February 2016

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FEBRUARY FEBRUARY 2016 2016 $3.95 $3.95

Messenger

Why We Love Our Ashes The Franciscan Family: Who’s Who? Lessons from a Pilgrim My Clumsy Confession

Brother Michael Perry on the

Future of the Franciscans

CNS PHOTO OF SYRIAN MIGRANTS BY AGRON BEQIRI, REUTERS; BACKGROUND FROM INGIMAGE/ VALERY SHANIN

REFLECTION

The Church without frontiers, Mother to all, spreads throughout the world a culture of acceptance and solidarity, in which no one is seen as useless, out of place, or disposable. —Pope Francis

CONTENTS

ST. ANTHONY Messenger

❘ FEBRUARY 2016 ❘ VOLUME 123/NUMBER 9

ON THE COVE R

28 The Future of the Franciscans

Michael Perry, OFM, general minister of the Order of Friars Minor, has a vision for his brothers that involves getting back to the basics, becoming reenergized, “moving again.”

From Indianapolis to Indonesia, from Rwanda to Rome, this Franciscan leader has a bird’s-eye view of where the followers of St. Francis are heading. Meet Brother Michael Perry, OFM.

By John Feister

CNS photo by Paul Haring

F E AT U R E S

D E PA R T M E N T S

14 Why We Love Our Ashes

2 Dear Reader

What is it about this ritual that resonates so deeply with Catholics?

By Amy Ekeh

3 From Our Readers 4 Followers of St. Francis Steve Przedpelski, OFS

20 Lessons from a Pilgrim Travel is about getting from one place to another. Pilgrimage is about what happens along the way.

By Bob Kunzinger

6 Reel Time Concussion

14

8 Channel Surfing Second Chance

10 Church in the News

34 The Franciscan Family: Who’s Who?

25 Year of Mercy

Women, men, married, single—they all seek to live the Gospel under the inspiration of St. Francis of Assisi.

By Pat McCloskey, OFM

Visiting the Sick in the Jungle

26 At Home on Earth A Hug from Pope Francis

36 My Clumsy Confession An awkward encounter leads to a powerful spiritual experience.

By Paul Arthur

39 Editorial

20

A Challenge to Catholic Schools

50 Ask a Franciscan Did God Rejoice after Creating People?

40 What Ramadan Taught Me about Lent

52 Book Corner

An Islamic tradition sheds light on our own season of repentance.

By Joe McHugh

The Soul of a Pilgrim

54 A Catholic Mom Speaks Standing Up to Violence

46 Fiction: The Fireside Cats Would he come home?

By Kerry Sloan

56 Backstory

40

DEAR READER

ST. ANTHONY M essenger

San Damiano In the fall of 1205, Francis was praying before a crucifix in this dilapidated chapel outside Assisi. Originally named for Sts. Cosmas and Damian, the chapel desperately needed repair. When the Lord told Francis, “Repair my church,” Francis set to work immediately—and later rebuilt two other roadside chapels.

Here, St. Clare began her new form of monastic life late in 1212 and lived for 41 years. She once held up the Eucharist before soldiers who had been pillaging the countryside; they spared San Damiano.

A few days before she died, Clare finally won papal approval for the monastery’s “privilege of poverty”—its right to live on donations and the work of the nuns’ hands rather than on income from dowries and rental properties.

During his convalescence there in 1225, St. Francis composed the first nine verses of the “Canticle of the Creatures.” His funeral cortege stopped at San Damiano to allow the nuns to venerate his body before his burial in Assisi. Assisi’s OFM province has its novitiate there. The chapel and other areas are open to the public.

Click the button on the left to hear Father Pat’s further reflections on San Damiano.

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Publisher/CEO Daniel Kroger, OFM Chief Operating Officer Thomas A. Shumate, CPA Editor in Chief John Feister Art Director Jeanne Kortekamp Franciscan Editor Pat McCloskey, OFM Managing Editor Susan Hines-Brigger Associate Editor Christopher Heffron Assistant Editor Daniel Imwalle Editorial Assistant Sharon Lape Advertising tammy monjaras

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St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

FROM OUR READERS

The Pope’s Courage Was Needed in Cuba Upon reading St. Anthony Messenger’s special report from the December issue, “Pope Francis in America,” I would like to share some thoughts.

Pope Francis is no St. John Paul II and never will be. He lacks his brilliance and charisma. Missing with all your fawning is the official Catholic media asking: Why did he not confront the Castro brothers? Egregious and brutal human-rights violations continue in Cuba. Why didn’t he visit Cuba’s prisons? Pope Francis smiled while he backslapped Fidel Castro, and appeared with a portrait of mass murderer Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Go along to get along, I guess. But full truth isn’t in the narrative.

Though I believe Pope Francis is a kind and good man, he is not a

What’s on Your Mind?

Letters that are published do not necessarily represent the views of the Franciscan friars or the editors. We do not publish slander or libel. Please include your name and postal address. Letters may be edited for clarity and space.

Mail Letters, St. Anthony Messenger 28 W. Liberty St. Cincinnati, OH 45202-6498 Fax 513-241-0399

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brave man. He is not like St. John Paul II, who didn’t backslap Communist Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski. Communism, as you know, fell.

Mary Eileen Ameigh Junction City, Wisconsin

Where Are Our Catholic Leaders?

After I read Pat McCloskey, OFM’s, editorial from the November issue, “A Servant Leader for President,” a number of questions came to mind that I’d like to share. Why did 54 percent of US Catholics vote for Barack Obama, who promotes a culture of death? Why are Catholic leaders in the clergy and religious life afraid to speak out on issues that are supported by politicians running for the presidency? Where are the Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, and Benedictines on defending Catholic faith and morals?

Joseph Barresi Sarasota, Florida

Be Careful Not to Mislead Your Readers I have both a general concern and a specific criticism regarding St. Anthony Messenger magazine. My general objection has to do with what I perceive to be your overly soft views regarding same-sex attraction and divorced and remarried Catholics. I do acknowledge your desire to extend the Church’s welcome to these persons. However, your editorial approach can easily be misunderstood by those with limited or no knowledge of the Church’s Catechism as an acceptance of these practices, as a part of the changing culture.

In particular, I’d like to respond to the findings in Daniel Imwalle’s article from the October issue, “Readers Speak Up on Catholic Family Issues.”

I find the results difficult to believe as they appear to go against most polls showing older Catholics to be

far more in line with orthodox teaching than younger Catholics.

Second, regarding the two most arguably hot-button issues, same-sex marriage and Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, your poll indicates a relatively strong acceptance by a predominant number of Catholics claiming to understand the Church’s teaching on marriage and family issues—this certainly begs for further discussion.

Third, you provide no numbers as to how many persons responded to your poll or their relationship to the Church (i.e., regular versus infrequent Church attendance, active versus lapsed Catholics, etc.), leaving your readership in the dark regarding possible bias due to sampling error.

Yet you published your findings with no caveat to readers who may be inclined to accept them as views of most Catholics today.

Anthony Stockus Attica, New York

Another Brick in Your Family’s Foundation Thank you, St. Anthony Messenger, for Susan Hines-Brigger’s excellent “A Catholic Mom Speaks” column. I especially appreciate her constructive help for Catholic married couples in the October issue, “Building Your Family’s Foundation.” I’d like to take this opportunity to suggest one of the best Catholic marriage and family builders you did not mention— Worldwide Marriage Encounter.

St. Anthony Messenger has always been a great supporter for Worldwide Marriage Encounter, the largest pro-marriage organization in the world. You can visit their website at: wwme.org. There they provide information about marriage enrichment and locations where Marriage Encounter events are held.

Lee and Jan Kremer Crystal Lake, Illinois Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 3

F O L L O W E R S O F S T. F R A N C I S

Milwaukee’s ‘Peacemakers’

D

eacon Steve Przedpelski, OFS, tells the story of a woman we’ll call Rebecca (in the interest of privacy).

A successful professional with a college education and several years in a high-paying job, Rebecca seemed to be living out the American Dream as so many yearn to. That all came crashing down as the pain of being sexually abused as a child, being exposed to child pornography, and being locked in an underground storage area boiled over and consumed her. Rebecca ended up on Milwaukee’s streets as a prostitute. But that’s not where her story concludes.

Deacon Steve and his organization, Franciscan Peacemakers, ministered to Rebecca for almost four years, eventually succeeding in getting her off the streets and on her way to the healthy, happy life she deserves.

Rebecca now volunteers for the Peacemakers, has recently become Catholic, and is studying to become a social worker.

Deacon Steve himself is not a stranger to traumatic childhood experiences. Born and raised in Milwaukee, he grew up in a home with an alcoholic and physically abusive father. When things would get especially out

Steve Przedpelski, OFS

of control, he was sent to live with relatives and, at times, with four Franciscan priests, a Franciscan brother, and their housekeeper.

“I am happy to say that these men, whether I was staying with them or living back at home, taught me what it would take to grow up and be a man,” he remembers.

Entering the diaconate wasn’t something Deacon Steve really planned on. Upon the encouragement of his wife, pastor, and other parishioners, he attended an information session on becoming a deacon. After some discernment, he was ordained a deacon in 1994. The kind Franciscans who cared for him during his childhood would be happy to know that Deacon Steve became a professed Secular Franciscan in 2014.

In 1995, Deacon Steve started volunteering for Franciscan Peacemakers, which was founded the same year by two Capuchin Franciscans—Father Robert Wheelock and Father Michael Sullivan. “My six-week commitment turned into becoming an active volunteer, being a board member, and then being hired as associate director in 1999,” he says. Since 2001, he has been the executive director of the ministry.

STORIES FROM OUR READERS Learn more about St. Anthony and share your story of how he helped you at AmericanCatholic.org/ Features/Anthony.

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Spreading the Word about St. Anthony

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My husband, Carl, and I have been friends of St. Anthony for many years, as he has helped us find so many lost articles. Last year, my sister-in-law, Donna, who is not Catholic, mentioned over the phone that she had lost some papers, and we recommended she consult St. Anthony. Moments later, she called and excitedly told us the papers had been found. This year, when Donna returned to California after a visit to see us in Arizona, she called to say she couldn’t find a pair of shoes, and thought she might have left them at our house. We searched, but could not find them, and reminded her that St. Anthony might be able to help. Again, our friend came through for her as she called back to say she found the shoes. By the grace of God, St. Anthony has gained a lot of new friends.

—Carolyn Vessels, Safford, Arizona

St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

Click here for more on Franciscan Peacemakers and their ministry in Milwaukee.

ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

Mirroring Christ Mirrors were popular in the Middle Ages—for people who could afford them.

Christian writers had already begun to speak of a person’s soul as a mirror of Christ.

Clare, however, spoke of the entire human person as a mirror of Christ. She uses this image in her third and fourth letters to St. Agnes of Prague.

This symbolism is explained in “The Mirror of the Cross,” a chapter in Ilia Delio, OSF’s, book Clare of Assisi: A Heart Full of Love (Franciscan Media). –P.M.

CNS/STEPHEN B WHATLEY

The approach to saving women from a life of prostitution is strategic and multipronged. First, there is the street ministry, where bag lunches are served to those in need in the community. This is a chance for Franciscan Peacemakers to meet and gain the trust of the women. Then, once a woman decides to break out of prostitution, the Clare Community is there to take them in. The Clare Community provides spiritual enrichment, life-building skills, and educational opportunities. Finally, Franciscan Peacemakers offers Gifts for the Journey, a social enterprise that helps women of the Clare Community to reenter a normal work environment. They produce and sell natural bath and body products.

“While it is good that we address the needs of the victims of human sex trafficking, we as a Church, including the everyday Catholic who goes to Mass each Sunday, need to understand that the bigger problem is the demand, the men who purchase sex,” Deacon Steve says. “We cannot kid ourselves into believing that those doing this are only non-churchgoing men.”

—Daniel Imwalle

tal Digi as Extr

To learn more about Franciscan saints, visit SaintoftheDay.org.

S T. A N T H O N Y B R E A D

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Send all postal communication to: St. Anthony Bread 1615 Vine St. Cincinnati, OH 45202-6498

Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 5

PHOTO BY FRANK JASPER, OFM

The National Shrine of St. Anthony is located in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Consecrated in 1889, it includes a first-class relic of St. Anthony and serves as a center for daily prayer and contemplation.

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

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

To post your petition online, please visit stanthony.org, where you can also request to have a candle lit or a Mass offered; or you may make a donation to the Franciscans or sign up to receive a novena booklet.

REEL TIME

W I T H S I S T E R R O S E PA C AT T E , F S P

Concussion

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SISTER ROSE’S

2016 Oscar Hopefuls Room Spotlight Love & Mercy Trumbo Bridge of Spies

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February 2016

Will Smith plays a brave and compassionate forensic pathologist who takes on the NFL in Concussion.

Based on true events, Nigerian-born Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) is a university researcher and forensic pathologist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When former Steelers great Mike Webster (David Morse) develops dementia and dies, homeless, in 2002, Omalu discovers through brain-tissue analysis that “Iron Mike” had sustained significant brain trauma, a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

After finding the same injury when analyzing the brain tissue of other deceased football players (some of whom committed suicide), he publishes his findings in the journal Neurosurgery in 2005 and 2006.

These articles attract the unfavorable attention of the National Football League and others calling for Omalu to retract his findings. NFL lawyers accuse him of an antifootball bias because he doesn’t know, understand, or like the game—therefore, his conclusions cannot be true. But Omalu clings to his integrity and scientific evidence, which cannot be refuted.

Despite the unfavorable attention he receives—which includes death threats—his parish priest asks him to take in Prema (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a nurse who recently arrived from Africa. As time passes, they fall in love and marry.

Concussion is a fascinating investigative medical drama. Will Smith is excellent as Omalu, who wants to help people by making his findings known. The film is likely to irritate the NFL further because parents may think twice about letting their children play this contact sport that, by its nature, is an occasion for devastating injuries.

A-3, PG-13 ■ Disturbing images and language.

Brooklyn It is the early 1950s. Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) is leaving her home in Ireland because her sister, Rose (Fiona Glascott), asks a priest to find Eilis work in New York. Rose knows that their widowed mother is manipulative and needy, and she wants more for her little St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

CNS PHOTO/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

Saoirse Ronan is winning critical acclaim for her work in the immigrant drama Brooklyn, costarring Emory Cohen.

The Revenant A revenant is a ghost that returns from the grave to scare the living. In director-cowriter Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new film, the spirit of Hugh Glass’ Native American wife, killed by French soldiers, continues to guide Fr anciscanMedia.org

TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

sister than working at the local bakery. Eilis, scared but hopeful, makes the journey.

Eilis rooms in a Brooklyn boardinghouse run by Madge (Julie Walters). Though extremely timid, Eilis becomes a sales assistant in a Manhattan department store.

She meets Tony (Emory Cohen) at an Irish dance at the parish, and soon he takes her home to meet the family. He proposes and Eilis agrees. But devastating news arrives from Ireland: a close family member has died. Eilis believes she must return home for a visit. The couple secretly marry at city hall before she departs.

In Ireland, Eilis tells no one that she is married and accepts the attentions of a young man with prospects, Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson). Suddenly, Ireland does not seem as hopeless as before. Tony sends letters that Eilis puts in a drawer. She is caught in a conflict between her mother, her conscience, and Ireland.

Brooklyn is a beautiful film that highlights the inner struggles of a Catholic immigrant in post-World War II America. Viewers may also be reminded of the current crisis of Syrian refugees looking for new homes and opportunities.

Ronan’s performance is subtle and heartfelt.

A-2, PG-13 ■ A scene of nonexplicit sexuality and brief language.

Glass and their son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), as they assist American trappers near the Rocky Mountains in the 1820s.

When Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is mauled by a grizzly bear, Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and Bridger (Will Poulter) agree to stay with him and his son until he dies. The three will then join the rest of the group trying to outrun Indians. But Fitzgerald secretly kills Hawk and buries Glass alive. He survives and makes his way through hostile terrain to find vengeance for his son.

Based on a true story, The Revenant is a terrifying story of survival. Iñárritu, a Catholic, places the narrative in the spiritual and the supernatural. Although the film attempts to leave vengeance to God, Glass helps it along.

In a story filled with victims and perpetrators, the bear is truly the innocent one because she acts according to instincts. The natural and unnatural violence is relentless, though there are profound moments.

Not yet rated, R ■ Extreme violence, peril, language, and gore.

Hollywood insiders say Leonardo DiCaprio may finally win an Academy Award for his powerful performance in The Revenant.

Catholic Cl assifications A-1 A-2 A-3 L O

General patronage Adults and adolescents Adults Limited adult audience Morally offensive

■

The Catholic News Service Media Review Office gives these ratings. See usccb.org/movies.

■

Find reviews by Sister Rose and others at CatholicMovieReviews.org.

February 2016 ❘

7

CHANNEL SURFING

WITH CHRISTOPHER HEFFRON

UP CLOSE

Wednesdays, 9 p.m., FOX Channel surfers who have longed for a show that combines their love of Frankenstein, The Six Million Dollar Man, and The Social Network should look no further: FOX’s freshman series Second Chance is an odd—and oddly entertaining—hybrid of the three.

Jimmy Pritchard is a 75-year-old retired lawman with a shady work history. Once the controversial sheriff of his Seattle town, he spends his time languishing in a onebedroom apartment. After paying a visit to his son, an FBI agent, and stumbling upon a break-in there, he is murdered. But his life has only begun.

Jimmy is brought back by tech-genius twins Mary and Otto (Dilshad Vadsaria and Adhir Kalyan, respectively), owners of a social networking empire. Jimmy, now played by Robert Kazinsky, is resurrected as a 30-something with uncharted physical abilities. But now that he’s been given another go at life, will he right his wrongs?

Anchored by the dynamic Kazinsky, Second Chance is little more than action-infused claptrap with a dose of sci-fi, but that’s half the fun. The premise of the series might be laughable, but it manages to ask serious questions: Have we taken advantage of the time we’ve been given? What do we do with the years we have left? Unlike Jimmy, the rest of us only go around once.

My 600-lb Life

SERGEI BACHLAKOV/FOX

Wednesdays, 9 p.m., TLC “I am living a nightmare,” one subject from TLC’s My 600-lb Life says to the camera with tear-filled eyes. “But I have hope. No matter what the future holds, I still have hope.” And that search for redemption is the thread that weaves every episode of this stirring documentary series together.

Each episode follows a single person plagued by morbid obesity. For a year, cameras document their weight-loss journey—most of whom are so overweight they cannot stand under their own power—from near-death, to lifesaving gastric bypass surgery, to a hopeful future. While most who are profiled embrace a healthier lifestyle postsurgery, their food addiction never goes away, and that eternal struggle is what gives My 600-lb Life its punch.

Full disclosure: this is not easy viewing for channel surfers. The footage is often shocking and raw.

But the Centers for Disease Control’s findings do not lie. Over 78 million Americans are classified as obese. The people documented here, though, are more than statistics: they are wounded, resolute, and altogether real, and their journeys make for moving television.

Guided by Dr. Younan Nowzaradan, a dedicated, if not cantankerous, surgeon (his bedside manner is often appalling), the subjects here remind viewers that they, too, are children of God. Mercy extends to us all.

Robert Kazinsky and Dilshad Vadsaria play characters with a unique bond in FOX’s new series Second Chance.

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February 2016

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Second Chance

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CHURCH IN THE NEWS

❘ BY SUSAN HINES-BRIGGER

CNS PHOTO

Mother Teresa to Be Canonized

Pope Francis has approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata, paving the way for her canonization in 2016.

Pope Francis cleared the way for the canonization of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata when, on December 17, he approved a miracle attributed to her intercession, according to Catholic News Service (CNS).

The postulator for her sainthood cause, Father Brian Kolodiejchuk of the Missionaries of Charity, said in a statement published December 18 by AsiaNews, the Rome-based missionary news agency, that the miracle involved a 42-year-old mechanical engineer in Santos, Brazil. The man had a viral brain infection that resulted in multiple brain abscesses.

Treatments given were ineffective, and the man went into a coma, the postulator wrote. The man’s wife, as well as family and friends, prayed for the intercession of Blessed Teresa.

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When doctors went to operate on the man, they found him awake and free of pain. Doctors reported the man showed no more symptoms, and a Vatican medical commission voted unanimously in September 2015 that the healing was inexplicable.

The official date of the canonization will be announced during the next consistory of cardinals in February, but Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Vatican office organizing the Holy Year of Mercy events, had said it would be September 4. That date celebrates the Jubilee of workers and volunteers of mercy and comes the day before the 19th anniversary of her death, September 5, 1997.

Diocesan Investigators: Bacteria Caused Host to Appear to Bleed Red bread mold: that is what caused a consecrated host to appear as if it was bleeding, according to findings of an investigation by the Diocese of Salt Lake City, Utah, reported CNS. The findings, along with a timeline of the events, were released by the diocese in a December 16 statement.

According to the report, on the weekend of November 14-15, 2015, parishioners at St. Francis Xavier Church in Kearns alleged that a host consecrated a week earlier, at the 1:30 pm Mass on November 8, appeared to be bleeding. The host was then publicly displayed at parish Masses, the diocese said.

Msgr. Colin F. Bircumshaw, administrator of the diocese, appointed an ad hoc committee to investigate the situation. Msgr. M. Francis Mannion, a retired Salt Lake City pastor, was named chairman, and committee members were appointed for their expertise in Catholic theology, canon law, molecular biology, and ministry.

The committee enlisted the services of “a competent and credible scientist” to “conduct controlled testing” of the host. “Great care was taken to ensure the reverent handling of the consecrated host throughout the scientific examination,” the diocese said.

After testing, the scientist, aided by “a blind observer, concluded that the observed change in the host could be satisfactorily and conclusively explained by natural causes,” said the diocese. The change was caused by “the growth of what is commonly known as ‘red bread mold,’ or red bacteria.”

The diocese said that “the consecrated host has been disposed of in a reverent manner, as is required.”

Pope Opens Holy Doors, Year of Mercy The gesture of opening the Holy Doors at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, as part of the Year of Mercy, is “an invitation to joy,” said Pope Francis on December 13, reported CNS. “The time of great pardon begins. It is the Jubilee of Mercy,” he added.

The pope began the ceremony outside in front of the bronze Holy Door, saying: “This is the door of the Lord. Open for me the gates of justice. I will enter your house, Lord, because of your great mercy.” He St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

CNS PHOTO/ORBIS BOOKS

N E W S B R I E F S N AT I O N A L A N D I N T E R N AT I O N A L Father Joseph Girzone, author of the Joshua series of novels, died on November 29 in Altamont, New York, at the age of 85. Father Girzone, a priest of the Diocese of Albany, wrote the popular book series after he retired from active ministry due to a heart condition.

One estimate of the total books sold under Father Girzone’s name has been put at 3 million. He used the royalties from his books to establish Joshua Mountain Ministries in Altamont, in an effort to get people to learn more about Jesus.

In his annual message for the World Day of Peace on January 1, Pope Francis called for abolishing the death penalty worldwide, lifting the burden of debt on poor nations, establishing global aid policies that respect life, and revamping laws so that they welcome and integrate migrants. The message, entitled “Overcome Indifference and Win Peace,” was released at the Vatican December 15. It was delivered to world leaders by Vatican ambassadors.

then climbed two marble steps and pushed open the door. The same morning, US Cardinal James M. Harvey, archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, opened that basilica’s Holy Door. Special doors were also being opened at cathedrals and shrines around the world. to signify the beginning of the Holy Year of Mercy.

During his homily, Pope Francis Fr ancisca n Media .org

Sister Consuelo Morales, a member of the Congregation of Our Lady: Canonesses of St. Augustine, received Mexico’s highest human rights award on December 10 for her work with families of missing persons. Sister Consuelo is founder of the organization Citizens in Support of Human Rights, in the city of Monterrey.

In presenting the award, President Enrique Peña Nieto said that Sister Consuelo “has given voice to the unprotected and has accompanied them in their demand for justice.”

CNS PHOTO/PRESIDENCY OF THE REPUBLIC

Italian state police in Brescia and their counterparts in Kosovo announced on December 1 that they had taken action against four young Kosovars who had published threatening messages on social media against Pope Francis. The messages said, “Remember, there will not be another pope after this one; he will be the last.” The four also posted photos of themselves “with weapons and in poses characteristic of combatants of the so-called Islamic State.” One of the four was arrested in Kosovo, two were expelled from Italy, and a fourth was placed on a terrorism “watch list” and his travel documents were confiscated.

On December 7, the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota, announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because efforts to reach a settlement “that would assist all abuse victims and protect the Church’s mission” have been unsuccessful. In November, a Ramsey County jury in St. Paul awarded $8.1 million to a 52-year-old man, known only as “Doe 30,” who said that in the 1970s, when he was 13, he was abused by the late Father James Vincent Fitzpatrick. An Oblate of Mary Immaculate, the priest was serving a parish assignment in the Duluth Diocese at the time.

According to a statement issued by Father James Bissonette, vicar general, even with insurance coverage and some diocesan savings available, the diocese has insufficient funds to cover the judgment and also provide resources for others who have brought abuse claims. He said the decision “is in keeping with our approach since the enactment of the Child Victims Act, which has been to put abuse victims first, to pursue the truth with transparency, and to do the right thing in the right way.”

For more Catholic news, visit AmericanCatholic.org.

said that as Christians are called to cross the threshold of “the door of mercy,” they are asked to welcome and experience God’s love, which “recreates, transforms, and reforms life.”

From there, people of faith must then go out and be “instruments of mercy, aware that we will be judged by this,” the pope said. Being a Christian calls for a lifelong journey and a “more radical commitment” to

be merciful like God the Father, he added.

Later that day, the pope appeared at the window of the apostolic palace to recite the noonday Angelus with visitors in St. Peter’s Square, and once again spoke about the need for mercy. He cited the day’s Gospel reading, in which people in the crowd, including tax collectors and soldiers, asked St. John the Baptist, Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 1 1

CNS PHOTO/EVANDRO INETTI, POOL

Pope Francis opens the Holy Door at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome December 13.

Holy doors around the world were opened as part of the Jubilee of Mercy.

“What should we do?” in order to convert and become acceptable for the coming of the Lord.

St. John does not leave them waiting for an answer, the pope said, and replies with concrete instructions: to live justly, in moderation and in solidarity toward those most in need.

“They are the essential values of a life that is fully human and authentically Christian,” he said, adding that God “is anxious to be merciful toward everyone and welcome everyone in the tender embrace of reconciliation and forgiveness.”

We do not want our hearts to turn against any person, any race, any religion. And so I invite you this evening to be open to the Lord. Let your heart and your mind be open to God’s message for you, for our community and our families. Be open to where our God, a God of mercy and love, leads us.”

He told them that during the service they would hear the term amen repeated often. He asked, however, “What comes after the ‘amen’? What

will we do in God’s name and in prayer after we leave this church?

Our ‘amen’ is our willingness to have God lead us on, to guide our vision and our actions.

“Let us find God calling us to be better neighbors, to be better at loving each other, to be committed workers for justice and peace, to be strong witnesses to God’s presence and God’s mercy in our home, our community, and the world,” he said.

“Let our ‘amen’ be a call to merciful discipleship in the name of our Lord.

Amen.”

Imam Aslam Abdullah, who represented the local Muslim community, said the killers—Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik— wanted people from different faiths, like those present, to hate each other, to be disunited. But they failed, he said, because “we substitute love. . . . We are united.

“Every human life is precious,” Imam Abdullah said in a rising voice.

“And we should take care to defend that human life, even if we have to give our own life for somebody. We believe that. We believe that each one of us has a right to live the way God wants us to live. We believe that life must be protected. And as people belonging to different religions, we hold that. Life is precious.” A

San Bernardino Bishop Leads Interfaith Service after Shootings

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CNS PHOTO/DIMA OTERVERTCHENKO, THE TIDINGS

On December 7, more than 400 people gathered at Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral in San Bernardino, California, to remember the 14 people killed and 22 injured in a terrorist attack during a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center, reported CNS. Bishop Gerald R. Barnes, head of the San Bernardino Diocese, was joined by fellow religious leaders of the community for the interfaith service.

Bishop Barnes told those gathered, “We do not want our enemies to win over our hearts, to terrify our future.

Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, California, Rabbi Jay Sherwood, the Rev. Sally Burton, and the Rev. Norman Copeland read a “Prayer for Our Government” during a December 7 interfaith service at Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral in San Bernardino.

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Why We Love Our Ashes What is it about this ritual that resonates so deeply with Catholics?

BY AMY EKEH

A

NYONE WHO HAS WORKED in a Catholic parish knows what to expect on and around Ash Wednesday: telephone calls at all hours, strangers randomly showing up for ashes, folks leaving after receiving their ashes but before receiving the Eucharist.

Among the “regulars,” there’s a lot of eyerolling and head-shaking, and an overwhelming desire to figure out why, on this day, getting ashes is the single-minded compulsion of every Catholic on the planet.

But what if this yearly “ash mania” isn’t just a mindless impulse? What if there is something profound and sacred behind it? Could it be that what drives even nonpracticing Catholics to participate in this annual ritual is that deep down it captures the essence of their Catholic faith and what they love about it? Could it be that this day of fasting and

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abstinence, this solemn inauguration of the Lenten season, has also become a day to celebrate our Catholic roots?

It seems that if we could get to the bottom of the compulsion to get ashes, we might find what people are really looking for—what drives and excites them, what is at the heart of the faith for many of our brothers and sisters. So here are just a few ideas about why we Catholics love our ashes, and perhaps, ultimately, why we love our Catholic faith.

Catholic Identity and Catholic Pride Those who make it to an early morning Mass on Ash Wednesday get highest marks on “Catholic pride.” If you get to wear your ashes to work, to school, or to the grocery store, you get to enjoy strange looks from those who do not know what’s going on and approving looks from those who do. Along the way someSt A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

CNS PHOTOS LEFT TO RIGHT: SAM LUCERO, THE COMPASS; GREGORY A. SHEMITZ, THE LONG ISLAND CATHOLIC

one will undoubtedly tell you that your forehead is dirty, and you will enjoy saying, “No, it isn’t. I’m Catholic” (or Episcopalian, or Lutheran, or . . . see p. 14).

That smudge of ashes marks us as belonging to a group, a very special group, and it simply feels good to belong. This is not an exclusive group by any means; it is not a secret club or an elite, members-only organization. It is an ancient conglomeration of all types. On Ash Wednesday, it is edifying to look around and see all those types. Our communal dirty foreheads are a gentle way that we remind the world who we are. And we find that it feels good to be countercultural, together.

Sin and Death Are Real Catholics used to be accused of dwelling too much on sin (“Catholic guilt”) and death (“Why the crucifix? Don’t you know he’s Fr anciscanMedia.org

risen?”). We’ve lightened up a bit, but we still insist on reality: we are sinners, we do suffer, and we will die. On Ash Wednesday, we wear a visible sign of these realities—ashes symbolize both our sorrow for sin (“Repent, and believe in the Gospel”) and the recognition of our own mortality (“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”).

These might seem like depressing realities— why would we want to spend a day with sin and death on our foreheads? Because we know that the first step in diagnosing and remedying these conditions is to reveal and identify them.

To hide them or never talk about them would be like hiding symptoms from our doctors and never being cured. If I am a sinner, I need a savior. If I am going to die, I need a miracle.

Our faith offers us both.

We do not proclaim our sinfulness for the sake of a guilty conscience, or our mortality

(Opposite page) On Ash Wednesday, it’s easy to spot who is Christian.

Here, Nicole Goldapske receives ashes from retired Bishop Robert J. Banks of Green Bay, Wisconsin, during an Ash Wednesday Mass.

Each Lent, the palms from last year become this year’s ashes—a symbol of both our sinfulness and mortality.

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Catholics, proudly displaying an outward sign of their faith, take part in an Ash Wednesday Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, in Los Angeles.

for the sake of feeling sad. Rather, we proclaim them so we might share in the antidote; we proclaim them for the sake of the Savior and the miracle he can work in our lives. With this sign we proclaim the wise words of Christ: “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do” (Lk 5:31).

who is also marked with ash, who also needs a savior, whose way of marking us somehow communicates understanding, hope, and the redemption we desire. The human touch that marks us with ashes is an experience of both human and divine love. Who wouldn’t show up for that?

The Power of Touch

The Satisfaction of Making an Effort

Allowing another person to mark us with the sign of ashes is a very personal thing. We are inviting someone else into our personal space and allowing him or her to mark us with a sign that makes us visibly vulnerable. Just as when we have our feet washed or share in a sincere sign of peace, we are momentarily bonded with that person who draws near and touches us with sacred purpose.

Although we are being marked with a sign of sin and death, the touch we receive is healing. It is a human touch that represents the healing ministry of Christ and his Church.

Catholics are born into or later embrace this sacramental perspective. We see and experience deeper realities in our physical world—bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, water becomes a transforming wash.

Click here for more on Ash In this decidedly Catholic Wednesday and the Lenten way of looking at things, we season. don’t just get a smudge of ash from a stranger and go on with our lives. No, we stand before one who is both a fellow sinner and a mediator between human and divine realities; we allow ourselves to receive the healing touch of one February 2016

Why are Catholics willing to make phone calls, alter their plans, scramble kids’ schedules, or even duck out of work to get their ashes on Ash Wednesday? Perhaps it feels good to make an effort to either satisfy a perceived obligation or do something we know is good for us. Sure, there are other obligations that Catholics may be lax about, but perhaps it’s the once-a-year nature of Ash Wednesday that motivates. Sunday Mass? That obligation is easy to push off: “I can always make it next week.” But Ash Wednesday? It’s only once a year: “I have to make it happen.”

Now perhaps this reason is not as deep or noble as the others, but it does touch on a natural human desire to participate in our own spiritual formation and growth. We instinctively know that although we are utterly dependent on the grace and mercy of God, there are some things we can and should do to foster our participation in that grace and mercy. Sitting at home watching television does not generally bring me closer to Christ.

Perhaps Ash Wednesday serves as a wake-up call in terms of our priorities. How to keep that call coming every day is a much more challenging task.

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Being Part of Something Ancient There is something ancient about ashes. Even though the ashes we receive may be “fresh,” the symbolism goes way, way back. From ancient times, ashes have symbolized mourning and penance. We occasionally come across colorful old accounts in Scripture of prophets or penitents covering themselves in “sackcloth and ashes” (Esther 4:3; Job 42:6).

Even those who receive ashes without knowing this background at least know that it is an Old World Catholic custom. In a Church that has updated in many ways in the past 50 years, our ashes remain the same. We are connected with years and centuries past in a ritual that calls us back even as it prods us forward.

This is Catholicism at its best, embracing and inviting others to participate in a beauty “ever ancient, ever new” (St. Augustine, Confessions).

Almost a Year’s Worth of Spiritual Connections The fact that the ashes applied to our heads on Ash Wednesday come from the palms of the previous year’s Palm Sunday (though admittedly some parishes have now dropped this tradition and purchase their ashes from a supply catalog!) adds another layer of sym-

bolism to the ash ritual. Even if we are not thinking about this symbolism as we go to receive our ashes, it still lies somewhere in the back of our minds, part of that collective Catholic consciousness.

On Palm Sunday of the previous Lent, we waved those palms in jubilant welcome of Christ into Jerusalem. Diminishing that celebration, however, was the weight of knowing what would happen in Jerusalem, and knowing how we, the crowds, would turn on him. Those palms went home with us as reminders of the joy and sorrow of Holy Week, of the mission of Christ who suffered for us, and of our own role in that suffering. Now, on Ash Wednesday, the palms have returned, they have been burned, and their ashes are applied to our own bodies as another sign—a continuing sign of the joy and sorrow of the penitent.

In these ashes we have almost a year’s worth of spiritual connections—from Palm Sunday to Ash Wednesday, from Lent past to Lent present.

Click the button above to hear an interview about Ash Wednesday and the lenten season.

The Beauty of a Simple Ritual We may as well admit that as much as Catholics love a good liturgy, we also like to know when things will start and finish: Sunday

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Fr anciscanMedia.org

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It’s Not Only Us!

Mass is one hour, weekday Mass is half an hour, the rosary is a quarter of an hour, and we truly appreciate the occasional brief ritual.

I’ll admit short confession lines and brief homilies are a few of my favorite things.

I remember one year our family had been hit with a virus, and on Ash Wednesday we were struggling to recover. We had read in the parish bulletin that ashes would be out in the church for those who could not attend a service. We stopped by, curious and a bit sheepish.

Inside, a few people were praying, and it was very quiet. Several crystal dishes containing ashes were on a table at the front of the church, with brief instructions about what to say and how to apply the ashes.

As we marked one another’s foreheads, it did feel unusual. But the moment was also profound in its simplicity, and the familiar words, as we said them to each another, sounded different. They sank into my mind in a new way. That year, the ritual was uncommonly brief, but it still hit home. While I’m not advocating this experience as the norm, sometimes a simple ritual has surprising impact—without time for our minds to wander or grow complacent, its power has a fighting chance to change us.

Why We Love Our Catholic Faith The Rev. Emily Mellott offers ashes to a commuter at the train station in Lombard, Illinois. About 100 people received ashes that day.

A

PHOTO COURTESY OF EMILY MELLOTT, ASHESTOGO.ORG

LTHOUGH CATHOLICS may be the ones who really get into a frenzy over ashes, many other Christian denominations also kick off Lent with a healthy dose of ash. Many Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and some Baptists observe the tradition of wearing ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday. An insightful note on the website of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod reads: “[I]t doesn’t take many ashes to ‘ash’ a whole congregation. Like sin, they are very dirty and go a long way” (lcms.org).

One ecumenical group has taken the imposition of ashes to the streets with a movement called “Ashes to Go.” Pastors and members of participating communities take ashes to subway stations, coffee shops, and street corners in an effort to create prayerful moments with people who are on their way to work or going about their daily lives.

Orthodox Christians begin their observance of “Great Lent” with a day of fast and prayer on “Clean Monday,” but most do not receive ashes.

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Maybe at the heart of this list, we find not only what we love about ashes and what we love about Lent, but also what we love about Catholicism itself: a strong identity that creates a sense of belonging, the power of the cross and the touch of a mediator, a realistic sense of sin and death, an awareness that we have to work hard right along with God’s transforming grace, the holiness of old things, the connectedness of all truths, and sometimes, that good old-fashioned Catholic satisfaction in following the because-it’s-good-for-you rules handed down by our beloved Church.

So if you work at a parish and you don’t think you can take one more phone call, or if you see your neighbors “ashed up” but you never even knew they were Catholic, or if the person in the pew next to you heads for the door before the eucharistic prayer, try to call to mind the power of ashes. On this day, we share a bond, a visible bond. On this day, we are so very proud to be Catholic. A Amy Ekeh is a freelance writer from Milford, Connecticut, where she writes her blog (amyekeh.com). She is a retreat director and an instructor in the Archdiocese of Hartford’s Biblical School.

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Lessons

FROM A

Pilgrim

Travel is about getting from one place to another. Pilgrimage is about what happens along the way.

BY BOB KUNZINGER

I

which the saint himself requested be built when he walked this same pilgrimage 800 years earlier. I put down my walking stick, leaned my backpack against a stone wall, and came to some conclusions about how pilgrimage fits in my life.

More than Just a Trip It was St. Augustine of Hippo who first used the word peregrino, or “pilgrim,” from the Latin peregrinatio, loosely meaning “traveler in a foreign land.” Pilgrimages became a basic way of daily life in medieval Europe and an accepted way to do penance for sins, find healing, and seek salvation. It wasn’t enough, though, to simply reach some destination; one had to prove worthiness by facing trials and making sacrifices along the way. Religious pilgrimages have the advantage of forcing one to think about the spiritual nature of the journey.

But in the 21st century it seems we can easily be guilty of viewing these sacred travels from a secular perspective. We have debased the concept of pilgrimage by labeling any trip at all a pilgrimage. We go on a pilgrimage to Graceland, to the ocean or some mountain lake, and even to casinos and the mall. Most of the time, however, those travels remain focused on the destination. In them, we seek the easiest path, the quickest route. In fact, we would, if possible, eliminate entirely any traveling involved and simply appear at the gates of our goal.

On the other hand, most spiritual journeys

© UNMILLONDEELEFANTES/ISTOCKPHOTO

HAVE MADE PILGRIMAGES since I was a child, or so I believed. Every summer our family made its annual pilgrimage to a vacation spot; every fall during college I made my autumn pilgrimage back to the friars of St. Bonaventure University in western New York, and every Christmas I still make my expected pilgrimage to the family homestead to celebrate the holidays.

More lofty pilgrimages exist. Some set out to find a New World where they would be free to practice religion without persecution; thousands every year trace the apostle St. Paul’s footsteps in Turkey; in Poland, the “Route of Saints” draws worshipers to the 18 chapels of Wawel Hill Cathedral; and Chaucer immortalized Canterbury with his tales of tribulations on the way to pay homage to Thomas Becket.

Then there is Spain, the Camino de Santiago—the way of St. James. It has been trodden by travelers for over a thousand years to serve penance, to seek cures, and to pray at the final resting place of the apostle St. James the Greater. These travelers include myself and my 21-year-old son, Michael. We started our camino, or way, in France and walked southwest toward Santiago de Compostela. Along the route we stopped in seemingly countless churches, said prayers with other pilgrims, and broke bread with strangers from around the world, all walking with a common goal— to make it to Santiago.

But halfway through the journey we stood on a hillside above the village of Villafranca next to the church of St. Francis of Assisi,

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CNS PHOTO/COURTESY CAMINODOCUMENTARY.ORG

The picturesque landscape from southern France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, rises up to greet pilgrims as they make their spiritually enriching and physically grueling journey.

have a very tangible goal, a unique destination.

And all prospective pilgrims can look to previous travelers for proof their efforts will be rewarded; however, too many believe the reward is simply to complete the journey. In these days of GPS and up-to-date maps, that isn’t too difficult to do. And should one stray from the trodden trail, any lack of a marker or assistance quickly warns travelers something is amiss and some reevaluation of the journey is necessary. All signs say, “You’ll get there, don’t worry.” With the stricter definition of pilgrimage in mind then, it must be more than getting from Point A to Point B.

The Camino pilgrimage reminds us that our walk through this world needs to be bolstered by faith if we are to weather life’s great difficulties.

A Question of Faith

© MERCEDES RANCAÑO OTERO/ISTOCKPHOTO

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Therein lies the difference. They are all trips.

A pilgrimage is separate in that it forces the traveler to focus on the way. Pilgrims think about each leg of the journey, usually each step. Pilgrims deal with daily sacrifices in order to reach their goal; often it is only through sacrifice that they can reach that goal, for it isn’t unusual for choices to lead us away from our destination. When that happens, too many people simply change their goals to accommodate their new direction instead of working through the difficult climbs and staying the course.

On a religious pilgrimage, these decisions are not only often murky, but also necessary, or you’ll never get where you are going and will remain lost in a foreign land.

In this Spanish village, I took my shoes off to give my feet some relief and thought about the homilies at the churches along the way.

They continually discussed pilgrimage as a way of life, with Santiago simply an earthly destination to bring us closer to God. The metaphor was obvious and welcome. The priests reminded us that blisters and rainy days are part of the journey. And so it is in life, they said. When this Camino is complete, all insisted, the pilgrimage of life must continue with equal attention to each step of the way.

Of course! Shouldn’t we always be conscious of each step and where each effort brings us?

Shouldn’t we always have enough faith in our final reward that during difficult times when St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

One Step at a Time I put my backpack on and picked up my walking stick. St. Francis said, “It is of no use walking anywhere to preach unless the walking is the preaching.” The sermons of a true pilgrimage are in the steps, the homilies lie in the breathing in and out on long climbs, and communion comes in the form of the scarce respite with the necessities.

Life is the same, and we must not forget this essential element of the religious pilgrimage upon return to our secular journeys. When I was my son’s age, I often went on retreat with Franciscan friars and a dozen or so students. We spent three or four days in a cabin in the hills, praying, talking, and sharing stories with laughter and tears. We became close and Fr anciscanMedia.org

CNS PHOTO/COURTESY CAMINODOCUMENTARY.ORG

we lose the right way we know we will find our way back? I wish it were as easy in life as on the Camino. Life has no arrows or guidebooks. Life often finds us with fewer people with whom to pray and even fewer willing to help us back in the right direction on those occasions we stray. It seems these days that unless we don a backpack and carry a guidebook, we forget we are always on a pilgrimage.

Michael sat next to me and pulled out his maps. We had traveled roughly 350 miles and had about 150 left. We had taken breaks before, such as when we passed through an old church visited by St. Teresa of Avila, who herself made the journey, and who once wrote, “To have courage for whatever comes in life, everything lies in that.” I wondered more than a few times before leaving for Spain if I had the courage to make the trip, to suffer the physical demands at 54 years old. Could I keep up with my athletic and youthful son, whose feet suffered far less abuse than mine had so far?

But in comparison to the courage it takes to keep faith in an increasingly faithless world, the questions I asked on the Camino seemed relatively simplistic. I looked at the church and realized Francis himself had rested in this very village headed to the very relics I journeyed to witness. At 30 years old he took time out to walk from Assisi to Santiago. He did so the same way we did—one step at a time, adjusting when he made wrong decisions, learning right from wrong through experience and time. Who could possibly miss the metaphor?

Unfortunately, most of us. Our eyes are fixed on the destination, and that’s good. But how we get there will determine whether the pilgrimage was successful.

spoke often of our “pilgrimage” through life. These two pilgrims are We learned valuable lessons we promised to destined for Santiago de carry with us forever. But weeks passed, and Compostela, a holy destithe spirit of those retreats waned; life diluted nation visited by St. them with a deluge of decisions and relation- Francis of Assisi and St. Teresa of Avila, as well as ships, responsibilities and career paths.

Five weeks in Spain is not very different many thousands of faithful from a weekend in the mountains: unless we every year. make a decided effort to live the life of a pilgrim in our daily lives, the Camino becomes little more than a great trip we once took. We left those retreats with the valuable advice of St. Thomas Aquinas: “If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because He Himself is the way.” But at that age, or at any age, we believe life’s daily dealings don’t often make allowances for religious doctrine. It is a responsibility easy to forget even for those who complete a spiritual pilgrimage.

Click here for more on But if we don’t consciously tal Digi as pilgrimage. consider our steps as well as Extr our destination, we aren’t on a pilgrimage at all but just another long trip, and we will be quite disappointed when we get to the end.

To contemplate the obvious: if our lives are pilgrimages from birth to death, then our desired destination of heaven can only be reached based upon how we get there. Salvation is to be earned at each turn. Since bad decisions and detours are a constant part of life, it isn’t enough that we simply “get to the gates.”

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“You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.”

—St. John of the Cross

end of the path but at each step along the way. We are always on a pilgrimage and we are always learning the way, even during our trespasses. St. John of the Cross wrote, “You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.” And I discovered one more thing on my way to Santiago: when I paid attention to every step, I traveled well. It was only when I became cocky and overconfident, when I wasn’t paying attention to where I walked, that I stumbled.

I had to keep my eyes on Santiago, but to do so I had to also focus on every single turn on

shortcuts for reasons unknown to us, and decide their worthiness, or lack thereof. We pass judgment by comparing their journey to ours and how much they “earn” rewards through struggle and sacrifice based on our own attempts.

But to do so is misguided. The man from Madrid who bused into Sarria on Saturday—a full four weeks after Michael and I began walking—will stroll into Santiago the following Friday to pick up his compostela. He will receive Communion at the Pilgrim’s Mass, standing right next to me. He must make his pilgrimage the best he can, as must I, as did Francis and Teresa, Queen Isabella, and countless saints and sinners for a thousand years.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL KUNZINGER

Always on the Road

Bob Kunzinger’s trek of over 500 miles brings him near Santiago. “We are always on a pilgrimage, and we are always learning along the way,” he says.

Click the button below to hear an interview about the Holy Land Franciscan Pilgrimages.

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February 2016

the way, often helping or seeking help from other pilgrims.

Earning the Reward One other roadblock creates unwanted delays in any journey—judgment. When we reached Sarria, just 70 miles or so from the great Cathedral of Santiago, the crowds of pilgrims mushroomed. The Spanish vacation week started and thousands flocked to Sarria to begin their pilgrimage. Those who trek at least that last 100 kilometers receive a compostela—a certificate of sorts—in Santiago.

Graces and indulgences are received for such an accomplishment on this third-most-visited pilgrimage site in the Catholic world, after the Holy Land and Rome. So the “one-weekers” take buses to Sarria and walk all day—while a driver brings their belongings to the next destination, checks them into places to stay, and then drives back to set up lunch for them.

Many peregrinos like us wrongly question whether theirs is a true pilgrimage.

And too often we do that in our own lives.

We see people who have an easier time or take

Francis of Assisi didn’t feel worthy of entering his kingdom when he was 30 and knelt before the silver reliquary of St. James. He knew he still had a long journey ahead, laced with sufferings and challenges long after his Camino was through, and he knew he must constantly remind himself of the lessons learned in Spain lest he become lazy in spiritual matters.

In fact, completing this Camino didn’t make me feel worthier than anyone else of anything at all. It simply made me more aware of how every single decision along my way leads to or away from God. It is a lesson I wish I had learned when I was Michael’s age, but that’s the point—we are always learning lessons and trying to find the right way.

We headed up a hillside on a secondary route toward the ancient monastery of Samos.

We hadn’t walked long when Michael reminded me that St. Francis of Assisi completed his pilgrimage in times more rugged and difficult than ours. But I’m not so sure that is true. He lived a spiritual life and surrounded himself with brothers and sisters who reminded him constantly of God’s work here on earth.

But our contemporary world is saturated with evil and distraction, secular responsibilities and demands, most often contrary to the lessons of a religious pilgrimage. That is why we must remind ourselves every chance we can that our destination is clear, but the way there is not. We have to pay attention to where we are going. A Bob Kunzinger is a freelance author from Virginia Beach, Virginia. He has traveled extensively, and says the aim of his work is to explore our own journey in life and how we are giving back to others and ourselves.

St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

YEAR OF MERCY

❘ BY EZRA FIESER

Visiting the Sick in the Jungle The Corporal Works of Mercy ■ Feed the hungry ■ Give drink to the thirsty ■ Clothe the naked ■ Shelter the homeless ■ Visit the sick ■ Visit the imprisoned ■ Bury the dead

CNS PHOTO/BOB ROLLER

The Spiritual Works of Mercy ■ Admonish the sinner ■ Instruct the ignorant ■ Counsel the doubtful ■ Comfort the sorrowful ■ Bear wrongs patiently ■ Forgive all injuries ■ Pray for the living and the dead Eunice Allen, a registered nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, brings a moment of joy to the life of a child at a clinic in Wakapoa, Guyana.

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jungle village paddle dugout canoes for miles to wait their turn.

Herman Emanuel, 58, visited three doctors in Guyana, but none gave him a diagnosis. Within hours, the US residents diagnosed him with hyperthyroidism and arranged for a free surgery.

“That’s why I come here,” he said. A

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Click here for a longer version of this article.

Ezra Fieser is a correspondent for Catholic News Service.

POPE FRANCIS ON MERCY “Your care for the poor, the sick, the homeless, and the immigrant, your defense of life at every stage, and your concern for family life: in all of this you recognize that Jesus is in your midst and that your care for one another is care for Jesus himself.”

—Pope Francis, US visit: Meeting with World Meeting of Families organizers, volunteers, and benefactors

Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 2 5

CNS PHOTO/PAUL HARING

very year, a group of pediatric residents and nurses travel from Baltimore to the South American nation of Guyana.

They travel from the dusty capital, Georgetown, on buses, and then boats that cruise down rivers past sherbet-colored homes built on stilts; past thick mangroves where squirrel monkeys leap from branch to branch. Six hours later, they arrive in Wakapoa, a remote outpost carved out of thick jungle, where they sleep in camouflage hammocks under mosquito nets to avoid contracting malaria.

For years, this group, led by Mercy Sister Karen Schneider, an assistant professor of pediatric emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins University, has made an annual trek to visit those desperately in need. They operate from a rudimentary health post on stilts that has no running water or electricity. While the clinics are aimed at pediatrics, they draw as many adults as they do children.

The indigenous families living near this

AT HOME ON EARTH

❘ BY KYLE KRAMER

A Hug from Pope Francis

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to everything else. That truth is coming at us now from all sides: from Trinitarian theology and spirituality, from biology and quantum physics, from economics and sociology. It’s a totally new—and utterly ancient—paradigm.

Let’s Work If everything belongs, then there’s no way we can fix Together environmental problems and neglect social problems, or Learn more about Focovice versa. They belong lare, a Catholic movement together. If everything devoted to building a more belongs, then there’s no way united world. we can worship and serve God, but ignore—or conContact your local Catholic tribute to!—the plight of Charities office to find out both the poor and the planet. how you can reach out to The walls we’ve built support refugees in your between nations, neighborcommunity. hoods, ethnic groups, and political leanings, and all our Meditate on Jesus’ prayer other “I’m in, you’re out” from John 17:21: “May all tribal markers, are more illube one.” sion than reality. If everything belongs, then to be truly Catholic means to be truly catholic: joining “every person living on this planet” in one richly diverse community, where the Earth matters, where our bodies matter (male and female, young and old, healthy and sick), where the poor and vulnerable matter, and where love and compassion, care and concern matter most of all.

How do we start living out the truth of everything belongs? Maybe we could follow the example of Pope Francis’ words and deeds: Have you given or gotten a hug today? A

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Kyle Kramer is the executive director of the Passionist Earth and Spirit Center in Louisville, Kentucky.

Pope Francis reminds us that every person—as well as the planet—has a special connection.

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Click here for more ways to help heal the earth. Click the button on the right to hear an interview with Kyle.

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© INGIMAGE

CNS PHOTO/ALESSANDRO BIANCHI, REUTERS

n his encyclical, “Laudato Si’,” Pope Francis makes bold statements about the duty of Catholics (and, in fact, “every person living on this planet”) to care for the Earth—our “common home.” When I’ve given talks to parish groups about the encyclical, I’ve often joked that the pope isn’t a liberal tree hugger; he’s a conservative tree hugger. He does want us to protect God’s creation—to conserve it, and help it thrive—but his ethic comes from theological views that are firmly within the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy.

Actually, I think Pope Francis isn’t just a tree hugger, but an everything hugger. The scope of his care and concern is so broad that it embraces not just trees, not just natural systems, but everything: the planet, us humans, and the rest of the creatures, too.

To my mind, this idea of inclusive concern is really the main theme of the encyclical, captured in the pope’s term “integral ecology.” The best way I’ve found to explain the idea of integral ecology is the phrase “everything belongs.” Everything belongs to everything else; everything is connected to everything else; everything is in relationship

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Future Franciscans

The of the

From Indianapolis to Indonesia, from Rwanda to Rome, this Franciscan leader has a bird’s-eye view of where the followers of St. Francis are heading. Meet Brother Michael Perry, OFM.

BY JOHN FEISTER

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HEN HE TALKS about his guitar-playing days, Mike Perry doesn’t neglect to mention that his guitar was a 12-string Epiphone— nothing too fancy, but a step up from the primitive instrument he learned on. In those early days in Indianapolis, Indiana, he dreamed of becoming a lawyer, but a trip to the missions changed all that. Mike, the law student, met the Franciscans and fell in love with the poor, then with the Franciscans themselves. They must have loved him, too. At age 61, Father Michael Perry, OFM, is general minister of the Order of Friars Minor, the 13,400-memberstrong branch of the Franciscan family tree.

While in Chicago at a meeting of provincial leaders from across the United States, Brother Michael (as he likes to be called) carves an early-morning hour out of a packed schedule to talk with St. Anthony Messenger. He’ll be on an airplane heading back to Rome in a few hours. During our 60 minutes together, in the house library at downtown’s St. Peter’s Friary, we’ll talk about his personal experience, the breadth of his concerns as leader of Franciscans, and his hopes and dreams for the future of the Franciscan Orders. He sees sweeping changes in the family’s future.

Journey into Poverty CNS PHOTO/PAUL HARING

But first, we’ll talk about his own personal changes that brought him to leadership of the Franciscans. After his profound mission experience in Appalachia, where he joined a group of people across faith traditions building houses Fr anciscanMedia.org

for people in poverty, Michael was hooked on a life of service. He joined the Franciscans, Sacred Heart Province, in St. Louis in 1977, when he was 22. In the years leading toward law school, he had focused on philosophy and history at Quincy University in Illinois.

After switching career paths, as a new Franciscan he pursued theological studies along with other friars at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He professed his solemn vows in 1981; he was ordained a priest in 1984. In time, he would study for and receive a PhD in religious anthropology as he served the Church in Africa. The missions had been calling him all along.

“I think there were things taking place even before I went to Congo,” he says. And we’re off, on a conversation where Brother Michael seems willing to answer any question, but, like a good professor, talks at times from his yellow notepad—he has prepared for this interview.

Newly ordained Michael Perry was put to work right away helping to form the new students, and became involved with the province’s social advocacy. The words don’t exactly roll off the tongue, but Franciscan provinces worldwide have offices of “Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation.” JPIC, as they call it, though, is key to the Franciscan vision of people, animals, the earth as a part of a web of God’s creation. All are to be treated with loving care, in ways big and small.

It was that vision that brought Brother Michael to the People’s Republic of Congo, where he spent 10 years serving as teacher,

As general minister, Brother Michael is worldwide leader of the Order of Friars Minor. His home base is Rome; he travels the world in service of the Order.

February 2016 ❘

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(Above left) Friars in Indonesia have fraternities of justice and peace that integrate not only the work of justice, but also that of prayer and contemplation. Here, an international group of friars visit a project for street children.

(Above right) Friars built St. Anthony House in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as a home for streetchildren after 2010’s devastating earthquake.

February 2016

“I remember asking three women once, ‘How is it possible for you to do this? Do you think that God abandoned you?’ And they started laughing. They said, ‘God never abandons us. God is always here. We just need to recognize his grace, and God’s going to take care of us.’” He learned faith from those women: “It taught me about the total dependence on God and also the total interdependence, the sharing that takes place when we care for each other.”

Catholic Vision It also taught him to listen. As general minister of the Order of Friars Minor, Brother Michael’s job is to listen to, and when necessary provide guidance for, his Franciscan brothers. So he travels the world over, interacting with friars.

“I think in threes,” he starts, cuing up to talk, from his yellow notepad, in some detail about friars around the world. “I’m becoming more and more convinced of, if we’re open to God, if we’re open to surprise, God will surprise us!

And life will bring many, many surprises.

They’ll be difficult; but they’ll be wonderful.”

Then he starts offering examples of surprises he has seen of Franciscan spirit afoot in the world.

He was recently in Taiwan, for example. He tells of seeing Franciscan missionaries and laity firsthand, brothers “who have been able, in a sense, to bring in elements of the local spiritual tradition that are centuries old.” He was in Peru before that, where he saw friars truly empowering the laity, “engaging them in their responsibility as disciples and missionaries in the local Church.” These were St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

PHOTOS COURTESY OFM COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE/ROME

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prison chaplain, research director, and even farmer. In the midst of pastoral ministry in Africa, he received his doctorate in religious anthropology from the University of Birmingham (England). His research, in the Lower Congo for two years, was on the role of religion in the lives of everyday people.

How each of us interacts with our faith and each other is a curiosity Brother Michael had from the beginning. He recalls an episode from Chicago to illustrate the point: “I had a chance when I was at Catholic Theological Union to do one week on the streets here in Chicago,” he recalls. “I went to the Wilson Men’s Club, up on the north side. It cost $3 per night for the room. I had $5 in my pocket. The first evening I met a young man who was there, roughly a little bit younger than me. He asked me what I was doing, if I wanted to get a beer.

I didn’t have any money, so I said, ‘No, I only have $3 that I paid and $2 in my pocket.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He offered me two beers. The next day he took me to work and, throughout the whole week, he took me under his wing and I came back to the house one week later with $150 in my pocket!”

Brother Michael relishes a good story.

He tells another story, one, he says, that “transformed my life.” This one occurred in the Congo, an encounter, time and again, over 10 years, living among people who had very little—less than most of us could imagine. The women, especially, had a grueling routine— up before dawn, kids off to school, work in the fields with infants strapped to their backs, selling what they could find in the market, coming home to cook, and more.

working along the Amazon River, making tremendous sacrifices “because they go for periods of time without electricity, without access by telephone or Internet.” Perhaps these missioners might travel for a week to get from one Christian community to another. “These are tremendous signs of hope,” he says.

Hope bubbles from this friar as he recounts even more stories, far from the Roman curial offices: “I was in Indonesia also this year and had a chance to see the brothers working with the farmers on how to develop sustainable methods for farming and to integrate that into Catholic spirituality.” Not just farming, not just sustainability, but also a prayerful approach, he repeats.

“They don’t have an office of Justice and Peace and Integrity of Creation; they have fraternities of justice and peace and integrity of creation. They have fraternities that are integrated who have a sense of Franciscan prayer, contemplation,” he says. They have a sense of Franciscan mission and evangelization, he observes, “and have integrated the elements of the care for creation, stewardship of the earth, and also the protection of indigenous peoples and the respect for human rights.

They’ve integrated all of this into a common life.”

As he traverses the world of Franciscan ministry—OFM friars are present in 112, soon to be 113, countries—he sees his job not simply as encourager, or some contact with the broader community, though surely he is both.

“I think one of the most challenging things is helping the brothers, the Franciscans, to remember who they are and to whom they Fr anciscanMedia.org

belong,” he offers, admitting that it may sound a bit strange to say it that way. “But one of the things that has emerged throughout the history of the Franciscan movement is the need for us to never forget our Gospel roots, our Gospel identity to which we are called, our Gospel mission.”

He, and the nine other council members with whom he lives in Rome, “remind each other, then, that we go out and remind the brothers of the central aspects of our identity, so that we can be energized and have passion for our life and for the world.”

He takes his cue from people he has served along the way. “When you have nothing,” he says, “when you have no guarantee of tomorrow or the next day for your food, for your lodging, for your health, you are forced to recognize the role and the dependence you have on God. Poor people know they cannot do this by themselves;” they recognize God’s grace.” For wealthier people to serve our brothers and sisters who are poor, to step even briefly into their shoes, he says, is transformative. “This is something which I hope for,” he says, and something he thinks Franciscans can facilitate. “We have a special privilege we could offer to people by inviting them to come into these places of grace. When we do that, people will never be the same.”

This privileged viewpoint of poverty, by the way, is some cause for hope in spite of current financial hardships for the order’s central government, its curia. It made worldwide news in 2014 when a group of investors, purportedly helping the friars, involved a significant amount of Franciscan outreach funds in an

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he served for many years, Brother Michael celebrates with fellow friars as they officially name a new Franciscan province, Province Sainte Marie des Anges, named for the earliest Franciscan chapel.

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Since the time of St. Francis, friars have sought to build bridges. Here, Sufi Muslims and Istanbul, Turkey, friars, each in their liturgical habits, meet for an interreligious prayer service at Pontifical University Antonianum, in Rome, Italy.

Click the button below to hear an interview with another Franciscan who was called to missionary work.

apparently unethical scheme, and brought the central offices to the verge of bankruptcy.

“What’s been amazing is what I would call an outpouring of global solidarity,” Brother Michael says. Franciscan provinces who could help sent resources, he reports. Franciscan sisters and those who love the Franciscans offered signs of support, including financial support.

That was a grace, he says, but there is a second grace: “We’ve had to simplify our lives in the curia,” he observes earnestly, perhaps even with a hint of joy.

“The brothers would probably straighten me out if they heard me say this,” he admits, but “maybe we don’t need to own buildings.

Maybe we even need to leave the general curia at some point and find some things much simpler, much smaller, to identify ourselves once again with the very people God has called us to serve: God’s poor, God’s people who are forgotten, God’s marginalized, those who are abused, and those who are facing all types of injustices. That’s where we need to be.” Brother Michael wants his brother Franciscans to imagine their futures differently.

Father Michael Perry, OFM, general minister of the friars until at least 2021, has a vision of the future of the Franciscans. His vision is coming from the founder: “It’s clear from the beginning, where Francis prays before the crucifix: ‘Lord, what is it that you will for me to do? What is it that I’m supposed to do with my life?’ And eventually that prayer expanded to the brothers: ‘What are we supposed to do in the world today?’” That’s the big question 32 ❘

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St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

PHOTOS COURTESY OFM COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE/ROME

Future of the Franciscans

now, says Brother Michael: “How do we get ourselves energized, pick up, and get moving again?”

Is he saying that the friars have somehow become ineffective? Not really. It seems more that of straying from the core mission.

That’s been a challenge for 800 years, he observes. “One of the problems we’ve always had, we kind of get settled. We start as a movement, we get energized,” he starts, searching for the right way to say something easily misunderstood. “We’re doing very good work in parishes and institutions,” he continues, “but we get bogged down at some point.”

He and his brothers lose what he calls the “flexible grace” of God. “God is always inviting us to deepen our experience with the people where we are, to really sink roots there. The roots remain because they’re built with the people of God.” Then it’s time to take what the friars can from that experience and move on to the next, he says: “I think we have to reenergize.” He summons the call of Pope Francis in “The Joy of the Gospel” and elsewhere: “We need to open our horizons; we’ve got to move where God’s people are moving.”

What does this mean practically? Immediately on the horizon is a change in the way the friars are organized worldwide. In short, Franciscans support each other through a system of provinces and some other, smaller entities. When a province grows to be too large, a new one is formed. The opposite is true in some places, and will be happening in Europe and North America as the Church continues to undergo changes. There are seven provinces in the United States. Each province has a history with the local Church and lots of relationships, so making changes won’t be easy.

“Should the seven provinces remain in the future?” asks the general minister. “I think the indications are telling us no.” That is why he was in Chicago during the week of our interview, in fact, meeting with US provincial leaders. “These [provinces] have helped us be able to express central themes and values of our lives.” But they need to change with the times.

There are bigger structures, too. Over the centuries, the Franciscan movement split into rival factions, for reasons that have little to do with today. The four major branches of the tree that include priests and brothers— the OFMs, the OFM Conventuals, the OFM Capuchins, and the Third Order Regular

(TOR)—are finding new ways to work together.

Brother Michael is eager to share examples: “In Zambia, for 25 years, the OFMs, the Capuchins, and the Conventuals have been living in a common center. They’ve been studying together. They don’t pray every day together, but they pray regularly together.

They celebrate Eucharist together. They share meals together. The brothers are friends to each other.” This educational center is, in fact, bursting with friars from across Africa.

They are in a difficult situation, he says.

“We have no space to welcome our brothers.

We have two to a room. The ceilings are too low for bunk beds. And you can’t add a third bed because you’ll block the door and the seating for the desk where they study.” Similar things are happening in Asia, too, he adds. “I think this is a sign of the future.”

Where will we be in 50 years? “Well, in three years, I hope we’re going to have one unified Franciscan university in Rome.” Clearly, 50 years isn’t the issue. The university will be jointly operated by Capuchins, OFMs, TORs, and Conventuals. “We’re moving in that direction, and I think we will be there.” He hopes, with certainty, it seems, that within three years even other forms of cooperation will take form.

He takes it even a step further. Later this year will be the 800th anniversary of the Feast of Pardon, Francis’ appeal to Pope Honorius III to allow an indulgence for pilgrims visiting the Portiuncula chapel, where the order started, in Assisi. The Franciscans, he says, all three of these branches in the First Order, are “going to spend time seeking the way of forgiveness for the ways we’ve hurt each other historically Fr anciscanMedia.org

throughout the centuries.” The following year, At the Order’s headquar2017, marks the 500th year since the act that ters in Rome, friars, sisdivided OFMs and Conventuals (see next page): ters, and laity from the “We’re going to see in what way we can heal, world over gather to share do a rereading of that history, and what can faith, and to support each we do, again, to heal any wounds and to see other’s ministries. Brother about the possibility of a future where we are Michael hopes to foster reunited together.” And there’s more in 2018, unity among the various the proposal of joint mission projects.

Franciscan orders.

It all points in one direction, to a new vision.

One can see how a dreamer of big ideas got to the place he is today: “I think of the future; there’s a potential that God is going to bring us back—the Franciscan men’s orders—back together into one unified movement.” Clearly, others are dreaming with him.

To think, all of this starting with a simple guitar and a trip to the missions. The music still helps keep him going, day after day, country after country: Click here for more on the “St. Francis the songwriter and tal Digi as Franciscan family. singer resonates with me very t Ex r deeply,” he says. “I am still learning just how much music [formed him], the sounds that began deep within him, and which he picked up from everything around him, especially from creation.” Here’s Brother Michael, the anthropologist, discovering what’s in front of our very eyes, all over again. “If the world would only sing a bit more and fight a bit less, things might be very different.”

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John Feister is editor in chief of this publication. He has master’s degrees in theology and humanities from Xavier University, Cincinnati.

February 2016 ❘

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The Franciscan Family Who’s Who?

Women, men, married, single—they all seek to live the Gospel under the inspiration of St. Francis of Assisi.

B Y P A T M C C L O S K E Y, O F M

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CNS PHOTO/CAROL GLATZ

F YOU HAVE EVER gone to a large family reunion, you probably needed a little coaching beforehand about how various family members are related to one another.

As the Church concludes its Year of Consecrated Life on February 2, this short chronology describes branches of the Franciscan family.

1182

Francesco Bernardone is born in Assisi to Pietro and Pica.

1206

Conversion of Francis begins; soon other young men follow the Gospel life under his inspiration.

1209

Francis and 11 brothers receive verbal approval from Pope Innocent III for their way of life (start of the First Order).

Francis writes “An Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance.”

This group later becomes a group of laymen and laywomen (married or single) living the Gospel under the inspiration of St. Francis and according to their state of life (start of the Third Order, now known as the Secular Franciscan Order, the largest group within the Franciscan family).

1212

Clare founds a monastery at San Damiano outside Assisi; the nuns live by the work of their hands and donations but, surprisingly, without lands to produce income. A network of monasteries begins (start of the Second Order).

1223

Pope Honorius III formally approves the Rule written by St. Francis, who dies three years later.

1447

Third Order Regular is recognized by Pope Nicholas V as a community of

In April 2009, some 1,800 Friars Minor, Conventuals, Capuchins, and Third Order Regular friars observed the 800th anniversary of the verbal approval of their Rule.

Here they process from St. Mary of the Angels to Francis’ tomb.

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Click here for more on the Franciscan family.

St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

priests and brothers. Active congregations of Franciscan sisters and brothers who teach, nurse, or engage in other ministries belong to this branch of the family.

1517

Within the First Order, the Conventual and Observant friars are legally separated, each with its own general minister (worldwide leader) and general chapter (meeting of provincial ministers and others).

1528

Capuchin friars are formally recognized as the third branch of the First Order— with their own general minister and general chapter.

1500s Franciscans become missionaries outside Europe while remaining very active on that continent.

Blessed Paul VI approves an updated Rule for the Secular Franciscan Order.

1986

St. John Paul II hosts in Assisi a Day of Prayer for World Peace; this event is repeated in 2002 and 2011.

2002

St. John Paul II approves The Rule and Life of the Brothers and Sisters of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis.

2015

The worldwide Franciscan family joins in various initiatives during the Year of Consecrated Life.

In addition to several Lutheran and Episcopalian Franciscan religious and lay communities, many admirers of St. Francis of Assisi are found among Christian groups, other world religions, and agnostics. A Pat McCloskey, OFM, is the Franciscan editor of this publication and the editor of Weekday Homily Helps. His most recent book is Peace and Good: Through the Year with Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media). Between 1986 and 1992, he was the director of communications at the international headquarters of the Order of Friars Minor.

Fr anciscanMedia.org

First Order • Conventuals • Observants • Capuchins

Second Order • Poor Clares

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Third Order • Seculars • Third Order Regular Friars and Sisters PHOTO COURTESY FRANCISCAN MISSION SERVICE

1976

2 CNS PHOTO/ABBIE REESE

CNS PHOTOS: ST.FRANCIS BY OCTAVIO DURAN; ST. CLARE BY MICHAEL ALEXANDER, GEORGIA BULLETIN

1800s Many more congregations of Franciscan sisters and brothers begin, usually for a single apostolic work. In the late 20th century, most of these join the International Franciscan Conference (headquartered in Rome).

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Poor Clare nuns process back to Corpus Christi Monastery in Rockford, Illinois, after a funeral service. St. Colette founded their group in the 15th century.

Franciscan Mission Service in Washington, DC, brought Bryce and Sandra Bradford to teach in Zambia between 2011 and 2012.

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My Clumsy

Confession An awkward encounter leads to a powerful spiritual experience.

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B Y PA U L A R T H U R

ILLUSTRATION BY VINCENT ZAWADA

little coffee spill shouldn’t be a problem for a Franciscan. Their robes are brown anyway. And I’ve seen Franciscans pull things out of hidden pockets, so each one probably holds a stash of napkins at the ready.

Besides, I asked myself, what was the chance of my empty coffee cup having anything to do with a Franciscan prayer circle a floor below?

One Saturday per year, I join 2,000 other enthusiastic “Catholic Men for Christ” to hear nationally renowned speakers in a posh, comfortable opera house. Various vendors of spiritual materials and refreshments are waiting for us during session breaks. During the first break, I finished organizing my sample materials in my free carrying bag, only to notice my $4 cup of coffee on its side, displaying a telltale brown puddle. Casually, I dabbed the spill under my shoe with some of the handouts that didn’t interest me. I was quite relieved to whisk these useful handouts to the trash without anyone noticing, and complimented myself for my ingenuity. Then a couple drops left hiding in my hand cried out, “Surprise!”

Paper handouts are not very absorbent. My clever foot dabbing had simply pushed the edge of the puddle off the balcony onto the main lobby below. Sneaking a peek over the railing, I spied six Franciscans peacefully gathered in prayer. After a deep breath, I mustered the courage for a second look, but none of the friars bothered to look up. Whew, I was glad I didn’t have to go down there!

In Search of Comfort Two hours later, I was in the line for confession.

What a beautiful sight that was! It was a line Fr anciscanMedia.org

snaking throughout the theater, with about 200 men at any time waiting his turn for pardon and peace. Ironically, the speaker during that session was focused on the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He reminded us that only this sacrament, instituted by Christ himself, provides true healing. We may find some solace in human therapies or remedies, but nothing compares to the miracle of divine forgiveness. We are given the invitation not to just recite our sins, but to pour out the darkness of our soul to the merciful God. One particular comment caught me: “In the confessional Jesus himself waits for you.”

Forgiveness is central in Christ’s message.

Matthew (9:13), Mark (2:17), and Luke (5:32) each record Jesus’ unequivocal declaration, “I did not come to call the righteous, but the sinner.” The healing of a paralyzed man recorded by these passages is preceded by Jesus’ comforting assurance, “Your sins are forgiven.”

John’s Gospel includes Christ sending the apostles to spread the good news, and entrusting to them a particular directive. “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them” (Jn 20:23).

Jesus came purposefully for sinners and granted a means of forgiveness. To believe in Jesus includes believing he continuously calls us, and eagerly offers reconciliation for sorrowful admission of sins.

A Bumpy Start “C’mon” and a tap on my shoulder snapped me back to the present. “You’re next, go to 17.”

That day’s confessional was actually a small ballroom. I saw dozens of stations with indiFebruary 2016 ❘

37

Click the button above to hear about the benefits of Reconciliation.

Click here for more on the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

tal Digi as t Ex r

vidual dividers, reminding me of office cubicles. I found “17” on a station and hurried to the divider. With one last nervous exhale, I walked around the divider looking for the kneeler and privacy screen. Instead, I almost landed on the lap of a Franciscan.

“I’m afraid you entered through the exit,” he explained with a grin. “But I guess it doesn’t matter where you start, only where you end up.”

Trying to recover, I eased into the seat opposite the friar. My intention for an anonymous, faceless confession was certainly gone. My composure was so thrown off that my mouth began running by itself. “Uh, do you think Jesus enjoys comedy?” came out before I could stop it.

“Probably,” he sighed. “Look at the funny outfits he put us in.”

I saw before me a man who I seemed to know. His blue eyes were captivating. His perfect auburn beard framed a welcoming smile. His features told me we were about the same age, and his hair was cut like mine. Though we

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had not met before, it seemed so reasonable that we had golfed together, or maybe had partnered on some project together.

An Unexpected Connection I proceeded to my most profound confession ever. Because I started with such embarrassment and surprise, formalities were gone. We engaged in a conversation, a real give-and-take dialogue.

We spoke at length of my spiritual successes and progress, which I found very uplifting. We talked about trends in my life, and how I can build up the good and forgo the bad. I did not just recite my sins, together we examined underlying causes and messages therein. Lastly, we brainstormed and agreed upon my penance.

At the point of absolution, I had some regret that it was over. Certainly this had been an experience of embarrassment, humility, and remorse. But I had a much greater experience of guidance, understanding, acceptance, and, mysteriously, friendship.

I am not a Vatican scholar on the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I am, however, a regular beneficiary of its healing graces. With minimal effort, I have found Reconciliation offered on weekday mornings, daily at noon, various evenings, and Saturday afternoons.

I have even used same-day appointments.

With a little reading, I know that Reconciliation is intended to be accessible, accommodating, and individualized. Substance has precedence over ritual. Because of human frailty and circumstance, Reconciliation can, at times, be unconventional.

Rising to my feet, I needed to acknowledge this man’s kindness and understanding. “Sorry for my rather awkward entrance, Father,” I offered.

“That’s OK,” he replied, with eyes twinkling. “I got your morning coffee instead of you.” A Paul Arthur is a freelance author from Manchester, Missouri. He is currently a member of the 2018 class of his archdiocese’s formation program to become a permanent deacon, and says that he is a frequent recipient of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

EDITORIAL

A Challenge to Catholic Schools Catholic schools are a vital part of the Church’s mission.

This month, Catholic schools across the country will celebrate their unique identity and mission during Catholic Schools Week.

The purpose, according to the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA), is to “focus on the value Catholic education provides to young people and its contributions to our Church, our communities, and our nation.”

Statistics, however, are showing that many families are choosing to send their kids to public schools instead of their local Catholic schools. NCEA’s report “United States Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools 2014-2015: The Annual Statistical Report on Schools, Enrollment, and Staffing” shows that since 2005, elementary school enrollment has declined by 30 percent in the 12 urban dioceses and 20.4 percent in the rest of the United States.

In light of those numbers, here are some challenges facing our Catholic schools.

Price Many parochial high schools now cost per year the same as some public universities.

That’s a hard pill to swallow. This reality was acknowledged in the June 2014 report, “Catholic Schools in the United States in the 21st Century: Importance in Church Life, Challenges, and Opportunities,” by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).

The report noted that “the one factor that dissuades Catholic parents the most from enrolling children in Catholic schools is tuition costs. Whether parents choose to enroll children or not, a majority cite tuition costs as a problem for them.”

Presence Again, the NCEA report recognizes this with the statistic that of the 150,709 teachers in Catholic schools, only 2.8 percent are reliFr ancisca n Media .org

gious or clergy (sisters: 1.9 percent; brothers: 0.4 percent; clergy: 0.5 percent). And while that statistic does not reflect on the quality of education provided, having that presence certainly serves as a reminder of the school’s foundation.

Presence also can refer to Catholic schools in general. In 2014-2015, 27 new schools opened across the country, while 88 consolidated or closed.

Purpose The US bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education states that “our schools serve both the faith community and society by educating children, young people and adults to contribute to the common good by becoming active and caring members of the communities, cities, and nation in which they live.”

In the ever-changing educational environment, continuing “Catholic education to maintain a focus not only on is one of the academics, but also on providmost important ing an atmosphere that promotes service and religious challenges for the formation, must remain a hallChurch.” mark of Catholic education.

—Pope Francis This is especially important since, according to the CARA report, the top reason parents chose to enroll children in Catholic schools is for “quality religious education.”

An Important Ministry There are things that need to be addressed and discussed in regard to the future of Catholic education. There are an equal number of statistics and reports, however, that show Catholic schools are making a difference as far as developing engaged and active members of our Church.

As the CARA report states, “The Catholic Church will be weakened by significant future losses of Catholic schools.”

In light of that benefit to the entire Church, the celebration of Catholic Schools Week is one well worth having. —SHB Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 3 9

RAMADAN

© AJI JAYACHANDRAN/DREAMSTIME

What

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St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

© MERYLL/DREAMSTIME

Taught Me about

LENT An Islamic tradition sheds light on our own season of repentance.

BY JOE MCHUGH

J

OHN DUNNE, longtime theology professor, writer, and campus legend at the University of Notre Dame, wrote often and well about “passing over” to another’s viewpoint, culture, or religion and then “passing back” to one’s own with greater understanding and deeper compassion. It’s an imaginative process that can move a person from hostility to tolerance to respect, and from isolation to community, an experience of intellect and heart Dunne called “the spiritual adventure of our time.”

I’d like to share a personal experience of “passing over” to another religious tradition and “passing back” to my own, enriched yet humbled—a spiritual adventure I trust you’ll find interesting and suggestive of ways Christians and Muslims might better appreciate the shared mystical origin of both religions. Adventures are for adults as well as kids, I’ve learned, and are times for trying on new ways of thinking and living, for testing and learning, for change and growth.

Most Catholics and other Christians who come from liturgical traditions know what Lent is. Quiz them and they’ll likely tell you it’s a once-a-year period of penance when they’re encouraged to give stuff up, pray more, increase their almsgiving, and perform more acts of charity.

Similar, Yet Different Lent has admittedly lost some of its former penitential punch, but, despite changes in external observance, it remains for many a Fr anciscanMedia.org

season for practicing the heartfelt reformation of life that the Gospels call repentance. “To me, it’s when you pray and fast and repent for having taken crooked roads, the ones that take you away from God,” is how my friend Alaa described it.

He’s a Syrian native whose wife comes from Islam’s holy city of Mecca, and he was talking about Ramadan, not Lent. But after we talked about Lent, he admitted the two seasons sounded similar. And they should.

Both are similar, yet distinctive, ways two religions practice our spiritual instinct for remembrance and repentance, abandoning crooked roads in favor of straight ones, and allowing God to touch hard hearts, adventures that always come as God’s gifts.

The call to repentance in Christianity and Islam is due in part to their shared identity as “Abrahamic religions.” Together with Judaism, Christianity and Islam trace their origins to the transformative mystical experience and subsequent religious quest of Abraham, a desert wanderer who appears in Genesis, the Bible’s first book, and in the Koran, Islam’s holy book that Muslims believe God revealed to Mohammed, Islam’s major prophet.

Abraham was a monotheist, a believer in one rather than many gods, a theological perspective that, as tame as it seems today, signaled a revolutionary turn in the history of religions. Not only is Abraham in the Koran, but Jesus and Mary, his mother, are there, too.

Muslims consider Jesus a prophet and also hold Mary in high regard. That’s why most February 2016 ❘

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© PAULUS RUSYANTO/ DREAMSTIME

© LAWCAIN/DREAMSTIME

For Christians, the Bible provides a solid base from which to grow their faith, as does the Koran for Muslims.

Click the button above to listen to a Franciscan sister speak about St. Francis meeting Sultan Malik al Kamil.

Muslims know more about Christianity than Christians know about Islam. On the other hand, few Muslims know about Lent, but most Christians have at least heard of Ramadan.

What most Christians know about Ramadan—that it lasts a month and involves fasting—and about Islam comes from popular media, sources notorious for highlighting conflicts and exaggerating differences between religions rather than pointing out what they have in common or how they might complement each other. My “passing over” helped me see what the two religions have in common, and my “passing back” forced me to confront the deep differences between them.

Although I had flirted with reading the Koran for a long time, it was only in June 2014 that, either by grace or chance, I finally did something about it, by undertaking my adventure of “passing over.” That’s when I saw a notice in a church bulletin about a local mosque that was inviting Christians to join Muslims for iftar, the daily evening meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan. After I read the notice, I was eager not only to read the Koran, but also to observe Ramadan.

Since it started in a week, I quickly bought a copy of the Koran, and read about Islam and Ramadan, mainly to see what it would require of me. I was no religious malcontent shopping for a new religion; I just had a hunch that Ramadan would let me look at repentance with fresh eyes and help me gain a deeper appreciation of the shared spirituality that unites the Abrahamic religions.

Lessons of Ramadan Islam has “five pillars” or core beliefs that function for Muslims the way the Creed—a statement of the “pillars” of Christian belief— 42 ❘

February 2016

does for Christians. Observing Ramadan is one pillar, the others being faith, daily prayer, almsgiving, and pilgrimage. Devout Muslims pray five times each day, a style of prayer similar to the Liturgy of the Hours in the Christian tradition. Another pillar for Muslims is hajj, a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca all Muslims are urged to make.

Muslims fast from food and water from sunrise until sunset during Ramadan, read the entire Koran, and increase their almsgiving— a practice that underscores Islam’s fundamental commitment to social justice, a concern that resonates deeply with the witness of Pope Francis. So when Ramadan started, I also fasted (something that seemed impossible when I thought about it, but proved less ominous when I did it). I gave lots of clothes to charity, attended Friday prayers in a local mosque, read the entire Koran, and joined Muslims for iftar and informal spiritual conversation each week.

I prayed during Ramadan with the first seven verses of the Koran, the Al-Fatiha, a brief poetic summary of Islamic faith. “In the name of God, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,” is how it starts, an invocation that immediately highlights Islam’s belief in one utterly transcendent God, who is revealed to believers most directly in compassion and mercy. Unlike the God of the Bible, the God of the Koran knows nothing of incarnation or trinity. But since the Trinity summarizes Christian belief, many start our prayer, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

The Al-Fatiha then begs God to keep the St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

believer on the “straight” path of fidelity, far from infidelity, idolatry, and self-seeking. Wandering from and looking for the straight road is an image that appears in the sacred texts of all the Abrahamic religions and also serves as a central image of the spiritual discernment required to come to religious maturity.

A Renewed Faith Lent and Ramadan are not only seasons of repentance but are also times of remembrance, something that means more than paying casual attention to past events. Instead, religious memory brings “faithtime” to mind, allowing a believer to enter into the religion’s original formative experiences through the power of the religious imagination and ritual.

Lent’s 40 days remind Christians of the 40 years the Hebrews spent in the desert, and the 40 days Jesus was in the desert being tempted, changed, and prepared for the saving demands of his mission. Observing Lent allows us to enter into these times, making their stories of exploration and discovery our own.

When Muslims observe Ramadan, they remember when God revealed the Koran to Mohammed. In doing so, they don’t just pay lip service to this past event, but they remember how Fr anciscanMedia.org

God continues to reveal words of compassion and mercy to them today.

Ramadan is how Muslims keep repentance alive in fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. They fast to remember and respond to the hungers and thirsts of the less fortunate and of their own hearts, doing so with a repentant spirit, one that leads them back to the straight road and keeps them on their pilgrimage toward God. Ramadan also helped me see how the Abrahamic religions are “religions of the road,” a theological principle— moving toward a destination rather than repeating mythic cycles—that, like monotheism, signaled another revolution in how religions imagine themselves.

As a result, Abrahamic believers see themselves on a pilgrimage in time, moving toward a personal and social end point traditionally described as eschatological, an ultimate drama in which the mysteries of life and death, reward and punishment, fulfillment or destruction, and final consolation or desolation get played out. The choices made “on the road” have eternal individual and communal consequences for believers.

This insight let me see how differently Christians and Muslims imagine the nature of God and God’s relationship to the world and history. As Ramadan ended, I noted in my journal, “In the end, I’m just not otherworldly enough to be a Muslim.” That’s when I began to see how a religion of prophecy like Islam and a religion of incarnation like Christianity are different, yet complementary. This insight signaled the beginning of my “passing back” to my own religious imagination and tradition.

Islam worships one God existing beyond human history, while Christianity worships one God who is also incarnated in human history. For Muslims, this life and human history prepare us for the next life, while Christians, because of incarnation, see the world and history as holy and significant, not just as a testing ground for heavenly bliss.

While Muslims see Mohammed as a human being like everybody else,

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Click here for more on Ramadan and Lent.

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2. The cat is peeking over the counter.

3. Sis is reaching for a cookie.

4. There is another knob on the stove.

5. Something has spilled down the front of the stove.

6. There is an oven mitt on the counter.

7. Pete’s shirt no longer has a collar.

8. The spatula is now under the cookie.

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The choices made “on the road” have eternal individual and communal consequences for believers.

Christians consider Jesus not only a prophet but a divine prophet. In him and in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity of God meets and transcends human experience and history.

Christian theologians describe this back and forth between time and eternity, history and eschatology, as the living tension between the transcendence (beyond human experience) and the immanence (within human experience) of God. Is God involved, removed, or both? Is our religious pilgrimage in this world only toward God, or, as Christians would describe it, is it also through, with, and in the God we see incarnated in Jesus and animated in the Holy Spirit?

Ramadan offered me a deeper appreciation of my belief in God’s activity in creation and evolution, history and eschatology, and incarnation as well as transcendence that led me to conclude that I wasn’t otherworldly enough to ever be Muslim.

I also started to see how Christianity and Islam need each to balance the potentially deadly and exaggerated, hostile and isolating fundamentalist extremes lurking on the peripheries of both religions. Christians need Muslims to remind them of the transcendent dimension of our experience of God, and Christians, because of our belief in incarnation, can help Muslims keep their feet planted firmly on the earth. That way our religions can do

more than compete with each other: they can actually complement and correct each other.

Lesson Learned My adventure of “passing over” and “passing back” happened because of a notice a mosque placed in a Christian church bulletin. I occasionally wonder what could happen if Christian churches took the initiative to invite Muslims to share Lent with them. It could lead to conversation and prayer together, a way of sharing our seasons of repentance. One Catholic community I know of sponsors soup suppers and prayers every Friday evening during Lent; events offered by other Christian communities could provide productive occasions for conversation and prayer.

What my “passing over” to Ramadan and “passing back” taught me, more than anything else, is that while doctrine and ideology often divide, service and shared spirituality are opportunities for a unity that can respect differences without being incapacitated by them—a gift our divided world sorely needs today. A Joe McHugh is a frequent contributor to St. Anthony Messenger, and his book Startled by God: Wisdom from Unexpected Places was published by Franciscan Media. He is a spiritual director and retreat leader based in the Twin Cities and can be reached at jjmch1300@gmail.com.

St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

LIGHTEN UP

“The waiter suggested the soup of the day, the chef’s salad, and the special entrée.

I have no idea what I’m getting!”

“The service was a musical serenade.

All the cell phones had musical ring tones.”

Fr ancisca n Media .org

“In an alphabet of 26 letters, D isn’t that far from the top.”

Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 4 5

The

Fireside Cats Would he come home?

FICTION BY KERRY SLOAN

I

“

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTIANE GRAUERT

WANT YOU TO SUE THEM! How many times do I have to tell you?” Linda shouted into the phone. The man on the other end sounded flustered.

“Well, I’m not sure that we have much of a case. They were all trustees of The Fireside Cats, and they voted you out.”

“I don’t care about any of that!” Linda angrily snapped back.

“They stole all of the cats and the money—there has to be something you can do! What kind of a lawyer are you, anyway?”

“I’ll look into it and see what’s legally possible. How’s that?” he responded.

“I guess it’ll have to be good enough,” she said as she slammed down the phone.

“What a stupid man,” Linda mumbled to herself in frustration.

“Of all the lawyers, I get stuck with this one. . . .” Her voice trailed off as she walked into the kitchen and saw Joe’s note.

Linda wasn’t sure when he had left the note—earlier this morning or late last night—but he was gone! She didn’t understand why he had left; they’d been married for over 30 years!

And he was retired—he’d worked for so long and so hard—why would he want to leave her for another job? He was a scientist—an engineer! Why would he want to drive a truck? It didn’t make any sense, but there it was, written out for her to see.

Joe had left her to be a truck driver, and he couldn’t tell her when he was going to be home or when he’d be able to talk to her. He’d call her when he could—that was it.

What could I possibly have done to make him leave? Linda asked herself. And why did he have to leave me now . . . right at the worst time?

Her world was crumbling around her. She needed him.

L

inda had always been a busy woman. She had more causes, associations, and jobs than she knew what to do with.

Every day was another meeting, another phone call, another project.

Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 4 7

But of all her projects, The Fireside Cats was the most important. Linda had founded the group five years earlier, with a few friends. They were all cat lovers, and they had all been concerned about the plight of stray cats in their neighborhood. Linda had come up with the idea to build kennels in the barn in her backyard to house the cats while proper homes could be found for them. Donations, mostly solicited by Linda, were secured to provide appropriate care for the cats.

Over the years, more and more people had become involved, and the group was thriving. They had become a part of the community, hosting an annual fund-raiser and speaking at local events throughout the year.

Everything seemed to be going quite well—until a few weeks ago. Linda hadn’t always gotten along with all the members of the group. She was ready to take the organization to the next level and expand throughout the state. There was no end to what The Fireside Cats could do! But the other members of the group weren’t so sure.

Those stupid women are too cautious, Linda thought to herself. They have no vision!

The conflict between Linda and the other group members had gotten worse and worse until, suddenly, Linda found she had been voted out of the organization. How was that even possible? I founded The Fireside Cats, Linda angrily thought. The fact was, however, the cats were gone from her barn, and she was locked out of the group’s bank account. It was unjust, she had thought: I’m not going to take this lying down!

But Linda had counted on Joe’s help, and now he was gone, too. She was suddenly angry; Joe couldn’t just leave her like this—with no explanation!

I’ll show him; maybe I don’t need him after all!

F

or a few weeks Linda tried to keep her life the same: the same rounds of meetings, the same projects, the same commitments. In spite of that, she soon felt overwhelmed. Her lawsuit with The Fireside Cats wasn’t going well, her fledgling cat-grooming

4 8 ❘ Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6

business had stalled, the animal-rights convention that she had planned was coming up in a few weeks, and her raw-foods group was expecting a dinner party in a few days. Do I need any more stress?

Linda was confused. She had always handled all of her projects and causes without any problems. Why was it different now? She tried to put Joe out of her thoughts, but she stewed nonetheless. He couldn’t have helped me that much, could he?

T

he next day, Linda called her daughter, Jill, hoping to get some comfort. Jill was in her 30s and lived across the country, in California. They had always been close, but because of the distance and Linda’s schedule, they didn’t get to talk as much as they used to. Linda was sure Jill would be just as shocked as she was about Joe. “Would you believe it? Your father . . . a truck driver! And he just up and left, without a word!”

“Dad didn’t say anything to me about wanting to leave,” replied Jill slowly. “But, honestly, Mom, I’m not surprised. I don’t want this to sound mean, but what does Dad have at home? You’re always busy with something.”

“Just because I have a few projects doesn’t mean I neglect your father,” began Linda self-righteously.

“A few projects!” said Jill. “You’re never home. And when you are, you’re working on one of your causes.”

“That’s not completely true . . . ,” started Linda.

“Yes, it is, Mom,” replied Jill patiently. “Sometimes I think you care more about all of those stray cats than you do about Dad.” Ouch! Linda felt a twinge of guilt.

Perhaps her daughter had a point; she had never really thought about how Joe might feel about all of her projects.

He had never complained—although now that she thought about it, he had suggested a few times that she cut back on some of her activities. He certainly wasn’t happy when she had told him about her plans to sue The Fireside Cats. She did know that. That was right

before he left, she mulled.

Linda tried to put the conversation with Jill out of her head. She had too many other things to think about.

What does Jill know, anyway? She lives all the way out in California.

T

he day after calling her daughter, Linda woke up not feeling well.

She felt like she was coming down with a cold, although she hadn’t been sick in years. Was everything bad going to happen at once? Linda had a great deal of work, but just thinking about it made her feel worse, so she stayed in bed. She would just have to cancel her meetings for that day and try to catch up on things later in the week.

Linda spent the entire day doing nothing; she couldn’t remember the last time she had taken a day off. It was strange how calm and peaceful she felt.

If only Joe had been here to share it with me, she thought regretfully.

The next morning, Linda felt a little better. She was able to get out of bed and walk down to the kitchen to get some breakfast. As she did, she looked around her house, seeing it with new eyes. It was a horrible mess! She had always blamed Joe for all the clutter and disorder, but he hadn’t been home in weeks. It wasn’t him—it was her!

As Linda rummaged through the cabinets to find something to eat, she noticed how cold and empty the kitchen felt. Joe wasn’t much of a talker, but he always sat with her at breakfast. Sometimes he would read her excerpts from the daily newspaper—nothing important, just articles that he found humorous. As he read, he would laugh a soft, gentle chuckle that Linda loved. She missed that.

After several minutes of unsuccessful searching, Linda gave up. She sat down at the table, dejected and lonely. Joe always made her something special for breakfast—coffee, fresh fruit, her favorite granola—each day something a little different to surprise her. Now that he was gone, there was nothing.

What had she been doing all these years? Joe had been providing her with love, care, and companionship. And St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

what have I been giving him? she asked herself. Why have I been filling up my time with all of these trivialities when the most important thing was right there in front of me? Joe! She missed him more than she ever thought possible.

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he next day, Joe called. Linda hadn’t talked to him since he’d left a month ago. She was surprised at how overjoyed she was to hear his voice.

“I know you can’t stay on long,” he began quietly. “You have your animal rights meeting in a few minutes, right?”

“Actually,” she said hesitantly, “I canceled the meeting.”

“Why?” said Joe, shocked. “Is everything OK?” “Everything’s fine,” she answered.

“I just didn’t feel like having the meeting.

“In fact,” she said after a brief pause, “I’ve canceled most of my meetings this week. And I dropped my lawsuit against The Fireside Cats. They can have the group. I’m done with it.”

“Oh,” said Joe after a lengthy pause.

“Anyway,” began Linda nervously, “I was wondering if you’d be able to stop at home on your next trip through. Maybe we could go out to dinner somewhere.”

“I’m not sure . . . ,” began Joe. “Maybe your favorite Chinese place?” she offered.

“But I thought you couldn’t eat there anymore . . . nothing raw on the menu.”

“I ate a hot dog the other day,” Linda blurted out, almost guiltily. “I just felt like having one. Things have changed a bit since you’ve been gone.”

There was another lingering pause.

“Maybe I would be able to squeeze in a short visit,” he finally answered.

Linda breathed a long sigh of relief.

There was still hope. She hadn’t lost him.

“I would love that,” she said. A Kerry Sloan is a freelance author from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her fiction story The Statue won first place for best short story in the Catholic Press Association’s 2014 competition.

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Rocky Mountains & Western Frontiers 14 days from $1,824* Immerse yourself in America’s Western Frontier as you follow in the footsteps of Lewis & Clark, Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull & General Custer. As you visit National Parks like Yellowstone and National Monuments like Mt. Rushmore and Little Big Horn, you’ll be surrounded by the towering mountains and natural wonders that formed the backdrop for the characters and events that defined the West. Your Chaplain is Father Frank Wittouck, SCJ, from Houston, Texas. He retired as an Army Chaplain in 2010 yet currently ministers for Magnificat House and in the Cypress Assistance Ministries. This will be his 10th trip with YMT. Departs August 31, 2016

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Your YMT Chaplain, Fr. Pat McCloskey, O.F.M. was ordained in 1975 and he has spent most of those years as a high school teacher or as a writer. He is Franciscan Editor of St. Anthony Messenger. This will be Fr. Pat’s 8th tour as YMT chaplain.

Departs September 13, 2016 *Prices are per person, double occupancy and do not include taxes & government fees which range from $159 to $299 depending on trip.

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Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 4 9

ASK A FRANCISCAN

❘ BY FATHER PAT McCLOSKEY, OFM

Did God Rejoice after Creating People?

The creation story in the Book of Genesis states that after he created the sun and the moon, God saw that these were good. However, Scripture does not say the same thing after the creation of humans. Why is this?

What does the Catholic Church teach about this?

In fact, the Book of Genesis contains two creation accounts. The one you mentioned (1:1—2:4a) is called the Priestly account, emphasizing God’s work for six days and then God resting on the seventh day (the sabbath).

You are correct that God affirms the goodness of creation. God created humans on the sixth day; that account ends, “God looked at everything he had made, and he found it

very good. Evening came, and morning followed—the sixth day.” The previous day’s work had been described as “good” in 1:4, and in verses 10, 18, 21, and 25.

The expression “very good” occurs only after the sixth day, presumably summarizing all six days of work (Gn 1:31).

The Yahwist account (2:4b-25) is short on details about God’s creation of trees, rocks, etc., but it expands greatly on the creation of the first man and the first woman. The Yahwist account might be 400 years older than the Priestly account, but it was placed second because the Priestly version presents a more sweeping picture of creation; we proclaim that account at the Easter Vigil.

The final editor of the Book of

Should I Attend?

PHOTO FROM INGIMAGE

My granddaughter, a Catholic, is getting married in March, but in the hall where their reception will be held. A friend who is licensed to witness marriages will officiate.

I want to attend this wedding, but I don’t condone the way she is getting married. If I attend, am I doing anything against the Catholic Church’s teachings?

I suggest that you attend and then do your best in the future to support your granddaughter’s growth in her Catholic faith.

Your full letter (abbreviated here) suggests that she already knows your feelings about where this wedding will be celebrated and your disappointment about the lack of an official witness on the part of the Catholic Church. I think you should assume that her fiancé totally supports these decisions.

If you decide not to attend, you may completely forfeit or greatly limit any influence you could have on your granddaughter’s future growth as a member of the Catholic Church.

5 0 ❘ Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6

Genesis came from the Priestly tradition; the two creation accounts probably reached the form in which we know them during the Babylonian Exile, when Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed and the sacrifices prescribed in the Torah were suspended. Under those conditions, observing the Sabbath rest became more urgent as an expression of Jewish identity.

Both creation accounts are inspired; the Priestly editor respected the Yahwist account too much not to include it in the Book of Genesis.

This tells us something very important about God’s self-revelation: God can live with a both/and world much more easily than we can.

We often think that something is real only if we can reduce it to an either/or category—for example, the light is on, or the light is off. Fundamentalism (Jewish, Christian, or Islamic) thrives on such rigid thinking, which requires no faith community to help understand a text.

Although the Catholic Church prefers the both/and approach, it is quite ready to use either/or language in certain situations: Jesus is either divine, or he is not. The Catholic Church and mainline Christians are unequivocal that Jesus is indeed divine. They also believe that Jesus is fully divine and fully human. In various ways, Christians who see everything through an either/or lens have denied all both/and affirmations.

God’s self-revelation uses a great variety of writing styles. We dare not deny God that freedom of self-communication.

All the best as you grow in appreciating the precious treasure we have in the Scriptures and in the faithfilled people who help us interpret them.

St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

Non-Catholic Devotionals I read beautiful, inspiring daily messages in a book by a non-Catholic author. I feel close to Jesus when I read these uplifting, loving messages of guidance, peace, love, and stewardship. Is what I am doing correct?

This book may be helping to make you a better Catholic if it motivates you to participate more actively in Sunday Mass and to live out your faith by cooperating more generously with God’s grace. That grace will always stretch us beyond our comfort zone and lead us to see unity where we are tempted to see only diversity.

Many Catholic companies (including Franciscan Media) publish devotional books to help readers to grow in faith, hope, and love.

Grieving Family Members For six years, I was the sole caregiver of my mom and my aunt. They died eight weeks apart in the spring of 2014. I miss them so much; they were my best friends, and we did everything together.

I still grieve their deaths, especially during the holidays. I cry often, but I offer all my loneliness, sadness, and Masses for the holy souls in purgatory. When will my pain and loneliness ease? I am very active in my local parish.

You obviously loved them very much. I wish that I could give you a date when your pain and loneliness will ease. Grief, however, does not respect calendars.

Do you remember how your mother and aunt dealt with the deaths of their parents or other relatives? Did their grief cripple them emotionally? Did it gradually become less evident?

If either your mom or your aunt could speak to you now about your grief, what do you think they would say? Would they encourage your Fr ancisca n Media .org

present way of dealing with this loss?

Might they suggest another way?

There is a great deal of pain and suffering in the world. Grieving people sometimes practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy with a new dedication. This will not bring back your mom and aunt, but this option may honor them more than your current expressions of grief do.

When they were in good health, was there some type of community service in which they were especially involved? Could you continue their work or address a more recent or more urgent community need?

Does your parish have a bereavement committee? If so, perhaps you could offer short-term support and longer-term help to others who have lost loved ones. The current Holy Year of Mercy may be the perfect time to help bury the dead and console the sorrowing.

Mary and Jesus grieved the death of St. Joseph, but in life-giving ways.

May they guide you in your grief and in your service to others. A

Click the button above to hear Father Pat’s insights on Catholic topics.

Father Pat welcomes your questions!

Send them to: Ask a Franciscan, 28 W. Liberty Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202-6498, or Ask@FranciscanMedia.org. All questions sent by mail need to include a selfaddressed stamped envelope. This column’s answers can be searched back to April 1996 at StAnthonyMessenger.org.

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Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 5 1

BOOK CORNER

❘ BY CAROL ANN MORROW

The Soul of a Pilgrim Eight Practices for the Journey Within

By Christine Valters Paintner Sorin Books 160 pages • $15.95 Paperback/E-book Reviewed by MITCH FINLEY, author of more than 30 books on Catholic themes, including the bestselling The Rosary Handbook: A Guide for Newcomers, Old-Timers, and Those In Between (The Word Among Us Press) and The Gospel Truth: Living for Real in an Unreal World (Wipf & Stock).

An inner pilgrimage is the invitation and aim of this book, says its author. Guidance for this inner pilgrimage will come from “cre-

WHAT I’M READING ■ An

Unfinished Council: Vatican II, Pope Francis, and the Renewal of Catholicism,

by Richard R. Gaillardetz

■ Making

All Things New: Catholicity, Cosmology, Consciousness, by Ilia Delio

■ Catholic

Women Speak, edited by the Catholic Women Speak

Network ■ The

Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully, by Joan Chittister

■ The

Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, by Daniel James Brown

Dr. Brennan R. Hill is professor emeritus at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. His most recent books are World Religions and Contemporary Issues and The Jesus Dialogues.

5 2 ❘ Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6

ative expression” and “contemplation,” she says. “Our focus will be on the expressive arts where we engage the process over the product and our creativity helps to illumine our inner landscape,” she explains further.

Sentences like that last one may leave the reader longing for the simplicity of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Still, the idea of an inner spiritual pilgrimage is far from new and definitely deserves our attention. This book presents eight spiritual practices to nourish the experience of pilgrimage in one’s daily life.

Chapter 1 introduces the idea of a “call” that may beckon us to an inner pilgrimage, a call that comes from ordinary life experiences, either pleasant or unpleasant. Chapter 2 considers what one does and does not need to bring on such a pilgrimage, with the emphasis on simplicity. The focus is not so much on material possessions as on ideas, attitudes, values, and beliefs that may become obstacles to spiritual growth if we cling to them. Chapter 3 invites the reader to ponder thresholds or borders that may need to be crossed in order to nourish a deeper intimacy with God. Again, these borders are more likely to be spiritual, intellectual, or emotional, rather than physical.

The next chapter suggests that readers abandon plans, maps, and guides in favor of trusting the journey itself where meaning comes from faith in the Spirit. Chapter 5 invites the pilgrim to welcome being uncomfortable as a condition that allows the new and the unexpected to nourish the heart. Following this invitation, the next chapter recommends always thinking of oneself as a beginner in the spiritual life.

In chapter 7, the author encourages readers to be more than uncomfortable, endorsing the value of openness to the absolute mystery that underlies all of existence and all of creation. In the final chapter, Paintner teaches that pilgrimage leads us back home, to where we started, yet changed and inspired by all the experiences the pilgrimage led us through.

The Soul of a Pilgrim will benefit anyone who enjoys nourishing his or her spirituality with exercises of imagination and creativity.

St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

BOOK BRIEFS

Starting Lent with Prayer Soul of Christ Meditations on a Timeless Prayer

By Marie Paul Curley, FSP Pauline Books and Media 176 pages • $12.95 Paperback/Kindle

The Abbey A Story of Discovery

By James Martin, SJ Harper One 224 pages • $24.99 Hardcover/E-book Reviewed by JAMES A. PERCOCO, the teacher-inresidence for both the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership and the Civil War Trust. He is a member of the National Teachers Hall of Fame.

Best known for his nonfiction narratives about the Catholic faith, James Martin, SJ, has successfully turned novelist with the publication of The Abbey: A Story of Discovery, his first work of fiction. What is clear after finishing The Abbey, which this reviewer devoured in one sitting, is just how much Martin truly believes in the often repeated mantra of his nonfiction works, “With God all things are possible.”

In reading The Abbey, you will encounter four central characters who represent the range of the human condition complete with all its folly and virtue. Anne is a divorced single mother who lost her only child and remains angry at God. The other characters are Mark, the abbey’s handyman who, somewhere along his life, got sidetracked from his dream of becoming an architect; Father Paul, who offers his spiritual counsel to Anne and Mark, yet also struggles with the life of being a longtime celibate; and Father Edward, an aging monk who is wise, gentle, and merciful.

At the heart of this splendid novel is the sense of God’s grace and how it moves through people, no matter their station in life or their circumstances. Martin’s God remains loyal and faithful to his flock and is active in daily life. It’s nice to finish a work of fiction where everyone is redeemed and where the agent is, in fact, our Redeemer.

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The Anima Christi, or “Soul of Christ,” prayer has been popular with Catholics since the early 14th century. In each chapter of her book, Sister Marie Paul Curley, FSP, breaks the prayer down line by line, revealing both its depth and its challenges for Catholics today.

Like the First Morning The Morning Offering as a Daily Renewal

By Michael J. Ortiz Ave Maria Press 192 pages • $15.95 Paperback/E-book Each of the 14 short chapters of Like the First Morning, help to bring a fresh approach to the Morning Offering, with wisdom and inspiration drawn from philosophers, saints, and many more along the way.

Praying the Rosary A Journey through Scripture and Art

By Denis McBride Liguori Publications 136 pages • $19.99 Paperback Beautiful images of artwork combine nicely with Scripture passages, meditations, prayers, and reflections that guide readers through the four sets of the rosary’s mysteries. As the author states, “Meditating on the rosary, we are invited to look and listen; then look again.”

—D.I.

Books featured in Book Corner and Book Briefs can be ordered from

St. Mary’s Bookstore & Church Supply 1909 West End Avenue • Nashville, TN 37203 • 800-233-3604 www.stmarysbookstore.com • stmarysbookstore@gmail.com Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 5 3

A CATHOLIC MOM SPEAKS

❘ BY SUSAN HINES-BRIGGER

Standing Up to Violence

A

few weeks ago, my daughter Kacey came home from school and told me that her class had practiced a lockdown drill in the event of a shooting in the school. She’s 5. She should be worrying about making friends and playing games—not where to hide if someone storms the school with the intent to kill.

Unfortunately, though, those drills are now necessary. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and many more have made that a reality. All the students affected by those incidents went to school expecting it to be a normal day. As a mom, that terrifies me every time I drop my kids off at the school door. And it’s not just schools where this is happening.

Remember the shooting at the church in Charleston, South Carolina? What about the recent shooting during a Christmas party in San 5 4 ❘ Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6

Bernardino? Sadly, I could go on with more examples. These are just ones that caught national attention.

I know that immediately following all of these shootings, discussions and emotions run high. It’s about gun control, some argue. It’s about mental-health issues, others say.

Well, yes, those are both parts of the puzzle. But that’s a discussion for another day.

This column is not about those issues. No, this column is about a mom who is scared and sad that my daughter has to learn how to hide in the back of the room and be very quiet. It’s about a mom who got a phone call telling her that her daughter’s high school was on lockdown because there was an active shooter incident at a home just outside the school. It’s about a mom who desperately wants to change things, but doesn’t know how.

Not OK It’s a fact. There is no escaping the presence of violence in our lives.

From the 24-hour news cycle to video games, to movies and TV, we are inundated by it. Not long ago, I became the meanest mom ever when I told my son no to a certain video game that I felt was too violent.

“Everyone else is allowed,” I hear when my daughter asks permission to see the latest shoot-’em-up film. It often feels like a never-ending battle.

Yet we continue to scratch our heads when deadly acts of violence show up on our newsfeed. Perhaps we have gotten to a point where we are numb to it. How else can it be explained that people actually watched the videos of beheadings carried out by ISIS? Perhaps it’s time to take a look inward.

There certainly are organizations that work to help change our culture St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARY KURNICK MAASS

PRAY FOR PEACE While he didn’t actually compose it, St. Francis’ Peace Prayer has certainly served as a road map for countering violence. The next time you and your family sit down to dinner, recite the prayer—slowly— and use it as a starting point for a discussion about violence and how we can do our part to counter it.

I have found that such prompts can lead to interesting discussions about things that don’t often come up in everyday conversations.

of violence. A good foundation is the US bishops’ document “Confronting a Culture of Violence: A Catholic Framework for Action.” Another organization that addresses the topic of violence is Sandy Hook Promise (SandyHookPromise.org), which was formed by two parents of kids killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Their website contains a video, Monsters Under the Bed, that speaks to the challenges parents face in dealing with the issue of gun violence and how to protect their children.

What to Do? I have to admit that I feel at a complete loss when it comes to finding answers to the violence surrounding us. I feel as overwhelmed and confused as everyone else. I’m not in a position of authority where I can

LORD, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

change laws or institute policies. But I also don’t want to sit idly by and watch the next act of violence scroll across the bottom of my TV screen.

So what do I do? I certainly will help and support programs working toward finding answers to violence.

And I will also do something else.

I’ll pray.

Sure, it may not seem like much, but it’s a start. After all, haven’t there been a lot of great things that have come from the actions of one person who then touches the heart of another person?

I will follow in the footsteps of St. Francis and pray for peace. I will pray for my children’s safety. I will pray for compassion, understanding, and tolerance. But, most of all, I will pray that other kids Kacey’s age won’t have to practice hiding in the back of the classroom. A

tal Digi as Extr

Click here for resources related to the issue of violence. Click the button below to listen to Susan’s “Marriage Moments.”

Do you have comments or suggestions for topics you’d like to see addressed in this column? Send them to me at “A Catholic Mom Speaks,” 28 W. Liberty St., Cincinnati, OH 45202-6498, or e-mail them to CatholicMom@FranciscanMedia.org.

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

So look and see if you can name ILLUSTRATION BY TOM GREENE

Eight ways in which they’re not the same.

(Answers on page 44)

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Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 ❘ 5 5

BACKSTORY

Building Catholic Media

F

ebruary is Catholic Press Month. We’re a key part of the Catholic media in North America, and proud of it. One way we keep ourselves up to date in our field is through the Catholic Press Association of

the United States and Canada, the CPA, founded in Pittsburgh over 100 years ago. Today, there are about 760 members from Catholic newspapers,

PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER HEFFRON

magazines, and other organizations across the continent. St. Anthony Messenger has played a lead role in the CPA almost since the beginning.

The association is officially affiliated with Pope Francis’ communications office, and is thus tied to other Catholic media efforts worldwide.

You’re part of something bigger as you read this magazine!

For many years in New York, the association now is based in Chicago. It helps publications keep an eye on best business practices, nurtures our spirituality, and provides a place for us editors and the rest of our team to learn from each other. We meet once a year, somewhere in the United States or Canada, for a few days of prayer, fellowship, and training, side by side with our colleagues in Catholic video and radio. Last June we met in Buffalo; this June it’s St. Louis, then Quebec in 2017.

What’s going on in Church, culture, and media?

We share from our own local or national viewpoints, attend workshops and panels, listen to speakers from the US bishops’ and Vatican communications offices.

CNS PHOTO/CHAZ MUTH

Peter Finney Jr., editor of New Orleans’ Clarion Herald and a contributor to this magazine, received a lifetime achievement award from the CPA. The award is named for St. Francis de Sales, patron of Catholic jounalists.

One highlight of the convention is the Catholic Press Awards. During January, the St. Anthony Messenger editors scrutinized last year’s magazine content.

Did we do what we set out to do? What among our work will stand out compared to other Catholic media? We chose about 30 entries; editorial assistant Sharon Lape put it all together for submission.

Over the years, various people from here have served as leaders of the association—the late Father Peter helped grow the association; retired Father Jeremy and Barbara Beckwith were presidents; Tom, Father Pat, and I all have served on the board of directors at different times.

All of that is just one more piece of what makes this place tick. We strive for excellence! The CPA helps us to achieve that.

Editor in Chief @jfeister

5 6 ❘ Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6

St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

A L I TA N Y O F H E A R T S

B Y J O Y C E R U P P, O S M

Let us pray this Valentine’s Day that

Beloved Presence, you gather

broken hearts be mended

all these hearts into your one great

young hearts stay wonder-filled

love. Thank you for reaching our

old hearts discover their wisdom

heart through the hearts of others.

embittered hearts let go of hurt

Remind us often that the love of

compassionate hearts find strength

each heart reflects your own. Keep

big hearts know their wealth

us aware of your dwelling within us

betrayed hearts recover trust

when we hestitate or halt in our

soft hearts not be wounded

ability to share our love with

hardened hearts begin to soften

another. Amen.

Joyce Rupp, OSM, is a well-known author and speaker. She is a member of the Servites (Servants of Mary) community and was a volunteer for Hospice for 15 years.

tender hearts be careful happy hearts announce their joy courageous hearts keep risking passionate hearts tend the flames arrogant hearts learn humility sympathetic hearts benefit others determined hearts lessen their grip lost hearts find their way home loving hearts reach out to others generous hearts receive in return fearful hearts turn toward trust empty hearts befriend loneliness tepid hearts stretch into action faithful hearts remain steadfast

Fr anciscanMedia.org

PHOTO © ROYCE DEGRIE/ISTOCKPHOTO; BACKGROUND PHOTO © EVGENIYA UVAROVA/INGIMAGE

February 2016 ❘

57

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