnic spots while we warmed up tins of soup. We were there to bring the great liberating message of community development but nobody wanted us!

It was at one such spot, under drooping pepper trees, that the rather obvious hit us and our spirits lifted.

We needed to find Church-based peo-

Quinta Titus, a Catholic community leader in Namaqualand, who died earlier this year.

ple and activities where we could offer our services.

On our next visit we asked the local St Vincent de Paul Society, Legion of Mary, Catholic Women’s League and Chiro youth movement to meet with us in Okiep. The relief of all of us making the sign of the cross as one and saying an opening prayer together was tremendous.

While we blundered through a prepared script in our privateschool Afrikaans, out of the corner of my eye I spied a friendly-looking woman of much our own age — early twenties — trying very hard not to giggle. By the end of our piece she stood up and declared that we were welcome, that perhaps God had sent us, that there was much work to be done, and that she would help us do it.

We had found not only our enduring home, but our friend for life: Quinta Titus. That was the very beginning of what would become a successful development organisation in the diocese of Keimoes-Upington called Namakwa Ontwikkeling (NAMKO).

Nearly 30 years later, RDSP and NAMKO still work closely together— but this year we lost our beloved Quinta to Covid-19. (And on May 31 we also lost Mary Lack.)

Quinta was inspired and driven by an inner force to serve God. She was particularly drawn to working with youth and then later in the traumatic field of gender-based violence (GBV). As the years rolled on, the interconnected alcohol and drug abuse problem in Namaqualand grew, as it did in many parts of our country.

With the methamphetamine “tik” being manufactured so easily, it took hold of whole communities and destroyed families, livelihoods and childhoods. Listening to Quinta describe what alcohol and drug addiction was doing to her community was deeply disturbing. As in many places, the minerals and wealth have been extracted in central Namaqualand, using local labour, but now the future is bleak. Unemployment creates poverty, and poverty has some nasty bedfellows.

Always good people

But as surely as those wild flowers pop up in miraculous ways every spring, there are always good people who reach out to others, despite their own challenges. Over the years a strong

network of community-based organisations has been formed, with Quinta and NAMKO anchoring it, and this network has achieved great things. With a total absence of rehabilitation centres in the area and a lack of government strategy to deal with GBV, these mostly women-run organisations needed to find creative responses. Quinta set up the Inspirited Women’s group, where those battling with GBV themselves or within their family could gather for mutual support and counselling. This led to a membership-based saving scheme run by NAMKO, giving women some financial independence.

More community support groups were started by local women, stretching from Spoegrivier in the south to Port Nolloth further north. The groups were for those affected by GBV and substance abuse or for abusers themselves, providing them with counselling. The training of those running the groups was done by RDSP and the South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (SANCA). These groups were the subject of a research project at university level which declared them highly effective in providing a safe haven for those trying to overcome addiction and violence and for their families. Around Quinta’s leadership and compassion we saw the circle widen of people committed to changing the situation.

Willing to adapt

NAMKO has survived the ups and downs inherent in the NGO world because they have been willing to adapt.

They have a plan to launch themselves as a community foundation, which would enable them to support small local organisations in need of grants.

We have seen how far these organisations can make a small grant of R10 000 stretch, providing educational

sessions in school, starting wood-fired micro bakeries, forming street committees to watch out for vulnerable children, and using puppets to interact with younger children on the topics of violence and abuse.

A great start was made on May 29 this year when NAMKO launched the Quinta Titus Gender-Based Violence Response Fund as a way to honour her work of 30 years.

RDSP director Brenda Snyders attended the event and sums up Quinta’s impact perfectly: “Quinta was a support to so many people. Being a single parent to her son Jude, she was the person he relied on. Her whole world revolved around providing Jude with the best life she could possibly give him. For her elderly mother and siblings, she was the one they could turn to when in need of support. In NAMKO she was the one driving processes and making sure the funds were raised to implement muchneeded programmes. In the Catholic Church in Nababeep she was the right hand of the parish priest and served on many committees. For the women of the Inspirited Women’s groups she was a life-saver, offering counselling and support for women experiencing many forms of abuse. She provided a safe space where they could share their stories and leave with a renewed sense of hope.”

St Catherine of Siena tells us to be who God wants us to be, and we will set the world on fire. Quinta did just that.

She lit up the Namaqualand sky with her passion and love. Her infectious laughter will echo forever between Nababeep and Okiep, her stomping ground, and this faithful servant of God will never be forgotten. n Follow NAMKO on Facebook at /namko.030.345.npo and RDSP at www.rdsp.org.za

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Before the boy was born, a priest made a bold prophecy. Now Archbishop Siegfried Mandla Jwara has been entrusted with heading the archdiocese of Durban. He spoke to Br MAURICIO LANGA CMM.

T

HE RELIGIOUS LIFE AND priesthood of the new archbishop of Durban was prophesied by a parish priest long before Siegfried Mandla Jwara was even born on February 1, 1957. And that parish priest, Fr Siegfried Schultis CMM, also inspired Archbishop Jwara’s distinctive German first name.

In an interview with The Southern Cross, Archbishop Jwara told the story of how his parents, both still alive, were married. His mother, Desideria Mkhize-Jwara (now 87), had attended a mission boarding school at Himmelberg, outside Umzinto in KwaZuluNatal, run by Franciscan Sisters of the Daughters of Assisi. His father Alfred (now 89) was a truck driver. Most of the nuns had been convinced that Desideria would become a nun. But it did not happen.

“When my parents got married in 1956, most nuns had mixed feelings and they were somehow disappointed at my mother, as they had hoped that she was going to join the convent,” Archbishop Jwara said. But their anxieties were calmed when Fr Schultis made a prophecy: “Since you did not become a nun, of the first three boys that you will bear, the first one should be named Siegfried — and he will become a priest. The second one should be named Theofried and the third one should be named Reinhold.”

Nobody knows where these other names came from — maybe Fr Schultis’ family members back in Germany — but sure enough, “I was born a boy and was baptised Siegfried, after my parish priest. The second child was also a boy, and likewise the third one, and they were named Theofried and Reinhold respectively, as per the prophecy.” It was after the third boy was born that

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the family began to believe Fr Schultis’ prophecy.

But the priesthood was not young Siegfried’s initial aim. After he had finished high school at Mahlongwa, he wanted to become a motor mechanic.

Mahlongwa was an outstation of Umzinto parish, served at the time by Fr John Driessen CMM who used to come to celebrate Mass there once a month.

But when the parish priest would not turn up for Mass, the people at the outstation would ask Siegfried to lead services for them.

First calling

“This was like the first calling to priesthood for me. I would tell them I was a shy person and that I could not lead the services. But they pressured me until I accepted. So, already as a high school boy I was nicknamed ‘The Catechist’,” Archbishop Jwara recalled.

This involvement in the community at an early age made him think that maybe Fr Schultis’ prophecy had substance. And when the priest learnt that Siegfried wanted to join the Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries (CMM), “he was extremely happy”.

The Jwara family, however, had Archbishop Jwara. His surname his pronounced “Joa-kha”, to rhyme with the word “quagga”.

reservations. While Siegfried was doing matric, his father was involved in a terrible car accident and hospitalised as a result. “They wanted me to go and look for a job after matric in order to help at home,” Archbishop Jwara recalled. His determination in the face of a difficult situation at home tested the young man’s embryonic vocation. “It helped me to be serious about my religious vocation and priesthood, because I knew how the situation was when I left home with my father almost dying.”

He entered the pre-novitiate in 1980; his novice master in the Mariannhill congregation was Fr Paul Khumalo CMM, now archbishop emeritus of Pretoria. Following his first profession in 1982, Br Siegfried was sent to St Joseph’s Theological Institute in Cedara to pursue priestly studies, which he completed in 1986. Archbishop Jwara recalled that while undergoing priestly formation, he occupied leadership positions such as the CMM coordinator at the institute and corridor coordinator. “These appointments instilled in me confidence and the ability to work with and organise people,” he said. A challenge he faced at the time was that there were much more senior students, some of whom had been religious Brothers before and were now studying towards the priesthood.

“This tested my leadership skills and character at an early age.”

The ordination

The most important step in Archbishop Jwara’s vocation was his ordination to the priesthood on February 14, 1987. “On the day of my ordination there were people who came from far and wide. Bishop Paul Themba Mngoma of Mariannhill said it was like a prelate’s ordination.” On this special day, his mentor and vision-

from administration and to ary Fr Schultis was very excited. “I am satisfied and now God may focus my energy on pastoral take me,” Fr Schultis said. “He work. But people still voted for bought me a nice benediction cope me anyway,” the soft-spoken which I still have even today,” archbishop said. In Mthatha he Archbishop Jwara recalled. Fr also served the parishes of Port Schultis died just over two years St Johns and St Patrick’s. later, on October 7, 1989.

Soon after ordination, Fr Jwara Named a bishop was assigned to Clairvaux mission In April 2016 he was apin Impendle, Mariannhill diocese, pointed bishop of the vicariate where he served until 1989 under Archbishop Jwara with Bishop Stanislaw Dziuba of of Ingwavuma to succeed Bishop the guidance of Fr Bernard Ngidi Umzimkulu (centre) and Cardinal Wilfrid Napier José Luis Ponce de León, who CMM. Fr Jwara’s enthusiasm for (right), his predecessor as archbishop of Durban. had been transferred to Eswatini. pastoral work was prematurely cut The timing of the nuncio’s call to short in 1989 when the leadership inform him of that episcopal apstood up at the chapter and said, ‘Fr of his congregation sent him to EngSiegfried, you are still young and you pointment is poignant: on that day, his land to do a formation course. He recan be our provincial, and then do your parents were celebrating their 60th called not being pleased with the studies later’.” So he accepted and wedding anniversary — and it was exprovincial superior. “I was so unhappy, served in that position from 1999 till actly 60 years after Fr Schultis made his because I was happy at Impendle, even 2002, when the general chapter held in prophecy! Archbishop Jwara attributes though the place was very remote. We Rome elected him general councillor all his achievements to Fr Schultis’ did not even have electricity, but I was for the worldwide congregation, with prayers and interventions. He also acvery happy to work with people.” knowledges the support and inspirathe portfolio of procurator general.

After his training in England, he tion he had received from some of the But his term of office was premawas appointed novice master in MariCMM priests, such as Fr Francis Xavier turely cut short following the untimely annhill in 1991, and two years later was von Quadt, who was his parish priest at death of the congregation’s general-suHimmelberg, and Frs Damian Weber transferred to Merrivale, Pietermarperior, Fr Dieter Galen, in January and John Bouma, who were his itzburg, to work as rector at the congre2004. This necessitated an extraordi- provincial superiors at different times gation’s study house, Abbot Francis House. While working as rector, Fr Jwara nary elective chapter to choose a new in his formation.

He did not expect to be appointed had the opportunity to study towards a leadership. Fr Jwara was then sent to master’s degree in pastoral theology England to do a special course in lead- archbishop of Durban, but Archbishop with the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s ership. In August 2005 he was trans- Jwara sees the significance of becomferred from the Mariannhill province ing the first Zulu-speaking archbishop Pietermaritzburg campus. to head the archdiocese. He naturally In December 1998, Fr Jwara was to that of Mthatha.

A few months later he was elected expects his tenure in Durban to be a elected provincial superior of the Mariannhill Missionaries. “I first excused superior of the Mthatha province. “I different experience from that in rural myself because I had just enrolled for was reluctant to accept the election be- Ingwavuma.

Continued on page 25 my PhD, but one of my senior confreres cause I wanted to have some break

The ‘Trinitarian Musketeers’

By Fr Thulani Gubula

T

HREE BISHOPS WHO WERE appointed to new positions this year have been friends since their student days at St Joseph’s Theological Institute in Cedara, KwaZuluNatal: Archbishops Zolile Mpambani of Bloemfontein and Siegfried Mandla Jwara, and Bishop Siphiwo Vanqa of Queenstown. Bishop Sylvester David, auxiliary in Cape Town, was also their contemporary.

Earlier this year, Archbishop Jwara spoke at vespers in Komani (formerly Queenstown) where Bishop Vanqa took his oath of office. He recalled that he was in Komani’s cathedral of Christ the King in 1986 when Bishop Vanqa was ordained to the priesthood. The new archbishop of Durban, then yet to be ordained a priest, was the deacon of the day. Archbishop Mpambani was also there, still nine months from his own priestly ordination.

Archbishop Jwara, who is from KwaZulu-Natal, remembered how he

Three old friends: Archbishop Jwara, Bishop Vanqa and Archbishop Mpambani.

would travel to the Eastern Cape for holidays, and Archbishop Mpambani and Bishop Vanqa would visit his home as students. The trio even sang in the same Scathamiya group, which Archbishop Jwara defined as a Zulu traditional male voice singing group.

Archbishop Jwara also recalled that he was at the priestly ordination at Komani’s cathedral of Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Mthatha, now president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, to whom he was introduced by his two friends. The relationship endured into the priesthood and now the episcopacy.

He said their friendship is built on frank talk, or “fraternal correction”, and mutual support. He encouraged priests and seminarians to also have friendships based on honesty, not because they want to be bishops but to support and be good to each other.

In May, Bishop Vanqa was the last of the three friends to be ordained to the episcopacy, with Archbishops Mpambani and Jwara having been ordained bishops in 2013 to Kokstad and 2016 to Ingwavuma respectively.

Archbishop Jwara encouraged Bishop Vanqa to work with his priests, and not to be discouraged by the difficult ones but see the efforts of the good ones, and then build on that.

The baroness who chose poverty

By Günther Simmermacher

O

NE OF THE GREAT MODERN Catholic prophets was a Russian baroness born 125 years ago in a train. Catherine De Hueck Doherty was born on August 15, 1896, into wealth and privilege, lost it in the Russian Revolution, regained it, and then gave it all away for the poor.

When her devout Russian Orthodox, aristocratic parents baptised her, she was named Ekaterina Fyodorovna Kolyschkine. She first came into contact with the Catholic Church during her schooling in Alexandria, Egypt, where her father had been posted. In 1912, two years after her family returned to St Petersburg, she was married off to her first cousin, a Belgian aristocrat named Boris de Hueck. She was only 15.

When the First World War broke out, Ekaterina volunteered to serve as a nurse on the Eastern front, seeing the horrors of war first-hand. When she returned home, the Bolshevik Revolution broke out in Russia, forcing many nobles to flee the country. Among them were the De Huecks, who nearly starved to death as refugees in Finland. From there, they went to England, where Catherine was received into the Catholic Church in 1919, and eventually to Toronto in Canada. In 1921 their only son, George, was born there.

In Canada, Catherine discovered that she had a talent for public speaking, and joined the lucrative lecture circuit in the United States. It made her a wealthy woman. But money didn’t bring Catherine happiness, and her marriage was troubled. Seeking answers in Scripture, a couple of passages in the Gospel of Matthew kept bugging her: those in which Jesus tells his disciples to sell their possessions, take up their cross, and follow him (Mt 16:24; 19:21).

And this she did.

In 1932, Catherine set up a fund to take care of George (which, it must be said, did not amount to adequate parenting), and sold everything she owned to begin a lay apostolate among the poor. In the midst of the Great Depression, she set up soup kitchens in Toronto which she named Friendship House. Her apostolate not only fed the poor but also offered education. Inevitably, Catherine was denounced as a “commu-

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Catherine De Hueck in the 1930s.

nist”. She opposed that ideology, from her own experience, but she was scandalised that the Church was doing less for the poor than the godless communists were. Internal division and clerical chauvinism led to the closure of Friendship House in 1936, by order of the local archbishop. But “The Baroness”, as Catherine was widely called, was only getting started.

Moving to New York

Having studied the workings of Catholic Action in Europe, and through her friendship with the social activists Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, she moved to Harlem in New York to set up a new Friendship House in 1937. That community fed and clothed the poor, offered lectures, and worked for racial justice. It was a popular project and attracted a lot of attention. When a prominent journalist named Eddie Doherty came to report on the project, Catherine fell in love. Having obtained an annulment of her marriage to Boris de Hueck, she married the twice-widowed Eddie in 1943.

But that, and other issues, led to conflicts at Friendship House. One concerned the requirement that the team of the Friendship House community be celibate, which Catherine no longer was. So Catherine sadly cut her ties with the project, and the couple decided to

retire to Combermere, a rural backwater town in the Canadian province of Ontario. Retirement didn’t last long: in 1947, Catherine (now 51) and Eddie (57) founded a new lay apostolate, which they named Madonna House.

In the Madonna House Apostolate, which now exists in several countries, workers live in voluntary celibacy and poverty, depending on donations of money, food, clothing and so on, which they share with the poor whom they serve. As part of Madonna House, Catherine pioneered the concept of poustinia, a sparse room in which a person goes to pray and fast alone in the presence of God, a type of temporary hermitage. Poustinia (Russian for desert) was popularised in the Catholic Church through Catherine’s 1975 bestselling book of the same name. In this way, Catherine brought Orthodox spirituality into the Catholic Church.

Eddie Doherty, who in the 1920s was a famous Hollywood reporter and in 1944 was an Oscar-nominated screenwriter for the film The Sullivans, was a devout Catholic himself. He and Catherine published a newspaper, Restoration, to promote living the Gospel and to report on the activities of Madonna House. It is still running.

Husband a priest

In 1969, Eddie received permission to transfer from the Latin rite to the Melkite rite of the Catholic Church, which allows married clergy, enabling him to be ordained to the priesthood, at the age of 78. He died six years later, on May 4, 1975.

Catherine died after a long illness on December 14, 1985, at the age of 89.

Her sainthood cause was opened in 2000. In many ways, one might describe Catherine Doherty as a link between her more famous contemporaries and friends, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton (who knew Catherine and was inspired by New York’s Friendship House). Her legacy lives on, and her message is still relevant today.

“We need to be poor,” she once wrote. “Let us live an ordinary life, but, beloved, let us live it with a passionate love for God. Become a mystery. Stretch one hand out to God, the From left: Catherine De Hueck other to your neighbour. (right) with Dorothy Day in the Christ’s cross will be our 1930s; Eddie Doherty after his ordination in 1969; Catherine in 1970. revolution, and it will be a All photos: Madonna House revolution of love!”

OLYMPIC LEGENDS:

Our Catholic faith!

Even at the young age of 24, Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky are all-time greats in their sports. And that success is underpinned by their Catholic faith.

Photos via Catholic News Service & (Ledecky profile) Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil

W

HAT DO CATHOLIC athletes do when they are injured? They may pray to St Sebastian, a 3rd-century Roman martyr. This is what US superstar gymnast Simone Biles does. Not surprisingly, St Sebastian is her patron saint, chosen when the devout Catholic was battling with injuries during the time of her confirmation.

The record-breaking gymnast described that confirmation in her 2016 autobiography Courage to Soar: “I marched into St James the Apostle church [in Spring, near Galveston, Texas] that Sunday in a line of teenagers with solemn faces… in a way, our procession reminded me of a medal ceremony, except that no gold, silver, and bronze medals would be given out. Instead, our prize would be something much more powerful: in a few moments, each of us would bow our heads to receive the holy sacra-

Katie Ledecky reacts after setting a new world record in the 400-m freestyle during the 2016 Olympics.

ment of confirmation.”

Born on March 14, 1997, to a drugdependent mother, Simone was raised by her paternal grandfather and his wife, Ron and Nelly Biles, whom she calls “Mom” and “Dad”. She discovered gymnastics when she was six. Today, even at the young age of 24, she is already considered the greatest gymnast of all time So far she has won 30 Olympic and World Championship medals, three shy of the 33 won by the current record holder, 1990s gymnast Vitaly Scherbo.

Barring surprises or misfortune, Biles is expected to overtake that number at this month’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.

In her luggage to Tokyo may be a statue of St Sebastian. She also carries a white rosary which her mom gave her. “I don’t use it to pray before a competition,” she once told Us magazine. “I’ll just pray normally [by] myself, but I have it there in case.”

At home, she attends Mass regularly.

Gymnast Simone Biles in full flight during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

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Catholic legends: Simone Biles (above) and Katie Ledecky

It’s the only day she doesn’t train. Biles says that although she doesn’t aim to evangelise when she speaks about her Catholic faith, she wants people to know about it. “Kids today talk about faith, and I think it’s OK for me to share my faith so kids can see how it helps you through the whole process,” she told the Houston Chronicle.

Faith in the pool

Being Catholic is a way of life for Simone Biles, much as it is for US swimmer Katie Ledecky, who was born just three days after Biles and also talks openly about her faith. And like Biles, Ledecky has won more Olympic and World gold medals than any other woman in her sport (with more likely to come in Tokyo). Four years ago, she left the Rio de Janeiro Olympics as the most decorated female athlete, with four gold medals, one silver medal, and two world records.

“I do say a prayer — or two — before any race. The Hail Mary is a beautiful prayer and I find that it calms me,” she said before the 2016 Olympics. “I think the beauty of Catholicism is its consistency through both successes and difficulties. I’ve counted on my faith to give me strength through both training and competition — but also in school, with my family and everyday life. So while my goals in the pool have changed, my faith remains something that’s consistent and something I can always rely on,” she told the Catholic Register.

Ledecky, who began her medal haul as a 15-year-old in the 2012 Olympics, has credited her Catholic schooling for shaping her personality and her sporting success: “My Catholic schools challenged me, they broadened my perspective and they allowed me to use my mind in ways that take me beyond just thinking about swim practices, swim meets and sports.”

The Southern Cross

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The story of the feast of

Our lady’s Assumption It’s South Africa’s patronal feast, but what’s behind the dogma of Mary Assumed Into Heaven?

O

N AUGUST 15, CATHOLICS around the world mark the feast of the Assumption of Mary, commemorating the end of her earthly life and assumption into heaven. And in South Africa, we celebrate our patronal feast. But while the feast day is a relatively new one, the history of the holiday — and the mystery behind it — has its roots in the earliest centuries of Christian belief.

The Catholic Church teaches that when Mary ended her earthly life, God assumed her, body and soul into heaven. The dogma of the Assumption of Mary — also called the “Dormition of Mary” in the Eastern Churches – has its roots in the early centuries of the Church. While a site near the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem was recognised as the tomb of Mary, the earliest Christians maintained that “no one was there”, according to theologian Matthew Bunson.

According to St John of Damascus (675-749), the Roman emperor Marcian requested the body of Mary, Mother of God, at the Council of Chalcedon, in 451 AD. St Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, told the emperor “that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened upon the request of St Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven”, the saint recorded.

By the 8th century, around the time of Pope Adrian, the Church began to change its terminology, renaming the feast day of the Memorial of Mary to the Assumption of Mary,

Bunson noted. The belief in the Assumption of Mary was a widely-held tradition, and a frequent meditation in the writings of saints throughout the centuries. However, it was not defined officially until the past century.

Declared a dogma

In 1950, Pope Pius XII made an infallible, ex-cathedra statement in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus deus officially defining the dogma of the Assumption: “By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her

A relief of Our Lady’s Assumption in the Holy Family basilica in Fatima, Portugal.

sumption. “We have this thread that runs throughout the whole of the history of the Church in support of the dogma. That’s significant because it supports the tradition of the Church, but it also supports a coming to a deeper understanding of the teachings of the Church of how we rely upon the reflections of some of the greatest minds of our Church.”

What’s also notable about the dogma, Bunson added, is that the term “assumed into heaven” uses the passive tense, emphasising that Mary did not ascend into heaven on her own power, as Christ did, but was raised into heaven by God’s grace.

Today, the feast of the Assumption is a public holiday in many countries.

In most countries it is a holy day of obligation. Pope Pius XII declared Our Lady Assumed Into Heaven the patron of South Africa in 1951 — the year after he had declared it a dogma.

Bunson explained that on major feast days, it’s fitting to mark the significance of the feast as especially vital by emphasising the necessity of celebrating the Eucharist that day (or on the day to which the feast might be transferred on the authority of the local bishops).

“What is more fitting than on the Assumption of the Blessed Mother to, once again, focus on her Son, on the Eucharist?” he asked.—CNA/SC

Mary did not ascend into heaven on her own power, but by God’s grace

The Apostles prepare the Blessed Virgin for burial as Jesus the Saviour holds her in swaddling clothes — a reversal of the Nativity — in this mural in Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem in the Holy Land.

Photos: Günther Simmermacher

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earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

The decree was seen as the formalising of long-held Christian teaching.

“We have throughout the history of the Church an almost universal attestation of this,” Bunson said of the As-

Saint of the Month: St John Vianney

The devil vs the great confessor South Africa’s national seminary is named after St John Vianney. FR RALPH DE HAHN reflects on the life of the patron saint of priests.

I

F YOU SHOULD VISIT THE ONCE obscure village of Ars-sur-Formans, in the archdiocese of Lyons in eastern France, and see the parish of St John Vianney — in normal times with some of the annual million other curious pilgrims — you would find evidence of a vicious attack on the saintly parish priest by the devil himself, one that lasted over 35 years.

Visitors have been astonished to find physical and documented evidence of how Satan persecuted the humble Curé d’Ars (which means simply “parish priest of Ars”). He taunted the priest: “The Grappin and I are almost chums!”

“Grappin” was the nickname the wicked taunter used for Vianney, a colloquialism for “collar”.

The attacks weren’t just teasing; they were fierce and unrelenting. The devil threw everything he had at Vianney. Although this holy priest spent 16 hours daily in the confessional, the devil interrupted his short night with wild cries, clashing of pots and pans, harrowing voices, evil singing, the heavy sound of wild horses thundering through his little bedroom — anything to prevent a tired man from renewing his strength over a few hours. The attacks, it is believed, were more ugly and vicious when big sinners were planning to visit Vianney’s confessional. It is said that Satan was heard to cry something like: “If there were three priests like him, my kingdom would be ruined!”

Why, at this time, did the devil carry out this onslaught on an unsophisticated priest in an obscure village parish?

Jean-Marie Vianney was born in Dardilly, near Lyons, on May 8, 1786, of very poor parents. Despite his lack of adequate schooling and his weakness in Latin, he was assisted by a kindly priest, Abbé Balley, and finally ordained a priest on August 12, 1815.

His childhood and youthful years were marked by the events of the French Revolution (1789-99). There

St John Vianney at a glance

Name at birth: Jean-Baptiste Marie Vianney Born: 8 May 1786 in Dardilly, France Died: 4 August 1859 (aged 73) in Ars-sur-Formans, France Beatified: 1905 Canonised: 1925 Feast: 4 August Attributes: Cassock, surplice, preaching bands, stole, rosary, crucifix, Bible Patronages: Parish priests, confessors

was a tremendous upheaval of all society and wild resentment of the aristocracy and monarchy, of the privileged classes, the powerful Catholic Church and clergy.

The iniquity of feudalism was replaced by the “Reign of Terror”, especially in the years 1793-94. From the dust of a devastating famine and mismanagement by King Louis XVI arose a new secular age.

France, once a bright light in the Christian world was, overnight, dechristianised. This was followed by the Napoleonic wars (1803-15) and all of Europe was aflame.

Vianney lived through these chaotic years, with all churches being shut down, priests and religious being hunted, imprisoned and even killed.

While the once-powerful Church of Europe was being crushed, Vianney was totally dedicated to saving souls for Christ, bringing the joy and hope of the Gospel to the penitent.

to find on his own. Getting lost, he made an offer to a companion: “If you can show me the way to Ars, I will show you the way to heaven.” Ars was a tiny village. There were only about 250 parishioners, but because of his extraordinary love, compassion and zeal, thousands would arrive from all over the continent to meet this “Man of God”.

The writer Shaun McAfee tells of an incident which reflects the type of holy confessor Vianney was. It involves a woman who was devastated by her husband’s suicide. “She wanted to approach the great priest but his line often lasted for hours and she could not reach him.

She was ready to give up and in a moment of mystical insight that only a Coming to Ars great saint can receive, Vianney exHis first and only appointment as claimed through the crowd: ‘He is parish priest was to Ars, which he had saved!’ The woman was incredulous, so the saint repeated, stressing each Fr Tshepo Maseko word: ‘I tell you he is saved. He is of Johannesburg in purgatory, and you must pray for with an image of him. Between the parapet of the St John Vianney bridge and the water he had time to on his stole make an act of contrition.’”

Photo: Sheldon Reddiar But this Man of God felt terribly unworthy of such attention. And even when a petition was drawn up to expel him from the diocese, he willingly added his own name to the paper and sent it to his bishop.

Because of this feeling of utter unworthiness, he found his strength only in devotion to the Holy Eucharist, prayer, fasting and penance, and a deep attachment to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He was often seen to be in silent prayer before the tabernacle. “I just look at Jesus, and Jesus looks at me,” he explained.

In 1827 he cried out to his The Southern Cross

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St John Vianney

The

Southern Cross

A Timeline of St JOhn Vianney 1786

1827

Born on May 8 as Jean-BaptisteWith two local women, co-founds Marie Vianney in Dardilly, near Lyon, a home for orphans and homeless the fourth of six children of the children called La Providence. farmers Matthieu and Marie Vianney.

1789-99

French Revolution. Jean mostly tends sheep and receives little formal schooling.

1809

Is conscripted into Napoleon’s army in October but deserts in January.

Hides in a barn at Les Noes until an amnesty for deserters in March 1810.

1830

Large numbers of penitents begin to come to Ars to make their confession with the Curé d’Ars (Priest of Ars), increasing to 20 000 a year. Some days, Vianney spends 12-16 hours in the confessional. Villagers are happier now.

1811

Receives tonsure and is admitted to Verrières minor seminary.

1813

Transfers to Lyon seminary but struggles. Is coached privately by his mentor, Abbé Balley.

1815

Is ordained a deacon in June (five days after the Battle of Waterloo) and ordained to the priesthood on August 9 — despite inadequate academic performances, on the reasoning that the Church needs not only learned but also holy priests.

Is appointed curate at Écully parish to assist Abbé Balley.

1817

Ars-sur-Formans and its church (at left) on a postcard from 1907.

1843

Becomes seriously ill. Attributes his recovery to St Philomena. Having recovered, tries to run away and become a Carthusian monk (one of three such “escape” attempts from Ars, the last in 1853).

1855

Is made a knight of the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Refuses to be invested or wear the imperial cross on his cassock.

Following Abbé Balley’s death, is appointed parish priest of Ars-surFormans, a village of 250 people.

At first, villagers object to Vianney’s denunciation of profanity and obscenity (and especially his condemnation of dancing), which leads to the village inn closing.

More than 100 000 pilgrims come to Ars.

Experiences supernatural physical disturbances which Vianney attributes to the devil.

Dies after a short illness at the age of 73 on August 4 at 2:00, during a thunderstorm.

1817-27

1858 1859

parishioners: “Ars is no longer Ars!” He meant that there was a transformation; no longer was it the domain of Satan.

There is no doubt that John Vianney was already recognised as a saint in his lifetime. He was able to read the very soul of his penitents and release them from the devil’s grasp. Miracles have been attributed to Vianney, including one that echoes the feeding of the multitudes. But Vianney himself denied that he was a miracle worker: “I do not work miracles! I am only a poor ignorant man who once tended sheep,” he said.

The Curé d’Ars had a strong devotion to St Philomena, whose intercession he credited with saving his life during a severe illness in 1843, and for whom he built a shrine is Ars. “Turn to St Philomena,” he said. “I have never asked for anything through her without receiving it.”

A holy death

Weakened by exhaustion, John Vianney fell ill in July, taking to his bed for the last time on July 29, 1859. He died during a thunderstorm at 2:00 on August 4, 1859, having received the last rites from his bishop. He was 73. The bishop presided over his funeral with 300 priests and more than 6 000 people in attendance.

He was declared a saint by Pope Pius XI on the feast of Pentecost, May 31, 1925. His feast day is August 4. In 1929, the same pope named St John Vianney the patron of parish priests (that is why our national seminary is dedicated to him).

Vianney leaves a beautiful legacy to our pastors: “The priest is a unique creation. So necessary, so important, ever united to the Crucified One. He has the keys to the Kingdom. What use is a treasure chest full of gold if there is no one who can unlock it? The true meaning of a priest will be understood only in heaven, not on this earth. How unfortunate the priest without an inner life!”

We recall the words of St Paul to the Romans: “O depths of wealth, wisdom and knowledge in God! How unsearchable his judgments, how untraceable his ways, for who can know the mind of God” (11:33).

The fascinating logic of God: he sends the little to dethrone the mighty.

1905

Beatified in the Vatican by Pope Pius X.

1925

Canonised in the Vatican on May 31 by Pope Pius XI. His feast was first set for August 9 but later transferred to August 4.

The tomb of St John Vianney in Ars, France. (Photo: Herwig Reidlinger/GFDL)

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1929

Declared patron saint of parish priests.

A woman holds a prayer card to a reliquary containing St John Vianney’s incorrupt heart.

Photo: Gregory A Shemitz/CNS

7 Simple Ways to Find HUMILITY

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UMILITY IS AN ACQUIRED taste that develops with time.

For me, it’s like beer. To a novice, humility can be like a malt beer that’s thick, with a unique flavour. One may wonder how someone gets to prefer a drink like this.

For almost all of us, pride is like a lager. You’re still drinking beer, but one that tastes less like it. The downside is, we drink more than we should and don’t feel the effects until we can’t reverse the results. With beer, it’s slapping an ice pack on my head the next morning.

With pride, we become out of touch with our neighbours, more in touch with ourselves, and callous to the things around us that call for our service.

Our culture likes to use the terms “pride” and “self-confidence” interchangeably. Self-confidence is trust in our abilities, qualities, and judgment to handle something. Pride is a deep satisfaction we get from our favourite qualities and personal achievements.

Humility is a modest view of one’s importance. Meaning, acknowledging another’s needs are greater than our own. You can have both self-confidence and humility. You cannot have both pride and humility. Pride wants you to achieve so you’ll get the admiration and credit for yourself. Humility wants you to achieve to get the admiration and credit for the glory of God. So, how do you gain more humility in your life?

1. Say Say the theLitany Litanyof ofHumility Humility It’s Humility 101. A prayer with some heavy pull — a better path than flying by the seat of our pants. We saw how well that worked for Adam and Eve! In praying this prayer — you can find variations of it at www.bit.ly/3zOAW52 — we are not just repeating the way we should be behaving but are also asking God to be present with us, to guide us, lead us, and to give us the grace to make these changes.

2. Ask GodAsk God No one is happier to show you who you are than God. Not because he’s

mean but because he loves us, and he knows that humility is more powerful than any other force you can experience in this life. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it can be something as simple as, “Lord, give me the humility I need to make it through this day using love and kindness — especially with those who don’t seem to deserve it.”

3. Be Behonest honest with with yourself yourself When you disagree with your spouse, friend or family member, and they accuse you of being a certain way, ask yourself if you really are that way.

The answer might surprise you. Then ask yourself if it’s something that can be changed. When people tell me I’m complaining a lot, I tend to go on the defensive. The truth is, if someone else notices enough to mention it to me, I probably am complaining too much.

4. Accept everyone Accept everyone It’s pretty unlikely your housemate will ever change their OCD of how the pantry has to be arranged. They may be willing to negotiate on the shelf that houses the potato chips because that shelf is always a mess, but that’s it. So, ask yourself if it matters. It doesn’t. They aren’t going to change anyway, so just accept it.

Will the location of the chips matter when you come face to face with God?

5. Embrace your flaws Embrace your flaws My husband gets irritated because I misplace pretty much anything he entrusts to me (except our children — although I have done that, too). I used to get upset about being accused of disorganisation when I had prided myself on the three things I organised well: my children, eating, and pretty much nothing else. My pride created a lot of tension and arguments until one day, I looked at my side of the wardrobe and said: “Wow, I’m really disorganised.”

No matter what we change about ourselves, there will always be flaws that don’t change. We are who we are. If we can identify those parts, accept them, and ask for help, then God will see to it that eventually they’re put to good use.

Even the chip shelf. Nothing is without a plan from God — not even the chips.

An old English pub song observes that it’s hard to be humble, but humility is what our faith calls us to.

CHRISTINA ANTUS offers seven ways to beat the sin of pride with the virtue of humility, and to be happy.

6. Go to Goconfession to confession There’s nothing more humbling than taking a basketfull of your dirtiest, nastiest laundry and coming face to face with the grime and stink of our sins. We see how flawed we are so that we can increase our understanding of others. I don’t love going to confession, but I love how I feel when I leave. I go in knowing that I’m not giving my all to God or my neighbour. I go in knowing I’ve failed and can do better. I leave with a renewed sense of self and a clean slate. I leave knowing it’s possible to not make the same mistakes. I leave with an empty laundry basket. Although it does eventually fill up again, I’m confident in knowing that with time and practice, I can be better than I was.

7. Know Know that that all all things things are are possible with humility possible with humility When we know we aren’t perfect, we are less focused on doing things for ourselves and more focused on trying to help others. We become the light of God’s love working for them.

Serving others with a smile and not complaining isn’t always my favourite thing to do, especially because I’m really good at complaining. It’s also really difficult to find love and kindness when we’re faced with people we don’t really like. That’s what humility is.

I’ve got a long way to go before I’m the humble person God knows I can be.

But, I’m better than I was last year. With his grace, a lot of confession (a lot), many mental reminders, and getting back up every time I fall, I’m getting there. The more I remind myself to just get my work done, offer up smiles when I don’t want to smile, or force myself away from juicy gossip, I’m making small steps up the humility ladder. I’m also a lot happier.

Humility is the fastest way to learn how to love. It’s a key to finding joy in this life. Humility means “others first”, even if that means being okay with how the chips are organised on the pantry shelf. n This article was first published on BustedHalo.com. Christina Antus also writes at homestylefeathers.com.

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800 years after his death

What St Dominic means today This month marks the 800th anniversary of the death of St Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order.

FR JOSEPH FALKINER OP looks at his relevance today.

minic started a new method. He began HIS MONTH, DOMINICANS discussions with grassroots heretics, all over South Africa and the with the idea of bringing them back rest of the world celebrate the gently to the faith.

He succeeded in only a small way 800 years of fruitful changes that have taken place in the Church because of the widespread persecution since St Dominic’s death — changes of heretics by others — ten years after which can be traced back to his initia- Dominic’s death the Inquisition was set tives. The Spanish-born founder of the up in France — but one might say that his idea was the start of the ecumenism order died on August 6, 1221.

The best way to remember St Do- which today is accepted so widely in the minic is to recall that he was an inno- Church. vator of many things that we regard as common in the Church today. For exBringing back heretics ample, Dominic established the rosary The Catholic Church at that time as a widespread prayer in the Church. was seen by the heretics to promote viRosary beads existed before his time, olence, to be rich, corrupt and immoral. but without the list of mysteries to be The heretics whom Dominic encouncontemplated. That apparently came tered in France promoted a pure spirifrom Dominic, and we believe that he tual life for both men and women. got the idea from Our Lady herself.

Dominic also noticed that, in their reliAnother example: We take it for gion, they gave equal leadership roles to granted that when we go to church on both genders. This might have been Sundays we will hear a sermon. That what attracted women to the heretical was not common 800 years ago, when church in the first place. preaching was largely reserved for bishHe saw how valuable these women ops. Dominic had to get permission were in promoting piety. The first peofrom the pope to start a special Order of ple whom Dominic brought back to the Preachers — the proper name of the Catholic Church were women. He order of Dominican friars, hence the let- needed their backing if he was to bring ters OP after the names of its members about the further changes already sim— and today every priest and deacon in mering in his mind. Dominic was in no the world preaches regularly. position to offer them equality in the Founding the Order of Preachers was not all Dominic did. He began devising new ideas for the Church at least ten years before his order was officially founded. It happened Name at birth: Domingo Félix de Guzmán when he saw that huge change was Born: August 8, 1170 in necessary in the popular Church, at Caleruega (present-day Spain) the grassroots.

Died: August 6, 1221 (aged 50) His first innovation here was to Bologna (present-day Italy) bring about, in the long-term, a Founded Dominicans: 1216 change in the way the Church in Toulouse, France treated the thousands of people who Canonised: July 13, 1234 had strayed from the orthodox docFeast: August 8 trines of Christianity and been dePatronages: Astronomers; clared heretics. The Church the falsely accused persecuted them atrociously. Do-

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St Dominic at a glance

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The Southern Cross

Catholic Church, but he was able to create for them Catholic contemplative convents where they could run their own lives without being supervised by men.

Such convents have been protected by the Dominican Order to this day.

Today the Catholic Church is still accused of allowing women no real roles in leadership, and the entire Dominican Order is trying to combat this.

Dominic was also able to bring back to the Church a number of heretics, among them men already accustomed to preaching. With them, he conceived the idea of a new religious order which would live a poor, simple lifestyle of contemplative prayer, but which would at the same time send its members out to preach correct doctrines to society at large. This meant further innovations to contemplative life and also to the value of study.

The innovation he made in contemplative religious life allowed contemplatives to venture out of seclusion to become preachers while still practising contemplation. Dominic strongly believed that all preaching needed to be based on a foundation of contemplative prayer. In his time, contemplative life was lived mainly by monks and nuns in rural monasteries, cut off from society.

Dominic changed all that. His Dominican communities were to be placed at the heart of urban centres.

They were to practise silent contemplation inside the house, but they were also to exercise a preaching apostolate outside of the house, reaching as many as possible.

The two activities were to go hand in hand. Out of this came one of the mottos of the Dominican order, “Contemplata aliis tradere”, which basically means, “to transmit to other people the results of our contemplation”. That was what Dominic meant by the word “preaching”. One

Dominican Father Albert Nolan and thenvicar general Sikhosiphi Mgoza in 2014 with then-novices Brs Boiketlo Mohlokoana, Ernest Mwape and Guide Marambanyika, wearing the distinctive black and white of the Dominican order.

of the greatest examples of putting this into practice 150 years later was a lay Dominican woman: St Catherine of Siena. Her relationship with Jesus through contemplation led St Catherine to become one of the greatest active reformers of the Church. She saw herself as a follower of St Dominic and always dressed herself in a Dominican habit.

The value of study

Regarding the value of study, Dominic saw an initial necessity for the exheretical preachers whom he had recruited to do a serious study of orthodox theology.

Part of their heretical theology had been that, while our souls were created

by God, our bodily activities were the work of the devil. This had led them to condemn not only marriage and the begetting of children, but also to deny that Jesus Christ had a real body. They saw Jesus as a spirit of sorts, with only the appearance of a body. This was a denial of the Incarnation, a denial that Jesus was both true God and true man.

So Dominic, before he sent them preaching on the road, directed them to the nearest city — the southern French town of Toulouse — to do the necessary studies. And he moved there with them.

From that moment he concerned himself with providing study houses for all his recruits, and not just for those who had been heretics. He established one such house in Paris and another in Bologna, near the universities already existing there. He wanted his followers to be well-educated not only in theology but also in contemporary issues,

The house in Toulouse, France, where St Dominic first established the Order of Friars Preachers (or Dominicans) in 1216.

Photo: Didier Descouens/CC BY-SA 4.0

and then to preach about these matters in the light of God’s revelation. Contemplation, study, and preaching were to go together.

The search for Veritas

The search for God in daily life has gone on now for eight centuries, and Dominicans are encouraged to continue studying all their lives. It is called the search for Truth, and another of the Dominicans’ mottos is the Latin word for Truth: Veritas.

We have good South African examples of the search for truth — even our only Catholic radio station is called Veritas! Dominican men and women in our country are well-known for preaching on issues like apartheid, economic justice for the poor, class divisions in society, gender issues, women and child abuse, corruption, xenophobia, racism, the plight of refugees and similar issues.

We have never had the resources to establish our own house of studies, but rely on what is taught in universities and in St Joseph’s Theological Institute in Cedara, KwaZulu-Natal. The brethren and sisters who have specialised in contemporary issues have often had to do their studies at the same time as working in parishes or schools.

For a follower of St Dominic, preaching does not mean only delivering homilies at Mass in a particular church. The transmission of what is learnt through contemplation and study can be carried out by living a certain way of life, by having discussion with people in a tavern (as Dominic himself did), by giving lectures, by writing articles and books, by visiting other towns and preaching there, by setting up a radio station, as the late Fr Emil Blaser OP did.

Dominic never allowed his brethren to live alone. They always live in a community house suitable for prayer and study. In such communities, brothers could share their lives, their ideas and their studies with each other

and get support from their fellows.

Community-life is important for Dominicans to this day.

This sums up Dominic’s greatest innovation, the Order of Preachers, which was founded only five years before his death. He wanted it to be poor with no landholdings or businesses to make it rich, with no fixed incomes, and to be dependent on God.

Democracy in action

One more innovation was to come.

Two years after founding the order, Dominic called the first general chapter and announced that the delegates were to elect someone to be their master general. At that time, such a democratic process was unheard of in the Church (or, indeed, much of society). Dominic was introducing the Church to democracy. We celebrate him.

Today we live in the new normal of Covid-19, of the fantastic input of the Internet, of the terrible socio-economic division between rich and poor, of the rise in people making their own individual choices irrespective of what it does to others, of the threat of climate change, of the ongoing liberation of women from the domination of men, and notably of the fact that the Bible is now available in almost every language in the world for everyone to read.

We could ask ourselves what St Dominic would be promoting were he in South Africa today? We Dominicans, if we are to be true to our founder, have to face up to that question.

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Church must stand up and end silence

D Crashing homilies

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HAT A BLESSED RELIEF it was to read Fr Chris Chatteris’ article “How not to crash a homily” (February 2021) and its follow-ups (March and July). It seems that at last someone is listening to the congregation. Thank you for acknowledging this very real problem of sub-standard homilies in many churches.

The Covid lockdown and access to livestreamed Masses has opened up to many a new world of homilies, providing alternatives for people starved of some wisdom and guidance from their priest.

While we realise that watching the Mass on a device certainly is not a substitute for attending Mass in person, the relief of participating in a well-presented Mass does make the temptation to become an “armchair Catholic” — to use the words in your “Welcome” article in February — very tempting!

I look forward to reading the subsequent articles on this theme in Fr Chatteris’ series.

Laura Colarossi, by e-mail

URING THE APARTHEID years, the Church was a dominant voice against the injustices that prevailed in our country. However, since the unfolding of democracy in 1994, the Church has taken a somewhat softer approach, trying to deal with its own internal matters.

In a way, the Church has become complacent and even complicit in seeing our country deteriorate to levels where people’s lives are seriously affected by what they are seeing and experiencing right now. As a Christian community, we can no longer sit back and see our country decline on a number of fronts, including economic regression, social waning, political uncertainty, increased economic and social inequality, and higher unemployment.

These all have unintended consequences. It’s where reality hits home — increased crime and corruption, racial tension, abuse (especially of women and children), declining service delivery, deteriorating healthcare and living conditions, especially in poorer communities.

As the Church embarks on renewing its role in modern society, it requires the leadership to extend its reach to societal, environmental and human development issues as well.

The Church can no longer remain hushed. According to Pope Francis, if we need to lead a dignified and fulfilling life, we have to reach out to

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others: “Life grows when given away and it weakens in isolation and comfort” (Evangelii gaudium, 2013).

The leadership of the Church should take a stand in ways where it goes beyond just having meaningful dialogue to get key players to a collective shared view. The Church should also stand up as a unified collective where injustice and destruction prevail.

Pope Francis calls on all of us to try a little harder, to take the first steps, to get involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives by bridging distances and touching human life as if touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others.

As a Catholic collective, we can no longer remain silent.

Dennis Jackson, Johannesburg

Right place for the tabernacle

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HANK YOU, FATHER SEAN Collins CSsR (Letters, June 2021), for the clarification of the placement of the tabernacle.

Sadly, some cathedrals and churches have moved the tabernacle to the side of the church, out of sight. I once attended Holy Mass at a renovated cathedral. The tabernacle remained in the original building and Holy Mass was celebrated in the circular section adjacent to the original cathedral.

Just before the Act of Consecration the Eucharist was fetched from the tabernacle and after Holy Communion returned to it. The circular design and the absence of the tabernacle made me feel as if I was watching a show in a modern theatre.

A church or cathedral may be modern in architecture, but showing the reverence Our Lord deserves is paramount.

Lynn Petersen, Cape Town

This is the Gospel in action

By prof Mpume Zondi

The new arch of Durban Durban’s Emmanuel cathedral

Continued from page 13 Durban is a metropolitan archdiocese and a melting pot of all races, cultures and dynamics, Archbishop Jwara noted. “I hope to learn more from the people so that I can effectively navigate through existing dynamics.”

When he was a provincial superior, he had the opportunity to lead a province that predominantly comprised white expatriates from Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, with very few African confreres. “Such a background, coupled with my experience of having lived in Rome and England, will help me understand the racial complexities of the archdiocese.” Moreover, his experience of growing up among the Indian community of Umzinto will also help him interact with the people of the archdiocese, he added.

For the Mariannhill Missionaries, Archbishop Jwara’s appointment to Durban is a cause for joy as well as prayer for their confrere. Provincial superior Fr Bheki Shabalala told the new archbishop: “We are fully aware of the challenges and the mammoth task linked to the assignment entrusted to you. As a congregation, we pray to God, through the intercession of [the martyr] Bl Fr Engelmar Unzeitig CMM, to continue to guide and illuminate your path, thus allowing you to graciously lead the flock entrusted to you.”

In his leisure time, Archbishop Jwara enjoys playing music. “I love playing the organ as a form of relaxation after a busy day.” He also loves to garden, particularly growing vegetables. And he enjoys reading books on human developmental psychology, as these help him to understand people better. “It helps not to judge people. One needs to understand why some people behave in the manner they do,” said Archbishop Jwara.

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HE PSALM EXCLAIMS: “THE Lord has done it, this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad” (118:4). This is exactly how I felt recently after finally getting to speak telephonically to Jesuit Father Chris Chatteris to express my gratitude to him for assistance rendered while I was in great need three decades ago.

But why did I acknowledge him only now? Covid-19 has taught me how precious life is, and never to take God’s people for granted. It has instilled in me the significance of doing (or expressing) that which one wishes to voice now.

I have prayed unceasingly for Fr Chris, as well as for several other priests and religious men and women who played a role in shaping the person I am today, whether knowingly or unknowingly. I include in my prayers all those who helped mould me by setting a good example which I could follow.

Some of these chosen people of God are still alive while others God has called to our eternal home.

But I had not made a great effort to let Fr Chris know how much I value him.

When my life’s choices took a particular turn, Fr Chris provided muchneeded support. It is not about the magnitude or the quantity of his help, but rather about the impact his works of mercy had on my life and on those around me.

When we talked, I was amazed at how Fr Chris gradually remembered some of the encounters we had while completely forgetting the main ones, those which my call was about: the acts of mercy when I was in need. Hours after our interaction I could not help but see God’s Gospel at play in everything that happened during our conversation.

Fr Chris embodied what Jesus meant when he said: “But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3). If I consider how his initial support opened several opportunities for me and how he did not dwell on remembering it, I am grateful that in the process, I have also learned the act of giving.

kodwa umenziwa akakhohlwa.”

It means that the one who has done something (good or bad), forgets what he did, while the one to whom the deed (good or bad) was done, does not forget.

In the context of my story, the positive effects of Fr Chris’ actions have remained with me to the present day and they have influenced almost my entire living. I could never take them for granted. Whenever I look back on God’s blessings, I count Fr Chris as one of them; the way he lived the Gospel in a practical sense of the word.

I wish to encourage those who because of their tribulations tend to doubt God’s presence in their lives. We never need to look far: God is right here in our midst!

As a proud Catholic, I am indebted to all the priests who have ministered to me at one time or another — at St Immaculata in Elandskop (my parish of birth), and those I met along the way while studying and working.

Equally, I am thankful to the various women religious orders which contributed immensely to the person I am as well as to my academic achievements over the years. Here I think especially of the Dominican Sisters of Montebello and Oakford, as well as the Daughters of the Charity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (commonly known as the Matikwe Sisters).

The wisdom of these servants of God — men and women — builds on the legacy of my late parents, especially my mother Celestine Zondi, who laid the solid foundations of my faith which continues to influence and shape my philosophy of life, as I deepen daily the meaning of what it means to be a good Catholic. I am not mentioning her by default. My mother, whom God called to our eternal home last year, dedicated her entire life to ensuring that all people around her, Catholic or not, knew the power of God in their lives.

Thank you, Fr Chris, for giving me a taste of what it means to “live out the Gospel values”. I pray that following your example, I may also be “the light of the world” and “the salt of the earth” (Mt. 5:13-16). n Prof Mpume Zondi is head of the Department of African Languages at the University of Pretoria. She belongs to St Pius X parish in Waterkloof, Pretoria.

We never need to look far: God is right here in our midst

A lasting impact

This is an instance of biblical values reflected in African philosophy. There is a Zulu proverb: “Umenzi uyakhohlwa

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Through the bonds of care Imelda Diouf on Family

H

OW DOES ONE CARE FOR ten babies? The mythical decuplets — yes, ten babies — that were given birth to by shoddy, sensationalistic journalism, provoked a plethora of responses. Comedians, investigative journalists, gossipmongers, police, psychiatrists and a range of others who considered their expertise worthy of public attention were quick off the mark.

Then there were the family members who alternated between speaking out and going into hiding. Juggling appearances and disappearances like Bigfoot, in and out of the forests of human emotions, before the story faded into the annals of “Sjoe, what were they thinking?”.

But while the decuplets might have been fictitious, the supposed mother and father and siblings, the aunts and grandparents, are all real people who are bonded through kinship. How have they coped? If news reports are to believed, there has been fear, stress, embarrassment and betrayal. Anger, blame and deteriorating mental health surely threatened any love, or at least passion, that must have existed at some stage.

Familial relationships are as easily severed as they are joined. Yet, while bonds can be broken, they can never be undone. Family bonds exist forever; as much through the celebratory births, birthdays and matrimonies, as through the bitterness of disappointment, divorce and death.

Poor health, unemployment, substance abuse, intimate partner violence, and financial troubles are part of the family life cycle. Within a family fraught with problems, constituent members — especially children, the elderly and those with special needs — will feel neglected and deprived of support that is rightly theirs. Where bonds of care are not carefully constructed and nurtured, a family faces relational poverty.

Across cultures and peoples, a child is usually born into a family, the basic unit of care and sup-

port. This is the unit that continues throughout the life of an individual, expanding and contracting as relationships are built or concluded.

Even those who choose not to live in a traditional family structure — for example, Catholic religious Sisters and Brothers or priests — still live in community. There is a structure, joint living, and a religious affiliation. Within the association of Sisters or Brothers, of

communities and households in South Africa?

The current data on households and families is grim. We cannot delink from a colonial and apartheid past. The family, through its life cycle, has been and still is negatively impacted by the systematic breakup of bonds over many generations. The migrant labour system placed onerous burdens on marital unions, parent-child bonds, and the role of men in the family.

Families have been driven into multigenerational and skipgeneration households where older persons and children face increased levels of vulnerability related to unemployment, cramped living conditions, neglect and abuse. A quarter of South Africa’s population lives in indigent households, dependent on a less-than-capable state.

Where the weakest bonds towards marital unions occur (26%), the highest level of household poverty exists. The high rate of non-marital childbirth (56%) leads to poor joint parental responsibilities. Effective discipline of children is a key issue facing schools, communities and households. The phenomenon of absent fathers is widespread and increasingly affecting families; 62% of birth registrations do not include the name of the father.

Where is the care? Who cares for the carers? The Family International Monitor, in a 2020 “Report on Family and Relational Poverty”, stresses the need to “focus public debate on the support to the endurance of family relations, and in particular of the couple: to guide it through its crisis and fragilities, also to put to test and prevent the breakup of the relation, and possibly to support it, in case of separation”.

Kinship has tentacles that weave, encircle and branch through successive generations. Family relational wealth is a building block of resilient families, cohesive communities and a capable state. Unlike the decuplets, families are real. n Imelda Diouf is the director of the Centre for Family Studies. This is the first in a series of four articles on family and relational poverty.

Family bonds can be broken but never undone

26 The Southern Cross

Mother or Father Superior, the family exists because of a need for continuing familial bonds through the life cycle of a human.

Being alone is not part of the human condition. There are, in fact, very few humans who go into the wilderness for extended periods of time to live life alone.

I am because we are

Ubuntu, a Nguni term across all South African language groups, expresses humanity: “I am because we are”, or humanity towards others. There is also a more philosophical sense of “the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity”. Applied to family as a subject of care, one might well ask: Does ubuntu exist in

You’ve got a friend

During the restrictions of the pandemic, many have been missing physical contact with friends. CHRIS McDONNELL looks at the nature of real friendship.

I

N HER FAMOUS SONG “YOU’VE Got A Friend”, Carole King wrote of friendship. The opening verse says it all: “When you’re down and troubled, and you need some lovin’ care, and nothin’, nothin’ is goin’ right: Close your eyes and think of me, and soon I will be there to brighten up even your darkest night.

You just call out my name and you know, wherever I am, I’ll come running to see you again. Winter, spring, summer or fall, all you have to do is call, and I’ll be there. You’ve got a friend.”

The months of lockdowns and social distancing have been a good time to explore the essence of our friendships, for just how strong are our relationships one with another?

It is often said that, in times of trouble, you find out who your true friends are. We all have many acquaintances, the passing relationships of our frequent exchanges on e-mail or social media, where in a few casual words we trade views. Sometimes it is with people we have never met other than as a recognised name in our inbox or on our timelines.

Gradually, over a period of time, trust and acceptance is built up and a personal understanding develops, to the extent that a friendship is formed.

There are those you know you can depend on to reply.

In our lifetime we make few lasting friendships, relationships that have real depth and understanding. We meet many people through our years in school, in further education and in our place of work. Our social contacts through clubs and societies offer another stratum of experience. But real friendship has a depth of sharing that is not found in casual contact but comes from living together over an extended period of time.

That is where the boundary of friendship and love hovers uncertainly, where friendship leads to a commitment from two people to share their lives in a particular way that is recognised by those around them.

The open door of our friend’s home will return and we will welcome each other once again A friend listens but doesn’t make judgment, offers the opportunity for you to work through the stress and complexity of the given moment in a place of safety, trust and understanding. Often we can reach a solution by the very act of speaking. Sharing with one another helps us find our way through the complex maze that surrounds us, one step at a time.

Standing the test of time

We build friendships through shared activity, occasions of sharing that strengthen confidence. Such trust begins in small ways. It stands the test of time and circumstance and becomes valued till you can honestly say: “You’ve got a friend.”

Because of the strength of such a bond, it is all the more painful when

friends let us down. Sometimes those in whom we placed our trust are found wanting in times of need.

Then comes the difficult work of rebuilding, of making fresh again that which has been damaged, a time of forgiveness for perceived wrong. That has to be done face to face without the interference of technology for it is about the nature of relationships.

Text messages, e-mail and phone calls don’t have the emotional capacity to handle such a delicate task of repair.

Those who gathered round Jesus, trusted friends, came to betray him when the chips were down. Peter, challenged during the trial of Jesus by servants, denied knowing the man on three occasions before hearing the crowing of the dawn cockerel. Later, on the shores of the lake, he was forgiven and a friendship was repaired over sharing of a breakfast meal.

That sign of friendship, of eating together, often has been missing during the pandemic. Offering a meal to friends in our homes or going out for a meal together, frequently wasn’t possible. Somehow the exchange of chat over the phone or the Zoom meeting has not been an adequate alternative.

But it has been something, a reaching out, a time of listening.

The doors of our friends’ homes will reopen soon, and we will welcome each other once again with a handshake, a hug or a gentle kiss of greeting.

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The Southern Cross

27

This virus infects

Raymond Perrier on Faith & Society

EvEryTHING

I

T’S ONE OF THOSE TEXT MESSAGES in the night that I dread: “Is it true the Denis Hurley Centre caught fire?” Thanks to WhatsApp, a supporter in Nashville, Tennessee, was able to ask me this question recently. But, also thanks to WhatsApp, I knew it to be untrue that the Durban centre which I serve as director was on fire, and I could reassure her.

And I soon discovered what it is like to be the victim of fake news. The truth was that a few nights earlier a pump in our building that comes into action in an emergency had been triggered by loadshedding. This activated a siren which sounds a bit like a fire alarm. Worse still, when the pump started working, it pushed out lots of thick black smoke under our side door (again because of loadshedding, the ventilation fan did not operate). The sight and the sound alerted a passing police officer who feared there was a fire and rightly called for help.

To everyone’s relief, by the time the fire brigade arrived, our caretaker could show what the problem really was, and order was restored. They say there is no smoke without fire — but in this case, there really was!

However, a video was taken by a police officer. And someone posted it

on Facebook with the completely unnuanced caption “Fire at the Denis Hurley Centre”. And that is how the rumour started.

We’ve all done it, haven’t we? We hear a story which excites us, and we rush to share it with others. It might be wonderful news. Or it might be tragic news.

But either way, we want the thrill of being the first person to share it.

In the old days, we had to actually see someone face to face or phone each friend individually to spread the word. But now — with WhatsApp groups, Facebook posts, Instagram feeds and email databases — we can spread the word to thousands in an instant. And they in turn can pass it on, since they are also excited. And thus rumours spread.

In this case, the person who posted the video on Facebook was able to share it instantly with his literally thousands of friends. And, in turn, those who commented on it were passing the story on to their dozens or hundreds of friends. As I look at the comments that were added, I should take some comfort in people’s kind words: “What a loss to the city,” and “Unreal…I cannot understand this,” and “This is so sad as they serve the city with such aplomb”. But instead, I am irritated.

Spreading false rumours breaks at least one of the Ten Commandments

What’s the hurry?

Why did the person who posted the story not contact us to check the story? Was it really necessary to post it at 6:32am rather than wait 90 minutes for our office to open? And why did none of the people who commented think it worth checking the truth, or even questioning the rumour? They were all so keen to use technology to spread the story. But any one of them could have used the same technology — Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or even an old-fashioned phone call — to

28 The Southern Cross

find out the truth. But none of those who commented have done so.

But I should remember my grandmother’s warning: when I accuse someone, there’s one finger pointing out but three fingers pointing back at me. Because, I have to confess, that I too have shared absurd stories that I have seen, especially on Facebook, without actually checking them first. Who has time

to worry about the truth when there is a good story to be spread — or even better, a really bad story? And in any case, surely there must be some truth in it because there’s no smoke without fire… Except, as I found out, sometimes there is.

So when I first read a few weeks ago about the ten babies reportedly born at one sitting in Pretoria, I immediately hit the “Share” button on Facebook. I could have paused to ask myself some sensible questions: Is it plausible that the mother did not know? Why was there no confirmation from the authorities, or the doctors at the hospital? What explains the absence of pictures? How is it that a newspaper broke the story rather than the department of health? All the red lights were there. But I ignored them — because it was just too good a story.

The decuplets (the ten babies), we now know, were not true. As Christians, we believe that the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) are true.

And spreading false rumours breaks at least one of those.

The “Fire at the Denis Hurley Centre” non-story in the end did not do too

much harm; we managed to dampen the non-existent flames before they did any damage. And those harmed by the decuplets story — the gullible publisher, the credulous corporates falling over themselves to be the biggest donors, the susceptible readers like me — have, one hopes, learned to be a bit more sceptical in future.

Harm of fake news

But in the world of fake news, serious harm is done. People died and were injured at the US Capitol because an outgoing president spread lies about a “stolen election”; refugees are beaten on the streets of Durban because the media exacerbate stories about xenophobia; friends of yours may needlessly die of Covid because they refused a vaccine based on spurious Internet “science”. Fake news is not trivial. It is not funny. It undermines our democracies, our health systems, our economies, our ethics.

Last year, Pope Francis criticised gossip as being “a plague worse than Covid”.

Hyperbole? I don’t think so. As a good Jesuit, Francis chooses his words with care. It is not a coincidence that the things that infect our bodies, our computers and our societies are all called viruses. They have some inherent toxicity. But their real power to harm is not inherent. The power comes from the foolish, vain, self-centred behaviour of the humans who help them spread. Myself included.

And all I have to do is pause and ask, “Is it appropriate for me to be sharing this news?” Then apply the simple “four-way test” questions: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships?

Will it be beneficial to all concerned? And I hope I learn to ask those questions before I pass on the virus.

MARIANELLA

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Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Sex, love and the home

H

OME IS MORE THAN A HOUSE or a place on a map. It’s a place in the heart, the place where you most want to be at the end of the day. The metaphorical idea of home can help us sort out many things, not least how sex connects to love.

Sex can never be simply casual, purely recreational, something which does not touch the soul. Sex always touches the soul, for good or for bad. It’s either sacramental or harmful. It’s either building up the soul or tearing it apart.

When it’s right, it’s making you a better person and when it’s wrong, it’s making you less of a person.

Metaphorically, when it’s right, it’s taking you home; when it’s not, it’s taking you away from home. Sex is designed

by God and nature to take you home. Indeed, it’s meant (metaphorically) to be your home. If you are going home after sex, something is very wrong. This is not, first of all, a moral judgment, but an anthropological one on behalf of the soul.

The soul, as we know, is not some invisible spiritual tissue floating inside our bodies. A soul cannot be pictured imaginatively, but it can be grasped as a principle. As we see in the insights of philosophers like Aristotle and Aquinas, the soul is a double principle inside us.

It’s the principle of life (of all our energies) and it’s the principle of integration (what holds us together).

This may sound abstract, but it’s not.

If you have ever been present with someone who is dying, you know the exact moment when the soul leaves the body.

Not because you see some spirit float up from the body, but because one minute the body is alive, an organism, and the next minute it is inert, lifeless, dead, and beginning to decompose. The soul keeps us alive and the soul keeps us glued together.

Sex can never be casual

If this is true, and it is, then anything meaningful we do — anything that touches us at any depth — affects our soul, both its fire and its glue, either weakening them or strengthening them.

Sex is no exception. Indeed, it’s the preeminent example. Sex is powerful and that’s why it can never be simply casual.

It is either building up the soul or tearing it down.

Thirty years ago, teaching a night course at a college campus, I assigned my class a book of essays by the writer

Christopher de Vinck, titled Only the Heart Knows How to Find Them: Precious Memories for a Faithless Time. These essays are simple reflections by the author on his life as a young husband and father.

They are warm, not unduly romantic, aesthetically crafted, and devoid of sentimentality. They make a strong case for marriage, not by making any apologetic arguments in its favour, but simply by sharing how marriage can make for a home — a calm place of mutual solitude that can take us beyond that overpowering restless search that besets us at puberty and drives us away from our parents’ home in search of our own home. Marriage and the marriage bed can bring us home again.

At the end of the semester, a student in the course, a woman in her late twenties, came into my office to drop off her term paper. She was carrying De Vinck’s book and she shared this: “This is the best book I’ve ever read. I grew up without a lot of religious or ethical guidance and I have slept my way through a couple of Canadian provinces; but now I know what I really want. I want what this man has! I want the marriage bed. I want my sex to take me home, to become home.”

Her insight merits repeating, not least today in a culture where sex is often divorced from marriage and home.

How to spot love?

Earlier in my teaching and ministry — when I was still working more with young people who were sorting out what love means and who they might choose to marry and try to spend their lives with — the question often arose: “How does one recognise the kind of love on which you can build a marriage?” It is a crucial question because love is not an easy thing to read or gauge. We can, and do, fall in love with all kinds of people, often with people who are all wrong for us, people we can enjoyably flirt with or have a honeymoon with, but with whom we could not share the rest of our lives.

What kind of love can you build a marriage on? It needs to be the kind of love that takes you home. You need a strong sense that with this other person you are at home because a marriage is quite different from a honeymoon. You go home from a honeymoon. In marriage, you are at home.

So too with sex. It’s meant to be something that takes you home and is your home rather than something from which you go home.

The Southern Cross

29

PRAY WITH THE POPE

Christ and Pope Pius VIII in a detail of a monument in St Peter’s basilica

Every month FR CHRIS CHATTERIS SJ reflects on Pope Francis’ universal prayer intention

pray for church’s reform Universal Intention: Let us pray for the Church, that she may receive from the Holy Spirit the grace and strength to reform herself in the light of the Gospel.

well say that he follows the money rather than the Lord.

Pope Francis might not put it so Peter, they put the bulk of their efforts starkly, but I do believe that he is trying HERE ARE MANY THINGS into nurturing the Church as a political to encourage Catholics, especially and economic entity rather than as a that go wrong in the Church, Catholic clergy, to focus on worshipbut I suspect that the root of vehicle for building the Kingdom of ping and serving the risen Lord rather them all is what has been God. This example underlines the fact than the Roman Catholic Church and called “ecclesiolatry” — the tendency that those who work at the centre of its fringe benefits. the Church are not immune from the to worship the institution rather than The pope reminds us frequently danger of ecclesiolatry. the Lord who founded it. that the reason we are Christians is to Thankfully, the fact that proclaim Christ. We are to conthe Church is of divine origin vert people in the sense that Maybe the institutional Church and the Holy Spirit is always at they are converted to Jesus work in her enables her to re- needs a ‘cannonball moment’ like Christ. For many Catholics, form herself. She is supposed to however, the idea of conversion that of St Ignatius of Loyola be “ecclesia semper reformanda”, is that people become Roman a Church which is continually Catholics, that they come to acbeing reformed — but her members Of course, all institutions face the knowledge the importance of Roman cannot be complacent since we, her danger that those who work in them Catholicism. In that view, conversion is members, are all too human. forget what they are for and end up re- not so much a meeting with and comHistory reminds us just how garding them primarily as their meal mitment to the Lord but an acceptance human. One could certainly argue that ticket. We witness this all the time in the of the institutional Church. the Renaissance popes fell victim to ec- institution of government. The instituHow to change? Maybe the instituclesiolatry. As monarchs of the Papal tion which is supposed to serve the peo- tional Church needs a “cannonball moStates as well as the successors of St ple of a country becomes perceived by ment”. St Ignatius of Loyola, the the civil servants and politicians who founder of the Jesuits, was famously run it as their personal fiefdom. Hence, felled in battle by a French cannonball. they make it into a golden calf, an idol During a long period of convalescence, CB INDUSTRIAL AND representing their wealth and power. he was forced to assess his life. (The JeFASTENER SUPPLIES The same happens in other institu- suits are celebrating the 500th anniverEngineering Supplies, Power Tools, tions with the highest ideals, even sary of this event this year. Watch the Hardware, Lifting Equipment, Bolts, Nuts, all types of Fasteners in MS/SS/HDG some NGOs. Another is the free market video on St Ignatius and the cannonContact Mervyn Francis: 082 353 5591 economy which, ever since Adam ball at www.bit.ly/3gmiNnK).

1 plein street, Smith’s “invisible hand” metaphor, has The point here is that some of us sidwell, port Elizabeth been described in reverential, awed and need a cannonball to stop us in our Tel: 041 453 7536 Fax: 041 453 6022 semi-mystical terms. tracks and make us think about our cbindustrial@mweb.co.za lives. Maybe the Covid pandemic has How do we serve Christ? been this cannonball even for the However, there is something partic- Church, putting everything on hold, ularly shocking when churchmen are impoverishing us, often rendering us Catholic Funeral Home clearly more in awe of the institution invisible and apparently irrelevant.

If so, the question is whether, like than the one who established it. Or Personal and Dignified St Ignatius, the Church will emerge when they spend more time and energy 24-hour service serving the institution than they spend from our time of convalescence with 469 Voortrekker Rd, Maitland, Tel: 021 593 8820 serving the Master. If a priest expends greater insight and with a renewed de48 Main Rd, Muizenberg, Tel: 021 788 3728 more time and energy collecting sire to reform its life. carol@wylliefunerals.co.za andrew@wylliefunerals.co.za money than he spends in prayer and We pray that the indwelling Spirit service of his parishioners, we might will prompt us in this blessed direction.

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30

The Southern Cross

Prayer Corner Your prayers to cut out and collect

Do you have a favourite prayer? Please send to editor@scross.co.za

St Clare of Assisi O Blessed Saint Clare, your life shines like a beacon and casts its light down the ages of the Church to guide the way of Christians.

Look with compassion on the poor and humble who call on you for help.

As you bow before your Eucharistic Lord in Heaven, speak to Him of my afflicted body and my broken spirit.

Ask Him to heal me and to wash away my sins in His Precious Blood.

Amen

St Maximilian Kolbe Prayer

st Maximilian, amid the hate and lonely misery of Auschwitz, you brought love into the lives of fellow captives, and sowed the seeds of hope amid despair.

You bore witness to the world, by word and deed, that “love alone creates”. to the hungry and oppressed, the naked and homeless, the scorned and hated, the lonely and despairing, may i proclaim the power of christ’s love, which endures forever and ever.

Amen

ST MONICA PRAYER

St Monica, we now ask you to pray with us for all those sons and daughters who have wandered away from God, and add your prayers to those of all parents who are worried about their children.

Pray also for us that, following your example, we may, in the company of our children, one day enjoy the eternal vision of our Father in Heaven.

Amen

Prayer of St John Vianney I love You, O my God, and my only desire is to love You until the last breath of my life.

I love You, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving You than live without loving You. I love You, Lord, and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally.

My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath. Amen

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31

Countries Word Search

Anagram Challenge Unscramble the clues below to work out which famous WOMEN SAINTS hide in these words

1

A JA R O F CO N

2

A R E LA TI V E ’S O A F

3

ENTICE A REFASHION

4

A MA I N G E M G A L

5

I SE E F I X TU R E HO LE S

6

B E HO LD R A V I N G E N DI N G

in the puzzle above, find these countries whose patron saint is Our Lady!

ALBANIA

CUBA

ANDORRA

DR CONGO

BOLIVIA

JAMAICA

ANGOLA

COSTA RICA

LESOTHO

GUAM

PALESTINE SOUTH AFRICA

KENYA

VENEZUELA

TANZANIA

DrOppED lETTErS: Place the missing letters to get names of women mentioned in the New Testament L

Z R

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Southern Crossword Across

1. It’s the traditional way (6) 4. Make more modern (6) 9. Priestly mission is to do it like an Apostle (6,3,4) 10. Stuck to the faith (7) 11. A saintly bishop is in it. Said and done! (5) 12. One of a bunch needed for Mass (5) 14. Performed the first part of the liturgy (5) 18. Happen later as a result (5) 19. One making arrangements for a marriage (7) 21. Possess litter transformable into liturgical vestments (7,6) 22. Disturbed sense out east reveals one of the Jewish sect (6) 23. One in holy orders (6)

32

The Southern Cross

DoWn

1. Paul’s name for Peter (1 Cor 1) (6) 2. Pastries suitable for bishops? (9,4) 3. Take place (5) 5. Releapt higher to be a senior cleric (7) 6. The ideal Mass-goer should be (1,4,8) 7. Final part of the Mass (6) 8. The way to learning (5) 13. Continue doing the ironing (5,2) 15. Place of worship that could be hairy (6) 16. Accumulate for the religious service (5) 17. Paul and Silas spent the night here (Acts 16) (6) 20. Right kind of deed (5)

For all solutions turn to page 34

Quick Crossword

Cl

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10

do

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Cl

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5

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ac

do

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2. Fictional ‘female pope’ (4) 4. Paris cathedral and US college (5,4) 5. Diocese of Bishop Robert Mphiwe (10) 7. Apostle to the Apostles (4,9) 9. Abraham to Isaac (6) 11. Type of wonder in “How Great Thou Art” (7) 14. Fifth book of the Old Testament (11) 15. Country of last World Youth Day (6) 18. SA’s feast: Our Lady of the ... (10) 20. Cape Town Catholic girls’ school (11) 21. Samuel’s mother (6) 22. Biblical slingshot victim (7) 23. Meaning of ‘Discalced’ (8) 24. Colour of St Anne’s Sodality (6)

Cl

Across

DoWn

Cl

1. Saint for August 10 (8) 3. Vessel for consecrated host in Adoration(10) 6. Jesus, Moses & Elijah event (15) 8. Ngome visions nun (8,3) 10. Mafia TV series with character ‘Fr Phil Intintola’ (3,8) 12. Order of Frs Emil Blaser and Albert Nolan (10) 13. Catholic charity (7) 16. Tower of languages (5) 17. Catholic gymnast Biles (6) 19. St Anne’s relationship to Blessed Virgin Mary (6) 21. Pope Benedict XVI’s surname (9) 22. Boys Town founder Fr Edward (8)

ue 22 do w

CODEWORD: Combine the letters in the shaded boxes to form the name of a popular saint and Doctor of the Church

n

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The catholic Trivia Quiz

1. According to a misprint in the King James Bible of 1631, what do the Ten Commandments say thou shalt do? a) Commit adultery b) Kill c) Steal 2. Which Oblate bishop in Natal was ordained a priest by St Eugène de Mazenod, founder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate? a) Francois Allard b) Henri Delalle c) Charles Jolivet

St Paul convert? a) Three b) Five c) Eight 6. A year after he was shot in the Vatican in 1981, where was Pope John Paul II nearly attacked with a knife? a) Castelgandolfo b) Fatima c) Lourdes

3. Where is the village of Oberammergau, of Passion Play fame? a) Austria b) Germany c) Switzerland

7. Over roughly how many years was the Old Testament written? a) 600 b) 900 c) 1 200 8. Who is the patron saint of orphans? a) Jerome Emiliani b) Nicholas of Myra c) Vitalis of Assisi

4. Which Lord of the Rings actor is not a Catholic? a) Martin Freeman b) Elijah Wood c) Ian McKellen

9. Which devotion was revealed to St Dominic? a) Perpetual Adoration b) Rosary c) Scapular

5. How many years after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection did

10. Which book in the New Testament features the line “The love of

Q12: Edith Piaf

Q6: John Paul II

money is the root of all evil”? a) Mark b) 2 Peter c) 1 Timothy 11. In which KwaZulu-Natal diocese is the parish of Lourdes? a) Eshowe b) Mariannhill c) Umzimkulu 12. Which saint did legendary French singer Edith Piaf credit with curing her childhood blindness? a) Bernadette of Lourdes b) Martin of Tours c) Thérèse of Lisieux The Southern Cross

33

Cooking with Saints

Every month GRAZIA BARLETTA prepares a recipe from Christian

tradition in her Cape Town kitchen, and shares it with our readers in

T

text and photos taken exclusively for The Southern Cross by the chef herself. THIS MONTH GRAZIA COOKED:

St Thomas’ Rice Pudding

HOMAS THE APOSTLE, ALSO CALLED Didymus, was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. He is commonly known as “Doubting Thomas” because he questioned the reports that Jesus had appeared to ten of the other apostles — until he could see and feel for himself the wounds received by Jesus on the cross. People use the phrase “a Doubting Thomas” to refer to a sceptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience.

pudding because, once cooked, the starchy, rounded grains are firm, creamy and chewy compared to other rice varieties. preparation: 80 min • servings: 8

inGrEDiEnts:

• 1 cup arborio rice (basmati and jasmine can be used as alternatives) • 3 cups full-cream milk • 2 ½ cups water • ½ cup sugar • Grated zest of half a lemon

Thomas was born in Galilee to a humble Jewish family. After the Resurrection, he spread the Gospel as far as India, where he was martyred on December 21, 72 AD.

• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract • ½ teaspoon cinnamon (more for dusting) • ¼ teaspoon salt • Raisins (optional, but add at least 15 minutes to the cooking time)

prEpArAtion:

1. Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan.

Add the rice, cover with the lid. Let simmer for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. In a large bowl, whisk the milk, sugar, salt, vanilla, zest and cinnamon.

On his feast day, July 3, farmers in England would distribute their reserves of wheat from the harvest to the poor. They would boil the wheat down until soft, then add milk, sugar and spices. It was very similar to how rice pudding is made today.

4. Place the mixture in an ovenproof dish. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.

5. Remove from the oven. The rice may be a bit liquid but it should thicken upon standing.

In our part of the world, a rice pudding is great winter comfort food.

For our recipe, we best use arborio rice, an Italian short-grain named after the town Arborio Risotto.

It’s usually used for risotto and rice

Did you win with Grazia?

The first winner of our competition for a copy of Grazia Barletta’s cookbook Delicious Italian Moments is:

Catherine Sanders of Johannesburg

who remembered Grazia’s dish “Heavenly Garden Apple Rose Pastries” in the May edition of “Cooking with Saints”.

Delicious Italian Moments is a collection of authentic Italian recipes, with the author’s own photography.

It can be ordered at R200 (plus p&p) from Grazia at

momentswithgrazia.com

SOLUTIONS

SouthernCrossword: ACROSS: 1 Custom,

4 Update, 9 Preach the word, 10 Adhered, 11 Aidan, 12 Grape, 14 Began, 18 Ensue, 19 Matcher, 21 Priests’ stoles, 22 Essene, 23 Deacon DOWN: 1 Cephas, 2 Shepherds pies, 3 Occur, 5 Prelate, 6 A good Catholic, 7 Ending, 8 Study, 13 Press on, 15 Temple, 16 Amass, 17 Prison, 20 Title

Anagram Challenge:

1. Joan of Arc, 2. Teresa of Avila, 3. Catherine of Siena, 4. Emma Galgani, 5. Thérèse of Lisieux, 6. Hildegard von Bingen

Dropped Letters: Elizabeth, Mary of Bethany, Martha, Phoebe, Joanna, Mary Magdalene, Priscilla, Susanna, Mary of Clopas, Lois, Claudia

34 The Southern Cross

3. When the rice is cooked and drained, add the milk mixture (and, if wanted, raisins) to it.

Quick Crossword: ACROSS: 2. Joan, 4. Notre

Dame, 5. Rustenburg, 7. Mary Magdalene, 9. Father, 11. Awesome, 14. Deuteronomy, 15. Panama, 18.

Assumption, 20. Springfield, 21. Hannah, 22. Goliath, 23. Barefoot, 24. Purple. DOWN: 1. Lawrence, 3.

Monstrance, 6. Transfiguration, 8. Reinolda May, 10. The Sopranos, 12. Dominicans, 13. Caritas, 16. Babel, 17. Simone, 19. Mother, 21. Ratzinger, 22. Flanagan — CODEWORD: Augustine

Catholic Trivia Quiz: 1. a) Commit adultery (that version is called “The Wicked Bible”), 2. a) Francois Allard (first bishop of Natal), 3. b) Germany, 4. c) Ian McKellen, 5. b) Five, 6. b) Fatima (on May 12, 1982), 7. b) 900, 8. a) Jerome Emiliani, 9. b) Rosary, 10. c) 1 Timothy (6:12), 11. c) Umzimkulu, 12. c) Thérèse of Lisieux (after a group of prostitutes Piaf knew as a child made a pilgrimage to Lisieux)

6. Once transferred to serving dishes, dust extra cinnamon on top. Serve warm or at room temperature, and enjoy with a prayer to St Thomas!

Grazia Barletta is an author, book designer, and food photographer & stylist.

She can be contacted at graziabarletta1@gmail.com Follow her blog at momentswithgrazia.com and connect with Grazia on Facebook/Instagram: momentswithgrazia

S outhern C ross P ilgrimages 2022 will be our year!

In 2020 we looked forward to some wonderful pilgrimages, taking us to places of faith such as the Holy Land, Rome, Assisi, Medjugorje, the Oberammergau Passion Play, and the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Then the pandemic closed down travel throughout the world for two years. But after several delays, we are confident that in 2022 the borders will be open again, and we can resume going on pilgrimage. Join us on our spiritually enriching and perfectly arranged journey of faith!

CAMINO TO SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

Official 7-Day Camino 30 Sept to 9 Oct 2022 • Led by Fr Chris Townsend

Walk the ancient ‘Camino Primitivo’ route from Lugo to Santiago de Compostela in this Holy Year!

Bonus: Your luggage will be delivered to your hotel every day!

www.fowlertours.co.za/camino

MEDJUGORJE, ROME, ASSISI, CROATIA Led by Archbishop Stephen Brislin 9-18 May 2022

Before Medjugorje, you will visit Rome (with papal audience in St Peter’s Square), Assisi, Loreto (with the House of Our Lady), and the beautiful Croatian city of Split.

www.fowlertours.co.za/medju

OBERAMMERGAU AND HOLY LAND Led by Archbishop William Slattery OFM August/September 2022

See the great holy shrines of the Holy Land, including the sites of Our Lord’s Passion, before flying to Germany to tour in Bavaria and see the famous Oberammergau Passion Play.

www.fowlertours.co.za/oberammergau

Contact Gail at info@fowlertours.co.za or call or WhatsApp 076 352-3809 *All dates subject to confirmation

Our pilgrimages are expertly arranged by

Final Words Great Quotes on

The Bible

History in colour

A snapshot from the past, colourised exclusively for The Southern Cross

‘Become familiar with the Bible so that it can be your compass pointing out the road to follow.’

– Pope Benedict XVI (b.1927)

‘Nature reveals God’s mind and imagination, and Scripture reveals God’s heart and will.’

– Prof Peter Kreeft (b.1937)

‘From the Scriptures we can learn our spiritual deformities and beauties. And there too we discover the progress we are making and how far we are from perfection.’

– St Gregory the Great (c.540-604 AD)

‘God never intended that we should merely get into his Word. His intent is that the Word should get into us.’

– Nancy Leigh DeMoss (b.1958)

‘The Old Testament is like a radio with its hidden voice announcing the One to come.

The New Testament is like a television because the Word became both audible and visible.’

– Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)

‘The shortest verse in the Bible is “Jesus wept”. The only thing wrong with it is the past tense.’

– R.K. Milholland (b.1975)

‘I don’t know what Bible people are reading if they think that religion and politics don’t mix.’

– Archbishop Desmond Tutu (b. 1931)

‘My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms.’

– Dorothy Day (1897-1980)

‘Let sleep find you holding your Bible, and when your head nods, let it be resting on the sacred page.’

– St Jerome (c.345-420 AD)

Polish Franciscan Father Maximilian Kolbe (with the bicycle) is seen with a confrère and youths around 1936. Born as Rajmund Kolbe on January 8, 1894, in Zduńska Wola, he joined the Franciscans in 1907, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1918.

As a priest in newly-independent Poland, he promoted consecration to Mary, published a magazine, and in 1927 established a monastery in Niepokalanów, near Warsaw. Two years later, a seminary was added to the monastery. But in 1930 Fr Kolbe left all of this behind to be a missionary in East Asia, setting up a monastery in the Japanese city of Nagasaki (it would survive the atomic bombing of the city on August 9, 1945). In 1936 he returned to Niepokalanów, starting a radio station there two years later.

On February 17, 1941, the monastery was shut down by the occupying Nazi forces who arrested Fr Kolbe and four others. In May that year he was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp. There he was murdered, having volunteered to take the place of a family-father in a group of prisoners who were to be starved to death.

When the priest wouldn’t die of starvation, the Nazis executed him by injection on August 14, 1941. He was 47. His ashes were buried on the feast of the Assumption.

St Maximilian Kolbe was canonised by his compatriot John Paul II on October 10, 1982. His feast day is on August 14.

The last laugh

A

t Mass in the cathedral the archbishop spoke about the shortage in vocations: “Too many of you are having only one child, and then let them go off into other professions,” he said.

“I urge you that each family have three children: one for the father, one for the mother, and one for the Holy Church.”

A few days later, the archbishop was in the supermarket when he saw a pregnant parishioner. Before he could even greet her, she cheerily pointed to her bulging belly and shouted above the crowd: “This one is yours, Your Grace!”

Buy the Church Chuckles book of Catholic jokes!

email books@scross.co.za or go to www.digital.scross.co.za/church-chuckles

have a parish pilgrimage!

We arrange pilgrimages to all major sites. We help design your itinerary, make all arrangements, field inquiries and do all the admin.

Trouble-free and smooth, every time!

Discuss your ideas for a pilgrimage with GAIL Call 076 352 3809 info@fowlertours.co.za

fowlertours.co.za

For all your sand and stone requirements in piet retief, southern Mpumalanga

tel: 017 826 0054/5 cell: 082 904 7840 Email: sales@eskaycrushers.co.za