May 2014

POPE FRANCIS’ JOY OF THE GOSPEL

ST. ANTHONY MAY 2014 • $3.95 • FRANCISCANMEDIA.ORG

Messenger

Richard Rohr on Praying like St. Francis The Rosary’s Mysteries of Light You Visited Me St. Rita, Peacemaker

Separated by Prison, United by Love

REFLECTION

The

beautiful spring came; —Harriet Ann Jacobs

© VLADITTO/ISTOCK

and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.

CONTENTS

ST. ANTHONY

❘ MAY 2014 ❘ VOLUME 121/NUMBER 12

Messenger ON THE COVER

COVER STORY

The reunion of mother and child is a moment of peace, joy, bonding—and hope that, one day, everything will be all right.

It’s Mother’s Day at California’s Valley State Prison.

28 Separated by Prison, United by Love This California program helps parishes reconnect children with their inmate parents.

Text by John Feister, photos by Theresa Lynch, CSJ

Photo by Theresa Lynch, CSJ

F E AT U R E S

16

16 Richard Rohr on Praying like St. Francis

2 Dear Reader 3 From Our Readers

Franciscans open new ways of imagining God and praying.

By Mark Lombard

6 Followers of St. Francis Maria Meyer

8 Reel Time

24 Life Lessons from the Mysteries of Light When St. John Paul II introduced these rosary mysteries, this author found a new way to pray through Ordinary Time.

By Patricia Robertson

Heaven Is for Real

10 Channel Surfing Resurrection

34

Live Organically

She shows what the Lord accomplishes when he finds humble hearts open to his love.

By Rita Piro

49 Editorial They Just Couldn’t Resist

50 Ask a Franciscan

40 The Joy of the Gospel

Only Christians in Heaven?

By Pope Francis

Spending time with her husband’s Italian grandmother wasn’t a chore. Their hours together were grace-filled.

By Nancy Grilli

12 Church in the News 22 Live Well

34 St. Rita, Peacemaker

44 You Visited Me

D E PA R T M E N T S

52 Book Corner

40

Just Married

54 A Catholic Mom Speaks Let There Be Peace—in My House

56 Backstory 57 At Home on Earth Saved by Beauty

ST. ANTHONY M

DEAR READER

essenger

Bethlehem: Jesus’ Birthplace

Publisher/CEO Daniel Kroger, OFM

On May 25, Pope Francis will visit here, one of the world’s most visited Christian shrines. The Friars Minor have been here since 1347. The current basilica incorporates a 12th-century church built over a fourth-century basilica constructed over an even earlier shrine. Sharing the use of this basilica with Greek Orthodox and Armenian monks, the friars also staff the adjacent St. Catherine of Alexandria Church, the city’s Latin-rite parish.

Visit Bethlehem.custodia.org for a virtual tour. Or read our August 2002 cover story about the basilica at StAnthonyMessenger.org.

In addition to sponsoring the Terra Sancta Boys’ College and Casa Nova (a guesthouse for pilgrims), the friars also minister at nearby Shepherds’ Field and the Milk Grotto. The “sanctuaries” link at custodia.org gives more information.

In the Basilica of the Nativity, an Italian company is replacing the wooden beams and lead roof that date to 1479. The company is also replacing 38 windows. More renovations will be done as money becomes available. Bethlehem lies within the territory of the Palestinian Authority.

Pope Paul VI visited here in 1964; St. John Paul II did the same in 2000.

May the Prince of Peace help all of us to be peacemakers!

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

Editorial Assistant Sharon Lape

Director of Marketing, Sales, and Internet Barbara K. Baker

Advertising Fred Limke

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ST. ANTHONY MESSENGER (ISSN #0036276X) (U.S.P.S. PUBLICATION #007956 CANADA PUBLICATION #PM40036350) Volume 121, Number 12, is published monthly for $39.00 a year by the Franciscan Friars of St. John the Baptist Province, 28 W. Liberty Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-6498.

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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

March Issue Charms Reader I could not believe all the articles that I could relate to in the March issue of St. Anthony Messenger, especially Martin Sheen’s “My Return to Faith.” My husband and I were in Paris in March 2012 and attended Mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, as our hotel was within walking distance and the Mass was in English.

After Mass, we met Father Francis Finnigan, CP, and he told us that he was originally from our diocese in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

I also had an interest in Judy Ball’s article, “We Haven’t Forgotten You.” Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was a priest at our parish, St. Rose Lima, in Oxford, New Jersey, for a short time in the 1980s. We also met him coming out of Newark International Airport in 2001. He was coming back from Rome and we were coming

home from Ireland. We walked with him and told him how we knew him from many years ago. McCarrick gave us a blessing before he left. I wish him all the best.

The third article from that issue I found interesting was Julie Basque’s “The Long Good-bye.” I, too, have a mother with dementia. She turned 103 on March 12. She has been doing well, but since she had to go to a nursing home last October, her condition has deteriorated.

I can certainly relate to Julie’s article because sometimes it is very hard to see your parent having to face this condition. When I visit my mother, sometimes I wonder if she even knows me. Julie’s mother has great faith, and the article gave me hope.

Valerie J. Smith Elkland, Pennsylvania

A Poor Example

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I enjoyed reading the March issue of St. Anthony Messenger, but I was so disappointed while reading David Reeves’ article, “The Life of a Modern Hermit.” Marsha Muzzarelli is a “hermit” who seems to be living in luxury with her own chapel and a confessor to meet her selfish needs.

She has changed the whole meaning of the word hermit.

Muzzarelli states: “I had been carrying a lot of anger and resentment from past relationships around, and I was blocking my prayer life.” How sad. And she goes on to say, “Sometimes the load becomes very heavy” for her. I know many people in my life who carry much heavier loads in their lives. Perhaps a good read for her would be another article in that same issue, Lawrence S. Cunningham’s “The Seven Deadly Sins.”

I wonder how many other readers feel the sadness I do over this article in an otherwise wonderful magazine.

Delores A. Osterbrink Wausau, Wisconsin

Vanity Is a Sin Just as I cringe when I see priests and religious sisters with dyed hair, so did I cringe when I saw the pictures of the lovely Marsha Muzzarelli with, as the author described, “her short, stylish brunette hair” that “is tinted with red, framing a pretty, oval face.”

I feel sad for people in these holy vocations because vanity is so difficult to conquer.

Kathleen K. Frampton Columbia, Maryland

Carried by Faith Having recently lost my husband, Bob, after a 15-year battle with dementia, Julie Basque’s article, “The Long Good-bye,” had particular meaning for me. In the article, Basque states that “with dementia, that world develops a thin crack— which slowly widens over time.”

And I felt that I had lost a piece of my husband a little at a time over those 15 years.

When Basque asked her father what helps him in his role as caretaker, his response, “It helps me when I see people whom she loves loving her,” struck a chord with me, for my church community blessed me over and over again by loving Bob and always treating him with respect.

Our faith is what carried us through those years. I never doubted that Our Lord was walking with us, and that he is still with me now.

Thank you for publishing this article.

Susan Julian Jamestown, California

Movie Suggestion In Christopher Heffron’s March article, “Son of God Hits the Silver Screen,” I’d like to add a film to his sidebar “Jesus on Film”: MGM’s King of Kings starring Jeffrey Hunter, Siobhan McKenna, and Robert Ryan, from 1961. It is the retelling of the M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 3

life of Christ—from birth to death to resurrection. The musical score was by the composer Miklós Rózsa.

I went to see it with my parents and grandparents at the local movie theater. It always was my favorite. It might be good to go back and visit this movie for its sheer elegance and style.

Gregory M. Rolla Oak Lawn, Illinois

Sheen Deserved Better

Not ‘Pompous’

In Defense of the Unborn

Estefania Update Last month’s story of Boston Marathon bombing survivor Karen Rand’s attempt to bring Estefania Salinas to the US for a prosthetic has a happy development.

Estefania arrived in Boston in late February (after our April edition had

Estefania Salinas takes her first steps with her new prosthetic leg at Next Step Bionics and Prosthetics in Newton, Massachusetts.

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I have a comment on Marilyn Arado’s letter about the little white crosses that are displayed on parish 4 ❘ May 2014

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

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In the March issue, a letter from Marilyn Arado stated that people who put the little white crosses on parish grounds were being self-righteous. As she further stated, each cross displayed represents a murdered child. The large number of these crosses illustrates the total number of children killed by abortion in the United States in just one day. This point is usually shown on a sign accompanying these crosses.

Hopefully, parishioners will pause and reflect upon this terrible tragedy.

This should result in their taking some action and praying to prevent its continuance. Parishioners installing these crosses are not condemning any one individual for having an abortion. Therefore, these crosses should not be considered “self-righteous” or “pompous.”

Alvin J. Kammer Cincinnati, Ohio

gone to press), received her prosthesis, and is learning how to use it. –Ed.

PHOTO BY DONIS I. TRACY

I was disappointed by the priest’s answer to Martin Sheen as it was described in his article, “My Return to Faith.” St. Padre Pio would have invited Mr. Sheen in immediately to hear his confession. What if he had died on the way back to his hotel?

I would like to tell the priest if there’s a knock at the church door to put his lunch down and tend to his sheep.

Lydia Molina St. Louis, Missouri

grounds as being “self-righteous.”

Ms. Arado refers to how, in the Gospel of John, people wanted to throw stones at the woman who committed a sin.

The white crosses that we see on the grounds represent the unborn children—not their mothers. If these parishes had the mothers who had aborted their babies stand on the parish grounds and had people throw stones at them, then Ms. Arado would be correct! These white crosses, however, apply to the babies who were aborted.

Betty Chamberlain Wichita, Kansas

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

The Joys of Seeing Faith in Action

M Maria Meyer

aria Meyer loves working for the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor (SFP) in Cincinnati, Ohio.

“I am inspired by their compassion and commitment to social justice,” she says.

The Franciscan Sisters of the Poor are an international multicultural religious congregation founded in 1845 by Blessed Frances Schervier in Aachen, Germany. The order ministers in Brazil, Italy, Senegal, the Philippines, and the United States.

According to the congregation’s website, the sisters “are a Congregation committed to healing—spiritually, personally, and socially.”

One of the sisters’ ministries is the Centennial Barn in Cincinnati. Originally conceived as a meeting place for young adults, the Centennial Barn is a community gathering place on the grounds of St. Clare Convent. The Barn provides meeting space for nonprofit groups who also serve the community.

Meyer serves as the director of spiritual programs at the Centennial Barn. She coordinates the programs at the Barn, as well as leads and facilitates some of the ministry’s

other programs such as Sacred Conversations, women’s spirituality groups, dialogues, and mini-retreats. Meyer also serves as the liaison with young adults, which includes serving as the chair for the local Theology on Tap, an outreach program for young adults.

This past March, Meyer and five others got a chance to see some of the other ministries of the sisters when they took part in a 10-day immersion trip to Dakar, Koungheul, and Lounga, Senegal. While there, Meyer says the group “met a lot of amazing people,” in addition to visiting with women who were discerning a religious vocation, and who were in formation to join the community.

“We also visited the different education centers that are run by the sisters—one which taught sewing and language skills to women. In Dakar, we had a chance to see the cathedral, the African Renaissance Monument, and the island of Goree,” she says.

“In Koungheul, we visited some of the many schools, both kindergartens and elementary schools, and the clinics that are run by the sisters.”

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

I had a very special rosary blessed by Pope John Paul II. Somehow it got misplaced and both my wife and I scoured the house several times looking for it. A friend told me of the prayer, “Tony, Tony, look around . . .” but I thought that wasn’t very respectful—to speak of a great saint so familiarly. But I was desperate and used that prayer—prefaced by apologies. That evening, I saw that special rosary on my bedside table—where I had looked many times before. I figured my wife had placed it there and asked her where she had found it, but she said she hadn’t had a thing to do with finding the rosary.

St. Anthony must have done it. I now know he’s willing to be addressed as “Tony.”

—Randy Albright, Nashville, Tennessee

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

© VITALY MAKSIMCHUK/FOTOLIA

6 ❘ May 2014

Friendly Nickname Worked

ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

Family Opposition

CNS PHOTO/OCTAVIO DURAN

Meyer says that “poverty is prevalent in Senegal, but so is the spirit of abundance.

We were told that many people live on a dollar a day or less, but the spirit of the people was inspiring to me. There is an African proverb that says, ‘However little food we have, we’ll share it, even if it is only one locust.’”

For Maria Meyer, it is that message of compassion and charity in which she finds the true spirit of St. Francis.

—Susan Hines-Brigger

Clare came from a family of knights who expected her to marry well and increase the family’s wealth. When she left in the middle of the night to become a nun, they attempted to force her to return home but failed. They did the same when her sister Catherine (later known as Agnes) joined her. Clare’s widowed mother, Ortulana, eventually joined her monastery at San Damiano.

What Clare’s family members regarded as economic instability in her life she saw as guaranteeing a more Gospel-based style of life. –P.M. To learn more about Franciscan saints, visit AmericanCatholic.org/Features/Saintofday.

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

M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 7

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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

Noah

CNS PHOTO/PARAMOUNT

New to DVD The Wolf of Wall Street Walking with Dinosaurs American Hustle Saving Mr. Banks Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

8 ❘ M ay 2 0 1 4

Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly play husband and wife in the controversial film Noah.

A film that has garnered a great deal of attention and controversy for its blend of biblical scholarship and creative storytelling, Noah starts off with our hero witnessing the murder of his father. The world is desolate with murderous hordes roaming the land seeking food. Later, Noah (Russell Crowe) marries Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) and has two sons, Shem (Douglas Booth) and Ham (Logan Lerman). The youngest son, Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll), is born later. Noah, a good man, tells his sons the story of creation and their place in the world which the Creator has given them.

Noah begins to have dark dreams and believes that the Creator is telling him to prepare for a flood that will destroy a world that has gone wicked. He travels with Shem to see his grandfather, Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins), to try to understand what he is to do.

As it becomes clear that Noah is to build an ark to save innocent animals, Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone), the king of a large horde of people, shows great arrogance and violence

in trying to take over the ark. The Watchers, which the Bible calls “Nephilim,” assist Noah in building the ark. After several years, the rain begins.

Director Darren Aronofsky has done his homework on the biblical tale of Noah and uses storytelling devices used in the Torah— such as repetition—to bring a story full circle. For example, Noah recounts the creation story, beginning with the temptation of Adam and Eve, several times. The film is consistent—as far as I could tell after a single viewing—with Catholic, biblical theology.

Aronofsky breaks open the story of Noah and fills it with his religious imagination.

The result is a dark, human story and follows the protagonist’s inner journey in ways we might not have imagined. Put aside the warm and fuzzy Bible stories you’re used to.

Noah is a movie not about animals, but about the sins of pride, violence, and disregard for the earth. It is also about redemption, hope, and peace.

A-3, PG-13 ■ Violence and peril.

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

CNS PHOTO/PARAMOUNT

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Greg Kinnear is a Methodist minister and father to an extraordinary little boy in Heaven Is for Real.

Heaven Is for Real

Fr anciscanMedia.org

FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

The lives of Methodist pastor Todd Burpo (Greg Kinnear) and his family were going along relatively well in their Nebraska town in 2003. Todd and his wife, Sonja (Kelly Reilly), are parents to Cassie (Lane Styles) and 3-year-old Colton (Connor Corum).

When the family is on a brief vacation in Colorado, Colton becomes sick. What seems like the flu turns very serious. Colton is rushed into surgery for a burst appendix.

Todd yells at God in the hospital chapel while Sonja calls church members to ask for urgent prayers.

Colton recovers. A couple months later, the child casually describes what his parents were doing when he was in surgery. Todd is shocked and thinks Colton must have had a near-death experience, but neither the child’s heart nor breathing ever stopped. As the months and years go by, Colton describes heaven, angels, Jesus, and family secrets he could never have known.

I admit that I am not a fan of overtly Christian films that preach to audiences to convey their message. Heaven Is for Real, directed by Randall Wallace, is a true story, although some events are compressed for time. He trusts the audience enough to bring their own faith to the big questions this film asks.

Greg Kinnear’s performance is excellent, and the film is beautifully produced. At one point, Colton asks the angels to sing his favorite tune, “We Will Rock You,” instead of one of their heavenly songs. I don’t think I have ever heard anything as lovely as the laughter of the angels.

Not yet rated, PG ■ Mature themes, medical peril.

It is never easy to define, much less critique, a Wes Anderson film. They are filled to the brim with quirky characters who march a crooked but adventurous journey to the finish line. The Grand Budapest Hotel is the most bizarre caper of them all.

It is 1985, and the once stately hotel in the Republic of Zubrowka—somewhere between Germany, Hungary, and Russia—is worn and sagging. We travel back further in time to its former owner, Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). We learn that he was once a lobby boy called Zero (Tony Revolori) in the 1930s, who trained under a rather infamous concierge, M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), who loved rich old ladies.

When one of the old dames leaves Gustave a famous painting, her family goes after him. And that’s where the fun really begins.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is an enjoyable ride. It’s too bad that there are some crass images scattered throughout the film.

Not yet rated, R ■ Language, violence, sexual content.

Tony Revolori and Ralph Fiennes costar in director Wes Anderson’s madcap film The Grand Budapest Hotel.

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.

M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 9

CHANNEL SURFING

WITH CHRISTOPHER HEFFRON

UP CLOSE

Sundays, 9 p.m., ABC Death is a painful reality of life. Who among us hasn’t wished for the opportunity to have one more moment with a loved one who’s passed? One more hug, or even one more argument? ABC’s thrilling Resurrection explores that human need to reclaim what we’ve lost.

The series opens with Jacob, an 8-year-old from Missouri, waking up in a rice field in China. The locals are bewildered, and the US government is called. Bellamy, a sympathetic immigration agent, retrieves Jacob and accompanies him back home to Arcadia to rejoin his parents. But there’s a problem: Jacob’s been dead for 32 years. The townspeople are suspicious; his parents teeter between relief and disbelief. The local pastor, a boyhood friend of Jacob’s, expresses to his congregation the central theme of the series: “We are given the tools to ask the questions, not to know the answers.” But when more of Arcadia’s dead return home, fear and confusion spread quickly.

What makes Resurrection so innately watchable is that it plays on—but never panders to—our feelings about this life and the next. Sometimes very little separates the two worlds, and this series, which is sympathetically rendered, explores that gray area.

The cast is outstanding, especially Frances Fisher as Jacob’s mother. Watch the actor closely: her ongoing emergence from a 30year cocoon of grief is simply stunning.

Believe Sundays, 9 p.m., NBC Channel surfers, beware: NBC’s new science fiction/drama series about the orphaned Bo, a young girl with extraordinary powers who’s chased by some and protected by others, is a joyless exercise that’s part X-Files, part Punky Brewster, and altogether wrong. Straining to cover too many genres, Believe is a hokey hodgepodge, with only Johnny Sequoyah as the psychic girl and Delroy Lindo as one of her caretakers, giving the show a real lift.

Though it celebrates forgiveness, the takeaways are lost in translation thanks to flimsy scripts. Perhaps the series will find its footing, but for this writer, that’s hard to believe.

Beyond Scared Straight

© ABC/BOB MAHONEY

Frances Fisher shines as the mother of a curious young boy in Resurrection.

1 0 ❘ M ay 2 0 1 4

Thursdays, 10 p.m., A&E According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, there are over 61,000 juvenile offenders held in residential placement facilities in the United States on any given day.

Beyond Scared Straight, A&E’s bold and brutal reality series, seeks to lower that number.

In each episode, at-risk youth are shipped to a prison so they can experience life behind bars.

Defiant at the start, the inmates and guards whittle these young people down until they break—and they always break. Beyond Scared Straight is too intense for younger viewers, but parents could use it as a teaching tool for teens about making good choices.

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

© NBC/ERIC LIEBOWITZ

Resurrection

CHURCH IN THE NEWS

❘ BY SUSAN HINES-BRIGGER

CNS/STEFANO SPAZIANI, POOL

Pope Francis and President Obama Meet

US President Barack Obama exchanged gifts with Pope Francis during a private audience at the Vatican March 27. The pope gave the president a copy of his apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”).

1 2 ❘ May 2014

he handed over the book. President Obama replied, “You know, I actually will probably read this when I’m in the Oval Office, when I am deeply frustrated; and I am sure it will give me strength and will calm me down,” to which the pope said, “I hope.”

Pope Names Members of Commission for the Protection of Minors On March 22, the Vatican announced the names of the eight-member panel that will make up the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, reported CNS. The panel, led

by Boston Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, will include four women and four men—a mix of clergy and laypeople—from eight different countries.

Pope Francis established the commission last December, which Vati-

CNS/TONY GENTILE, REUTERS

On March 27, President Barack Obama paid a visit to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis. It was the first meeting of the two, who met privately for 52 minutes. President Obama said he is “a great admirer” of the pope.

Following the meeting, the two exchanged small gifts. President Obama gave the pope a seed chest containing a variety of fruit and vegetable seeds used in the White House garden. The president told Pope Francis that the box was custommade with leather and reclaimed wood from the Baltimore Basilica, the oldest Catholic cathedral in the United States.

In return, Pope Francis presented President Obama with two medallions and a copy of his apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel.”

“And this, for when you are bored,” the pope said in Spanish as

can spokesman Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said would take “a multipronged approach to promoting youth protection, including education regarding the exploitation of children, discipline of offenders, civil and canonical duties and responsibilities, and the development of best practices as they have emerged in society at large.

“In this way, and with the help of God, this commission will contribute to the Holy Father’s mission of upholding the sacred responsibility of ensuring the safety of young people,” Father Lombardi said.

Marie Collins, one of the commission members, was sexually abused at the age of 13 by a Catholic priest who was a chaplain at a hospital where she was a patient. At a major conference in Rome in 2012 on the protection of children, she said being abused led to depression, despair, and deep loss of trust in the Catholic Church.

“Those fingers that would abuse

Irish abuse victim Marie Collins is the lone clerical abuse survivor nominated by Pope Francis to sit on the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

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Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartzvan Elst of Limburg, Germany, had his resignation accepted by the Vatican on March 26.

Bishop Tebartz-van Elst, who has been referred to as the “Bishop of Bling,” was at the center of controversy over expenditures for his residence and a diocesan center. Following a diocesan investigation, the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops studied the audit’s findings and accepted the bishop’s resignation.

CNS/DOUG WELLER, THE REGISTER

St. Fidelis Church in Victoria, Kansas, was named a minor basilica in March, making it one of 78 in the United States. There are more than 1,600 worldwide.

A church designated as a minor basilica must be a center of active and pastoral liturgy with a vibrant Catholic community and may have unique historical, artistic, or religious importance.

After an 18-month investigation, the Pontifical Mission Societies announced on March 25—in a joint statement with the Office of the New York State Attorney General— the recovery of about $1.4 million in funds stolen by a now-deceased official of the organization. During the

my body the night before, were the same fingers that would give me Holy Communion the following day,” she said.

The priest, who abused her and other girls over the course of three decades, was brought to justice in 1997.

Ukrainian Catholic Leader Meets with Pope Amid the ongoing turmoil between Russia and Ukraine, Archbishop SviFr ancisca n Media .org

investigation, it was discovered that the societies’ former chief financial officer, Raymond Schroeck, had stolen about $1.7 million over a nine-year period, starting in 2003. Schroeck died in September 2012.

After a thorough investigation

by St. Paul, Minnesota, police, Archbishop John C. Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis, has returned to public ministry. In December of last year, police received an allegation, unfounded, that he had inappropriately touched a male minor in 2009.

CNS/COURTESY OF THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

CNS/HARALD OPPI TZ, KNA-BILD VIA REUTERS

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

Msgr. Brian Ferme, a former dean of the School of Canon Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, was appointed by Pope Francis to be the new prelate secretary of the Vatican Council for the Economy. Msgr. Ferme will assist Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany, head of the council the pope established in February, to set policies for the administrative and financial activities of all Vatican offices and bodies.

A report from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) showed that dioceses and religious orders spent $41,721,675 for child protection efforts in 2013, an increase of more than $15 million over the previous year, when they spent $26,583,087. The full text of the “2013 Survey of Allegations and Costs: A Summary Report for the Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops” is available at usccb.org.

For more Catholic news, visit AmericanCatholic.org.

atoslav Shevchuk of Kiev-Halych, head of the Ukranian Catholic Church, traveled to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis, reported CNS. The meeting on March 17 came the day after pro-Russian voters on the Crimean peninsula voted to secede from Ukraine in a referendum the United States and European Union called illegal.

Details of the encounter were not released, but it is believed that the two discussed the situation of Catholic priests ministering in the

Crimean region. Ukrainian Catholics make up about 10 percent of Crimea’s 2 million inhabitants.

Vatican Police Thwart Scam Artists Two men—one American and one Dutch—were stopped by Vatican police on March 29 as they attempted to enter the Vatican bank with a briefcase full of fake bonds, reported CNS. Officers with the Vatican genM ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 1 3

Ten-Year-Old Asks Pope for Help with Immigration Reform

darme corps apprehended the men as they approached a guarded entrance and asked to be let into the Vatican bank, known formally as the Institute for the Works of Religion.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that the briefcase contained fake bonds appearing to be worth billions of euros and US dollars. It also reported that Italian finance police found fake passports and other false documents in the men’s hotel rooms.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told AFP, “I don’t think we’re talking about a plot by criminal masterminds if they managed to get caught at the first hurdle.”

According to Vatican Radio, the two have been charged by both Vatican and Italian authorities.

Members of the Italian Mafia were asked to “stop doing evil” by Pope Francis. The plea came during a prayer vigil for those murdered by the Mafia. “I ask on my knees and 1 4 ❘ May 2014

CNS/PAUL HARING

Pope Francis Issues Plea to Italian Mafia

for your own good,” said the pope.

He went on to tell members of the Mafia, “There is still time not to end up in hell, which awaits you if you continue on this road. You had a papa and a mama. Think of them, weep a little, and convert.”

Every year since 1996, the Italian anti-Mafia group Libera has observed

Pope Francis shakes hands with Father Luigi Ciotti, founder of the Italian anti-Mafia group Libera, at Rome’s Church of St. Gregory VII March 21.

CNS/LUCY NICHOLSON, REUTERS

Jersey Vargas from Los Angeles, California, had a message for Pope Francis when she attended the pope’s general audience on March 26. She asked the pope to speak out against the deportation of illegal immigrants at his meeting with US President Barack Obama the following day.

Vargas, who was at the Vatican with a delegation of Hispanic-rights activists, hopped over a crowd barrier in St. Peter’s Square and ran up to the pope to explain to him that her father was about to be deported.

“Where from?” Pope Francis asked.

“The United States,” she replied. The pope was visibly moved by the girl’s plea.

Three days later, Vargas’ father, Mario Vargas-Lopez, was released on bond from a detention center in Louisiana. He has been held there since being arrested in Tennessee last September on a drunk driving charge.

Bryan Cox, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the two incidents were unrelated and an immigration judge will determine the outcome of Vargas-Lopez’s deportation case.

March 21, the first full day of spring, in memory of innocent victims of organized crime.

Rare Biblical Texts on Display From April 2 through June 22, nearly 200 rare biblical texts on parchment and vellum as well as other artifacts will be on view at the Vatican. The exhibition, “Verbum Domini II: God’s Word Goes Out to the Nations,” is only the second on the Bible to be held inside the Vatican. The first took place two years ago to mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible.

Visitors to the free exhibit will be given the opportunity to view three fragments of the Dead Sea scrolls and an original copy of the King James Bible, printed in 1611. Also on display will be the microchip Bible that traveled to the moon and back on Apollo 14 in 1971 and an original folio from the Bodmer Papyri. The folio, which dates to around the year 200, contains the Gospels of Luke and John. A St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

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Franciscans open new ways of imagining God and praying.

BY MARK LOMBARD

PHOTO BY EUGENE PLAISTED, OSC

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RICHARD ROHR ON

Praying like St. Francis P

Q: Let’s start at the beginning. What is mysticism?

Fr anciscanMedia.org

PHOTO BY MARY CARTY

RAYER is something that people of all religious traditions understand as a necessary component of holy living. And yet somehow, the mystical path is often seen as accessible only to those in religious life, especially members of cloistered or monastic communities.

Drawing upon Sts. Francis of Assisi, Clare, Anthony, and Bonaventure; Brothers Giles and Juniper; and Blessed John Duns Scotus, Richard Rohr explores the Franciscan genius that spawned a strain of mysticism characterized by an overarching wonder at the mystery of the Incarnation, which is grounded in nature, animals, the poor, the outsider, contemplation, joyfulness, and a cosmic sense of Christ.

He points to St. Francis’ detachment of self; imperfection, not perfection, as the entry way to God; the focus on prayer as experiential; and mind, body, and soul as intimately connected and holy.

Rohr talked to St. Anthony Messenger following a conference on mysticism at the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the center he founded in 1987. We asked him for a bit of a primer about mysticism for today.

Franciscan Father Richard Rohr says he wants people to understand that the mystical path to prayer is not just for those in religious life.

A: To make it simple, it really means “experiential.” And when you have real experience, it’s high-level. When most people hear the word mystical, they think it means impossible for most of us, or distant, or only capable to those who are ascetical for 25 years or something like that. Actually, in my judgment, it simply means experiential knowledge of God, instead of merely mental or cognitive knowledge of God.

Q: Is mysticism more for the heart or the mind?

A: It is not something accessed by the left brain, but by the whole brain — right and left—and the heart, body, and soul. It is an intuitive grasp of the whole. . . . God is the heart of everything. When you say you love God, you, in fact, are saying you love everything. And that’s why immature religion is an inauthentic God experience.

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Q: Does organized religion help us on the mystical path?

A: Organized religion is an example of incarnation. . . . You have to start with the particular to go to the universal.

You have to start with the concrete.

And, in fact, you need a holding tank, a container to hold you in one spot long enough to learn what the real questions are, and to struggle with the real questions. And that’s what organized religion does for you. Some form of it is almost necessary for the first half of life to carry on the tradition, to give you at least the right words to tell you that mystical experience is possible.

The trouble is it usually tells you that it’s possible, but just don’t expect it. It’s only for special people. It ends up making real conversion something very special, elitist, and distant, if you will.

So, in my vocabulary—and that’s all it is—organized religion is very good, and almost entirely necessary for what I call the first half of life.

It becomes problematic—and not wrong, I’m just saying problematic— when you move into the second half of life because it tends, in most instances, not to answer questions you are asking by the second half of life, unless you go deeper. Many people have found ways to do this, like join the Franciscans. But not everybody is called to be a priest, a nun, or a Third Order Franciscan.

[You need] to find some way to learn or study or to pray sort of on the side of your Sunday worship community.

Those people [who do] tend to go deeper. A Sunday service and believing a certain set of doctrines—which is 1 8 ❘ M ay 2 0 1 4

© HANIS/ISTOCKPHOTO

It becomes an excuse for not loving a whole bunch of things.

That’s why mystics can love their enemies, can love the foreigner, can love the outsider. They don’t make these distinctions that low-level religion does. Low-level religion is more tribal, a social construct to sort of hold my group together. [Some believe], “I’m Catholic because I’m Irish” or “I’m Catholic because I’m Italian.” This is just group belonging. This is not a mystical experience.

Prayer is looking out from a different set of eyes, which are not comparing, competing, judging, labeling, and analyzing, but receiving the moment in its wholeness. what organized religion means for most people—is not enough.

All that can do is hold you inside the boxing ring, but it doesn’t teach you how to box with the mystery, if I can use that metaphor. It doesn’t teach you how to really encounter the mystery. It tends, and I don’t mean to be unkind, to make you codependent upon its own ministry, instead of leading you to know for yourself. It’s like, “Keep coming back, and you’ll eventually get it.” But you don’t, because the whole thing becomes keep attending these services and something magical is going to happen.

Q: From what you have said and written, you seem to suggest that mysticism is not something in reach of only the monk or cloistered nun.

But rather I could actually be a mystic. Is that true?

A: You’re absolutely right. Karl Rahner [the late Jesuit theologian] speaks of “the mysticism of daily life.” It’s a good phrase. We’ve got to stop making mysticism something that happens only to celibates, ascetics, monastics.

That’s precisely what Francis came to undo and bring it back to the streets.

Q: How do I even think about tapping into a sense of the mystical if I

am completely absorbed in family responsibilities and the chores of everyday life?

A: You do need to be given a new operating system. I don’t care what you are doing. If you approach daily work, that daily job, your family, with what I call the dualistic mind, the judgmental, comparative, competitive mind, which most of us are entirely trained in, so much so that we think it is the only mind.

When Jesus talks about this, he’s talking of the judgmental mind. That’s why he says, “Do not judge.” The judgmental mind simply knows everything by comparing it to something else. It’s an endless job of comparing and competing. That hardwiring can’t get you to the mystical experience. That’s the simplest way to say it.

Now, the original word for the different mind, and that’s what it is, was prayer. But, unfortunately, that word has been so misused and trivialized to mean merely petitionary prayer or reciting prayers, and I’m afraid we Catholics are known for that: learning formulas and reciting formulas.

I’m not saying that’s wrong, but that is not in the desert fathers and mothers in the first three, four hundred years of Christianity. That’s not the meaning of prayer.

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

Prayer is looking out from a different set of eyes, which are not comparing, competing, judging, labeling, and analyzing, but receiving the moment in its wholeness. That’s what I mean by contemplation.

And the reason that so many of us, mostly Catholics originally, changed the vocabulary to the older word— contemplation—which was much more common in the first thousand years of the Church, is because the word prayer had been so cheapened by misuse, co-opted.

Prayer means [for many] reciting Our Fathers and Hail Marys, and I’m not trying to put down the Our Father and Hail Mary. But I know priests and religious who have said Our Fathers and Hail Marys all their lives and don’t know how to pray. I don’t know how else to say it.

Q: What then is the goal of prayer?

A: Prayer is, well, you know, any good Christian would agree, is to give you access to God and to allow you to listen to God, to hear God. So the only way you can do that is to have an open field. If you lead off with the left brain, if you lead off with the judging, calculating, dualistic mind, you can’t access the holy because the only thing that gets in is what you already think, what you already agree with. And God is, by definition, unfamiliar, always mysterious, beyond, more. So if you aren’t ready for more, how can you possibly be ready for God? Do you understand?

So contemplation is non-dual thinking, where you don’t split the field of the moment into what I already know and dismiss what I don’t already know as wrong, heresy, evil, or sinful.

Q: Is there a sense of bargaining with God, with the hope that then God will deliver?

A: Or if you’ve got a whole lot of people praying for the same thing, [then] this is going to bend the arm of God. Do you see underneath what is happening there? It’s another way for me to get what I want. I’m not loving God. I’m trying to get God to be on my side.

And God is already on your side, so Fr anciscanMedia.org

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that is futile, a waste of time. You see it is another way to manipulate the mystery.

This is why the word prayer is so useless. Because most of us, Catholic and Protestant, have been allowed to live at that low level. You see, at those early egocentric levels of consciousness, it’s all about me. It’s all about getting what I want and getting even God to do what I want. Why don’t we see that? This isn’t anything wonderful!

There is something compassionate about asking God to heal your grandmother; of course that’s beautiful. But it is still you in the driver’s seat and trying to get God in your driver’s seat.

Q: Do we run the risk with prayers of petition, which is how many of us pray, of setting ourselves up as better informed than God? A: Jesus says that: “Why do you babble on like the pagans do? God already knows what you need.”

Three Key Franciscan Mystics At an October 2012 conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, exploring the theme of “Franciscan Mysticism: I Am That Which I Am Seeking,” Father Richard Rohr, OFM, pointed to key Franciscan mystics who explored and helped shape Franciscanism

Q: How should we then think of petitionary or intercessory prayer in a way that it is not all about us and our needs?

A: Jesus does say to ask God for what we want. Why did Jesus say such a thing?

You’re doing it for yourself. Not to announce things to God, to tell things to God, or to get God on your side. You need to do it yourself to hear your own thoughts, and to jump on board with what you hope and what may well be the will of God. We don’t know our own needs, feelings, thoughts until we speak them.

Q: Is happiness the goal of mysticism?

A: Let me come at it this way. Here is the story that many have used, not I. You don’t catch a butterfly by chasing it. You sit still and the butterfly alights on your shoulder. You don’t find happiness by directly seeking happiness because that leaves you too self-centered. It’s all about you still: “I’m going to be happy today.” And maybe you’ve had days like that, where it’s too selfconscious, it’s too self-intentional, so

for generations.

it’s all about self.

No, the goal of mysticism is divine union. The goal of prayer is divine union—union with what is, with the moment, with yourself, with the divine—which means with everything, as we said before. So you don’t want to make the goal of mysticism happiness.

No, because that is still you as the reference point. “I, I want to be happy,” you see?

You seek union with God in everything and then the butterfly alights on your shoulder. Happiness comes along as a corollary, as a gift, as a little St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

PHOTOS BY EUGENE PLAISTED, OSC

St. Bonaventure

Blessed John Duns Scotus

St. Francis of Assisi

(1221–1274) ■

(1266–1308)

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Theologian and philosopher, declared a doctor of the Church ■ Feast day July 15 Rohr on Bonaventure “He says, ‘This being that you participate in is all-inclusive.’ . . . He’s talking about God. . . . God is supremely one and all-inclusive. . . .

You see, to love God is precisely, by definition, to love everything. That’s what it means. You don’t love God if you don’t love everything.”

icing on the cake—a big icing on the cake, actually.

Q: And it may not be the happiness we’re seeking?

A: It may not be how we defined happiness. That’s right, because that is usually selfishly defined. We’ll all define it in a sensory way, like a satisfying meal or a beautiful hotel room or a wonderful sexual experience, which is understandable. But those of themselves do not make you happy.

If you don’t bring happiness into the hotel room, you’re not going to be Fr anciscanMedia.org

(1181–1228)

Theologian and philosopher ■ Beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1993

Friar, preacher, founder of the Order of Friars Minor, Order of St. Clare, and Third Order of St. Francis ■ Feast day October 4

Rohr on Scotus “Scotus said . . . how could we understand this God if we were of a completely different genus and species because like knows like. . . .

You are what you’re looking for. . . .

He said we can speak with one voice—univocity of being. We can speak with one voice of the being of the planet, of the waters upon the planet, the trees and bushes and the flowers. We can speak with one voice of the humans, the animals, the angels, and God himself.

They are all the same being.”

Rohr on Francis “He refused to exclude anything.

That’s the heart of it. There is no exclusionary impulse. . . . He goes to the edge, he goes to the bottom, he kisses the leper, he loves the poor, he wears patches on the outside of his habit so everybody will know that that’s what he’s like on the inside. He doesn’t hide from his shadow. . . . He wasn’t an intellectual, he didn’t begin with universal philosophies and ideas and abstractions. . . . For Francis, there was one world and it was all sacred.”

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happy. You’ll just be pleased for a few minutes, do you understand? But if you are already happy, you can be in a mediocre hotel room. Or even in a not-so-nice hotel room, and you’ll still say, “I’m happy and content today.”

Happiness is always a gift from seeking union or love. When I say union, love is the same thing. A

Click here for more on Richard Rohr and praying.

tal Digi as t Ex r

Mark Lombard is the director of product development for Franciscan Media, which has published a number of Richard Rohr’s books, articles, and audios. He holds a master’s degree in religious studies from Syracuse University.

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LIVE WELL

❘ BY COLLEEN MONTGOMERY AND JIM BRENNAN

Live Organically

© BLAZEJ LYJAK/VEER

W

hen my grandfather helped my dad (and coauthor), Jim, start his first organic garden when I was a child, it never occurred to me he was handing down a principle of organic living. Now my brother and sister-in-law have organic gardens.

Organic or sustainable living touches every aspect of our lives: transportation, energy, community gardens, and patronizing restaurants and businesses that use locally grown food. It is part of a lifestyle that goes beyond our personal wellness and to the well-being of the environment. Respect for our planet is very Franciscan. So what can you do?

number of cars in a household, sharing rides, and taking public transportation.

Eat Local and Organic Eating local, organically grown food is healthy and beneficial for the environment.

Locally grown food requires fewer miles to transport. It also supports local farmers and businesses. Eating organically reduces our intake of harmful pesticides.

Start your own organic garden. If you don’t have space, grow veggies and herbs in window boxes, pots, or hanging baskets.

Start in the Home Limit Your Carbon Footprint Make choices that are environmentally conscious. Walk, take public transportation, ride a bike, carpool, or consolidate your errands to reduce multiple trips in the car. When shopping for a new car, consider a used, fuelefficient model. Think about downsizing the 2 2 ❘ May 2014

Increase your awareness of the chemical content in products you buy. Become a label reader: cleaning products, toiletries, beauty products, food. Even fabrics can be produced using plants that were once treated with pesticides. Look for “certified organic” or the organic certifier’s logo.

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

For Jim Brennan’s tips on ways to live organically, click the button on the left.

© PHOTOGRAPHERLONDON/DREAMSTIME

Joining a Community Garden ■

Ensures food is grown responsibly

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Saves money on food and transportation

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Contributes to a cleaner environment

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Guarantees food is harvested at the peak of freshness

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Reduces trips to the grocery store

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Strengthens communities and nurtures relationships

Jim Brennan writes about health and fitness from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His daughter, Colleen Montgomery, is a registered clinical exercise physiologist and certified wellness coach. They alternate this column monthly.

Fr ancisca n Media .org

Take Baby Steps ■

Fill a windowsill with your favorite herb plants.

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Visit a local farmers’ market.

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Lower your heat at night to 60 degrees.

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Turn off lights when not in use.

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Check your local public transportation schedule.

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Consider local errands you can complete by foot or by bike.

God called the dry land ‘the earth,’ and the basin of the water he called ‘the sea.’

God saw how good it was.

—Gn 1:10

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© KONSTANTIN KALISHKO/PHOTOXPRESS

Simple, incremental steps can make a huge difference in your carbon footprint. Turn down your thermostat: every degree above 68 increases fuel consumption by as much as 3 percent. Check doors and windows for leaks, and look into programmable thermostats.

Electronic devices such as DVD players and computers are usually on standby. Shut them off! Adjust your hot water heater: a drop from 130 to 120 degrees will provide considerable savings. Fix leaking faucets or toilets, turn out lights, use energy-saving bulbs, and choose gas over electricity.

Living organically doesn’t mean you have to turn your life upside down. Taking simple steps can make a big impact on your life, the lives of others, and the environment.

ACIK/FOTOLIA

Life Lessons Mysteries of Light

FROM THE

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

When St. John Paul II introduced these rosary mysteries, this author found a new way to pray through Ordinary Time.

B Y PAT R I C I A R O B E R T S O N

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The Baptism of the Lord

Know who and whose you are. In my former role as chaplain at a retirement community, I preached each Sunday using the common Lectionary.

The baptism of Jesus would come up every year, year after year, in each of the Gospels.

Jesus’ baptism, again! I’d think. What can I say Fr anciscanMedia.org

that I, or others more insightful than I, haven’t already said? Yet each year I discovered more.

Over time, the significance of the baptismal passage has sunk deep into my soul and to the very heart of Jesus’ identity as God’s son. “You are my beloved Son,” God tells Jesus. “In you I am well pleased.” Who among us doesn’t crave such affirming love and praise from a parent, literal or figurative? Here is God letting Jesus know, “I’m proud of you. You’re a good CNS FILE PHOTO/GREGORY A. SHEMITZ

CNS PHOTO/DAVE CRENSHAW, EASTERN OKLAHOMA CATHOLIC

f you fall asleep while praying the rosary, the angels will finish it for you,” the sisters at my Catholic grade school assured me years ago. Even so, the prayers I managed to complete chased away for me any childhood fear of the dark. I fell asleep confident that the angels would wrap up and relay my prayers. So confident, that when I prepared gifts of “spiritual bouquets” for family members (a litany of future prayers promised and Masses attended on behalf of someone else—a sort of spiritual credit card), I included a good number of yet-to-be-said, sleep-induced rosaries, making my list all the more impressive.

As an adult I continued the practice, praying the rosary when awakened by worries in the middle of the night. I coordinated my devotion with the Church liturgical calendar: the joyful mysteries during Advent and Christmas, the sorrowful for Lent, and the glorious at Easter. But what about the balance of the year, the long and problematic stretch the Church calls Ordinary Time?

Fortunately, John Paul II solved that problem with the addition of the mysteries of light in 2002. Since then I’ve prayed these new mysteries and reflected on them—most of the time without falling asleep. In doing so, I’ve come to realize that we spend much of life doing ordinary, everyday activities like cooking, cleaning, working, eating—or sleeping.

I’ve also discovered that these mysteries can be a light to guide us through life’s ordinary challenges. In fact, they offer five important, easyto-learn lessons to help us stay our spiritual course.

son.” That affirmation fortified Jesus to go forth and do the Father’s will.

God’s message is for all God’s children, for all time—namely, that before we can accomplish anything significant in this life, we need to know who we are and whose we are. Otherwise, we are adrift in an ungrounded world of uncertainty and change. With divine grounding, we have the confidence we need to weather life’s vagaries, good and bad.

God, I learned, doesn’t send us out into this sometimes dangerous world unequipped. God equips us with affirming love. Armed with that confidence, we can move on to the next mystery of light.

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The Wedding at Cana

observed, “and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love is found with community.”

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The Proclamation of the Kingdom

Preach the Gospel at all times and, if necessary, use words. I can’t take credit for that sentiment, attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, but it sums up well the vocation of Christians to preach the good news of God’s love, using every means available— mostly “just” by living good lives.

It matters how we live and how we treat others. It matters the choices we make. Are we trying to live with integrity and in humble service, putting the needs of others before our own, following the example of Jesus? If so, then we are preaching by our daily actions—however ordinary—the Gospel, with words or without.

CNS PHOTO/JIM WEST

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We don’t have to go it alone, even in a society in which divorce is rampant and marriage decidedly risky. As someone who’s been divorced, I’m skittish at the prospect of remarriage.

Wouldn’t it be a lot less messy if we just lived together? No need to work out joint finances, go through the hassle of changing documents

to reflect our marital status, and—if it doesn’t work out—just leave. No divorce. No legal complications.

Besides, marriage at an older age complicates matters. Mortality and potential loneliness loom more closely. So, too, the likelihood of losing our life’s savings to medical bills and the frightening possibility of leaving the survivor with nothing. So, better to live together and keep the finances separate as many older people do, right? Yet every night that I reflect on the second mystery of light, I’m reminded of the sacredness of marriage, and so I ask myself, what would God have me do?

Certainly a wedding joins two people and two families, but it occurs within a community, and so it joins that community as well. Married couples don’t have a monopoly on happiness and fulfillment, naturally. Those who live alone, either by choice or by chance, don’t have to go it alone, either. They have family too—if not in fact then in de facto families, the larger community circles in which they live, worship, and work. Thus, the wedding at Cana reminds us that everyone is invited to share companionship and God’s love. After all, wedding celebrations during Jesus’ time involved the whole village. Everyone was, and still is, invited to be part of a living, loving community.

Dorothy Day understood this truth. “We have all known the long loneliness,” she 2 6 ❘ M ay 2 0 1 4

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The Transfiguration

Listen to Jesus. The Transfiguration of Jesus occurs in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and it appears every year as part of the Sunday readings. As with the baptism of the Lord, I’m mystified by the challenge of making the Transfiguration “new” time after time—or different from the baptismal account in its message.

In both accounts, God speaks. In both, God refers to Jesus as “my beloved Son.” However, at the baptism God says, “In whom I am well St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

© MONKEY BUSINESS/PHOTOXPRESS

pleased,” while at the Transfiguration, “Listen to him.” A significant difference. “Listen to him.” That’s a message worth repeating, and one that masks such significance in its very simplicity. We don’t always know which way to turn, how to act, or what to do. Often we rush off on our own without stopping, without praying, and without taking the time to listen to Jesus.

When in doubt, be still and listen, this mystery tells us. Make time for prayer and ask for guidance. We need a reminder to do this, and this mystery does that.

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The Institution of the Eucharist

Take time to share a meal. The road of life is long. We need food for the journey, food for the body and the soul. When, in despair, Elijah nearly gave up his mission, God gave him food and, by doing so, hope.

When the Israelites hungered in the desert, God provided the sustenance of bread and meat. When the people were hungry, Jesus fed them.

There’s a reason we have to eat every day. It reminds us of our hunger for God. We can’t stuff ourselves one day and then go without food for a week without suffering from hunger.

Feeling that urge to eat every day might seem inefficient, but God isn’t concerned with efficiency. God is showing us that love and loving relationships—often complicated and inefficient—aren’t a weekly formality. They are, instead, the real essentials of daily life.

And when we are fed, this fifth mystery of light teaches us that we’re to share what we have with others in need. One of the greatest Fr anciscanMedia.org

pleasures in life is good food shared. According to Dorothy Day, “We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.” Love transforms even a crust of bread into a banquet.

We need to nourish ourselves through the sharing of a meal, and the sharing of the Eucharist in our larger communities. After all, aren’t both but an appetizer of the heavenly banquet to come—where we will all be in communion with God and one another?

I’ve come a long way since my dozing rosary days. Thank God for that! Mostly I’ve learned to stay wakeful and alert—a comClick here for more on mon Gospel theme—as I pray the rosary. the rosary. And, thanks to the five mysteries of light, I’ve heard and am constantly reminded of God’s reassurance that we are not alone, that we should preach the Gospel in what we say but mostly by what we do, that we need to listen for the voice of Jesus and share the sustaining nourishment of God’s love in communion with others.

All in all, the mysteries of light can help make even Ordinary Time, the time of everyday life, quite extraordinary. A

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Patricia Robertson is the author of three books and numerous magazine articles. Her first book, Daily Meditations with Scripture for Busy Moms (ACTA Publications), is still in print after almost 20 years.

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Separated by Prison, United by Love This California program helps parishes reconnect children with their inmate parents.

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Karen van de Laat, one of three staff members of Get on the Bus, says of her involvement, “I knew this was a calling.”

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HEN KAREN VAN DE LAAT first heard about the buses that get mothers and children together, she had to get involved. What had started as a lone bus taking a group of kids to see their imprisoned moms on Mother’s Day had grown to become a network of more than 100 buses, and Karen wanted to help.

“I knew this was a calling,” she says of her strong feeling that day, about six years ago.

This Mother’s Day, thanks to the work of Karen and 800 volunteers in 16 locations across California, mothers who live behind prison bars, far from home, will spend a few precious hours with their children. And children who long to be in their mother’s arms will have that chance, if only for a fleeting few hours. It will be a long bus ride for most of the children, and it will require special effort on the part of the moms, the staff of their prisons, and the volunteers, but in the end it will be worth it a thousand times over.

It all started in 2000, when Suzanne Jabro, a Sister of St. Joseph, noticed the plight of children of incarcerated mothers. Women from Los Angeles were being sent to prison in Chowchilla, California, nearly four hours to the north. Suzanne, while visiting the women, learned that some of them had gone six or seven years, others even nine or 10 years, without seeing their children.

Even worse was the corollary: these children were not seeing their mothers. Getting to Chowchilla was simply beyond the reach of

families that were, in many ways, struggling just to meet the basics.

“So she arranged this bus to come up and have the kids see their moms,” explains Karen, now one of three staff in Los Angeles who run a statewide program today. That was the simple beginning, she says, “17 children going to see their moms at Valley State Prison for Mother’s Day. . . kind of in the middle of nowhere.”

This year Get on the Bus, from its 16 locations, with its 800 volunteers, will take 1,300 children on 52 buses to nine different prisons.

Some, whose pregnant mothers were incarcerated, will be meeting their mothers face-toface for the first time, Karen says.

It’s an act of mercy.

Leaving Shame Behind Get on the Bus works from two ends—the mother’s and the child’s—with people inbetween. For Mom, that means the warden; for the child, a parish or other sponsoring institution. Karen’s program makes the connections.

“It starts in the prison,” Karen explains.

“The mothers fill out applications, and those applications are screened for certain crimes that we don’t serve. Obviously if somebody has a charge against a child we would not take a kid on the bus to them!”

The prison checks the inmate’s record to be sure there are no restrictions. “Then the applications go out to our Catholic volunteers who actually call the children and say, ‘Your mother would like to see you. Would you like to come?’”

That ability to choose either way is important, says Karen. “Nobody’s going to make St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

The reunion will be for only a few hours, but for those moments, everything will be OK again.

The touch here, between mother and daughter, is priceless.

them get on the bus. And many of them are ambivalent, especially teenagers, because they’re not the best conversationalists, really.”

But most simply need some reassurance. That’s where a parish volunteer steps in.

With the permission of the child’s caretaker, he or she is assigned to call the child and talk over his or her situation, then say, “We will help you.”

Why, you might ask, don’t their families just arrange the visit and go on their own? It’s not that simple, says Karen. Gas is expensive and many of these families live in poverty.

Maybe they don’t have a reliable car. “And some kids don’t have another adult in their

“When we look at crime and punishment, we cannot help but think of the inhumane conditions in so many prisons, where those in custody are . . . stunted in their hope and desire for rehabilitation.”

—Pope Francis, Celebration of the World Day of Peace, January 1, 2014

For an interview with Sr. Suzanne, click the button below.

family. Or some of the adults—maybe all of them—have a warrant.”

But the longings are the same, says Karen.

“Everybody can understand what it’s like to desperately miss someone. You or I could just get on Skype; it’s not like that for these families.”

Many children can’t believe that strangers would come together to help them to see their mom, she adds. “These kids live with anxiety and insecurity, with fear and shame. And so when they can come into a community—a nice Catholic community of young people and old people and everybody in the Church— it means so much for them that they don’t have to feel the shame.”

Indeed, there is nothing to hide from—they spend the day with other children who have a mother in prison. “And they get treated like royalty the whole day.” That day will involve long bus rides, the building excitement or anxiety about what lies ahead, the amazing visit itself, its tearful end, and hours of grief, happiness, questions, and who knows what else on the long ride home. The volunteers are at their side the whole way.

around,” says Karen. Over the years, though, everyone has noticed a change in morale and behavior among the inmate mothers whose children have visited.

“Now we have wardens who are calling us!”

Karen says, clearly enjoying the irony. “We actually have a waiting list of prisons because they’ve seen the change among all of the prisoners.” The prison staff have made rules that exclude troublesome inmates from participating in the program. As Karen says, “It’s safer in the prisons, because they’re not allowed to get in trouble and still have a visit from us.”

The event is not simply a bus ride for Mother’s Day, which would be a real benefit in and of itself. But, in addition, the Get on the Bus volunteers redecorate the prison’s visiting room to set a different tone. “We actually transform the visiting room from a dark, scary environment into a safe and child-friendly space where parents can read their kids books and they work on art projects.” That’s something that’s developed over the years.

One highlight of the visit is a photo opportunity for mother and child. “For many kids, this is the only picture that they have together.

As for the parents, they’re taking that photo back to their cell and using it as their motivation to come out and stay out.

“There’s no stronger bond than that of a parent and child,” emphasizes Karen. “No matter what a mother has done, she is still the most important person to her children. The children

More than a Bus Then there are the moms, or more exactly, the prisons that hold them. “You know, in the old days, when we first started Get on the Bus, the guards at the prison literally hated us.

They would roll their eyes because it was so annoying to have so many happy kids running 3 0 ❘ M ay 2 0 1 4

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

In 1999, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics found that

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. The Bureau of Justice reports that

54 percent

2.3 million

of mothers and

people were in US prisons and jails in 2010.

57 percent of fathers in state prisons reported never having had a single visit from their children.

we serve desperately want and need to see them. They deserve to see their mother. So that’s what we provide for them.”

The flip side of that is with the inmates.

“We say to them, ‘We’re going to bring you your kids. You need to tell them that it stinks here and not to follow you here.’” She notes that 60 percent of children with a parent in prison will go to prison themselves. “To have their own parent tell them how much it stinks in prison—we might just be able to affect a number like that.”

Even the parents themselves are less likely to return to prison, she says, reciting another statistic: inmates who don’t receive family visits are twice as likely to reoffend and wind up

back in prison. “By connecting these prisoners with their children, we’re giving them a reason to stay out of trouble.”

Building Unity Finally, there are the parishes, the third leg of this three-legged stool created and nurtured by Karen’s program. In addition to the parish volunteers who accompany the children on Mother’s Day, the program itself is funded by donations and other volunteer support from parishes.

“The program itself is all run by volunteers,” explains Karen. Typically, a group of parishioners will call her to indicate interest and help get things going in their parish. “Some of

(Above) Cold walls yield to warmth on Mother’s Day in prison. Get on the Bus makes space in California’s prisons for that to happen.

(Opposite) After hours on the bus, the moment has arrived for these children.

Today they will meet their moms—for some children for the first time ever.

(Left) Mistakes are made, and steep prices are paid, not only by the moms, but even more by their children, who sometimes are left with more questions than answers.

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the parishioners will make activity bags for the kids. Others will make breakfast for them.”

Parishioners bring these children to their parish and watch over them as logistics for the trip are worked out. “And they pay for the bus and

(Above) “No matter what a mother has done, she is still the most important person to her children,” observes Karen.

(Right) Children bring Mother’s Day cards, sometimes with the help of parishionervolunteers, to share with their moms—and sometimes to read aloud.

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everything.” Seventy-five parishes will operate Get on the Bus programs this year.

Parish volunteers meet the kids at the end of the return trip, too. Last year The Tidings, newspaper of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, reported about Our Lady of Lourdes (Northridge) and St. John Eudes (Chatsworth) parishioners and their work to coordinate Bus S. The bus carried 50 children, caregivers, and volunteers. For some of the children, it was the only visit since the previous year’s trip.

Each parish raised about $4,000 to pay for the bus; nearby St. Denis parish raised $2,000.

Deacon-in-formation Dan Revetto told The Tidings that Click here to learn more he arranged for the parish about Get on the Bus. Confirmation class to create “Stay Connected” bags for the children’s return.

Each bag contained a frame for the children to insert the photo taken during the day as well as envelopes, stamps, pens, and stickers to help the kids write letters to their moms in the coming months.

“It’s fantastic!” says Karen. Many of the children, after all, are not living in positive situations while their mothers are in prison. For some, it’s with an elderly relative or in a stressful family situation. For others, it’s a positive,

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yet still difficult, foster home. “To be able to come into the church and have all of the parishioners work on this project together—it’s really an amazing thing to build unity with everybody.”

In some ways the young people of the parish make the difference for the visiting children. Karen recalls that before she got involved, what happens to a child whose parent goes to prison never crossed her mind. “The parish youth,” on the other hand, “are incredible. They really get it, and they really want to extend themselves.” In some parishes, the young parishioners even make Mother’s Day cards for the visiting children to take along.

California is a very long state, which means a very long drive for some of the children, say for a San Diegan visiting a parent at San Quentin, near San Francisco. It could be as long as 12 hours, because the bus stops to pick up children along the way. A six- or seven-hour trip for an 8 a.m. visit—you do the math.

“But each time the bus stops, they’re picking up families that are being cared for by Catholic parishes all the way up the state. . . .

That means all of those parishioners have put together activity bags for the kids and everyone at the parish has probably done fundraising so they know about the program.” It’s an education for everyone.

That education’s first lesson, perhaps, is about human nature. Many people are imprisoned for making a stupid mistake or lapse of judgment. In some cases, “any of us could have done it ourselves,” says Karen. “When we bring parishioners in to have conversations with the inmates, they are astounded at just how normal the inmates are. Some parishioners will even say, ‘They look like me.’”

The mothers and their children have their own lessons, though overshadowed for the day by the thrill of a loving reunion. But for all—mother, child, or volunteer—there is a message from Our Lord himself: “When I was in prison you visited me.” The mercy of visiting prisoners tells all of us something about the mercy of God. A John Feister is editor in chief of this publication. He has MA degrees in humanities and in theology from Xavier University, Cincinnati. Photographer Theresa Lynch, CSJ, has been active in Get on the Bus since the beginning.

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

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St. Rita, Peacemaker She shows what the Lord accomplishes when he finds humble hearts open to his love.

B Y R I TA P I R O T. RITA OF CASCIA (1381-1457) is one of only a very small number of saints who experienced all states of life as daughter, wife, mother, widow, and consecrated religious. Her patronage is among the most exhaustive of any saint, ranging from bodily ills to baseball. Yes, baseball!

In May 2000, on the occasion of the centenary celebration of her canonization, St. John Paul II had the incorrupt body of St. Rita in its glass coffin transported from her shrine in Cascia, Italy, to the Vatican, where he and thousands honored the saint in an outdoor prayer service.

“Why is Rita a saint?” the pontiff asked during the service. “Not just because of the wonders of her intercession . . . but for the incredible ‘normality’ of her daily existence. St. Rita is an example of what the Lord accomplishes when he finds humble hearts open to his love.”

Born Margherita Lotti in 1381 in the town of Roccaporena—just outside the city of Cascia, in the Umbrian region of Italy—Rita was known by the diminutive of her name since infancy. Her parents, Antonio and Amata (Ferri) Lotti, were revered in the area as Conciliatori di Cristo (Peacemakers of Christ), called upon frequently to act as mediators by government officials, business leaders, and common citizens alike.

Though far from aged, Amata became pregnant close to the probable end of childbearing years for that time period, and after the couple had reportedly hoped for a child for 12 years. Their faith that God would surely answer

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PHOTO BY EUGENE PLAISTED, OSC

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their prayers comforts would-be parents today and establishes St. Rita as a patron of infertility, sterility, pregnancy, and gynecological disorders.

Though not wealthy, the Lottis provided their daughter with a basic education in reading and writing. Young Rita was a frequent visitor to the nearby Augustinian convent of Santa Maria Magdalena, where she helped the nuns care for the sick and those who were injured in battles and local brawls. It was through Rita’s work with these wounded that she acquired her patronage of amputees and those dealing with wounds and disorders of the blood and circulatory system, such as clots and phlebitis.

A Crooked Path to Religious Life Nearly all biographies of Rita suggest that she wanted to enter religious life early on, but was dissuaded by her parents who either implored or forced her to marry. What is recorded as fact is a marriage agreement from 1395 between Rita Lotti and Paolo Mancini, the son of Ferdinando and Teresa Mancini, of a minor noble Cascia family. Though Rita was 14 years old and Paolo 16, and in keeping with the marriage laws of the time—the couple would not live together for another two years—they were considered irrevocably joined. Two years later, at ages 16 and 18 respectively, Rita and Paolo were formally married in the local Church of San Martano.

The Mancini family had long nursed a feud with one or more of Cascia’s rival noble clans, but it was through Rita’s patient and ceaseless M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 3 5

PHOTO BY EUGENE PLAISTED, OSC

This painting from the National Shrine of St. Rita a Cascia, in Philadelphia, illustrates the saint’s work as a peacemaker. St. John Paul II called St. Rita, “the younger sister of St. Francis.”

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prayer and example that Paolo found the strength to turn his back on the violence that had characterized his upbringing. He went to work as a watchman for the city gate while Rita kept their home, and the couple soon became parents of twin boys.

Sadly, violence overshadowed their lives when, 16 years after their marriage, Paolo was murdered, probably as part of the Mancini feud with other Cascia families. And so at 32, Rita suddenly found herself a widow. Whereas she openly and often pronounced forgiveness for Paolo’s Click here for more killers, the same cannot be said on St. Rita of Cascia. of her sons. They sought to avenge their father’s death by tracking down his killers in accordance with the law of vendetta—a custom so strong that even the Church at this time permitted such honor killings. Understandably, Rita’s two sons were strongly encouraged, indeed expected, to seek revenge for their father’s murder.

Rita could not bear the thought of her sons harming anyone. To prevent that she turned the situation over to the Lord, asking God to prevent her sons from becoming embroiled

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in the prevailing violent culture. Unfortunately, her prayer was answered, but at a heartbreaking price and certainly not as she might have imagined. Less than a year after their father’s death, both of Rita’s young sons died from illness.

Patron of Many Such challenges in her family life have enshrined Rita as the “woman’s saint,” called upon by grieving mothers, women experiencing problems with family members and in raising children, and widows. St. John Paul II observed of the saint, “Rita well interpreted the ‘feminine genius’ by living it intensely in both physical and spiritual motherhood.”

Alone in the world, Rita renewed her relationship with the sisters at the Convent of Santa Maria Magdalena, working, praying, and staying with them as often as she could. A short time later, Rita asked to join the Augustinian convent, but was rebuffed. The refusal stemmed from the fear of both the sisters and their bishop that the still-raging feud between Rita’s Mancini relatives and the other families of Cascia would spill over into the convent, endangering the lives of the nuns and those in their care.

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Sorely disappointed by her rejection— repeated several times over the course of three years and always for the same reason—Rita decided at last that the only way she would ever become a sister would be by bringing an end to the feud that had blocked her entry.

Rita undertook the seemingly impossible test of achieving peace among Cascia’s warring families. It took her a year to accomplish her mission—challenging the adversaries, reasoning with them, and, most of all, praying—but Rita was able to bring the families together in a peace compact for which she served as the primary witness.

The written agreement, recorded and notarized in 1417 and submitted to the Augustinian sisters, opened the doors to the convent to her and won the nuns’ hearts. A fresco depicting the scene of the signing of the agreement, with Rita clearly placed in a prominent position, hangs on a wall of the Church of St. Francis in Cascia.

Sharing in Christ’s Suffering

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Batter Up, Sister . . .

No, St. Rita is not the patroness of baseball because she was the star pitcher for the convent team. Rather, her patronage of America’s pastime is rooted in relatively recent events. In 1920 a convent in rural Texas financed the construction of a nearby oil well.

The sisters named the rig The St. Rita, dedicating it to the saint of the impossible, and they prayed for more than a year that their well would produce a gusher, which it did.

The men who built that well, however, also built a baseball diamond nearby where they played during breaks. Several pursued careers in the minor and major leagues.

Decades later, high school teacher Jimmy Morris would make an unbelievable debut as a major league pitcher at the age of 35—a time when most ballplayers are planning to retire. Jimmy’s story was made into the major motion picture The Rookie, starring Dennis Quaid. In that film, St. Rita is invoked several times as baseball’s patroness.

Though St. Rita’s patronage of baseball is unofficial, it has become widely accepted. Medals and holy cards are now made with her image on one side and “Patroness of Baseball” on the other. Many school teams and minor and major league players adopted Rita as their own.

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PHOTO © ALBO/FOTOLIA

Because of her success in bringing about reconciliation in Cascia, Rita is known as both The Peacemaker and as the saint of impossible and lost causes. John Paul II called Rita “the younger sister of St. Francis,” for both were native to Umbria and known for their prayerful, peacemaking abilities. Like Francis, she remains a powerful example of the merciful and forgiving spirit.

Rita spent 40 years as an Augustinian nun in the Convent of Santa Maria Magdalena.

There she devoted herself to the passion of Christ, praying to share Christ’s suffering on the cross. Her prayers were answered when on Good Friday 1442, while kneeling before an image of the Jesus of Holy Saturday (also known as the Resurgent Jesus), she was gifted with a wound from a thorn from Jesus’ own crown of thorns. The thorn settled and festered in the center of her forehead for the remainder of her life.

When 20th-century doctors examined Rita’s incorrupt body, they clearly noted the wound to her forehead. They also discovered a serious degeneration of the spine, right leg, and right foot that the doctors believed indicated suffering from sciatica and arthritis, endured for much of her adult life. This revelation is the origin of her patronage of those suffering from similar afflictions involving the spine, joints, and limbs.

For the last two years of her life, Rita was confined to her bed, cared for lovingly by her

fellow sisters and subsisting solely on water and the Eucharist.

Tradition holds that upon her death at age 76, on May 22, 1457, the bells of Cascia’s churches began to toll mysteriously on their own. So many people wanted to have one last look at “The Peacemaker of Cascia” that Rita’s funeral had to be delayed repeatedly and, in fact, never actually took place. Instead, the future saint was placed in an ornamental wooden coffin in front of which visitors daily knelt in prayer. Ironically, this richly decorated sarcophagus gave rise to Rita’s most famous patronage, for victims of domestic abuse.

Every account of St. Rita’s life paints an unfounded portrait of a wife physically abused by her husband. That error stems from the misconception that Paolo Mancini beat his wife. The Rev. Michael Gregorio, OSA, former pastor of St. Rita’s Shrine Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, explains that, at the time of Rita’s death, a poem was inscribed on her ornamental coffin that spoke of her heroic

Patronages/Titles of St. Rita ■ Peacemaker ■ Saint of the Impossible ■ Victims of abuse, loneliness, grief, infertility, gynecological problems, wounds, blood disorders, circulatory problems, bodily ills, desperation, difficult marriages; those suffering from the loss of a spouse or children, family discord, difficult reconciliations; those with spine, limb, and joint problems; amputees; parents/parenthood, aging parents, widows; and baseball.

PHOTO © IVAN POLUSHKIN/FOTOLIA

Rita’s Roses During the January before Rita’s death, a cousin of hers came to visit.

Before leaving the convent, the cousin asked Rita if she wanted anything. Rita asked for a rose from the garden of her former home.

Because it was winter—and with snow covering the ground—the cousin questioned the feasibility of the aging nun’s wish. When she arrived at Rita’s former home, however, among the snow-covered bushes, the cousin found a beautiful single rose in full bloom, which she joyfully carried back to the convent.

Another story tells that Rita then asked for two figs from her home, which were also found nestled in the snow. For Rita, the rose and the figs symbolized the love of her husband and their two sons. Those devoted to the saint can still visit both Rita’s former home and its legendary rosebushes.

Said St. John Paul II of Rita’s roses: “The worldwide devotion to St. Rita is symbolized by the rose. It is to be hoped that the life of everyone devoted to her will be like the rose picked in the garden of Roccaporena the winter before the saint's death.

“That is, let it be a life sustained by passionate love for the Lord Jesus; a life capable of responding to suffering and to thorns with forgiveness and the total gift of self, in order to spread everywhere the good odor of Christ (cf. 2 Cor 2:15) through a consistently lived proclamation of the Gospel. Rita offers her rose to each of you: in receiving it spiritually strive to live as witnesses to a hope that never disappoints and as missionaries of a life that conquers death.”

love and life. As the decades passed, the inscription became so difficult to read that one line was mistranslated as Rita having to “bravely endure her ferocious husband.”

During restoration decades later, however, it was discovered that the sentence referred, not to Rita’s having to “endure her ferocious husband” but rather her “ferocious wound,” namely the partial stigmata she carried the last 15 years of her life.

Still, that Rita probably did not suffer spousal abuse does nothing to diminish her role as an intercessor for domestic strife. After all, she has always been regarded as a peacemaker for all situations, especially those involving family and loved ones.

A Compelling Story Pope Leo XIII canonized Rita of Cascia in 1900.

No doubt the fact that St. Rita’s body has remained intact and incorrupt since her death played a part in his decision. It lies today in a glass coffin at the chapel inside her shrine in Cascia.

Thousands of pilgrims pray before her body each year, and special events take place annually on her feast day. In the United States, devotees of St. Rita may visit her shrine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, administered by the Augustinians. An excellent website is available at saintritashrine.org.

What makes the story of St. Rita so compelling more than 550 years after her death?

In this peacemaking woman of God, we see ourselves or someone we love.

That transcendent quality is what prompted John Paul II to say of St. Rita: “Here is a woman who lived in humility and is now known throughout the world for her heroic Christian life as a daughter, wife, mother, widow, and nun. Deeply rooted in the love of Christ, Rita found in her faith unshakable strength to be a woman of peace in every situation. In her example of total abandonment to God, in her transparent simplicity and in her unflinching fidelity to the Gospel, we, too, can find sound direction for being authentic Christian witnesses.” A The feast of St. Rita of Cascia is celebrated worldwide on May 22.

(All quotes from St. John Paul II are taken from the Apostolic Letter Address of the Holy Father, May 20, 2000.)

Rita Piro is a writer from Queens Village, New York. She is the creator of the website catholicschoolhistory.com.

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

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The

O

Joyof the Gospel

n November 26, 2013, Pope

Francis released

“The Joy of the Gospel,” his apostolic exhortation based on the 2012 world Synod of Bishops, “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.”

These quotes from that exhortation describe our present challenge and the Lord’s help available to meet it. The full text is

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available at vatican.va.

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

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“An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives; . . . and it embraces human life, touching the

CNS PHOTO/CHERYL RAVELO, REUTERS

suffering flesh of Christ in others.”

“My hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, . . . while at our door people are starving and Jesus does not tire of saying to us: ‘Give them something to eat’ (Mk 6:37).”

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CNS PHOTO/SARAH WEBB, CATHOLIC STANDARD AND TIMES

“The joy of the Gospel is for all people: no one can be excluded.”

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“Before all else, the Gospel invites us to respond to the God of love who saves us, to see God in others, and to go forth from ourselves to seek the good of others.”

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

“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being CNS PHOTO/GREGORY A. SHEMITZ

confined and from clinging to its own security.”

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“We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor.

May we never abandon them.”

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M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 4 3

You Visited Me

Spending time with her husband’s Italian grandmother wasn’t a chore. Their hours together were grace-filled.

BY NANCY GRILLI

“

T

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PHOTO © VLNTN/PHOTOXPRESS

PHOTOS FROM FOTOLIA: WALLPAPER © NICEMONKEY, FRAME © LIZARD; FAMILY PHOTO COURTESY NANCY GRILLI

HERE’S A HOUSE available down the street from Mom,” my husband, Anthony, cautiously mentioned as we drove through the evening rush-hour traffic to our suburban apartment.

“I was thinking perhaps we could live there a couple of years while Mom adjusts to Dad’s passing,” he continued. “Dad handled everything, and Mom is overwhelmed with all the responsibilities.”

I would normally plunge right in with my opinion, but Anthony’s suggestion was so out of the blue that I had no ready reply. His words seemed to hang in the air between us as we drove along in the dwindling twilight.

“It won’t be forever,” he finally added. “We can still go ahead with our plans to move out to the country, but for now I think we should consider it.”

Since I offered no encouragement, Anthony allowed the subject to drop. I can’t say I was happy about the prospect of moving into the old neighborhood. Throughout our engagement and the first year of marriage, we had dreamed of moving out of the city and had faithfully put money aside with hopes of building our own home.

I soon learned that the small house he had seen for sale was only three doors down from his mother and directly across the side street from Nonna Angelica, his father’s elderly mother. So it was with some reluctance that I agreed to his plan, and we moved in.

My friends thought I was mad to live within shouting distance of my in-laws because we would relinquish the privacy and autonomy that young married couples need. But I could foresee some advantages. Sharing my husband across the street was better than losing him for a couple of hours across town while he attended to his mother’s affairs, which is exactly what had been happening night after night since his father died.

“Just a couple of years,” Anthony promised, and at the time I had no reason to doubt his M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 4 5

For many Italian families, Sunday dinners are a big deal—a time to break bread and connect with loved ones. Here, Nonna Angelica proudly serves one of her culinary creations.

FRAME PHOTO © VLNTN/PHOTOXPRESS; FAMILY PHOTOS COURTESY NANCY GRILLI

intent. But somehow one year melted into the next, and I became a stay-at-home mom as our brood expanded to five children.

The little house in the urban neighborhood had become home.

Friendly Visits

Familial obligation compelled the author and her husband, Anthony, pictured with his mother, to move into the family neighborhood to help care for its elderly members.

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After the birth of each child, Nonna would cross the street with a hand-crocheted baby blanket and a little Italian charm on a gold chain for the new one. She was the quintessential Italian grandmother: short and round, elderly yet self-sufficient, a meticulous housekeeper and gardener.

Most mornings, Nonna walked to our parish church nearly a mile through the neighborhood to attend the 6:30 Mass. If you dropped by for a visit in the afternoon, you might interrupt her daily rosary, which she recited on her knees in her living room.

She had emigrated from Italy 40 years earlier with her husband and their young children.

Although Nonna had a passable understanding of English, she spoke it with a heavy accent and was more comfortable with her native tongue.

She was a wonderful gardener, growing most of her own vegetables. I recall our first spring in the little house, when I happened to look

out the window to see her in my side yard sprinkling parsley seeds where she found a spot of arable dirt near the house. When May arrived, she returned with her trowel and some seeds in her apron. She was in the middle of planting them in my flower bed when I interrupted her.

“Nonna? What are you doing?” I asked in my sweetest voice.

“You like?” was all she answered.

It took a little prodding and careful listening to her tentative English before I understood she was planting bush beans in the middle of my azalea bed. It seemed Nonna had decided my little yard was her annex—her excess seeds and seedlings could find a spot in our yard for us to enjoy. That’s when I decided I had better survey a plot for a small vegetable garden, or I would have vegetables cropping up everywhere in the yard.

The following day I walked over to Nonna’s house and told her I wanted to plant a garden.

Would she help? It was the best gift I could have given her.

“Sure! Sure!” she answered. “Tomorrow.”

Investment of Time Early the next day, Nonna arrived with her mason jar of fertilizer, a half-dozen tomato plants, and baby food jars full of various seeds.

She and I spent the morning tilling, fertilizing, planting, and watering the little area along the east side of our driveway.

At 80 years old, she could work circles around me. She spaded the heavy clay soil, added peat, and we raked it fine. Then she showed me how to plant her favorite lettuce, how far apart to space the tomato plants, and how to mound up the soil and drop four or five zucchini seeds in each mound.

Throughout the summer she came to check on the garden often, knocking at the door to remind me if it needed watering. I might return home from a shopping trip and see a couple of pulled weeds lying at the edge of the garden— evidence that Nonna had been there.

When the tomato blossoms came, she taught me how to snap off the sucker branches.

She worked so quickly that it took me a while to figure out what she was actually doing, and she seemed unable to explain herself. The following—and each subsequent—year I planted my own vegetables, but Nonna came regularly to check the progress.

Over the years, Nonna’s mind began to slip.

When she neared 90, her memory failed dramatically, and shortly thereafter she struggled St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o r g

with incontinence. Always fastidious about her personal hygiene and her home, she seemed to no longer notice. Soon both Nonna and the house took on an unpleasant smell.

But she was happy in her home, didn’t seem to be a danger to herself, and was adamant about not moving in with her daughter.

We all knew she needed extra help and, since I was close by, I offered to drop in once a day to check on her. Because she ate her main meal at noon, I would stop in each afternoon when I thought Nonna would be done with the dishes. I would check all the burners on the stove and make sure the front door was locked and the faucets were off. Then I would sit down in the chair across from her near the kitchen window, and we would chat for a half hour or so.

By this time, Nonna had almost completely reverted to her native Italian. I knew no Italian, but I prattled on hoping that she could at least understand my English. I remarked on the weather, told her stories about the kids, and commented on the neighborhood news.

Long-Standing Tradition As I sat visiting with Nonna, the unpleasant odors hung faintly in the room, and my mind drifted back 20 years earlier to a memory when my sister, Mary, and I had occasionally accompanied our mother on her trips to the County Home for the Aged and Infirm. In the days before Medicare, county homes were common. In our large metropolitan area, the home was often referred to as the “poorhouse” since all the inhabitants were destitute and, due to age or illness, had become wards of the county.

When I was about 6 years old, my mother learned quite by accident of an elderly cousin who was a resident at the county home. On visiting day, her first stop was at the neighborhood bakery where Mother bought several dozen fresh doughnuts. When we arrived at the home, Mary and I would carry in the doughnuts, while Mother carried in a large cardboard box filled with bananas, oranges, raisins, and hard candy.

After checking in at the nurse’s station, the three of us would visit the women’s wards: large, open rooms with beds lining the walls, and an area in the center of the room for a few old chairs and a table. Most of the women were Fr anciscanMedia.org

dressed in faded nightgowns and stayed in their beds, while a few shuffled about in slippers and cotton robes.

Mother chatted and laughed with the women. She would remember their names, comment on the photos that sat on their bedside tables, pass out the goodies, and hold the cold and frail hands while she listened to their list of woes.

“Come here and let me see how big you are getting,” the bedridden Celia said, as she reached out toward me and my sister. Mother would motion us forward, and my big sister would step up and let the woman hold her hand. I would shrink behind her. The excurANSWERS TO PETE AND REPEAT sion to the county home would last an hour or so, and I was 1. Pete now has a frown. always relieved when Mother 2. Scruffy is sleeping in the garden. began her good-bye waves as 3. Pete’s pants have a pocket. we made our way to the door.

4. There is a grip on the shovel’s handle.

My visits to Nonna’s house 5. One of Pete’s sleeves is now longer. were a far cry from my visits as 6. There is another cloud in the sky. a young girl to the county 7. Part of Pete’s cowlick is missing. home, but our sense of smell 8. Pete is now wearing a V-neck shirt. has a way of triggering memories we might have thought forgotten. When I sat with

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Nonna, I realized what a marvelous example my mother had shown. Her acts of love and kindness with the elderly had subliminally encouraged me to reach out to Nonna.

There but for the Grace of God

tal Digi as Extr

Rarely are we given the opportunity to physically care for our older relatives, yet the day would soon come when Nonna would need more than just someone to check the burners on her stove. I would soon take turns with my husband’s cousins in bathing Nonna and caring for her more personal needs. Although at first these tasks were embarrassing for me, I found it mitigated by the easy closeness we Click here for more had achieved through the little on family and aging. visits.

Nothing required me to become involved with Nonna.

Neither my husband nor his aunt ever actually asked me to help out. I volunteered. I loved Anthony and his family, and many years ago, even though hidden from memory at the time, I had witnessed kindness to the elderly by my mother. But the ability to follow through on my decision to visit daily was possible only with the grace of God. The primary kindness, and the most gratifying component of the small service I performed, occurred in the visit itself—that brief time I spent talking and keeping company with Nonna. As Blessed Teresa of Calcutta once said, service should not be measured in how much we do, but rather in how much love we put into the doing.

Motivated by Love We all soon realized that Nonna needed more specialized care, and my husband’s aunt moved Nonna into a nursing facility. When I visited

The author, pictured here, never questioned her call to visit and care for Nonna. Being a source of presence for those in need is a lesson that was imparted by her mother.

FRAME PHOTO © VLNTN/PHOTOXPRESS; PHOTO COURTESY NANCY GRILLI

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her at her new home, I took my 2-year-old along and would wheel Nonna about in her wheelchair while she held my daughter in her lap. It was fun for little Marisa, and such a pleasure for Nonna. It also charmed the other residents, who would reach out to touch Marisa’s hand as we made our way down the halls and out into the courtyard area.

For many who sat for hours in the long halls and common areas, Marisa was a bright spot, an exuberance of life in their quiet, often lonely day. And for me and Marisa it was a gift that was easy to give: the simple gift of our presence.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus reminds us to give comfort to the sick and to visit the imprisoned. Gone are the days when I could walk across the street for a break in my busy day and visit with one of my in-laws.

The county homes have been replaced. Now nursing facilities and lovely retirement communities offer both independent- and assistedliving arrangements. But for the person who has lost driving privileges or has developed physical limitations, a nursing facility or an assisted-living arrangement can, in many respects, seem like confinement.

It wasn’t until I reached my 30s that I finally understood what motivated my mother in her trips to the county home. She was motivated by love. For reasons perhaps not fully understood by my mother, God touched her heart and led her on those little jaunts out to the edge of town with a box of goodies for the elderly poor. She entered with a smile, held the fragile, wrinkled hands, listened to their complaints, passed out little treats, and promised to return.

I believe God answers prayers. I believe God answered the prayers of those residents in the county home when God sent them my mother. I believe God answered the prayers of my mother-in-law when we bought the little house down the street from her. I believe God answered the prayers of Nonna—surely whispered in Italian—when she was kept safe and cared for in her dementia.

Above all, I believe God answered my prayers.

For often when I asked, “What can I do today that would please you?” the answer was quick and clear: “Why not go for a visit?” A Nancy Grilli is the owner of Signature Store Fixtures in Columbus, Ohio, but has developed a passion for spiritual writing. “Although an accountant by profession, my real love is bringing God into my stories,” she says. “I love discovering God in the minutiae of everyday life.”

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

EDITORIAL

They Just Couldn’t Resist An overreach from the United Nations children’s rights committee was a missed opportunity.

A 16-page report of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has called the Catholic Church to task for mishandling clergy sexual abuse. If it weren’t for the committee’s overstep into areas beyond clergy sexual abuse, the February report might have done a lot of good. But it seems as likely now to be thrown onto the discard heap of culture-war artifacts.

Though the Church has been painfully slow to recognize clergy sexual abuse as a worldwide issue, the committee made some recommendations which are already well established in parts of the Church, namely in the United States.

A 2002 charter is being adhered to almost everywhere in the United States, though, scandalously, a few bishops among our 195 dioceses have secretly ignored it.

The Vatican curia itself, as some would say, crept into action. Pope Benedict’s universal “zero tolerance” message was a breakthrough. But it was nowhere near enough.

Pope Francis seems to have started to beef up the effort by appointing Boston’s Cardinal Seán O’Malley and a mixed commission of men and women to lead an effort to share best practices across the Church.

human sexuality and abortion. Those recommendations blindsided the Holy See’s UN representative, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, and caused a stern and appropriately defensive reaction by the Holy See. It was a violation of religious liberty, which the UN purports to support.

The committee failed, furthermore, to mark any of the significant progress of the past decade, particularly in the United States.

The Holy See, though, is a most unusual nation-member of the United Nations—territorially identified with Vatican City State, but with vast, deep, and, in some ways, juridical influence in every diocese worldwide. Therein lies at least one of the problems in the recommendations: Does the Holy See truly, legally govern dioceses and religious orders? Church officials would say not in civil law; only in canon law.

In light of the increasingly Here was an opportuobvious, systemic, worldwide problem of clergy sexual nity, on the part of the abuse, known to be covered UN, to encourage the up by local bishops with the direct aid of the Vatican, Church toward fuller shuffling incriminating docu- accountability. ments in embassy bags and the like, that gets complicated.

Can one say with integrity that the Vatican City State is not directly responsible for at least some of the concealment?

Change Church Teaching?

Most appropriately, the UN committee report makes recommendations beyond the US bishops’ charter, ones that reformminded Catholics have been calling for, too.

If followed, these recommendations would break new and helpful ground. These include greater transparency and dealing with those bishops who knowingly covered up illegal actions. As Cardinal O’Malley told National Catholic Reporter in 2010, those bishops “should be removed.”

Sadly, other recommendations were tagged to the UN report that essentially involved changing Church teaching on Fr ancisca n Media .org

A Flawed Strategy So here was an opportunity, on the part of the UN, a world organization, to encourage the Church toward fuller accountability.

They blew it.

It’s tragic that the Church, a shining example of charity and justice for children in so many of its social programs, is so tainted by clergy sexual abuse and its coverup. And it’s just too bad that the United Nations committee squandered a chance to exert some positive, effective influence as we get our house into order.

—John Feister M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 4 9

ASK A FRANCISCAN

❘ BY FATHER PAT McCLOSKEY, OFM

Only Christians in Heaven?

I was recently speaking with another Christian about whether nonChristians can go to heaven. She said that the only way someone can go to heaven is through Jesus Christ.

I believe an all-loving God would not deny heaven to those who do not know Jesus Christ. Jews and Muslims love God the Father. Also, some people have never been exposed to Christianity. What can I say to her?

Whoever is in heaven is indeed there because of the saving passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That

does not mean, however, that everyone in heaven had an explicit faith in Jesus before arriving there, or was even baptized.

The saying “Outside the Church there is no salvation” is credited to St. Cyprian (third century). More than 150 years later, St. Augustine wrote that the Church has some people whom God does not have, and God has some people whom the Church does not have.

Father Leonard Feeney, SJ, was excommunicated in 1953 for his overly strict interpretation of St.

Did Adam and Eve Cause Death?

© ZATLETIC/FOTOLIA

Would the first man and woman have experienced physical death if the Fall did not happen?

Not named in the Priestly account of creation (Gn 1:1—2:4a), Adam and Eve appear only in the Yahwist version (2:4b—3:24). The serpent says that disobeying God’s command will not cause them to die (3:4). Was the serpent telling the truth here? God does not address the issue of whether they would have died if they had not sinned.

It is very difficult to extract a doctrinal statement from a poetic account such as the Yahwist’s story.

If the Church had respected this difficulty, it might not have condemned Galileo for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun.

Perhaps humans would have died even if Adam and Eve had not sinned, but death might have involved less pain and anxiety about the future.

The Yahwist author shared the older conviction among the Hebrews that there was no life beyond this one—or that there was a life that did not distinguish between those who had acted according to God’s values and other people who rejected those values completely.

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Cyprian’s saying. He was later reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church, which continues to reject his position on this issue.

At Vatican II, a document on Catholicism’s relation to Judaism eventually became the “Decree on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions” (approved October 28, 1965).

After addressing how Hinduism and Buddhism address deep human needs, the bishops wrote: “So, too, other religions which are found throughout the world, attempt in different ways to overcome the restlessness of people’s hearts by outlining a program of life covering doctrine, moral precepts, and sacred rites.

“The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. It has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and doctrines which, although differing in many ways from its own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men and women. Yet it proclaims and is duty bound to proclaim without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 1:6). In him, in whom God reconciled all things to himself (2 Cor 5:18-19), people find the fullness of their religious life” (2).

After acknowledging Muslims who worship one God, venerate Jesus as a prophet, honor Mary, and are devoted to prayer, almsgiving, and fasting (3), the decree describes Catholicism’s debt to and unique relationship with Jewish people, specifically rejecting the claim that they are cursed for the part some Jews played with the Romans in Jesus’ death (4).

According to Vatican II’s “Pastoral St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” Christians have been configured to the death of Christ but go forward in hope to the resurrection. The text immediately adds: “All this holds true not only for Christians but also for all people of good will in whose hearts grace is active invisibly. For since Christ died for everyone, and since all are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery” (22).

God’s judgment must remain God’s judgment! No one can replace God’s judgment with human judgment.

Catholic Baptism?

In the Nicene Creed, we say, “I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins.”

Does this “one Baptism” mean a Catholic baptism? If yes, then would I be correct in concluding that other baptisms are not effective in having a person’s sins forgiven—and therefore, that person would not be welcome into the kingdom of heaven?

Because people are baptized into the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, there are no Catholic baptisms as distinct from Methodist, Presbyterian, or Baptist baptisms. It is the same paschal mystery.

The Catholic Church accepts as valid any baptism that uses water and is given in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

This column’s first question and answer addressed the wider question of who can be saved.

Purgatory on Earth?

I read somewhere a theory that after death we live our lives over again to see the sins we committed, the people we hurt, and that impact on others.

Fr ancisca n Media .org

At my advanced age, I am constantly recalling various times in my life where I hurt others (in no criminal or unlawful way); some of the memories are too painful to recall (for example, my son’s suicide). Is it possible to experience our purgatory while still here on earth?

Please know that your son has always been in God’s loving hands.

So are you. Joy is God’s natural gift; we could say that Satan, on the other hand, has the monopoly on discouragement, using it to maximum effect.

Yes, it is possible to experience purgatory on earth, not necessarily eliminating “more” purgatory after death. As to the theory that you mentioned, we can only live once; that is what makes each day’s decisions so significant.

We can in later years, however, come to appreciate more fully the effect of our actions on other people and how their actions have influenced our lives—positively or nega-

tively. Sometimes we can directly repair some of the damage we have done. Other times, we can allow that experience to make us more compassionate or generous people.

Beneath the Catholic Church’s teaching about purgatory is its conviction that not everyone who is going to heaven is necessarily ready to be with God. Without a further cleansing of some type, being in God’s presence continually could be more frustrating than consoling, because the person has not yet accepted God’s ways completely and how they impact our dealings with other people. A

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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M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 5 1

BOOK CORNER

❘ BY CAROL ANN MORROW

Just Married The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage

By Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak Ave Maria Press 256 pages • $15.95 Softcover, Kindle edition Reviewed by GINA LOEHR, a freelance writer and speaker on topics including the sacrament of marriage and the saints. Gina’s most recent book is Saint Francis, Pope Francis: A Common Vision, published by Franciscan Media.

Marriage is more than meets the eye. So Greg and Lisa Popcak suggest in their newest

WHAT I’M READING

Classics on Jesus ■ The

Lord, by Romano Guardini, German Catholic theologian

■ The

Humanity of Christ, by Romano Guardini

■ The

Mind of Jesus, by William Barclay, professor of divinity at the University of Glasgow, Scotland

■ Jesus,

by Jean Guitton, French Catholic theologian

■ Life

of Our Lord Jesus Christ Ecology, by Abbé Louis-Claude Fillion, Pontifical Biblical Commission

The Rev. Joseph F. Girzone is the author of the popular and inspirational Joshua books, which have been read by an estimated 40 million people. His most recent book is Stories of Jesus: 40 Days of Prayer and Reflection, published by Franciscan Media.

5 2 ❘ May 2014

book on the subject. As they put it, “Marriage is actually a ministry, a way that we live out God’s grace in the world.” This noble vision of the vocation of marriage echoes throughout their empowering, educational guide for married couples.

First, let’s clear up a possible misconception. Contrary to what the title indicates, any husband and wife who desire to breathe a little life into their marriage can benefit from this book; you need not be married five years or less. The advice within its pages is concrete and practical, and many of the subjects are universally relevant: spirituality, sexuality, money, in-laws, and conflict, to name a few.

In addition to their encouraging philosophy that “God really is rooting for you,” this husband-and-wife team of 25 years insists that couples have control over the success of their marriage. “Never blame your marriage,” they say, because ultimately “a marriage only has the life a husband and wife give to it.” Accepting responsibility for marital trials is the first step to fixing them.

The authors believe that the difference between “marriage masters” and “marriage disasters” is a set of teachable skills. Drawing on Dr. Greg’s professional experience as a marriage counselor and Lisa’s work as a family life coach, they set out to teach couples these valuable skills.

Their approach is engaging. They weave together a delightful blend of personal stories from their own marriage and case studies from “real-life” couples, as well as statistics and information that will help couples embrace the four “commitments” necessary for marriage mastery: commitment to 1) individual and couple prayer, 2) nurturing their love, 3) each other, and the marriage vows, and 4) learning new skills.

The authors offer specific suggestions in each category. Regarding couple prayer, for example, they describe “the PRAISE format.”

This simple structure can serve as a tool for couples who are new to praying together.

The authors admit that “learning to love someone more than yourself doesn’t come naturally.” But Catholic marriage isn’t natural; it’s supernatural.

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

BOOK BRIEFS

For First Communicants Sophie Wonders about the Eucharist

By Debby Bradley, illustrated by Lula Guzmán Liguori Publications 32 pages • $4.99 Paperback

Random MOMents of Grace Experiencing God in the Adventures of Motherhood

By Ginny Kubitz Moyer Loyola Press 152 pages • $13.95 Paperback Reviewed by ANGIE MIMMS, writer, grad student, and mother of three.

In the house of a mother, there are many rooms. And most of them need to be dusted.

Yes, priorities shift when motherhood dawns, and author Ginny Kubitz Moyer understands this well. Mother of two, English teacher, and self-described “spiritual junkie,” Moyer offers a collection of honest, open, and questioning essays about her search for spirituality among the miracles and messes of life with two young sons.

Through it all, she manages to carve out a room for time with God and does her best to keep it in order.

Moyer brings only five years of motherhood experience to these essays, but she also brings thoughtfulness and attention to language and craft. Amid humor and heartbreak, Moyer calls readers to mindfulness, to live in the moment and find its grace, sanctity, and joy, even when you’re just blowing bubbles on the front lawn.

While other readers may find plenty to like, this book will appeal mostly to mothers of young children. Composed of 14 short essays, the book is easy to pick up and put down as family life dictates. Moyer, whose book Mary and Me is a Catholic Press awardwinner, writes with compassion, covenant, and comfort in between, on topics ranging from childhood innocence to the death of a close friend. Read her blog at randomactsof momness.com.

Fr ancisca n Media .org

This delightfully illustrated book is one of the “Sophie Wonders” series on the sacraments.

But your first communicant will know more than Sophie learns in this book. It’s actually better suited for 4- or 5-year-olds.

Jorge from Argentina The Story of Pope Francis for Children

By Marlyn Monge, FSP, and Jaymie Stuart Wolfe, with illustrations by Diana Kizlauskas Pauline Books and Media 64 pages • $9.95 Paperback This is a read-to chapter book, but one that children will enjoy. The pope’s grandparents and parents, and his early life and education, are of special interest because that is the audience for this biography. The illness which resulted in damage to his lung and the “troubles and terror” in Argentina are not glossed over. It’s a warm and engaging introduction.

The Look and Find Book of Bible Stories

By Marion Thomas and Andrew Everitt-Stewart The Word Among Us Press 48 pages • $12.95 Hardcover This book is sturdy, which is a plus, because adults will enjoy sharing these stories with little ones. The invitation to seek out characters or objects in each jam-packed illustration encourages careful study of each panorama. An answer key assists users with their Bible trivia.

Books featured in this column 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 M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 5 3

A CATHOLIC MOM SPEAKS

❘ BY SUSAN HINES-BRIGGER

Let There Be Peace—in My House

“M

om, she won’t get out of my room.”

“Mom, it’s my turn to watch my show and he won’t give me the remote.”

“Mom, she pinched me.” (Lest you think we allow such violence in our home, this one was a fabrication from 3-year-old Kacey, who is known at times to . . . well, let’s say, stretch the truth.)

And on, and on, and on.

Welcome to a day in the Brigger household.

I take comfort, though, in knowing that our family is not the only one dealing with this. In fact, thanks to numerous conversations and vent 5 4 ❘ May 2014

sessions with fellow parents, I know we are not alone.

The Gift of Peace So when Riley, my third child, asked me what I wanted for Mother’s Day, I quickly replied, “Peace.”

“No, like what present do you want?” she asked.

I told her I didn’t want a present, but that I wanted her and her brother and sisters to get along—for one full day.

She stood there staring at me with a blank expression on her face as if I had just responded to her in some foreign language. Then she said, “But if you wanted an actual present,

what would you want?” Sigh.

At that point I did momentarily consider asking for one of those “Get along” T-shirts I have seen on Pinterest. You know, the ones where you find an enormously large shirt and make two kids who can’t get along wear it at the same time.

But then the vision of the chaos that would ensue by putting two warring factions within such close proximity snapped me back to reality. No, I just wanted peace. But then again, doesn’t everyone?

Is There Hope?

I know peace is a tricky thing.

Nations, families, couples, and kids St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg

I CAN’T HELP MYSELF

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARY KURNICK MAASS

“The world will never be the dwelling place of peace till peace has found a home in the heart of each and every person, till every person preserves in himself/ herself the order ordained by God to be preserved.”

—St. John XXIII, “Peace on Earth” “Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you.”

—Phil 4:9 I know that I said quotes don’t automatically translate to peace, but on the off chance they might serve as the spark or inspiration needed for someone to work for peace, here are just a few.

have all struggled with how to achieve it for centuries everywhere.

There have been talks, statements, treaties, and programs created to bring about peace in our world. And yet we still struggle.

Search the Internet. You will find thousands of quotes about peace— quotes from Mother Teresa, Pope Francis, his predecessors, saints, and other religious leaders. And let’s not forget the vast array of peace-sign treatments and accompanying craft projects. Let’s face it: peace is a catchy concept.

The reality, though, is that peace will not be achieved through quotes that we can post on our Facebook pages or sweatshirts bearing symbols of peace. No, it’s going to take some action.

But what can we do? While we

“We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace; we need love and compassion.”

—Mother Teresa, The Joy in Loving: A Guide to Daily Living

may feel powerless to help bring peace to the Middle East, what are we doing closer to home? What are we doing to help foster a sense of peace in our homes? That is where it begins, isn’t it?

So I have to ask myself: How am I displaying a sense of peace when I lose my temper over the kids fighting? How many times do I lose my temper with people over insignificant things like a perceived slight or slow customer service?

Suddenly my request for peace seems a bit less like something I can ask for, but more something I need to try to work for. How? Well, I can search organizations that work for peace—Pax Christi, Catholic Relief Services, or the US bishops’ Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development—and vol-

unteer or support them in some way.

I can read and educate myself about the Church’s stance on peace-related issues so that I can speak about them with knowledge. Or I can find a local peace-supporting organization. But most important, I can work to bring peace into my own life.

That doesn’t mean, though, that I’m going to completely rule out the “Get Along” shirt. I may just need a much bigger size than I first thought. A

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 47)

Fr ancisca n Media .org

M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 5 5

BACKSTORY

Meeting the Patriarch

W

e journalists spend a lot of energy finding and nurturing leads.

For editors, that often means cultivating authors on the ground in story-rich areas. But once in a while, the editors here

get to write our own stories, firsthand, on location.

For me, it’s happening on the historic Jerusalem meetings, May 25–26, between Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.

PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER HEFFRON

Let me start four years ago, when a group from Franciscan Media was exploring the possibility of CNS PHOTO/LARRY DOWNING, REUTERS

producing a video program on Christian-Muslim relations. It happened that a friar, Robert Lentz (the iconographer), has friends in a Turkish cultural exchange program. They invited Robert and us to come on a cultural exchange to Turkey, free of charge, to explore ways to produce our video. Wow! Our new Muslim friends had good relations in Istanbul, Turkey, with Patriarch Bartholomew I, who, to Orthodox Christians, is the first among equal patriarchs. Before I knew it, we were walking into Patriarch Bartholomew’s chair-lined office for a visit! I took the photo (right) of Friar Greg Friedman shaking hands with His All Holiness (above right).

As our group parted, I lingered to ask Patriarch

PHOTO BY JOHN FEISTER

Bartholomew a question: Would he allow a St. Anthony Messenger interview one day? “Sure,” he said in his unassuming way, “by e-mail.” I put that lead away four years ago, for the right time.

Later this month, the Jerusalem meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew will commemorate the groundbreaking 1964 meeting of Pope Paul VI with Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I 50 years ago, the first such meeting in 500 years. My right time has arrived. I’ve tried to get through to Patriarch Bartholomew for that e-mail interview, but no luck so far! Well, not exactly.

It turns out that I’ll be among a small group of Catholic journalists whom the Israel Ministry of Tourism is taking to Israel during the papal visit. Sometimes getting to your source is as much about good luck as it is about determination! I’ll keep you posted. (The video, by the way, is Francis and the Sultan, from Franciscan Media.)

Editor in Chief 5 6 ❘ May 2014

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

AT HOME ON EARTH

❘ BY KYLE KRAMER

Saved by Beauty

M

ay is a beautiful time on our farm.

The hayfields are vivid green with the spring flush, the newly planted gardens are still neat and orderly, and my wife’s flowers are a wonderful riot of color.

This time of year always reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, originally penned by the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, but quoted often by Dorothy Day and others: “The world will be saved by beauty.”

I didn’t always put such faith in beauty.

When I was a young, unmarried farmer, the practical always trumped the aesthetic. Outside, I would plant only laser-straight rows of fruits and vegetables. Inside my small bachelor cabin—well, let’s just say I did manage to get indoor plumbing before getting married.

It’s taken my artist wife the dozen years of our marriage to help change my stubborn mind about the importance of beauty. She’s made sure that our house is a home with a heart, rather than merely a shelter from the weather. I’ve come to appreciate the somewhat random chaos of her flower and herb

gardens—and not just because our honeybees love them. I’ve even started to plant along the contour lines of our sloping ground, not only because it’s good farming practice, but also because I simply like the look of the crops hugging the hills.

Some have proposed that a love of beauty is simply a Adding Beauty leftover adaptive survival strategy passed down from Take on a project that will our hunter-gatherer ancesadd beauty to your home, tors. Recent studies have workplace, parish, or revealed that even now, neighborhood. widely differing cultures still have very similar ideals of a Restrict your purchases beautiful landscape: essenfor a week to those that tially, a version of the foodadd beauty to your life or rich ancient savannahs where someone else’s. humans evolved.

Beyond its evolutionary Name a place in your usefulness, though, I believe own life or another’s, or beauty saves us because it can in nature, where you see reveal “thin places,” where beauty in brokenness. divine grace shows through more clearly. I’ve felt the veil being pulled back in the transcendent perfection of a Rachmaninoff piano concerto or a take-your-breathaway painting by Monet. But as I age, and my list of flaws and failures gets longer, I also see beauty more and more in brokenness and imperfection, of nature and human nature alike.

God’s loving mercy shines brightly in the storm-damaged tree still reaching for the sunlight, in the stumbling recovery from addiction or abuse, in the scars on Jesus’ crucified and resurrected body (or on ours). Salvation doesn’t require perfection—in fact, just the opposite. And that’s a beautiful truth. A

1

2

3

© DZAIN/FOTOLIA

Small is the rule in nature. Start with a little and you’ll achieve the change you desire.

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tal Digi as Extr

Click here for more ways to connect with nature.

M ay 2 0 1 4 ❘ 5 7

© FYLE/FOTOLIA

Kyle Kramer, an organic farmer, is author of A Time to Plant: Life Lessons in Work, Prayer, and Dirt (Sorin Books).

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