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Diocese of Fall River, Mass.

F riday , May 29, 2015

Next step taken in sainthood cause for ‘Rosary Priest’ Servant of God Father Peyton Bishop da Cunha to attend celebration event at HCFM

By Dave Jolivet Anchor Editor

Our Lady of Hope Chapel in West Barnstable

Centennial celebration planned for historic Cape Cod chapel

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

WEST BARNSTABLE — The New Testament Letter to the Hebrews (6:19) describes hope in the Risen Christ as “an anchor for the soul.”

The maritime metaphor is appropriate, given that many of Christ’s early disciples were fishermen and could easily grasp how the lack of a reliable anchor could send an otherwise secured vessel aimlessly adrift and lost at sea.

It’s similarly appropriate then that one of the historic chapels on Cape Cod is adorned with a unique anchor-shaped cross atop its domed steeple. While that distinctive landmark had been

missing from the historic Our Lady of Hope Chapel of late, it was recently restored and rededicated on May 17 in preparation for this summer’s even-bigger centennial celebration.

A special 100th anniversary Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., at Our Lady of Hope Chapel on Sunday, July 19 at noon. Refreshments will be served immediately following the Mass and all are welcome.

Located at the intersection of Route 6A and Parker Road in West Barnstable, the small but charming Our Lady of Hope Chapel — a mission of Our Lady of Victory ParTurn to page 14

EASTON — Fall River Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., will lead a special event sponsored by Holy Cross Family Ministries on June 6, in honor of Servant of God Father Peyton in recognition of the 23rd anniversary of his death, including Rosary prayer, a Eucharistic Procession, Mass, and reception.

The event will also be a celebration of sorts of the recent good news of the continuation of the sainthood cause of Father Peyton.

There are millions across the world who don’t need an official declaration of the sainthood of Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., belovedly known as the “Rosary Priest,” to believe he is already a holy man in the eyes of God. But that hasn’t stopped scores of Father Peyton devotees from pursuing his sainthood cause. The latest step in that process, delivering to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome, the positio, a 1,300-page position document; the synthesis of a 6,000page report completed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which took over the cause in

2008, compiled from testimonies from more than 30 dioceses across the world.

Last month, Father Wilfred Raymond, C.S.C., president of Holy Cross Family Ministries, headquartered in Easton; Father David S. Marcham, vice postulator of the cause; Dr. Andrea Ambrosi, postulator; and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, Philippines, made the journey to Rome to deliver the positio.

“We are very pleased to see progress in Father Peyton’s cause,” said Father Raymond.

“Many people regularly tell me we need a ‘saint for families’ and that Father Peyton is the appropriate candidate.

“We honor Father Peyton’s memory by bringing families together to pray, especially the Rosary. We continue to fulfill his vision by sharing his strong belief with families around the world that ‘the family that prays together stays together.’”

“The positio contains the most compelling witness testimonies, documents, and analysis of his life and years of Turn to page 18

The Trial of the holy life, the heroic practice of virtue and reputation for holiness of Servant of God Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., was opened in Fall River on Oct. 1, 2003 at the Cardinal Medeiros Residence for Retired Priests. Then-Fall River Bishop George W. Coleman, left, is sworn in. To his right is Msgr. Daniel Hoye, J.C.L., the then-Promoter of Justice. (Photo by Dave Jolivet)

Cape Cod summer speakers series returns

By Becky Aubut Anchor Staff

Last year, speaker Bob Curley shared his grief and personal journey after his 10-year-old son Jeffrey was kidnapped and murdered. He initially led the fight to bring the death penalty back to Massachusetts, then after the two men who committed the crime were convicted, changed his view and denounced the death penalty.

MASHPEE — Christ the King Parish in Mashpee will be launching its annual Summer Catholic Reflections Speakers Series on June 25.

Co-sponsored by Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville, Our Lady of the Assumption in Osterville, and St. Anthony Parish in East Falmouth, the annual series is held at Christ the King Parish Hall (www.

ChristtheKingParish.com).

“The series was developed in 2008 by the pastors of Our Lady of Victory, St. Anthony and Christ the King,” explained Deacon Robert Lemay of

Christ the King Parish. “The need for adult Faith Formation was the originating purpose of this joint venture. This endeavor, of course, allowed those parishes involved to help defray the cost of having the guest speakers. It was also determined that Christ the King Parish would be the appropriate location for the presentations as Mashpee is the geographical center to the particular parishes.”

Deacon Lemay added, “The presentations are also offered throughout the Cape and the diocese and not limited to the local parishes” and are free to attend.

Three speakers are sched-

uled — one for June, July and August — and the series will begin on June 25 at 7 p.m. by hosting Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., who will present, “The New Evangelization for the 21st Century.” The bishop will take a look at the development of the concept of evangelization from the Second Vatican Council to the present, and examine the meaning of evangelization and discuss why evangelization should be in the forefront of every Catholic’s mind. Bishop da Cunha will explore what evangelization has to do with being Catholic, and why it’s an integral part of Turn to page 14

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News From the Vatican

May 29, 2015

Father Timothy Radcliffe: Controversial thinker is new Vatican consultant

Vatican City (CNA) — Father Timothy Radcliffe, a Dominican priest who led his order for 10 years and has stirred controversy in the past for his stance on certain ecclesial issues, was recently appointed as a consultor of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Consultors to the pontifical councils are officially appointed by the pope, and while it is not formally acknowledged, such appointments are typically made at the suggestion of the heads of the councils. With Father Radcliffe, the number of consultors of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace comes to 14.

The pontifical council’s goal is to “promote justice and peace in the world in accordance with the Gospel and the social teaching of the Church,” and its consultors “can be called upon to participate in working groups on specific topics.”

The appointment of Father Radcliffe as a new consultor is an impromptu one, as Benedict XVI appointed nine consultors to the body on Sept. 29, 2012, almost completely renewing the list of consultors in doing so.

Consultors are appointed to five-year terms, and since the nine appointed by Benedict XVI in 2012 will conclude their service in only two years, Father Radcliffe’s appointment sounded strange to some.

A source in the top ranks of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace stressed to CNA that “the Pontifical Council is always seeking new collaborators,” and that “when you find a good one, you don’t want to lose him.”

The source added that “Father Radcliffe has already collaborated with the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.”

According to another source in the same Vatican office, Cardinal Peter Turkson — its president — had designed Father Radcliffe as the successor to Bishop Mario Toso.

Bishop Toso was the pontifical council’s secretary: its number-two position. Bishop Toso had served from 2009-2014, and was appointed Bishop of Faenza-Modigliana on January 19. According to a Vatican source, Bishop Toso had been offered the chance to continue on in the Vatican after curial reform, but preferred to become a bishop of a diocese.

In fact, the appointment of a new secretary at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace is stalled, as the curia reform underway is almost certain to touch upon its structure and functions.

The pontifical council is expected to merge with the Pontifical

Councils Cor Unum, for Migrants, and for Health Care Workers, to form a Congregation for Charity, Justice and Peace, which would be composed of five secretariats: Justice and Peace, Charity, Migrants, Pastoral Healthcare and Human Ecology.

Waiting for any decision to come, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace asked the pope to enroll Father Radcliffe among its consultors, as a first step toward a more important commitment within the anticipated congregation.

According to a third source in the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Father Radcliffe is intended to take over the department of human ecology, as he was “entrusted last summer by Cardinal Turkson’s office to draft a first draft of Pope Francis’ upcoming encyclical on ecology.”

The source added that “ever since then, Father Radcliffe has been consulted more and more by Cardinal Turkson’s office, and at one point it had become clear that Cardinal Turkson thought of him as the ideal candidate to take over the post of ‘number two’ in the dicastery.”

Ordained a priest of the Dominican order in 1971, Father Radcliffe has authored several books, including “What is the Point of Being a Christian?” From 1992 to 2001 he was head of the Dominican Order, and has been a long-time contributor to Vatican Radio.

His statements, particularly those on homosexuality, have invited controversy in the Church, often challenging traditional teachings or attitudes. His prominent social justice work has been overshadowed at times by his comments on homosexual relationships.

He has also spoken up in support of the German bishops’ desire admit the divorced and remarried to Communion, a contentious suggestion which has been recently opposed by the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, as it was by Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II. Last year EWTN chose not to cover Ireland’s Divine Mercy Conference, because Father Radcliffe had been chosen as a keynote speaker at the event.

And in 2011, Father Radcliffe was scheduled to speak at the general assembly of Caritas International, a confederation of worldwide Catholic charities. The Vatican intervened to prohibit his address, and he was replaced

by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the pontifical household.

Members of the Daegu “Pueri Cantores” choir from South Korea play bells as Pope Francis greets the crowd during a recent general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Pope says parents must not exclude themselves from children’s lives

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Parents must not exclude themselves from their children’s lives and, despite what some “experts” may say, they must take an active role in their children’s education, said Pope Francis during a recent general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“It’s time for fathers and mothers to come out of their exile — because they have exiled themselves from their children’s education — and to fully assume again their educational role,” he said.

Continuing a series of talks about the family, the pope said its “essential characteristic” is its “natural vocation to educate children so that they grow in responsibility for themselves and for others.”

But, faced with numerous experts who tell them how their children should be raised, many parents have withdrawn their involvement in their children’s education, and this is “very grave,” he said. “’Critical’ intellectuals of all types have silenced parents in a thousand ways to defend the younger generation from the damages — real or imagined — of education in the family,” he said. “The family has been accused, among other things, of authoritarianism, favoritism, conformism and affective repression that generates conflict.”

The result is a “divide between families and society, between families and schools,” he said.

“The educative partnership between society and family is in crisis because mutual trust has been undermined,” the pope said.

Tensions and disagreements between parents and teachers are a symptom of the crisis, he said, and children bear the brunt of it.

He also spoke of the multiplication “of so-called ‘experts,’ who have taken over the role of parents, even in the most intimate aspects of education,” convincing parents their only role is to “listen, learn and adapt.”

Parents then “tend increasingly to entrust to the ‘experts’ even the more delicate and personal aspects of their children’s lives, setting themselves off alone in a corner,” he said.

In trying to demonstrate how “things have changed,” the pope told a personal story about when he said a bad word to his fourth-grade teacher, who promptly called his mother. When his mother came to school the next day, she made him apologize to the teacher and then disciplined him when he got home.

Today instead, he said, parents will reprimand a teacher who tries to discipline their child.

The pope said it is obvious the current situation is “not good” or “harmonious,” since it tends to put families and schools in opposition rather than in collaborative relationships.

In addition, he said, “puzzled by the new demands made by children” and the complexity of life, many parents are “paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake.”

“Educating children is difficult for parents who see them only in the evening when they return home tired from work,” he said. “It is even more difficult for parents who are sepa-

rated, who are weighed down by their circumstances.”

He urged separated parents to “never, never, never take a child hostage” by speaking ill of the other parent. He recognized that being separated is “a trial” but added that “children must not be the ones to carry the weight of this separation or to be used like hostages against the other spouse.”

The advice the Apostle Paul gives to children and parents in his Letter to the Colossians — that children obey their parents in all things and that parents not exasperate their children by “commanding in a bad way” so as not to discourage them — is “a wise rule,” he said.

To exasperate a child is to ask them to do things they are not able to do, the pope explained.

Rather, children must be accompanied and “grow without being discouraged, step-bystep,” he said.

He also exhorted families to practice patience.

“Even in the best of families, there is the need to put up with each other,” he said. “But that’s life. Life is not lived in a laboratory, it’s lived in reality.”

“Wonderful” Christian parents “full of human wisdom” demonstrate that good education in the family is the “spine of humanism,” he said. Their “radiance compensates for the gaps, wounds and voids of fatherhood and motherhood” that many children experience, he added.

If families were able to recover their pride in being the primary educators of their children, he said, “many things would change for the better, for uncertain parents and for disappointed children.”

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May 29, 2015

African human rights advocate meets European challenges with prayer

TIRANA, Albania (CNS) — It can be hard to head an advocacy agency in a region where the concept of appealing for one’s rights is still new, but try doing it as an African in Eastern Europe, where authorities assume your only intent is to cross illegally into the nearest Western nation.

The latter would describe the “calling” of Stephen Katende, the 38-year-old Ugandan in charge of local advocacy training in Eastern Europe for the international aid organization World Vision.

“They think you are traveling over just to travel to a safe haven in Western Europe,” he said of the reaction he often gets from immigration authorities in the various East European countries he covers for work.

A recent example of the kinds of difficulties he faces occurred in the Albanian capital in late April, Katende told CNS. He said that as soon as he landed, immigration police at Tirana’s international airport held and questioned him for 40 minutes before finally releasing him so he could start a week-long schedule of training Albanian youth in how to petition their communities for basic services, such as education and health.

“The problem was that (the police) saw that I had a visa going to Kosovo, so they thought I was crossing from Albania into Kosovo and then to Italy. Normally traveling in this region is difficult for an African,” Katende recounted in World Vision’s office downtown Tirana.

“It is challenging because there are few Africans you find in the same region. I invite the Holy Spirit to be with me and guide me so that I don’t get frustrated,” said Katende, who is Catholic.

He spoke to Catholic News Service after he had spent the day advising a group of 50 Albanian youth on ways of using information technology to make government officials socially accountable.

The group’s enthusiasm, and a similar eagerness for knowledge and change that he finds among other youth across the region, helped him to overcome the “challenges” of being the rare African in the area, he said.

“I believe this is a calling for me (and) I always turn the challenges into some good lessons for me,” he said, adding that he

attended Mass daily, wherever he was.

“One day you are in Bosnia and the Mass is in Bosnian, the next day you are in Albania and the Mass is in Albanian. With my Missal, I always understand,” he said.

It is hard to know exactly how many Africans visit or reside in Eastern Europe, but observers note that xenophobia in the region dates back many years and that, although antiSemitism has resided here, racism toward perceived outsiders, such as people from Africa and Central Asia, has replaced it.

“Yes, sometimes I do feel xenophobia, unfortunately from people you least expect,” said Katende, without elaborating.

But he said that the youth he interacted with across the region more often showed a kind of friendly curiosity toward him.

“They mainly ask where I come from. Sometimes about my family and also wanting to take photos with me. Those who have never met an African get really excited, which I find normal since the same would happen in a village in Africa where they have never seen a European,” said Katende, who grew up in Kasese district and holds a master of arts in human rights from Makerere University.

He said that among the major hurdles to training people in advocacy in Albania and other East European countries were “many elders who don’t believe that anything will change,” and an overall lack of knowledge regarding citizens’ basic rights, such as rights to education and health, or the right to know how public money is being spent.

“I have been going to com-

munities, training, discussing what are the most critical community problems, what approaches can we use to address them. The youth don’t know anything about budgeting, and yet the money is there. The law allows access of information, so we have been discussing issues of budgeting, issues of raising awareness about policies and holding leaders accountable,” said Katende, describing the week of work he had just finished in Albania.

Based on his discussions in the country, he said Albanian youth wanted better government, a less-polluted environment and more public funding to improve Albania’s weak primary and secondary schools.

“You see youth that are passionate about changing the state of their communities, they want better leadership, they want better services, they want their local communities to start budgeting for improving the qualities of schools,” he said.

Katende told CNS Bosnian immigration authorities were accustomed to him by now, so getting in and out of the former Yugoslav republic where he is based was no longer an issue.

“Initially, they would scrutinize my passport (and) visa to confirm that it is not forged.

Now it is easier,” he said.

He still depends heavily on prayer, however, to get him into the other regional countries he is responsible for, if traveling there for the first time or second time, he added.

“It is normally difficult at embassies. I have to pray for visas,” and even then he often had problems at the borders, he said.

“I find difficulties, but I overcome the challenges,” he said.

Chinese Catholics pray during a 2014 Mass in Beijing. Pope Francis asked Catholics worldwide to show solidarity through their prayers for Catholics in China and for persecuted Christians over the Pentecost weekend. (CNS photo/Wu Hong, EPA)

Pope urges prayers for persecuted Christians, China over Pentecost

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis asked Catholics worldwide to show solidarity through their prayers for Catholics in China and for persecuted Christians over the Pentecost weekend.

The World Day of Prayer for the Church in China is observed each year on the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, May 24, which this year fell on Pentecost.

Catholics in China invoke Mary, venerated at the Marian Shrine of Sheshan, near Shanghai, each May 24, the pope noted.

“We, too, will ask Mary to help Catholics in China always to be credible witnesses of this merciful love among their fellow citizens and to live Spiritu-

ally united to the rock of Peter, upon whom the Church is built,” he said.

The pope also underlined a prayer initiative of the Italian bishops’ conference inviting all Italian dioceses to pray for persecuted Christians on the vigil of Pentecost.

The vigil is intended to “remember the many brothers and sisters exiled or killed for the sole reason that they are Christian,” said the pope. “They are martyrs.”

The pope expressed his hope that the prayer vigil will “increase awareness” of the “drama of persecuted Christians in our day” and of religious freedom as an “inalienable human right,” as well as to “bring an end to this unacceptable crime.”

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The Church in the U.S.

May 29, 2015

Muslim leader praises 50-year-old Church document on religious dialogue

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Catholic Church leaders and scholars are not the only ones praising the 50-year-old Church document “Nostra Aetate” (“In Our Time”), the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on relations with non-Christian religions.

During the first part of a recent symposium on the document at The Catholic University of America, it also got high marks from a U.S. Muslim leader who said “Nostra Aetate” helps different faiths “recognize common roots and build a new sense of direction.”

Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America’s Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances, said the Church document links Catholics, Muslims and Jews by urging them to “promote the values” in their Sacred texts.

Today, he said the goal should be “to see ‘Nostra Aetate’ fully reinforced at every level.”

The document, promulgated Oct. 28, 1965, by Blessed Paul VI, has inspired decades of interfaith dialogue, which Syeed described as something that “doesn’t diminish our faith but helps us build an understanding with others.”

Put another way: “We keep our identity but work together,” he said.

Syeed also noted the time frame when the document was being put together, saying it occurred at the height of the civil rights movement in the United States and when there was a concentrated effort to start Islamic centers and Islamic student groups on university campuses in the U.S. During these “humble beginnings” of Islamic life in the United States, he said the “Catholic Church acted as a big brother” in its understanding of a religious minority.

This sentiment has continued in days since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he said, when the Catholic Church showed support to Muslims and opened its doors to them amid a growing Islamophobia.

Syeed said it is unfortunate that Americans know so little about Islam but praised Catholic universities for taking a leadership role in changing this on many of their campuses where there are departments of Islamic studies.

Auxiliary Bishop Denis J. Madden of Baltimore, immediate past chairman of the bishops’

Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said when he speaks about interfaith efforts at parishes he often gets questions about Islam that “can’t be ignored; they are in the air.”

He said the focus of interfaith efforts needs to be what was emphasized in “Nostra Aetate” — the “notion of commonality” — or the realization about what is the same in our faith practices.

That sense was echoed by Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, former papal nuncio to Egypt and former president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, who said the Vatican II document points the way to interfaith relationships by stressing in its opening paragraph: “We are conscious we belong to one family.”

He also said interfaith dialogue needs to recognize the importance of freedom of religion.

“It’s not enough to say a religious minority can pray at home. No, they have a right to have a place of worship,” he said.

Msgr. Paul McPartlan, a priest of the Archdiocese of Westminster, England, and professor of systematic theology and ecumenism at Catholic University, said the day’s discussion was a great example of how religious leaders can work together.

He said currently in Europe, there is a sense that all religions need to be pushed to the margins because they might offend one another, which he said is a mistake.

“We stand or fall together,” he said, adding that faith groups can do this in friendship and in solidarity.

Msgr. McPartlan also is acting dean of Catholic University’s School of Theology and Religious Studies, which co-sponsored the symposium along with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

All of the day’s speakers noted that interfaith work is not over.

Catholic University’s president, John Garvey, said in introductory remarks that it could be “tempting to pat ourselves on the back and say ‘good job’ but this document tells us not to.”

“We must continue to examine the Church’s relationship with other faiths,” he said, and also look at what we hope to accomplish through this effort.

“The heart of interfaith dialogue,” he said, “is that God will make Himself better known to us.”

U.S. pilgrims stand near the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero in the cathedral in San Salvador two days before the beatification of the archbishop (see page 15), who was shot by unidentified gunmen as he celebrated Mass March 24, 1980. (CNS photo/Lissette Lemus )

Cardinal Dolan: Catholics, Jews find common concerns in dialogue

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Through dialogue, Catholics and Jews and find common cause in the concerns that vex leaders of both religions, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York said during a recent forum on the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council document “Nostra Aetate.”

Thanks to “Nostra Aetate,” “Jewish-Catholic friendship has never been stronger,” Cardinal Dolan said in his address, “The Catholic Church’s National Dialogue With Jews Since ‘Nostra Aetate.’ The brave fathers of the (Second Vatican) Council, aided

by Jewish ‘periti’ (experts), could never have envisioned such success five decades ago.”

The success and friendship have been maintained, according to Cardinal Dolan, despite such issues that have cropped up in the half-century since.

Those issues include the Catholic Church’s old Good Friday prayer about conversion of Jews; the 1987 visit to the Vatican by Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, who reportedly had connections to the Third Reich; questions over Pope Pius XII’s role during the Second World War; Holocaust-denying clerics; furor over the Vatican’s 2000 document “Dominus Iesus”; the content of the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany; diplomatic exchanges between Israel and the Vatican; and Pope Francis’ recent overtures to Palestine.

Cardinal Dolan also recalled “the bickering over Mel Gibson’s movie ‘The Passion of the Christ,’” and charges of antiSemitism leveled at it. “We are family. We argue. That’s what family is all about,” he added.

“We raise our voices when we

get scared.”

There are five areas of common concern that could be addressed through further dialogue, suggested Cardinal Dolan, the Catholic co-chairman of the Church’s dialogue with the National Council of Synagogues.

First on the cardinal’s list was an “intensification” of efforts to “reclaim the primacy of God in a world prepared to not take Him seriously.” This he said, was at the core of St. John Paul II’s post-“Nostra Aetate” efforts. But the Polish-born pope died seeing “not much progress” in this field, Cardinal Dolan said.

He proposed to leverage “the friendship inspired by ‘Nostra Aetate’ to explore the pastoral issues that befuddle both of us,” among them the reality of Jewish-Christian intermarriage, teaching children the faith, preserving the Sabbath and having “timely and relevant Liturgies.”

Cardinal Dolan remembered commiserating with one rabbi who had performed a bar mitzvah and later told the prelate that he wasn’t likely to see the young man for 20 years until such time as he had a son of his own who needed a bar mitzvah.

To laughter from the audience at the forum, held at The Catholic University of America in Washington, the cardinal said he told the rabbi, “We have the same problem. We call it the Sacrament of Confirmation.”

Third on Cardinal Dolan’s list was confronting the loss of members, which he called “a juicy challenge,” adding, “The most towering pastoral problem we face together is America itself, which stresses personal choice on everything.”

Religious persecution also

made Cardinal Dolan’s checklist, saying that Jewish and Christian minorities throughout the world are ‘in the crosshairs of the rifle scope of extremists.”

His last item was “sin and redemption,” saying, “That’s the Christian and Jewish vocabulary.

That’s what the saints and the prophets have proclaimed,” but that clergy fail to preach on it.

Catholics, the cardinal asserted, are “hearing at Mass a version of the discredited I’m-OK-you’reOK theory of three decades ago.”

Rabbi Noam E. Marens, director of interreligious and intergroup relations for the American Jewish Committee, in a formal response to Cardinal Dolan’s remarks, noted how the AJC itself had a “notably restrained” reaction when “Nostra Aetate” was approved at Vatican II in mid-October 1965. Leaders at the time said they “regret keenly” changes and omissions in the final draft of the text that was approved.

However, after its official promulgation October 28 that year, Jewish enthusiasm was “unhindered” by any previous disappointments that had been expressed, Rabbi Marens added, as the AJC hailed “Nostra Aetate” as a “turning point” and a “new era” in Catholic-Jewish relations.

While the AJC archives did not indicate what brought about this turnaround in less than a month’s time, Rabbi Marens said it may have come simply from “not making the perfect the enemy of the good.” Subsequent dialogues and papal teaching have further eased Jews’ concerns.

“We have come a long way in 50 years,” he added. ‘If there is any keen regret, it has certainly disappeared by now.”

The Church in the U.S. Conference recalls Day as model for Catholic action in today’s society

May 29, 2015

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (CNS) — Dorothy Day means many things to many people.

A daughter of the Church. A saint for our time. A countercultural saint. The face of Catholic social justice. An icon of mercy.

All were among the ways Day was remembered during a recent conference examining her life and legacy as part of the events marking the 125th anniversary of the University of St. Francis in Fort Wayne. The conference was co-sponsored by Our Sunday Visitor.

Day, who died in 1980 at age 83, is known as the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, with its houses of hospitality, The Catholic Worker newspaper and farming communes.

The movement started in 1933 in New York when Day and French intellectual Peter Maurin began publishing the newspaper and opened a house of hospitality for hungry, outof-work people in the midst of the Great Depression. The movement continues today, with more than 230 communities in the U.S. and around the world, according to a Catholic Worker website.

Brandon Vogt, an author and blogger, spoke of Dorothy Day during one session as a faithful Catholic and activist and called her more than a social worker.

“For Dorothy, an encounter with the poor was an encounter with Christ,” Vogt said.

“Dorothy Day was a true daughter of the Church,” Vogt told the 120 people in attendance. “She puts a face on Catholic social justice.”

Robert Ellsberg, publisher of Orbis Books and editor of Day’s published diaries and letters, was deeply influenced by the social activist. He spoke of Day praying at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington in 1932, asking that God help her to use her talents to alleviate the sufferings of poor people. She returned to New York to find Maurin outside her apartment. He gave her a Catholic framework for the movement, he said.

Day also was a pacifist during World War II and the Vietnam War, which opened her to wide criticism, Ellsberg explained. She and fellow Catholic Worker members protested against institutions they believed contributed to poverty and injustice. In the 1970s, she joined protests on behalf of the United Farm Workers in the or-

ganization’s quest for just wages and safe working conditions in California and was arrested and jailed.

Jesus’ Incarnation was pivotal for Day, Ellsberg said. He quot-

Online, told participants in another session that she sees a strong connection between Day and Pope Francis and a Church that reaches to the marginalized. She pointed to the spirit of

conference-goers. She remembered Day — calling her “Granny” — as serious but also warm.

Day would travel to the farm where her only child, Tamar, lived with her husband and nine

Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement and its newspaper, The Catholic Worker, is depicted in a stained-glass window at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in the Staten Island borough of New York. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)

ed her writing: “The mystery of the poor is Jesus. What we do for them, we do for Jesus.”

As Day’s vocation to work with the poor became clearer and more defined through the houses of hospitality, with it came sacrifices, Ellsberg added.

Day experienced some of the dark night of the soul of St. John of the Cross, he said, and felt at times that she deeply let down her fellow Catholic Workers when she had been brusque to them or refused their requests.

Still, her abiding love for the poor carried her through, he said, citing a passage she wrote: “Where there is no love, put love, and there will be love.”

Ultimately, Ellsberg believes, Day’s example of holiness is not for the few or only for Catholic Workers, but that each person, as Day wrote, is called to serve others.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, editorat-large for the National Review

hospitality in Catholic Worker houses. “Give them good coffee, and they may stay for the Gospel,” she said.

Before Day became a Catholic in 1927, she had an abortion, the result of an unhappy love affair with Lionel Moise, an older man strongly opposed to Marriage and children.

When he learned that Day was pregnant with his child, he pressured her to get an abortion and told her he was leaving the country.

Day was wounded by her abortion, Lopez said, but after joining the Catholic Church, she found consolation in the confessional and clung to the mercy of Christ.

“Dorothy Day is a holy woman who has been gifted to us,” Lopez added. “We need to let the fullness of Dorothy Day’s life be known.”

Martha Hennessy, Day’s granddaughter, also addressed

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children. Martha married and raised her family and returned to the Catholic Church in 2004.

Hennessy said her work at Maryhouse, one of two Catholic Worker houses in New York,

5

has deeply affected her. Cooking soup and serving it to poor people, she said, is such a simple act, “but really, it changes ourselves.”

Lance Richey, dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Francis and a conference organizer, described Day as a “model for everyone who wants to embrace what is best about America, while at the same time critiquing our culture in light of the Gospel demands of voluntary poverty and nonviolence.”

“She defied our usual political categories, and tried to define her life solely in terms of the Gospel,” he told Today’s Catholic, newspaper of the Diocese of FortWayne-South Bend. “At a time when the Church in our country is divided between left and right, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, she showed a way to follow Jesus which transcended these categories.”

Day, he added, “called us to a radical discipleship which embodied the fullness of our Catholic faith.”

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May 29, 2015

Anchor Editorial

Reactions to the Irish vote

Last Friday voters in Ireland voted overwhelmingly to redefine marriage as to be between two people, regardless of their sex. Kevin Cullen, a columnist in the Boston Globe, asked in reaction, “Where’s Oscar Wilde when you need him?”

Well, given that Wilde received the Sacraments on his death bed, one would hope that he is either in Heaven or purgatory.

Cullen wrote, “When the results became clear on Saturday, Stephen Fry, the actor, tweeted that ‘Oscar Wilde smiles from his grave.’ I don’t believe that for a minute. If anything, Wilde’s saying, ‘Get me out of here! It’s dark!’”

Having been entrusted to the mercy of God, Wilde would have a different opinion on the topic than Cullen and Fry. He would understand (better than he did in life) God’s love for people with same-sex attractions and also God’s plan for the family. It was hard for Wilde in life to grasp this, due to the harshness with which the Christian message was often presented (a harshness he bore in his own flesh when sent to prison for his sexual sins).

Cullen rejoiced in the vote and commented, “Old Catholic Ireland is dead and gone.

It’s in the grave, buried by the many abusive priests and nuns, the hypocritical bishops who protected them, the enslaved unwed mothers, and the institutionalized children who suffered at the hands of them all.”

Wilde became a Catholic before Ireland became independent of the British Empire, before the Catholic clergy (together with a complicit Irish lay government) could lead the country with much more of a “justice” approach than a “merciful” one. He had been fascinated with Catholicism throughout his life. A friend, who later became a priest, got him to visit Rome and meet Blessed Pius IX in a private audience, but Wilde did not convert at that time. He quipped, “To go over to Rome would be to sacrifice and give up my two great gods: Money and ambition.”

In his great work, “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Wilde shows how sin corrupts the soul inwardly; even if the outward show fools others, it does not fool God and has a decaying effect of which the sinner is aware (in the book, by looking at the hidden portrait, which becomes hideous).

Wilde also wrote the play “Salome” about Herodias’ daughter whose dance got her stepfather (King Herod) to order the beheading of John the Baptist. Wilde depicts Salome as a virgin controlled by lust for the saint, whose chastity is unassailable. Ultimately, Wilde has even King Herod condemning her “monstrosity,” reflecting Wilde’s own personal battles.

Cullen, in writing about the plebiscite, said, “In some ways, it is back to the future, a return to what Ireland was like before St. Patrick supposedly sailed over from Britain with a boatload of Christianity. Pagan Ireland was deeply Spiritual before it became deeply religious and Catholic.”

Ireland’s equalities minister, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, said about the vote, “This is our Republic — we’ve taken it back today.” From whom did they take it back? From St. Patrick?

It is sad to read that someone would think that Ireland (and Europe and the rest of the world) would have been better off if Christianity (and the Catholic Church) would never have supplanted paganism. However, given the list of abuses that Cullen

mentioned, one can understand why this thought is around (it is not a well-thought out one, since if the paganism of the Roman Empire had not ended, we would not have the respect for woman, for children, for human rights that Christianity ushered in — of course, a lot of that is going “out the window” in our world right now).

Reacting to the vote, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin told the television network RTE, “I ask myself, most of these young people who voted yes are products of our Catholic school system for 12 years. I’m saying there’s a big challenge there to see how we get across the message of the Church.”

In saying that, he was not saying that the Church just needs a better catechetical program. Expanding on his thought, he said, “I think really that the Church needs to do a reality check, a reality check right across the board, to look at the things it’s doing well, to look at the areas where we really have to start and say, ‘Look, have we drifted away completely from young people.’”

The archbishop, from a different ideological perspective than Cullen, is noticing the same reality. Our failure (and especially the failure of Catholic leaders) to live Christ’s teachings in some areas has led to the abandonment of His teachings in other areas. It truly is a problem of credibility.

The people for whom the Catholic Church is most “incredible” are young people.

Archbishop Martin said, “It’s very clear that if this referendum is an affirmation of the views of young people, then the Church has a huge task in front of it to find the language to be able to talk to and to get its message across to young people, not just on this issue, but in general.”

What the archbishop stated here goes beyond the history of abuse. Even without that millstone around our necks, the Church has the challenge of showing how her teaching is a loving one. “The Church’s teaching, if it isn’t expressed in terms of love — then it’s got it wrong,” he said.

He said that because some of the public proponents (and not so public proponents, such as people at home) of the Church’s teaching make it look hateful and because the current popular approach is to appraise any criticism of homosexual conduct as being hateful.

This Tuesday, celebrating the feast of St. Philip Neri, Pope Francis sent a message to the Order of Oratorians, who continue his work, and wrote, “The perspective of his approach to his neighbor, so as to bear witness to all the love and the mercy of the Lord, can constitute a valid example for bishops, priests, consecrated people and lay faithful.

He exercised an apostolate of personal relationships and of friendship, which was the privileged way of opening [oneself ] and encountering Jesus and the Gospel. He loved spontaneity, he fled from artifice, he chose the most entertaining means to educate in the Christian virtues, and at the same time promotes a healthy discipline. His deep conviction [was that] the way of holiness is based upon the grace of an encounter — that with the Lord — accessible to any person, of whatever state or condition.”

In the Western world we need that joyful, loving approach of St. Philip, to be reenergized in our own faith and so as to be able to bring a credible Christian message to our world. Even Oscar Wilde would have appreciated this approach — since it was his friends (almost all of whom had also converted) who helped bring him to Christ.

Pope Francis’ Regina Caeli message of May 24 Dear brothers and sisters, good day.

The feast of Pentecost makes us relive the beginnings of the Church. The book of Acts says that, 50 days after the Passover, in the house where the disciples of Jesus were, “there came suddenly from the sky a noise like

a strong driving wind, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (2:1-2). From this outpouring the disciples are completely transformed: courage takes over from fear, “being closed” yields to the announcement [of the Good News] and any doubt is cast out by faith full of love. It is the “BapOFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER

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tism” of the Church, which began its journey in history, driven by the strength of the Holy Spirit.

That event, which changes the hearts and lives of the Apostles and other disciples, has repercussions immediately outside of the Cenacle. In fact, the door held closed for 50 days is finally opened and the first Christian community, no longer turned in on itself, begins to speak to the crowds from different backgrounds of the great things God has done (cf. v. 11), that is, the Resurrection of Jesus, Who was crucified. And everyone present hears from the disciples in their own language. The gift of the Spirit restores the harmony of languages that ​​ had been lost in Babel and prefigures the universal dimension of the mission of the Apostles. The Church is not born isolated, but born universal, catholic, with a precise identity but open to all, not closed, an identity that embraces the entire

world, without exception. Mother Church closes the door on no one, no! Even to a sinner, to nobody!

And this is by the strength of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Mother Church opens, opens its doors to everyone because it is a mother.

The Holy Spirit poured out at Pentecost in the heart of the disciples is the beginning of a new season: the season of witness and fraternity. It is a season that comes from above, from God, like the flames of fire that came to rest on the head of each disciple. It was the flame of love burning all bitterness; it was the language of the Gospel that crosses the boundaries placed by men and touches the hearts of the multitude, without distinction of language, race or nationality. As on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is poured out continuously even today on the Church and on all of us because we go out of our mediocrity and our closures and communi-

cate to the world the merciful love of the Lord. Communicate the merciful love of the Lord: this is our mission! We too have been given the gift of the “language” of the Gospel and the “fire” of the Holy Spirit, because while we proclaim the Risen Jesus, alive and present in our midst, we heat our hearts and also the hearts of people bringing them closer to Him, Who is the Way, Truth and Life.

We entrust ourselves to the maternal intercession of Mary most holy, who was present as Mother in the midst of the disciples in the upper room: she is the mother of the Church, the mother of Jesus became the mother of the Church.

We entrust ourselves to her so that the Holy Spirit descend abundantly upon the Church of our time, fill the hearts of all the faithful and kindle in them the fire of His love.

May 29, 2015

T

here’s a huge difference between a general wish to grow in faith and holiness and a plan to cooperate with God’s help to do so.

A plan of life involves not just good desires but concrete practices to unite our life to God. It includes an inventory of where we are right now, clarity on where God wants us to be, a good strategy to get from where we are to where we ought to be, and the courage and resolve to follow that path.

But as in many areas of life, we can’t do everything at once.

“He who would climb to a lofty height,” St. Gregory the Great commented 1,400 years ago, “must go by steps, not leaps.”

One of the most important Spiritual practices to help us take the steps toward the lofty height of holiness is the Particular Exam. Unlike the General Examination that reviews globally how we corresponded to God’s presence and help throughout the day, the Particular Exam focuses on one particular good habit that needs to be developed or bad one that needs to be eliminated and then reviews several times a day how we’re doing just on that score.

The Particular Exam is a remedy against the experience St. Paul writes about so candidly, “I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want” (Rom 7:19).

If someone has the nasty

Anchor Columnist The Particular Exam habit of gossiping about and ed having only one Particular criticizing others, for example, Exam point at a given time, so a particular exam resolution that we can be totally focused could be, “I will say nothon making progress in the ing negative about persons to shortest span of time. third parties” or, better, “I will Second, they have advocated regularly speak in praise of making a Particular Exam not people or say nothing at all.” toward a relatively minor matWhen one awakens and makes ter but toward rooting out a the Morning Offering, one can predominant fault or acquiring prayerfully ask God for the grace to keep that resolution that Putting Into day. Then every few hours one can stop for the Deep a moment to review how one’s been keepBy Father ing that resolution over Roger J. Landry the course of previous period.

The expectation with an entrenched bad habit an important virtue. is not necessarily that one is Third, they’ve recommended going to go from gossiping persevering in this Particular constantly to never gossiping Exam toward the finish line, at all — would that it be that examining ourselves several easy to change our bad habtimes a day on this point for its — but that over the course as long as it takes to acquire or of several days, or weeks, or extirpate the habit. At the end sometimes even months, the one’s behavior in a particular frequency gradually declines area may not be perfect — old toward zero. And with a Parhabits die hard — but one will ticular Exam geared toward the be changed much for the better. acquisition of a good habit, the It might seem at first that goal is to go from doing some- working on one good Spirithing infrequently or never at tual resolution at a time in all to developing a virtue that this concerted way is a slow becomes like second nature. way to make progress, but the The great Spiritual writers saints have said once one starts from St. Ignatius of Loyola building momentum in this to the present day have made way, various other issues in the several suggestions about the Spiritual life become easier.

Particular Exam to do it ef“The person who is faithful in fectively. matters,” Jesus said, “is faithful First, they have recommend- also in great ones” (Lk 16:10).

The gradual acquisition of selfmastery in one difficult area can overflow into other parts of one’s life.

When I was in college and began the practice of Particular Exams, I generally focused on eliminating bad habits: wasting time rather than studying, using inappropriate language, making fun of others or bragging. Eventually, however, I shifted toward the acquisition of good habits because I found that when with God’s grace I made progress on these scores, there would be many positive side effects.

Among the many ones that have helped me over the last couple of decades have been: awareness of God’s presence at my side at every moment; docile attentiveness and obedience to the Holy Spirit; constant cheerfulness because God dwells within me through grace; listening twice as much as I speak; recognizing and naming above all others’ good qualities; seeing God in those I am serving notwithstanding their defects; greeting the guardian angel of others so that I maintain always a supernatural vision toward them; seeing each person as a gift sent to me

by God; starting my prayer off with praise and thanksgiving; venerating the crosses God gives me each day; uniting my work more consciously to

7 St. Joseph; and doing first the thing that needs to be done rather than what I prefer to do.

On some of these points, my friends might remark that at times I show no sign, for example, of constant cheerfulness or listening twice as much as I speak. But I can honestly say that compared to where I was, and where I would have been without the Particular Exams, I see a continent traversed! And that’s the point of the Particular Exam.

St. Ignatius recommends having a little book and keeping score of how one has done since the last review a few hours earlier. I’ve never found that type of accounting helpful, but the practice of examining on one point over the previous few hours, renewing one’s resolve, and praying for God’s help, most find tremendously helpful.

Over the years, I’ve rejoiced to see the happiness of those who come to see me for Spiritual direction or Confession when they have set and made progress on their own Particular Exam points. The Particular Exam makes the ascent toward holiness a little less daunting and more manageable.

I’d urge you to take up this practice so that step-by-step you might with God’s assistance ascend the lofty heights.

Anchor columnist Father Landry can be contacted at fatherlandry@ catholicpreaching.com.

Boston to host March for Life, renamed from Walk to Aid Mothers and Children

By Christine M. Williams Anchor Correspondent

BOSTON — For the first time ever, Boston will host its own March for Life this summer. Previously termed the Walk to Aid Mothers and Children, the annual Pro-Life event, has undergone a name change and shift in emphasis. The main focus now will be on witness and advocacy, much like the March for Life in Washington, D.C. Organizers have also planned a new route and hope to attract more young marchers.

On June 28, the pre-march rally, held at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common, will start at 1 p.m. with the march following at 2:30 p.m. All participants have the opportunity to raise money for 16 local Pro-Life organizations, including march organizer Massachusetts Citizens for Life.

Speakers include Cardinal

Seán P. O’Malley, OFM, Cap., elected representatives, postabortive women and young Pro-Lifers. To further appeal to youth, organizers have booked LIFT Ministries, a group that leads Catholic worship concerts for teens.

In the past, the walk left the bandstand, headed through Boston Common and the Public Garden and then made a loop up and down Commonwealth Avenue. This year, participants will march on Boston Common, pass the statehouse, go around the Public Garden and circle back to the bandstand. Organizers say the change will increase the event’s visibility.

The differences this year follow on the heels of varied approaches to retooling the walk, held every year since 1987. Historically, it took place in October, but two years ago MCFL decided to schedule it for the spring

in order to have it at a different time of year than the October fund-raising banquet. That year, it was held at La Salette Shrine in Attleboro. Last year, MCFL decided to move the walk back to Boston and hold it on the last Sunday in June. Many previous participants expressed a desire to give witness near the Massachusetts Statehouse, which prompted the move back to the city and the name change this year.

MCFL president Anne Fox said that the event will be more like the national March for Life and will give people who cannot go to D.C. the opportunity for Pro-Life witness. It also affords people who attended the Washington event the chance to participate in local Pro-Life advocacy.

Fox said that Pro-Life work is just as essential here as it is everywhere else. Many more than one million surgical abortions have been performed just in the

Commonwealth of Massachusetts since 1973. “We forget that until somebody brings it home,” she said.

Fox admitted that in the face of such numbers, it can be easy for Pro-Lifers to become discouraged, particularly when elected representatives in our state tend to oppose Pro-Life legislation. Recently, nine out of 11 of Massachusetts’ Congressional delegates voted against the federal Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. But those who value the sanctity of all human life are not alone in Massachusetts. Even in the most pro-abortion areas in the state, at least 35 percent of Bay Staters are Pro-Life. In some areas, that percentage climbs to 80 percent, she said.

Locals who support life must remain vigilant in opposing laws that would further devalue life.

Fox said that even if Massachu-

setts is one of the least Pro-Life states, standing our ground here benefits the Pro-Life cause nationwide.

“Look, if we’re the bottom of the barrel, the higher you hold up the bottom, the better the whole barrel is,” she said.

In recent years, Massachusetts Pro-Lifers have successfully opposed laws in favor of physicianassisted suicide and lowering the age of consent for abortion.

Another success story came last November; in 11 districts, voters passed non-binding ballot questions that instruct local state representatives to vote for a bill that would require all abortion clinics to be licensed and inspected.

March chairman Ed Nazzaro said that Commonwealth residents who are passionate about life need to get involved with the local Pro-Life movement. “You can make a positive impact right now, right where you’re living.”

8

F

rom early childhood, right up to old age, we humans are consciously or unconsciously, concerned with identity. At one time or another, we all ask questions like: “Who am I? What am I? Where do I belong? Where am I going? What is it all about anyway?” Our society causes us to be obsessed with identity. The advertising industry is rather cruel in its narrow, rigid definitions of who is “in” and who is “out.”

Advertising constantly bombards us with images of who we are, on the basis of what we have or what we don’t have or what we should want.

No wonder so many people today struggle with an identity crisis in their lives. No wonder millions of people are lost and confused about who they really are and what the real purpose of their life is. And even within the Church, two out of every three articles written about deacons mentions an identity crisis of sorts for deacons; Catholic and ordained but not a priest; married with children but not a layman. So consequently people try to

May 29, 2015

Identity crisis

define us by what we can and we are sinners. And He gifts can’t do. us with His grace. The first Today is the feast of The and greatest of God’s gifts Holy Trinity. Talk about a of grace in our lives occurred mysterious identity. You can when the priest or deacon almost feel the air go out of was pouring water on us and the room after you say it. A said the words: “I baptize you theology professor of mine in the seminary used to say, “Any Homily of the Week preacher with good Trinity sense will call in sick Sunday on Trinity Sunday.”

But the doctrine of

By Deacon the Trinity need not Donald L. Battiston be that complicated.

It just says something about the way we experience in the name of the Father and God. It says that the God of the Son and of the Holy Who created us, God the Spirit.” Because through that Father; the God Who saves Baptism we are redeemed, us Jesus; and the God Who sanctified, consecrated and gives us power and strength marked. This mark identifies each day, the Holy Spirit, us and helps us to know who is the same God in Whose and Whose we are. name we are baptized — FaWhen we baptize somether, Son, and Holy Spirit. one, at the beginning of the Baptism is about grace Rite, we say, “The Christian and about identity. Now community welcomes you for whatever reason, a lovwith great joy. In its name, I ing God, Who mysteriously claim you for Christ our Savchose to reveal Himself to us ior, by the Sign of the Cross in these three different ways that I trace on your forehead, — Father, Son, and Holy and I ask your parents and Spirit — loves us beyond our Godparents to do the same. wildest dreams, even though And for 37 years, every

time I do it, I wonder if we did it in indelible ink, would fewer people opt for Baptism? Think about it, your Baptism would be there for everyone to see — indelibly placed on your forehead forever. The mark of the cross saying to all the world Whose we are. I belong to Jesus Chris.

How embarrassing it might be later in life when our lives might not reflect Whose we are.

In the prison where I serve as chaplain, I ask our piano player to play and I sing “The Hokey Pokey” when I explain what God expects from us after Baptism.

You know how “The Hokey Pokey” goes: “You put your right hand in, you put your right hand out, you put your right hand in and shake it all about. You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn your self around. That’s what it’s all about.” And after putting in various body parts, hands, feet, arms and legs my friends “you put your whole self in.”

When we think about our own Baptism we should think

about putting our whole self in. That’s what Baptism is all about.

God doesn’t want partial commitments. God doesn’t want disciples who stick their toes in the water to judge its temperature before they finally agree to get involved. God said, “Because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold I will spit you out of My mouth.”

God wants disciples who are with Him all the way. God wants you to put your whole self in.

My friends, whose are you?

Where are you with Christ today? Have you given Him what you promised through your Baptism and Confirmation? What are you willing to give Him? An hour on Sundays? A few dollars now and then? He wants more.

He wants and expects your heart.

Deacon Don Battiston was ordained for the Archdiocese of Hartford. He serves as the Catholic Chaplain at two maximum security prisons in Florida and assists at St. Mary-Our Lady of the Isle on Nantucket in the summer.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. May 30, Sir 51:12cd-20; Ps 19:8-11; Mk 11:27-33. Sun. May 31, Trinity Sunday, Dt 4:32-34,39-40; Ps 33:4-6,9,18-20,22; Rom 8:14-17; Mt 28:16-20. Mon. June 1, Tb 1:3,2:1b-8; Ps 112:1b-2;3b-6; Mk 12:1-12. Tues. June 2, Tb 2:9-14; Ps 112:1-2,7-9; Mk 12:13-17. Wed. June 3, Tb 3:1-11a;16-17a; Ps 25:2-5b,6,7bc,8-9; Mk 12:18-27. Thurs. June 4, Tb 6:10-11,7:1 bcde, 9-17,8:4-9a; Ps 128:1-5; Mk 12:28-34. Fri. June 5, Tb 11:517; Ps 146:1b-2,6c-10; Mk 12:35-37.

I

t’s no secret that I am a music fanatic; perhaps more than sports. There, I said it. But “My View From the Orchestra Pit,” doesn’t have the same ring as “My View From the Stands,” does it? Or does it?

Anyway, it’s also no secret that I use music, either by my playing guitar or listening to real guitarplayers, as my “Calgon” (ala the “Calgon take me away,” bubblebath advertisements).

And it’s also no secret that my musical tastes are quite eclectic; rock, blues, classical, country, Christian, folk, etc. But there’s one musical genre that’s out there that is perhaps the purest and most soothing of all — and there are no instruments or human voices involved. No, I’m not talking about techno-music.

I’m referring to what could be considered God’s orchestra — songbirds.

I’ve always loved the spring, summer and fall, when I can sleep with the windows open, and except for the pollen that sneaks its way in, it’s great for

‘And this bird you cannot change’ has seemingly been an eternity of listening to rain storms and parstress and busyness. ticularly the songbirds, who, by Just in front of my deck, I’ve the way, begin their day at about “planted” a pair of “rock” speak3:45 a.m. ers in my garden. These speakers, I know there are some who connected to my indoor stereo, would rather slam the window look like landscaping rocks, thus shut, or hurl a house slipper at the little critters, but I also know there are many more who find these creatures absolutely delightful.

For the last dozen years or so I’ve enjoyed

By Dave Jolivet listening to the earlymorning concertos. This year, we decided to up the the name. But as usual, I digress. ante by adding a bird-feeder to a On Sunday and Monday I nearby tree. was able to relax outside with It took all of a half-hour for the winged musicians to find the some of my favorite blues and rock CDs. But I had the adseed-ladened lantern and sumditional pleasure of being joined mons their family and friends to by a chubby little black-headed join them.

What was once maybe a quar- chickadee, that very often landed in my lilac tree and, in full voice, tet or quintet serenading me in joined in singing the blues and the morning is now a full-blown rock and roll. The feathered diva choir. It’s great.

Last weekend, I had the good appeared much more often when the music was playing than when fortune to spend some real qualnot, so my hypothesis is that little ity time on my deck, after what

My View From the Stands

chickadee is fan of the blues and classic rock and roll.

It should be noted that the tree in which my little friend alit was very close to where I was perched on my deck chair, and where Igor was flaked out next to me. And Igor was equally unfazed by the bird’s presence so nearby. This coming from a pooch who snaps at bees and yellow jackets; a habit she’ll stop only when she gets one! The tiny rock star was seemingly very comfortable and confident with us there.

I watched the bird as it sang along and it literally brought a smile to my face, then a chuckle.

The thing was brilliant. It wailed to Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Who, Elton John, and even Led Zeppelin.

Maybe the little thing was showing its appreciation for the newfound, endless supply of bird seed. Or maybe it’s the music. Or maybe it senses my appreciation.

Or maybe it’s a combination of

all three.

It doesn’t matter. I hope it’s here for the summer and fall, and I’ll be sure to keep that tube of seeds filled throughout the winter months as well.

As we spent the weekend together, sharing music (but not seeds), I couldn’t help but think of the iconic rock anthem “Free Bird,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, whom I was lucky enough to see in concert just prior to many of the members perishing in a plane crash in the ’70s.

Some of the lyrics are as follows: ’Cause I’m as free as a bird now And this bird you cannot change Oh oh oh oh oh oh And the bird you cannot change And this bird you cannot change Lord knows, I can’t change Won’t you fly high free bird yeah I’m curious to see my little friend’s reaction when I slap on “Free Bird.” Perhaps this weekend. Meanwhile rock on my little chickadee. Rock on my little free bird. And thanks for a peaceful weekend. davejolivet@anchornews.org.

May 29, 2015

Friday 29 May 2015 — PortO-Call: Cockle Cove, Chatham — Memorial Day weekend (traditional) still refer to Memorial Day as “Decoration Day.” I’m a traditionalist. Our new-fangled “Memorial Day” arrived early this year, but I prefer the old ways. Changing the date just to create a three-day weekend has contributed to the public’s nonchalant observance. We’ve forgotten what we were remembering (the Civil War dead).

Memorial Day was once considered the beginning of summer. Here on Cape Cod, however, when someone these days asks when summer begins, answers will vary. Nobody really cares except the merchants — and perhaps those who will find themselves gridlocked in traffic.

With many schools and colleges adjourning at the end of June, summer practically begins on the Fourth of July.

Cape Codders are concerned not so much with when summer begins as with when winter ends. We skip spring entirely. It will be coat-weather one day and beach-weather the next. Spring on Cape Cod lasts approximately 12 hours.

For me, winter ends not with an officially designated date but with an event. That event is the

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ur story — where do we begin? We all have stories to share, whether young or old. We have a beginning, maybe a middle depending on our age, and continue to live our story until our dying day. We have fond as well as sad memories and some we would love to eradicate from our mental database. Yet it is the very story of our lives that continues to shape and lead us.

In this upcoming weekend’s readings, we begin with Deuteronomy, taken from chapter four, Moses is telling the people to ask about the past. He is encouraging them to learn as much as they can, and to go to great lengths to gather that information, leaving no stone unturned in their search.

They are even given a very direct line of questioning to use: “Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?”

Moses is instructing them to share their story, to spread the Word of God’s great deeds and what He has done for them.

Keeping the history of our cre-

Anchor Columnists When does summer begin? by avocation.

Annual Daffodil Tea held at the After we toured the studio charming home of Nathaniel (Nat) and Joy Wordell of Cock- showroom and private gardens, it seemed a bit too cool to linger le Cove, Chatham. It’s something to look forward to during a outside on the veranda, so our party of six withdrew to the dreary Cape Cod winter.

The Daffodil Tea, in my opinion, is just as significant a social event The Ship’s Log as the Ascot Races or a Reflections of a White House black-tie Parish Priest dinner. Not to appear elitist, dear readers, but

By Father Tim I received a coveted Goldrick invitation.

On the day of the Daffodil Tea, I donned my taste- manor’s wood-paneled great room, with its breathtaking views ful yet unpretentious London of Cockle Cove.

Fog jacket, not only because it We first told stories of the was chilly but, more importantly, winter now past. Photographs because the jacket is daffodil were shared on the outside yellow. One does have to be chance that someone had already conscious of what one wears to such prestigious events. A photo- forgotten the 10-foot snowdrifts.

We then proceeded to the formal graph may well appear in the dining room, with its antique society pages of the local newsoak barley-twist legged table and paper (although I didn’t notice any paparazzi lurking behind the massive arched hearth.

Nat served his secret family rhododendron bushes).

We begin with a tour of Nat’s recipe for quahog chowder in gardens, which overlook both the lovely deep blue pottery bowls salt marshes of Cockle Cove and which he himself had thrown, glazed, and fired in his workshop.

Nantucket Sound. If you imagI had two servings of chowder, ine Cape Cod as a bent arm, just to be polite of course. Also Cockle Cove is located at the on the menu were dainty ham very tip of the elbow, what some and beef sandwich rolls; edamarefer to as the “funny bone.” Nat me salad (prepared by Cynthia is a music teacher by profession; Engel, who lives in a sea capand a gardener, chef, and potter

tain’s home on Scargo Lake); and, for dessert, delicious apple tarts (made by Gina Cavalluzzo, also of historic Dennis Village).

These rose-shaped tarts were red (as befitting any traditional rose) and seemed to me to be pastry-wrapped bacon — an observation I foolishly voiced. The “bacon” was in fact sliced red apples, purposely left unpeeled. One is permitted a single social faux pas per tea, according to all the etiquette mavens.

As the sun streamed through the windows, the conversation turned to theatre and the performing arts, collectibles, family, parish life, past memories and future plans.

After the conversation’s dénouement, we departed with hopeful promises to regroup next year.

Unfortunately, nobody thought to have a spot of tea.

Even so, there were still daffodils everywhere — which makes it undeniably the official end of winter. Welcome summer!

Scargo Lake edamame salad Ingredients: • Edamame (fresh or frozen) • Frozen corn • Diced sweet red peppers • Cranberries (previously soaked

We are the storytellers

God has been a major part of our ation and God’s love for us alive lives. He does not simply appear in their hearts and spoken from only as a heroic figure, pulling us their lips, insuring that future out of trouble, but as Someone generations prosper, knowing Who loves and cares for us, givthat God has always been at our sides, has always watched over us, ing us the space we need. And like any parent, letting us learn, and will continue to do so until the end of times.

Each and every one of us is a storyteller; we relate the past, collect vital pieces of information, and keep it safe for future generations. Many

By Rose Mary of us have drawers brimSaraiva ming with photographs, diaries and mementos watching us take our first steps, we refuse to part with, giving us making our mistakes, and gently simple reminders of what we do guiding us as we go along. not wish to forget, and what we Jesus is the revelation of God need to pass on. to us, taking on the human form, Our roles are to share what so that we could fully understand God has done in our lives, and all that God wants for us. With continues to do. We are the hisJesus, God invites us to be a part torians of our lifetimes, ensuring of the redemption story, taking that our children and grandchildren come to know God. A God on the task of leading others to Him. But we take on this role, that we can call Abba, Father, not as simple workers, but as Who asks us to follow Him, beloved children, who desire to to keep His Sacred statues and please their Father. It is through Commandments, and in doing so, granting us so much in return. the Holy Spirit that we understand and recognize that we are Since the beginning of time,

In the Palm of His Hands

loved and that God is truly our Heavenly Father.

This brings us to the Trinity, and a better understanding of it, not as some unfathomable notion or idea, but as it relates to us. Through the Trinity, God is revealed as part of our past, the loving God Who walks with us today and every day, and Who joins us to others in order to see ourselves as a continual story, bringing others to the Salvation that is promised for all.

In the Gospel, as Jesus baptized His disciples and sent them on their way instructing them to “go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you” (Mt 28:16-20). He reminded them that they would not be alone in their journey; “And behold, I am with you always.” We, too, have been baptized, and we, too, are to go out and make disciples, and to continue to write a story that is constantly unfolding, bringing

9 overnight in balsamic vinegar, if desired; then rinsed and drained) • Italian black beans (if fresh, soak overnight; if canned, drain and rinse) • Balsamic vinaigrette dressing Prepare as much edamame as you might need. Add frozen corn, diced sweet red pepper, and cranberries. Toss and serve with balsamic vinaigrette. Add sugar if desired.

Gina’s apple tarts Ingredients • 1 small apple, peeled, cored, cut into 8 (1/2-inch) slices • 3 tablespoons butter, melted • 1 can (8 oz.) refrigerated crescent dinner rolls • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar • 1 teaspoon apple pie spice Heat oven to 375°F. Line cookie sheet with cooking parchment paper.

Set aside. In small bowl, toss apple slices in melted butter; set aside.

Separate dough into eight triangles.

In small bowl, mix brown sugar and apple pie spice. Divide mixture evenly among triangles. Top each triangle with apple slice. Starting at short side of each triangle, wrap dough around apple. Place on cookie sheet. Brush with remaining butter.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until rolls are golden brown and apples softened. Cool five minutes.

Anchor columnist Father Tim Goldrick is pastor of St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

God’s love to all we encounter.

Like the very popular children’s book “A Never-Ending Story,” we, too, are major contributors to the ever changing storyline.

How will we continue to be storytellers? How will we allow that Trinity to be alive in us, recognizing that it is not just about how God fits into our lives, but how we are a major part of His! Going forth, sharing the stories of the Gospel, and letting others recognize God’s love, not only by the words we speak, but how the Spirit shines from within. When we live our lives aligned with God’s love and mercy, it shows, and others want to share in that experience. Let others hear of all God has done for us, for you, and let His Spirit take care of the rest, knowing that we never walk alone.

Anchor columnist Rose Mary Saraiva lives in Fall River and is a parishioner of St. Michael’s Parish, and she is the Events Coordinator and Bereavement Ministry for the diocesan Office of Faith Formation. She is married with three children and two grandchildren. rsaraiva@dfrcs.com.

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May 29, 2015

Look of love: Jesus’ gaze will change your life, pope says VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The gaze of Jesus can change a person’s life just like it did with St. Peter, Pope Francis said.

“He always looks at us with love. He asks us something, He forgives us and He gives us a mission,” the pope said during a recent early morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

Pope Francis suggested that members of the congregation welcome and receive Jesus in the Eucharist with the

prayer, “Lord, You are here among us.

Fix Your gaze on me and tell me what I must do, how I must weep for my mistakes, my sins, and with what courage I must continue on the path You have traveled before me.”

The pope, who wakes up several hours before the 7 a.m. Mass to pray and prepare his homily, said he was struck that morning by the exchange of gazes in the day’s Gospel, John 21:15-19, which in-

cludes Jesus, after the Resurrection, asking Peter three times if he loves Him. When Jesus first met His Apostle, “Jesus fixed His gaze upon him and said, ‘You are Simon, son of John; you will be called Peter,’” the pope said. “That was the first gaze, the gaze of mission” and Peter responded enthusiastically.

Then, after Jesus had been arrested and Peter denied Jesus three times, he feels the gaze of Jesus again and “weeps bitterly,” the pope said.

“The enthusiasm of following the Lord was turned into tears because he had sinned, he had denied Jesus,” the pope said. “That gaze changed Peter’s heart more than the first did. The first

changed his name and vocation, but the second was a gaze that changed his heart; it was a conversion to love.”

The third gaze is recounted in the day’s Gospel, the pope said. Jesus looks at Peter, asks him if he loves Him and tells him to feed His sheep.

The third gaze, he said, confirms Peter’s mission but also asks Peter to confirm his love.

The Gospel recounts more of the conversation, with Jesus warning Peter that his future will not be easy and that, in fact, he also will suffer and die.

Ask yourself, “How is Jesus gazing upon me? With a call? With forgiveness? With a mission?” the pope said.

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May 29, 2015

St. Faustina hits the stage in light-hearted rendition of Divine Mercy painting project

By Dave Jolivet Anchor Editor

NEW BEDFORD — What do the Lord, St. Faustina, an unretired play director, and a Superior Court judge have in common? More than one would suspect.

This not-so-typical combination will bring to life, at the Your Theater Playhouse on County Street in New Bedford, one man’s version of the collaboration between St. Faustina and artist Eugene Kazimirowski to create the painting millions of Catholics now gaze upon in devotion to the Divine Mercy.

“The Obraz,” is the brainchild of Raymond P. Veary of New Bedford, a man who has worn many hats during his life, and not referring to costume changes during his various roles as an actor.

Veary, a long-time member of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford, and a St. Thomas More medal winner in 2012, is currently a judge in New Bedford Superior Court. Despite his prestigious seat on the judicial bench, Veary is an avid fan of the theater.

“I’ve been involved with theater since 1979, when I, with no experience, auditioned for a part in a play being produced by Your Theatre, Inc., of New Bedford,” Veary told The Anchor. “I got the part, and I got the bug. As a sideeffect, I started writing plays.

Since joining the bench, I’ve suspended my acting, but I’ve continued to write. My work has been produced on both coasts. Recently, I won a production as part of a one-act playwriting contest hosted by the Elite Theatre in Oxnard, Calif. That same play, ‘The Night Copernicus Wouldn’t Shut Up,’ is being given two staged readings this coming week by Break-A-Leg Productions in Manhattan.”

Prior to his role as judge and playwright, Veary was a trial lawyer for 38 years, 25 of which was spent as Assistant District Attorney for Bristol County. And prior to that, the Acushnet native attended Officers’ Basic Training at the U.S. Army Military Police School.

Very told The Anchor that the idea for “The Obraz” started small, as a one-act play.

“In early 2000, I came upon a newspaper story about the upcoming canonization of the first saint of the new millennium, Sister Faustina,” said Veary. “I read about how she was a cloistered Polish nun in Vilnius in 1934, who had collaborated with an artist named Eugene Kazimirowski to produce a painting of what has become the icon for the Devotion to the Divine Mercy. How did that collaboration work? I wondered. There were so many things that could have and perhaps did go wrong. I be-

came fascinated. What resulted was a one-act speculation of what had occurred. I cannot emphasize this point enough.

Though I have spent considerable energy in the research and contemplation of the Faustina-Kazimirowski collaboration, what I have written is not claimed as a detailed and accurate account. It is my speculation upon actual events.”

The one-act version, involving only St. Faustina and Turn to page 18

Carol Oliva as Mother Irene, left, and Lucy Bly as Sister Sophie rehearse a scene from Ray Veary’s “The Obraz,” an interpretation of the collaboration between St. Faustina and artist Eugene Kazimirowski to produce the painting of the iconic Divine Mercy. (Photo courtesy of Raymond P. Veary)

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May 29, 2015

Twin friars are taking it to the streets — and your TV — to save souls

New York City, N.Y. (CNA/EWTN News) — It’s a good thing Brother Angelus wears glasses, otherwise it would be really hard to tell him apart from Brother Innocent.

It’s tricky enough as it is, given that they’re brother-Brothers: siblings and consecrated Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.

They’re also twins — or rather, two-thirds of a triplet. Their triplet sister Katie is (no, not a nun) back home in Nebraska with her husband and family.

Besides their looks and matching grey habits, Brothers Angelus and Innocent share an infectious zeal and joy for the Gospel that they’re taking to the streets — and to TV — come fall 2015 with a new documentarystyle show called “Icons.”

“The traditional concept of icons, especially in the theology of the East, is that icons are really a Sacramental, there’s a real presence of Christ there,” Brother Angelus told CNA. “So the fact is that young people are icons in the world. They reveal Christ in their relationships, in their work, in their vocations, in their family, whatever they do.”

For their show, the Brothers are seeking out young people who are icons in the real world — those who are living and working for the Lord and inspiring others to do so as well. And rather than inviting them into the same studio for a talk show every week, the Brothers are hitting the road to film them in action.

“It was kind of inspired by CNN heroes, where they honor heroes throughout the year and do documentaries on them,” Brother Angelus said, “so we

were like yeah, that is exactly the kind of model we want, we want to go out and tell people’s stories.”

The first season of “Icons” will have 13 episodes, and the Brothers are hoping that young people will send in their nominations through the website for people who are icons in their life who should be featured on the show.

“We want people from every walk of life who have met the Lord who have really become a disciple of Him, and now they go out in the world and reveal Him to all those they meet,” Brother Angelus said. “Those are the kinds of people that the world needs right now, because people are hungry for the Lord.”

Even though the Brothers spend much of their days studying to be priests and serving in their apostolates in New York, they are no strangers to television. Starting a few years ago, they helped host EWTN’s Sunday Night Prime after Father Benedict Groeschel, the late founder of the CFR Brothers, retired from the position. They loved being able to share people’s inspiring stories of faith, but they wanted and were encouraged to develop a show that would reach a younger audience.

“Catholic media is really irrelevant right now to a lot of young people,” Brother Angelus said.

“That’s a dramatic statement, but it’s true. So we wanted to wrestle with that question and wrestle with that reality that Catholic media is irrelevant to a lot of young people today.”

Brother Angelus said they realized that in order to make a compelling show, they had to tell

real stories about real people, and they had to make it as high-quality as possible.

“If it’s not high quality young people aren’t going to be interested,” he said. “They’re used to secular media, they’re used to secular TV shows, they’re used to the Internet. So we want to tell people’s stories, but we also wanted it to be the highest quality we could so that people couldn’t write the show off.”

Keeping that in mind, the brothers teamed up with media professionals in the Catholic world and started fund raising.

The show is owned and being produced by the Live Greater Foundation, a non-profit that was the fruit of many years of the Live Greater movement established by the Brothers even before they were both in the friary.

“There was always this movement to really take our faith and live passionately, like in John 10:10, ‘I came that you might have life and have it abundantly,’” said Brother Innocent. “And that’s the whole concept behind the Live Greater Foundation, as it’s grown to be.”

The Live Greater Foundation is also a family business: the Brothers’ parents, sister Katie and brother Bob are all a part of the foundation’s work, which has three main outreaches: media, charity, and family life.

Working with family, and especially as brother-Brothers, has been one of the greatest blessings of this endeavor so far, Brother Innocent added.

“It’s just such a gift to do this together, we’ve been best friends our whole life, and then having this opportunity to do this to-

CNS Movie Capsules

Britt Robertson stars in a scene from the movie “Tomorrowland.”

For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules to the right of this photo. (CNS photo/Disney)

NEW YORK (CNS) — The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by Catholic News Service.

“Tomorrowland” (Disney) Borrowing the name but little else from the futuristic-themed section of Disneyland and other Disney parks, this delightful science-fiction film is great fun for the entire family, directed and co-written by Brad Bird. A young woman (Britt Robertson)

A screen shot of twin brothers, Brother Angelus, CFR, left, and Brother Innocent, CFR, as they extol the Euchcarist in “ICONS: Why Real People. Real Presence?” from On My Mind Productions on Vimeo.

gether as brothers, that’s definitely a unique gift and I find myself grateful just to do that with him,” he said.

With their new show, the Brothers feel they are answering their call as Franciscans and the call of Pope Francis to reach out to the peripheries and to spread the Gospel.

“We were really inspired by Father Benedict, our founder and hero,” Brother Innocent said. “He was a father to the poor but also he had this kind of amazing gift to use evangelization and media.”

“The world sees the bad news of the Catholic Church, the scandals, and young people are really formed by that,” said Brother Angelus. “We want to tell the Good News of young people who are living the faith, and then also, we want to create a community around ‘Icons’ so young people know that they belong to something, because there are other people who are living for the Lord, I’m not alone in this.”

Part of that relatability and

community is going to come from telling real stories which show that the Church is not a “place for the perfect” but for those who fall but get back up, Brother Angelus explained.

They are also hoping to dispel the myth that having a relationship with Christ means begrudgingly following a list of cumbersome rules, he added.

“Sometimes young people say if they live for the Lord then they’re going to have to follow all these rules and life’s going to be miserable,” he said. “But people who live for the Lord, especially young people, are some of the most joyful people we know, so they’ll see that being Christian and being joyful and authentic and real is possible.”

The “Icons” team is currently is in the midst of a fund-raising campaign to raise money for the first season and hopes to begin production late 2015. To learn more about the show, to nominate an icon, or to pledge support, visit their website at: http://iconstv. org/.

is recruited by a mysterious robot (Raffey Cassidy) for a mission to save Earth and the eponymous utopia that exists in another dimension. They join forces with a former inventor (George Clooney) to wrest control of the future from a coldhearted bureaucrat (Hugh Laurie). Cartoonish but bloodless action sequences and a few mild oaths. The Catholic News Service classification is A-II — adults and adolescents.

The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

“The Water Diviner” (Warner Bros.)

An Australian father (Russell Crowe) copes with the loss of his three sons (Ryan Corr, Edward James Fraser, Ben O’Toole) at the Battle of Gallipoli during World

War I in this fictional drama inspired by true events. He journeys to Turkey, where a former enemy official (Yilmaz Erdogan), in a gesture of reconciliation, decides to help him locate the remains of his sons. Along the way he befriends a hotel owner (Olga Kurylenko) and her son (Dylan Georgiades) with grief issues of their own. Directed by Crowe with stunning cinematography, the film offers a timely reminder of the ghastly personal cost of war and its lingering impact upon future generations. Bloody war violence and disturbing images of death, and an unflattering portrayal of a Catholic priest.

The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted.

Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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May 29, 2015

A

Thinking about five to four

bout a month ago the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the same-sex marriage cases. These pose the questions whether the U.S. Constitution requires the recognition of same-sex marriage: either directly because the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868 (almost 150 years ago), so modifies state Marriage law, regardless of what the state’s law and constitution say; or indirectly because the Full Faith and Credit clause of Article IV, section 1, ratified along with the original Constitution in 1789 (more than 225 years ago), requires states to recognize any other state’s same-sex marriages. The court will issue its judgment in another month or so, by the end of this year’s term at the end of June.

While I am not a prophet, nor do I possess inside knowledge (or a crystal ball for that matter), I think one thing can reasonably be said for certain.

It is that whatever the decision the Supreme Court reaches, it will not be unanimous. But the decision, in order to be truly convincing and authoritative as interpreting the Constitution, should be unanimous (Note that I do not say that a non-

politics on the court decide the unanimous decision would issue? not be legally binding, at least If same-sex marriage is naas regards the parties to the tionalized by a narrow margin, lawsuits). it will be eerily like what hapThe likelihood is that the pened here in Massachusetts decision will decree, by a narrow five-four majority, that the 11 years ago, when a four-three decision of our state Supreme Constitution requires the recognition of same-sex marriage. Judicial Court ushered in This will mean that one judge is deciding this issue for the entire country, probably Justice Kennedy. Now however wise this man is, I do not think that

By Dwight G. Duncan the decision should rest on his shoulders.

And, of course, it will judicially-decreed same-sex further undermine the court’s marriage in the Commonauthority, which depends in wealth. large part on its not being Since then, of course, a perceived as overtly political number of states have done — that is simply saying what likewise, sometimes at the the Constitution means. A recent book note in the current behest of their supreme May issue of the Harvard Law courts or the federal judiciary, Review describes a recent book and sometimes as a result of legislative enactment through

by Professor Garrett Epps the democratic process. I must which “reveal[s] that justice in admit that I find the latter a the nation’s highest court has more palatable and acceptable ultimately become ‘red and way of going about it, as the blue,’ where, ‘for perhaps the democratic process does not first time ever,’ party identity appears to be the foremost de- necessitate stretching the Constitution’s language to address terminant of how the Justices issues the Constitution was vote.” But if that is true, why should the peculiarly insulated never meant to decide.

Judge For Yourself

Thus, my modest proposal: that the court exercise judicial restraint by not addressing constitutional issues unless they can do so unanimously, like they did 61 years ago in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education, which declared unanimously that segregation in the public schools is unconstitutional.

Such a prudential rule would have avoided the court’s greatest constitutional bloopers of all time, all of which involved dissents: Dred Scott, the Lochner decision which declared maximum-hour legislation unconstitutional, Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe v. Wade, even Bush v. Gore and the Citizens United case.

The problem is that if the Supreme Court gets a constitutional issue wrong, then there is virtually no recourse short of waiting for judges to retire, die, or change their minds. Impeachment is a paper tiger, and the difficulty of constitutional amendment, requiring repeated supermajorities, is not a practical remedy.

This is obviously different

from when the court errs in interpreting ordinary statutory law, because then Congress, the democratically-elected and responsive legislature, can amend the law or pass a new one. They cannot do that to overturn a constitutional decision. Thus, last term’s five-four Hobby Lobby decision on the contraceptive mandate under Obamacare violating the Religious Freedom Restoration Act would still be legitimate, at least until such time as Congress amended the law.

As Abraham Lincoln said of the Dred Scott decision: “The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”

I’m just saying.

Anchor columnist Dwight Duncan is a professor at UMass School of Law Dartmouth. He holds degrees in civil and canon law.

Knights make donation to New Bedford food pantry

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 Sunday, May 31, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Riley Williams, parochial vicar at St. John the Evangelist and St. Vincent de Paul parishes in Attleboro.

DARTMOUTH — The Knights of Columbus Father Hogan Council in Dartmouth recently donated $500 to the Solanus Casey Food Pantry in New Bedford, the largest food pantry south of Boston, servicing 800 people per month.

The donation will be used for food and supplies for families this summer, an oftenoverlooked period of giving.

Head of the council, Chris Pereira, presented the check.

This food pantry program is operated under Catholic Social Services that serves all of southeastern Massachusetts.

The Knights of Columbus is committed to ending hunger in local communities by asking its local councils to participate in the Orderwide Food for Families Program.

Food for Families is one of the many projects in the Knights of Columbus’ “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” initiative. The initiative began at a summit on volunteerism as a response to the economic crisis, which the Knights or-

ganized in New York City in February 2009. That summit drew leaders from scores of the nation’s top charitable organizations, including the Salvation Army, Volunteers of America, United Way, Catholic Charities, Points of Light, the National Fraternal Congress, and others. Since 2012, the Knights of Columbus has donated more than $3.5 million and four million pounds of food to local food pantries, community food banks and soup kitchens.

Catholic Social Services, together with St. John the Baptist Parish, Westport; St. Mary’s Parish, South Dartmouth; Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. James Parish, New Bedford; Our Lady of the Assumption Parish, New Bedford; Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, New Bedford; and St. John Neumann Parish, East Freetown collaborate in the everyday operations of the Solanus Casey Food Pantry. The St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Child Nutrition

Partnership, Salvation Army, Citizens for Citizens, First Baptist Church, along with local schools and community groups support the food pantry.

The Knights of Columbus is a Roman Catholic fraternal service organization with more than 15,000 councils and 1.9 million members in the United States. The Knights participate in many charitable events and work with a variety of nonprofit groups to support the community.

The Knights of Columbus stand for four core principles — charity, unity, fraternity and patriotism. The Knights donated more than $170 million dollars to charity and volunteered more than 70 million hours last year. The Knights of Columbus Father Hogan Council serves the Dartmouth parishes of St. Julie Billiart and St. Mary’s.

For more information or to donate to the pantry, please call 508-997-7337.

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May 29, 2015

Cape Cod summer speaker series returns continued from page one

the mission of parishes and the Universal Church.

“I think there is excitement in hearing from our new Bishop of Fall River,” said Deacon Lemay. “I would say his topic of ‘The New Evangelization for the 21st Century’ will be in tune with Pope Francis’ ‘Joy of the Gospel.’”

On July 14 at 7 p.m., Father Austin Fleming will speak on “Finding and Sharing Jesus Online.” Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI encouraged evangelization through digital content during his papacy, and that through the Internet the Good Word could be shared daily. Father Fleming will answer many questions regarding the best strategy to using the Internet: “How best do we bring the person and message of Jesus to the digital world? Does online Spirituality satisfy too easily?

How can the online presence of the Church draw people to our Sanctuaries on Sunday mornings?”

“Father Fleming’s topic will be attractive to our younger generation and for those who are so-called ‘connected,’” said Deacon Lemay.

Father Fleming is a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and has served in campus ministry at the University of Notre Dame, Northeastern University and Emerson College. He is also the author of “Preparing

for Liturgy: A Theology and Spirituality,” a “Prayerbook for Engaged Couples,” and “Parish Weddings.” For the past eight years he has written a daily blog on prayer, Spirituality and the Liturgy through “A Concord Pastor Comments”: www.

ConcordPastor.blogspot.com.

Bishop Robert Lynch, Bishop of St. Petersburg, Fla., will cap the summer series on August 6 at 7 p.m. with his presentation, “Three Popes: One Church” as he reflects on the pontificates of St. John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis and their very different styles of serving the Church. Bishop Lynch is known for his time spent as the general secretary of the United States Catholic Conference and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was ordained a bishop and installed as the fourth bishop of the Diocese of St. Petersburg in 1996.

“His topic seems like a topic that will pique curiosity for finding the thread that connects [the popes],” said Deacon Lemay. “That looks interesting to me.”

Each summer series has been filled with exceptional presenters and this year is no different, said Deacon Lemay: “I have heard many comments regarding the upcoming speakers, and all are looking forward with anticipation.”

‘Forty Hours for the Family’ in Attleboro

ATTLEBORO — To commemorate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, celebrating the Body and Blood of Christ, and also in recognition of the renewed emphasis on the place of the family in the life of the Church this year, St. Vincent de Paul and St. John the Evangelist parishes in Attleboro are co-hosting a 40 Hours Devotion.

The history of this event

dates back to the mid-1500s and serves as a time of intensified prayer before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. This year, the particular intention for this devotion is for the sanctification of family life.

All interested people are invited to participate. Adoration will begin with a Mass of Exposition at St. Vincent de Paul Parish, 71 Linden Street in Attleboro, at 1 p.m. on June 5, and continue through 5 p.m. on June 6. At that time, adoration will begin at St. John the Evangelist Parish, 133 North Main Street in Attleboro, continuing through 7:30 a.m. on June 7.

If anyone would like to sign up as a scheduled adorer for one of the hours, they are invited to contact the St. Vincent’s Parish office at 508-226-1115 for more information, or visit the website at www.stvincentattleboro.org/p/ forty-hours-devotion.html.

Historic Cape chapel celebrates centennial continued from page one

ish in Centerville — is sometimes referred to as being in the “Spanish Monastic” style of architecture, or “the type of architecture that the monasteries would use, that best fitted their customs, needs, and materials available, when they moved into Spain and neighboring countrysides” in the 1300s, according to parishioner G. Margaret Rourke in her 1990 brochure, “A Work of Love,” detailing the history of the structure.

Rourke also noted the important symbolism of this unique anchor-cross hybrid topping the chapel’s tower.

“The anchor is the ecclesiastical symbol of hope and a universal insignia for things nautical, so befitting our area with its fishermen,” she wrote. “The round dome on the square base is classical Byzantine, and directly under it is a pier and arch ‘belfry’ that is typically Romanesque.

This merging of architectural forms took place around the third century when the early Church had to move east from Rome to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople.

The whole tower is an integral part of the church construction, and the stock and shank of the anchor serve as the usual cross seen on Catholic churches.”

The maritime motif is continued with the statue of Our Lady of Hope holding an anchor just above the main entrance and depictions of anchors on all of the stainedglass windows within. “The anchor appears in all of the stained glass windows of the church, which also contain the devotional Latin phrases and titles of the woman to whom the chapel is dedicated,” wrote parishioner Edward W. Kirk in his 2011 book “Faith of Our Fathers and Mothers: A Look Back at 50 Years in the Life of a Parish.”

Kirk explained how the majority of the founding parishioners in this area of Cape Cod were Portuguese immigrants — a group that also had close ties to the sea.

“Thus, the chapel would serve not only as a conveniently located place of worship, but also as a tangible reminder of the ‘old country’ for the Portuguese community in the area,” Kirk wrote. “It combined perfectly the ecclesiastical significance of the anchor

with the heritage of the mariner, and placed those ‘in peril on the sea’ under the care and protection of (Mary,) Star of the Sea.” The exterior statue of Our Lady of Hope was sculpted by artist John Kirshmeyer, a friend of Father Mortimer Downing, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis at the time.

While the parish already claimed two mission chapels — Sacred Heart in Yarmouthport and Our Lady of the Assumption in Osterville — the growing Portuguese community in West Barnstable was in need of a place of worship to call their own.

Our Lady of Hope is the name given to an apparition of the Blessed Mother who was said to have appeared to a group of children on Jan. 17, 1871 in the small town of Pontmain during the height of the Franco-Prussian War when it looked like France was going to lose. After Our Lady appeared, it’s reported that the Germans started to retreat, and just 11 days later a peace treaty was signed.

An identical plaster version of Our Lady of Hope is located inside the Sanctuary.

Both statues depict the Virgin Mary as described by the children.

The 12 windows in the nave also contain a symbol of each of the Twelve Apostles, lilies to represent the Blessed Mother, and a Latin word from the first two verses of the song, “Ave Maris Stella,” the hymn the townspeople in France sang when she appeared.

Designed by Father Downing in collaboration with renowned architect Mathew Sullivan of the Boston-based Maginnis and Walsh firm (which also designed many of the churches for the Archdiocese of Boston), the chapel’s solid structure owes a lot to the founding Portuguese parishioners — many of whom helped build the church, brick-by-brick, with their own hands.

“By the 1900s, there were a goodly number of Portuguese people settled in West Barnstable,” Rourke wrote. “Many were fishermen, others farmers, and still others worked in the flourishing local brick works.

“The then-flourishing West Barnstable Brick Company

contributed the bricks at cost. The company foreman, Emilio Silva, handpicked the bricks to go into the chapel and was overseer for much of the bricklaying. The bricks used in the construction of the building show through to the inside. No wonder Silva handpicked them.”

Silva was meticulous in selecting the bricks that would be used for the chapel, noting it was important not only for durability but also because the bricks would be visible inside and outside the structure.

“The men in the parish all pitched in and helped out wherever they could as a labor of love,” Rourke wrote. “By 1914 the T-shaped foundation hole had been dug and included a partial basement or ‘undercroft’ as it was then called, constructed of fieldstone of which West Barnstable has plenty, to accommodate a wood-burning stove.”

A year later, the Our Lady of Hope Chapel would be dedicated and on March 16, 1916 Father Downing installed and blessed the Stations of the Cross inside, putting the finishing touches on “the first tangible presence of what is now Our Lady of Victory Parish on Old King’s Highway,” according to Kirk.

In 1928, at the direction of Bishop Daniel Feehan, Our Lady of the Assumption in Osterville became a new parish, separate from St. Francis Xavier, and Our Lady of Hope became a mission of Our Lady of the Assumption.

Years later, with further pastoral planning changes in the diocese, Our Lady of Hope would fall under care of Our Lady of Victory Parish.

The 100th anniversary of Our Lady of Hope Chapel will be celebrated with a Mass at noon on July 19.

Those wishing to volunteer or contribute ideas to enhance the celebration are invited to visit the parish website at www.olvparish.org. This link also provides an opportunity for parishioners and friends to share ideas, documents and photos that are being collected to capture the chapel’s history.

Monthly planning meetings are held at the Hope House, adjacent to the chapel, at 10 a.m. on the f irst Saturday of each month. For more information, you can also email hopechapel@ olvparish.org.

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May 29, 2015

Blessed Romero ‘another brilliant star’ belonging to Church of Americas

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (CNS) — Some thought this day would never arrive. Others hoped and some always knew it would.

On May 23, the Catholic Church beatified Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez of El Salvador, who was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating Mass, just a day after pleading and ordering soldiers to stop killing innocent civilians.

“Blessed Romero is another brilliant star who belongs to the sanctity of the Church of the Americas,” said Cardinal Angelo Amato, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints’ Causes, during the ceremony in San Salvador. “And thanks be to God, there are many.”

While those who persecuted him have died or are in obscurity, “the memory of Romero continues to live in the poor and the marginalized,” Cardinal Amato said.

His homilies often pleaded for better conditions for the poor, for a stop to the escalating violence in the country and for brotherhood among those whose divisions ultimately led to a 12year conflict.

He’s not a symbol of division but one of peace, Cardinal Amato said.

In a message sent Saturday on the occasion of the beatification, Pope Francis said that Archbishop Romero “built the peace with the power of love, gave testimony of the faith with his life.”

Proof of that is the shirt he died in, soaked in blood, after an assassin’s single bullet took his life. Eight deacons carried the blood-stained shirt, now a relic, to the altar in a glass case.

Others decorated it with flowers and candles during the Saturday

ceremony. Several priests reached out to touch the case and later made the Sign of the Cross.

In a time of difficulty in El Salvador, Archbishop Romero knew “how to guide, defend and protect his flock, remaining faithful to the Gospel and in communion with the whole Church,” the pope said in his message.

“His ministry was distinguished by a particular attention to the poor and marginalized. And at the time of his death, while celebrating the holy sacrifice, love and reconciliation, he received the grace to be fully identified with the One who gave His life for His sheep.”

The event, at the square of the Divine Savior of the World in the capital city of San Salvador, saw the attendance of four Latin American presidents and six cardinals including: Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, of Honduras; Leopoldo Brenes, of Nicaragua; Jaime Ortega, of Cuba; Jose Luis Lacunza, of Panama; Roger Mahony, of the U.S.; and Italian Cardinal Amato, as well as Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, postulator of Archbishop Romero’s cause.

Their excitement couldn’t have been greater than that of those like Father Estefan Turcios, pastor of El Salvador’s St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Soyapango and national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in El Salvador. Before El Salvador’s conflict, Father Turcios was imprisoned for defending the rights of the poor. Archbishop Romero helped free him.

“There have been people inspired by Romero for 35 years.

How do you think they feel right now?” asked Father Turcios.

But just as he has devotees, Archbishop Romero has had de-

This week in 50 years ago — Father Edward L. O’Brien, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Mansfield, celebrated the first Solemn Mass in the new church at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.

25 years ago — Msgr. Anthony M. Gomes, who served as moderator of the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women for 23 years and director of the Catholic Charities Appeal, was honored by the DCCW with a book containing letters of tribute in his honor.

tractors.

After his death, the Vatican received mounds of letters against Archbishop Romero, Archbishop Paglia, has said. And that affected his path toward sainthood, which includes beatification. But

Pilgrims gather for Archbishop Oscar Romero’s beatification Mass in the Divine Savior of the World square in San Salvador.

(CNS photo/Oscar Rivera, EPA)

three decades after his assassination, Pope Benedict XVI cleared the archbishop’s sainthood cause.

In February Pope Francis signed the decree recognizing Archbishop Romero as a martyr, a person killed “in hatred of the faith,” which meant there is no need to prove a miracle for beatification. In general two miracles are needed for sainthood — one for beatification and the second for canonization.

Father Turcios said by studying Blessed Romero’s life, oth-

Diocesan history

10 years ago — Bishop George W. Coleman bestowed Scouting awards to 57 girls and boys and five adults at the annual Religious Emblem Ceremony held at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River.

One year ago — Father Wilfred Raymond, C.S.C., the director of Family Theater Productions in Hollywood, was announced as the new president of Holy Cross Family Ministries in Easton, taking over for Father John Phalen, C.S.C., after 18 years.

ers will discover all the Gospel truths that led him to defend life, the poor and the Church, and do away with untruths surrounding his legacy.

During the country’s civil war that lasted from 1979 until 1992, some Salvadorans hid, buried and sometimes burned photos they had taken with or of Archbishop Romero, because it could mean others would call them communists or rebel sympathizers and put their lives in danger.

Though he still has some detractors, Father Turcios said, the beatification can help others understand the reality and truth that others have known all along: Archbishop Romero “was loyal to God’s will, was loyal to and loved his people and was loyal to and loved the Church,” he said.

One of the offertory gifts during the Mass May 23 was the book “De la locura a la esperanza” or “From Madness to Hope,” a document generated during the peace accords that ended the country’s 12-year war.

It chronicles some of the greatest human rights atrocities committed in El Salvador during the conflict, including the killing and rape of four women religious from the U.S., the killing of priests, catechists, as well as massacres of unarmed civilians — more than 70,000 died in all.

Priests, bishops and cardinals wore some form of a red vestment, signifying martyrdom.

Their stoles were emblazoned with Archbishop Romero’s episcopal motto: “Sentir con la iglesia,” or “Feel with the Church,” also translated as “To think with the Church.”

The ceremony culminated a week in San Salvador that saw pilgrims, mainly from Latin America, but also from as far away as Singapore and many from the United States, who wanted to cel-

ebrate the occasion. Flowers, music, tears and happiness flowed at San Salvador’s Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Savior, where the archbishop is buried. He is officially Blessed Romero, but to others he already is and has been “San Romero,” or St. Romero of the Americas.

Father Juan J. Navarro, of Maracaibo, Venezuela, said he visited the archbishop’s burial place to voice the many needs of his country. Food and freedom of expression are lacking, he said, and it’s a place with a similar situation to the one that led to war in Archbishop Romero’s time.

“I asked for (Archbishop Romero) to intercede for our rights, to continue to inspire in us the will to go forward when the reality of life is serious,” he said.

For 81-year-old Salvadoran Gregoria Martinez de Jimenez, the beatification marked the official recognition of something she has known all along: “We finally have a saint who is one of ours,” she said as tears flowed.

“He was a duplicate of Jesus,” added her daughter Maria Elena Jimenez Martinez, 44. Both women attended Archbishop Romero’s funeral, where smoke bombs went off and shots were fired. More than elation, they showed happiness mixed with sorrow that remains from a painful time.

Jesuit Father Miguel Angel Vasquez Hernandez, of Arcatao, said the archbishop would probably have felt a little taken aback with such a ceremony, which is expected to cost about $1 million and was attended by hundreds of thousands.

The best way to honor him, he said, is to work for peace and justice in El Salvador, and in other parts of the world afflicted by poverty, war, violence, oppression and economic injustice.

Youth Pages

16

May 29, 2015

The two-second grade classes at St. Mary-Sacred Heart School in North Attleboro gathered in their First Communion clothes and crowned Mother Mary, a tradition in the Catholic Church and at the school. With the students are school director, Father David Costa; Principal Denise Peixoto; second-grade teachers Patricia Diamond and Anne Sullivan; and Tammy Ahearn, the second-grade classroom aide.

Pictured are “The Curiosity Challenge” winners from the St. Joseph School in Fairhaven STEM Program. The students received their awards at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

The kindergarten class at Holy Family-Holy Name School in New Bedford celebrated Earth Day by picking up trash and debris in their playground.

Students from the Greater New Bedford Catholic schools recently participated in the annual track meet. Pictured are students from St. James-St. John School praying before the meet.

First-graders from Our Lady of Lourdes School in Taunton showed off the masks from their recent visit to Capron Park Zoo.

Third-grade students at St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro recently conducted an experiment that proves air is all around us. Pictured from left are: Isabella Pattie, John Listro, Oceana Duffy and Drew Bradley.

First-graders at St. Francis Xavier School in Acushnet recently hosted an Author’s Share for their parents. The students were very proud to be published authors and unveiled their class book, “First Grade’s In Charge!” Each student read aloud a page of their class’ storybook and shared their illustrations with all the parents one-on-one.

May 29, 2015

A

s I was beginning to write my article for this week, I realized that much of what I wanted to say was in my homily for Pentecost Sunday. So instead of reinventing the wheel, let me share with you the text of my homily: I was able to take Thursday and Friday off last week and it was spent getting ready for my retreat this week. One of the tasks that needed to be accomplished meant leaving the Cape. When I left the house I had forgotten that it was Memorial Day weekend.

As I headed over the bridge, I was reminded that it was Memorial Day weekend.

As I saw the line of cars sitting on Route 25 and the approach to the Bourne Bridge — my planned return route — I could feel myself get stressed.

Now, I was good. I didn’t cut anyone off. I didn’t yell at anyone or offer versions of a wave.

But to be totally honest, I was not reflecting on the mysteries of God’s love in the Paschal Mystery. Nor did the thought that all these other drivers were made in the image and likeness of God enter my mind or create sense of awe at the wonders of God’s love.

I got annoyed. I was becoming impatient and muttering to myself.

When I was driving through the traffic, I was feeling stressed, anxious, annoyed, impatient. All of these are signs of self-centeredness.

They are the fruit of a heart set on oneself.

A little Catechetical re-

Youth Pages A lived relationship with the Lord view: the fruits of the Holy proclamation of the Gospel Spirit are: love, joy, peace, of Jesus Christ. patience, kindness, goodness, There is a line that St. Paul generosity, gentleness, faithuses that gives me pause. “No fulness, modesty, self-control, one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ chastity. These are the signs except by the Holy Spirit” that one is living for God and (1Cor 12:3b). Match this up in love with God. with Jesus’ words today in Last week there were two John’s Gospel: “Peace be with Baptisms celebrated here you” ( Jn 20:21a). at our parish; this weekWe are not simply given a end there will be five. Last task. We are called to a way week we had close to 30 First Communions and another 30 Confirmations. These Sacraments are not just celebrations in

By Father our lives. They are very David C. Frederici real encounters with the Risen Lord that challenge us to live differently. of life. Not just professing Baptism conforms us to faith in God with our words, Christ and to the Church. not just doing this and not Through the waters of Bapdoing that and certainly not tism we are reborn to new life knowing about God. in Christ, meant to walk with We, as Christians, are Him each and every day. called to live in love with The Second Vatican God. This is more than falling Council taught that at our in love — the warm fuzzies Confirmation we are more and Spiritual highs. “perfectly bound” to the famYesterday Archbishop ily of faith and to God and Oscar Romero was beatified. that the Holy Spirit gifts us The archbishop was shot and “with special strength so that killed while celebrating Mass we are more strictly obliged 35 years ago. I came across a to spread and defend the quote from him that helps us faith, both by word and deed, understand this life God calls as true witnesses of Christ” us to: (Lumen Gentium #11).

“Let them steal our material That’s what the readings churches, the Church’s history is are telling us today.

Jesus’ words are pretty straightforward: “As Father has sent Me, so I send you” ( Jn 20:21b).

Paul tells us that the Spirit gives us gifts that are unique to each of us to carry out the one mission entrusted to the family of faith: the continued

Be Not Afraid

The Anchor is always pleased to run news and photos about our diocesan youth. If schools, parish Religious Education programs, or home-schoolers have newsworthy stories and photos they would like to share with our readers, send them to: schools@anchornews. org

Rebecca McCarthy, a teacher at Coyle and Cassidy Middle School in Taunton, has been selected as an NEH Summer Scholar from a national applicant pool to attend one of 21 NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops. The National Endowment for the Humanities is a federal agency that each year supports summer study opportunities so that teachers can work with experts in humanities disciplines. McCarthy will participate in a workshop entitled “Sailing to Freedom: New Bedford and the Underground Railroad.” The one-week program will be held twice this summer at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and is directed by Dr. Timothy Walker.

full of that.

That’s not why the Church is on earth.

The Church is something different, says Christ.

The Church seeks adorers of God in Spirit and in truth, And that can be done under a tree, on a mountain, by the sea.

Wherever there is a sincere heart that seeks God sincerely, There is true religion.

This, my friends, scandalizes many because many have wanted to tie the Church to these material things.

They call this prestige, they call it faithfulness to their traditions.

But it can be a betrayal of the Church’s truth.

God is Spirit and does not need the powers and the things of earth.

He seeks sincerity in the heart.”

Our Catholic faith is about a lived relationship with the Lord; one of love and uniting our minds and hearts to the

17

God Who desires nothing else than our love. Living this kind of relationship doesn’t just happen passively. It requires commitment: spending time with the Lord, listening, learning and sharing our lives.

It is the Lord Who initiates this relationship and the Lord Who gives us the special graces to persevere in growing in that relationship.

The fruit that is born out in our lives helps us to see the focus of our hearts: towards ourselves or open to the Lord so that He may dwell within us.

Thinking about it, I think I would prefer love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, etc. over anxiety, stress, frustration and impatience.

Anchor columnist Father Frederici is pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Pocasset and diocesan director of Campus Ministry and Chaplain at UMass Dartmouth and Bristol Community College.

St. Vincent’s Home in Fall River has received a $1,000 community gift from the Bearingstar Insurance Charitable Fund of the Arbella Insurance Foundation, for the home’s Life Skills Program. From left: Bearingstar Insurance employees Luisa Nunes, Anna Brito, and Diane Andrade along with St. Vincent’s Life Skills coordinator, Rachele Foley.

Bishop Stang High School (North Dartmouth) seniors recently celebrated their prom and after-prom celebrations. This selfie shows some of the students with two chaperones.

18

May 29, 2015

St. Faustina hits the stage in New Bedford

Positio on Father Peyton delivered to Vatican continued from page one

priesthood,” Father Marcham told The Anchor. “For example it contains people talking about his life in Ireland as a child, his healing from TB as a seminarian, and a sampling of all the people whose lives he enriched in his world-wide ministry. The positio contains documents from his baptismal certificate to his college transcript to letters from bishops and cardinals telling of the wonderful Spiritual benefits from his Rosary rallies in their dioceses.”

In 1997, through the postulator, the Congregation of Holy Cross asked then-Fall River Bishop Sean P. O’Malley, OFM, Cap., to open an investigation into Father Peyton’s life; the first step in the sainthood cause process.

In 2001 Rome granted a nahil obstat (nothing stands in the way), giving Father Peyton the title Servant of God. Since Father Peyton, who died June 3, 1992, is buried in the Holy Cross Father and Brothers Cemetery on the Stonehill College campus in Easton in the Fall River Diocese, Bishop George W. Coleman opened the diocesan inquiry, which would establish commissions to review his heroic practice of virtue and reputation for holiness.

In November 2005 and 2010 two separate reported miracles attributed to Father Peyton’s intercession were reviewed and documented, with the results being sent to Rome.

If the Congregation for the Causes of Saints determines that Father Peyton led a life of holiness and heroic virtue, it will send the findings to Pope Francis who could declare Father Peyton, “venerable.”

“Before I came to the Diocese of Fall River, I knew about Father Peyton and his great work with the family and the Rosary,” Bishop da Cunha told The Anchor. “But I didn’t know, until I got here, about the Father Peyton Center and the fact that Father Peyton is buried in this diocese. This is a wonderful source of inspiration and getting Father Peyton’s message of family prayer across. This is a blessing to our diocese.

“The fact that the positio has been delivered is also a source of encouragement and inspiration. Maybe in the future a beatification will take place in this diocese. I’m looking for-

ward to being a celebrant at the June 6 Mass.”

“There was a sense of excitement and joy in presenting the positio to Cardinal Amato, prefect for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints,” said Father Marcham. “I felt privileged to represent the Congregation of Holy Cross along with Holy Cross Family Ministries President, Father Willy Raymond, C.S.C.

Servant of God Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., with his trusty Rosary stands before a billboard carrying his iconic saying, on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

(CNS file photo)

“There was excitement, joy, honor, amazement to be part of this historical moment in Father Peyton’s cause. The date it was presented was also the anniversary of Father Thomas Feeley, C.S.C. going home to God. Father Feeley was the first vice postulator for Father Peyton’s cause and it seemed fitting that this moment would be connected to him.

“After working with such wonderful people as Father George Lucas, C.S.C.; Father John Phalen, C.S.C.; Father Hugh Cleary, C.S.C.; and now Father Willy Raymond, C.S.C., on behalf of Father Peyton’s cause, I felt a sense of brotherhood in helping to make Father Peyton’s life and ministry known to the wider Church.

“My hopes are that Father Peyton’s positio may be discussed and questions posed and answered within this upcoming year. It seems providential that in this year of the Synod on the Family where family life is being discussed and prayed for with a special attention that Father Peyton’s, who gave his life to support the family in union with Jesus and Mary through the Rosary

prayer, cause is moving forward. Additionally, the Holy Father has also highlighted the need for us to go to our Blessed Mother and to pray the Rosary as a means of entering more deeply into the life of Christ.”

Bishop da Cunha was invited by Father Raymond to take part in the celebration in honor of Father Peyton and the delivery of the positio.

“All of us at Holy Cross Family Ministries are looking forward to celebrating this year’s anniversary Mass commemorating Father Peyton’s death with our new bishop,” Father Hugh Cleary, C.S.C., national director of Holy Cross Family Ministries told The Anchor. “Father Willy and I have met Bishop da Cunha on a few occasions. His friendly demeanor and welcoming smile are very engaging. His presence will greatly enhance our celebration. Who knows maybe we will all be celebrating Father Peyton’s beatification right here in our diocese sooner than later.”

The event will begin with the praying of the Rosary at the Grotto on the Stonehill College campus at 4 p.m. A continuous shuttle service will transport faithful from the Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street, North Easton, beginning at 3 p.m.

A Eucharistic procession to Father Peyton’s grave will take place after the Rosary; followed by a procession (or shuttle) to St. Joseph’s Chapel at the Father Peyton Center.

A Mass will be celebrated at the chapel at approximately 5 p.m., within the context of the Corpus Christi vigil.

A 6 p.m. reception is scheduled beneath a tent at the center following the Mass.

HCFM invites youngsters who have recently received their First Communion to join the bishop, priests and faithful in the processions, declaring, “This is another opportunity to wear your Communion outfit!”

Parking will be available at the Father Peyton Center.

To RSVP for the reception, call 508-238-4095, extension 2041, or email rchaves@hcfm. org. Families of recent First Communion children who wish to take part in the processions are asked to sign up by calling Rosemary Chaves at 508-2384095. In the event of inclement weather all events will take place indoors.

continued from page 11

Kazimirowski, was presented

by Peg Holzemer of Theater One Productions in Middleboro in a series of staged readings in Middleboro, Wareham and Lakeville. “Judy Lemay, a veteran director with Your Theatre, Inc., was enthusiastic about the play from the beginning and encouraged me to get it produced,” explained Veary.

“I did. First by Theatre Studio, Inc. in New York City for two scheduled weekends, and then, after a coup d’etat in which a champion of the play emerged as the new assistant artistic director, by the Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke, Va., a week, maybe more, of their ‘lunchbox’ series.”

Veary said he heard “over and over again,” from audiences that they enjoyed the oneact production, but wanted “something more, a full swing.”

Veary heeded the call and rewrote the piece, adding three more characters and six more scenes.

“The play, always intended to be a lighthearted speculation, had become even more lighthearted,” Veary told The Anchor. “If I may say so, in my uncertain opinion, it was now downright funny. Could one write a funny play about a saint? Should one even dare?

I risked offending my fellow Roman Catholics as well as the comedians. I confess I didn’t know whether the play had an audience and, if so, where it might be. My concerns were not calmed when I occasionally saw eyes roll at my mentioning I’d written a play about a saint.”

Veary said the play isn’t meant to poke fun at St. Faustina; quite the contrary, it’s a tribute to her devotion to the Lord and His request to make His Divine Mercy known throughout the world.

“When Faustina was finally accepted into her convent, she was regarded as ‘nothing special,’” added Veary. “When she spoke of her vision, some laughed at her. Her diary was later banned by the Vatican for 19 years. Two of the five characters in the play, Sister Sophie and Father Felix, are composites, constructed to dramatize these daunting pressures in the life of this faithful and fearless young woman.”

Veary credits his wife of nearly 30 years, Claudette, an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion at St. Mary’s

Parish, with “lovingly and patiently supporting my peculiar fascinations, including the writing of plays.”

Lemay desired to direct the new and larger version of Veary’s work on St. Faustina.

“She unretired herself and told me she wanted to stage ‘The Obraz,’” he said.

The initial showing of “The Obraz,” was scheduled for early April, but an illness to one of the key characters ended that dream. But since then, a new cast member was added and rehearsals started again in earnest. “Judy has assembled a formidable cast: Natalie Cabral as Faustina; Richard Pacheco as Kazimirowski; Carol Oliva as Mother Irene; Lucy Bly as Sister Sophie; and Tegan Flanders as Father Felix,” said Veary. “Our stalwart stage manager is Ellie Murphy.

The group resides throughout in greater New Bedford and Taunton. Braving the most difficult winter in memory, they have endured the hiccupped rehearsal schedule and have worked on with inspired determination.”

Veary said that several castmembers are “serious Catholics,” but none have raised any concerns about the lighthearted script.

All systems are go for the scheduled run for “The Obraz,” at Your Theater, Inc. Playhouse at 136 Rivet Street in New Bedford, from June 4-6. The parking is in the St. Martin’s Church lot, next to the church hall (theatre) on the south side of the church. Parking is also available on nearby streets.

Performances are June 4-6 at 8 p.m., and June 7 at 2:30 p.m. Ticket prices are $10 for all shows. For information, reservations, or directions visit www.yourtheater.org, or call 508-993-0772.

Visit the Diocese of Fall River website at fallriverdiocese.org The site includes links to parishes, diocesan offices and national sites.

19

May 29, 2015

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese Acushnet — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Evening prayer and Benediction is held Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

ATTLEBORO — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the Adoration Chapel at St. Vincent de Paul Parish, 71 Linden Street, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

ATTLEBORO — The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette holds Eucharistic Adoration in the Shrine Church every Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. through November 17.

ATTLEBORO — There is a weekly Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration Thursdays from 5:30 to 6:30 pm at St. John the Evangelist Church on N. Main St. Brewster — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the La Salette Chapel in the lower level of Our Lady of the Cape Church, 468 Stony Brook Road, on First Fridays beginning at noon until 7:45 a.m. First Saturday, concluding with Benediction and concluding with Mass at 8 a.m. buzzards Bay — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street, Monday through Saturday, from 6:30 to 8 a.m.; and every first Friday from noon to 8 a.m. on Saturday.

East Freetown — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. John Neumann Church every Monday (excluding legal holidays) 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Our Lady, Mother of All Nations Chapel. (The base of the bell tower).

EAST TAUNTON — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the chapel at Holy Family Parish Center, 438 Middleboro Avenue, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. On First Fridays, Eucharistic Adoration takes place at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue, from 8:30 a.m. until 7:45 p.m.

FAIRHAVEN — St. Mary’s Church, Main St., has Eucharistic Adoration every Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Chapel of Reconciliation, with Benediction at 11:30 a.m. Also, there is a First Friday Mass each month at 7 p.m., followed by a Holy Hour with Eucharistic Adoration. Refreshments follow.

Fall River — Espirito Santo Parish, 311 Alden Street, Fall River. Eucharistic Adoration on Mondays following the 8 a.m. Mass until Rosary and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

FALL RIVER — St. Bernadette’s Church, 529 Eastern Ave., has continuous Eucharistic Adoration from 8 a.m. on Thursday until 8 a.m. on Saturday.

FALL RIVER — St. Anthony of the Desert Church, 300 North Eastern Avenue, has Eucharistic Adoration Mondays and Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

FALL RIVER — Holy Name Church, 709 Hanover Street, has Eucharistic Adoration Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Our Lady of Grace Chapel.

FALL RIVER — Good Shepherd Parish has Eucharistic Adoration every Friday following the 8 a.m. Mass and concluding with 3 p.m. Benediction in the Daily Mass Chapel. A bilingual holy hour takes place from 2 to 3 p.m. Park behind the church and enter the back door of the connector between the church and the rectory.

Falmouth — St. Patrick’s Church has Eucharistic Adoration each First Friday, following the 9 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 4:30 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

MANSFIELD — St. Mary’s Parish, 330 Pratt Street, has Eucharistic Adoration every First Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., with Benediction at 5:45 p.m.

MASHPEE — Christ the King Parish, Route 151 and Job’s Fishing Road has 8:30 a.m. Mass every First Friday with special intentions for Respect Life, followed by 24 hours of Eucharistic Adoration in the Chapel, concluding with Benediction Saturday morning followed immediately by an 8:30 Mass.

NEW BEDFORD — Eucharistic Adoration takes place 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 233 County Street, with night prayer and Benediction at 8:45 p.m., and Confessions offered during the evening. Please use the side entrance.

NEW BEDFORD — There is a daily holy hour from 5:15-6:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1359 Acushnet Avenue. It includes Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Liturgy of the Hours, recitation of the Rosary, and the opportunity for Confession.

NEW BEDFORD — St. Lawrence Martyr Parish, 565 County Street, holds Eucharistic Adoration in the side chapel Fridays from 7:30-11:45 a.m. ending with a simple Benediction NORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m., ending with Benediction.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

NORTH DIGHTON — Eucharistic Adoration takes place every Wednesday following 8:00 a.m. Mass and concludes with Benediction at 5 p.m. Eucharistic Adoration also takes place every First Friday at St. Nicholas of Myra Church, 499 Spring Street following the 8 a.m. Mass, ending with Benediction at 6 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 7:30 to 8 a.m.

NORTH EASTON — A Holy Hour for Families including Eucharistic Adoration is held every Friday from 3-4 p.m. at The Father Peyton Center, 518 Washington Street.

ORLEANS — St. Joan of Arc Parish, 61 Canal Road, has Eucharistic Adoration every First Friday starting after the 8 a.m. Mass and ending with Benediction at 11:45 a.m. The Sacrament of the Sick is also available immediately after the 8 a.m. Mass.

OSTERVILLE — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 76 Wianno Avenue on First Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to noon.

SEEKONK ­— Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish has perpetual Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508-336-5549.

Taunton — Eucharistic Adoration takes place every Tuesday at St. Anthony Church, 126 School Street, following the 8 a.m. Mass with prayers including the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for vocations, concluding at 6 p.m. with Chaplet of St. Anthony and Benediction. Recitation of the Rosary for peace is prayed Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. prior to the 8 a.m. Mass.

Taunton — Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord, 31 First Street. Exposition begins following the 8 a.m. Mass. The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed, and Adoration will continue throughout the day. Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Rosary and Benediction begin at 6:30 p.m.

WAREHAM — Eucharistic Adoration at St. Patrick’s Church begins each Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. and ends on Friday night at midnight. Adoration is held in our Adoration Chapel in the lower Parish Hall. ~ PERPETUAL EUCHARISTIC ADORATION ~ East Sandwich — The Corpus Christi Parish Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Chapel is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 324 Quaker Meeting House Road, East Sandwich. Use the Chapel entrance on the side of the church.

NEW BEDFORD — Our Lady’s Chapel, 600 Pleasant Street, offers Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day. For information call 508-996-8274.

SEEKONK ­— Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish has perpetual Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508-336-5549.

WEST HARWICH — Our Lady of Life Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Holy Trinity Parish, 246 Main Street (Rte. 28), holds perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. We are a regional chapel serving all of the surrounding parishes. All are invited to sign up to cover open hours. For open hours, or to sign up call 508-430-4716.

Respect insights, talents of elderly, help those in need, bishop urges

WHEELING, W.Va. (CNS) for the needs of older West Vir- insights and talents for the benefit — Bishop Michael J. Bransfield ginians and of making use of their of the common good.” of Wheeling-Charleston is urging all on West Virginians to help meet the needs of their elderly neighbors and make use of older A Mass of Healing will be celebrated on June 1 at 6 p.m. at Our Lady of Victory Parish, 230 South Main Street in Centerville. residents’ insights and talents “for The Mass is sponsored by Our Lady of Victory Catholic Cancer the benefit of the common good.”

Support Group which will meet immediately following parish The head of the statewide center at 7 p.m. and all are welcome to join. The speaker will Catholic diocese is focusing on be Ashley Wills, community manager for the New England Division of the American Cancer Society. She will speak on some of ministry with and among the elthe services offered through the Cancer Society as well as the derly in the fifth pastoral letter Relay for Life and the Survivor’s Dinner. For more information, call of his episcopacy. The letter is ex508-362- 6909. pected to be promulgated in June.

The Fall River Area Men’s First Friday Club will meet on June 5 at St. Joseph “As bishop of Wheeling-CharlesChurch, North Main Street in Fall River. Mass begins at 6 p.m. and will be celton, the well-being of older perebrated by Father Herb Nichols. Following the Mass, a hot meal prepared by sons throughout our Mountain White’s of Westport will be served in the hall next door. The guest speaker State is of great importance to will also be Father Nichols, who will speak about Medjugorje, Yugoslavia — today, Bosnia-Herzegovina — site of the alleged apparitions of the Blessed me,” Bishop Bransfield says in the Virgin Mary since 1981. Father Nichols has been to Medjugorje 21 times. The 6 letter. “As I visit our parishes, I am p.m. Mass is open to the public. Any gentleman wishing to join us for the hot always aware of the great nummeal and listen to the guest speaker should reserve a seat through a club ber of older parishioners who are member or call Daryl Gonyon at 508-672-4822. so actively engaged in the life of Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., will join Holy Cross Family Ministries in their parish and who volunteer so celebrating the anniversary of its founder, Servant of God Father Patrick much of their time and labor to Peyton, “the Rosary Priest.” The event will be held on the Vigil of the feast make our parishes vibrant comof Corpus Christi beginning at 4 p.m. on June 6 with Rosary at the Grotto at Stonehill College, followed by a Eucharistic procession to Father Peyton’s munities of faith.” grave and a continued procession to St. Joseph Chapel for Mass. A recepHe says he also is aware “of tion at The Father Peyton Center will conclude the day. In the event of rain, the number of older people who all activities will be held inside St. Joseph Chapel at 500 Washington Street in suffer illness, loneliness, and even North Easton. For more information or to RSVP, call the Father Peyton Center at 508-238-4095, extension 2041 or visit www.FamilyRosary.org/Events. poverty, and who are eager for a sign of hope. In this pastoral letA Taizé Prayer Service will be held on June 7 at 7 p.m. at St. John Neumann ter,” he writes, “I call on all ChrisParish in East Freetown, followed by an outdoor reception at 8 p.m. with tians, and all men and women of refreshments. All are welcome. For more information, call 508-763-2240. good will, to accept the challenge St. Vincent’s Home’s seventh annual Kick-Off to Summer Celebration will be and the noble task of providing

Around the Diocese

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks May 30 Rev. Jordan Harpin, O.P., Dominican Priory, Fall River, 1929 Rev. Edmond J. Potvin, Pastor, St. Jean Baptiste, Fall River, 1937, Rev. James M. Quinn, Pastor, St. John the Evangelist, Attleboro, 1950 Rev. Robert T. Canuel, Assistant, St. Anne, Fall River, 1993 May 31 Rev. Vincent A. Wolski, OFM Conv., Pastor, Holy Cross, Fall River, 1964 June 1 Rev. James A. Ward, Former Pastor, St. Peter, Provincetown, 1911 June 3 Most Rev. James J. Gerrard, DD, Auxiliary Bishop of Fall River 1959-1976, Retired Pastor St. Lawrence, New Bedford, 1991 Rev. Luis A. Cardoso, Retired, Former Pastor, St. Michael, Fall River, 2011 June 4 Rev. Louis J. Terrien, O.P., Dominican Priory, Fall River, 1920 Rev. Jose P. d’Amaral, Parochial Vicar, Santo Christo, Fall River, 1949 Rev. George Daigle, Pastor, Sacred Heart, North Attleboro, 1979 June 5 Very Rev. Thomas J. McLean, V.F. Pastor, St. Francis Xavier, Hyannis, 1954 Rev. Msgr. Louis Prevost, Retired Pastor, St. Joseph, New Bedford, 1970 Rev. Msgr. Edmund R. Levesque, Retired, Former Pastor, St. Anthony, New Bedford, 2011

held June 26 from 6 to 11 p.m. on the deck of the Battleship Massachusetts.

The evening celebration overlooking Fall River’s waterfront is expected to draw more than 400 guests and will feature complimentary beer and wine, cash bar, gourmet dinner and dessert, dancing to the sounds of The Pulse of Boston, and silent and live auctions emceed by volunteer auctioneer, Ryan Nadeau. The evening will also feature gourmet food with specialty dishes prepared by local restaurants. Proceeds will directly benefit youth participating in St. Vincent’s Life Skills Program. For tickets or more information contact Melissa Dick at 508-235-3228.

Our Lady of the Cape Parish, Stony Brook Road in Brewster, will host its 37th annual Summer Fair on June 27 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free. This “Whale of a Fair” is a fund-raiser with proceeds earmarked for local charities, college scholarships and the church’s sister parish in Dessalines, Haiti.

New this year: the Brewster Fire Department will give children tours of a fire engine with lessons on fire safety. Specialty-themed baskets will be on sale as well as antiques and collectibles, handmade crafts, jewelry, books, tools, children’s toys, and more. Make it a family day with the silent auction, face painting for kids, a barbecue, ice cream treats, home-baked goods, a variety of raffles, and hourly door prizes.

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May 29, 2015

Respect creation — this is a must for every single Christian, Pope Francis says

Vatican City (CNA/ EWTN News) — Pope Francis used Sunday’s feast of Pentecost — the descent of the

Holy Spirit — as an occasion to remind Christians of their duty to care for and respect the earth.

“The Holy Spirit Whom Christ sent from the Father, and the Creator Spirit Who gives life to all things, are one and the same,” the pope said.

“Respect for creation, then, is a requirement of our faith: the ‘garden’ in which we live is not entrusted to us to be exploited, but rather to be cultivated and tended with respect.”

Pope Francis, dressed in red vestments traditional for the solemnity of Pentecost, made these remarks during Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Reflecting on Adam, who himself was “formed from the earth,” the pontiff explained, this respect for the earth is only possible when man is renewed by the Holy Spirit, and “reformed by the Father on the model of Christ, the new Adam.”

In this way, “we will indeed be able to experience the freedom of the sons and daughters, in harmony with all creation.”

These remarks about man’s responsibility to care for the earth comes ahead of the pope’s upcoming encyclical on envi-

ronmental degradation and the global effects of climate change on the poor.

Expected to be published in mid-late June, the document has already been written and is currently being translated.

Reflecting on the day’s readings for the feast of Pentecost, Pope Francis cited the second reading, the second letter of St. Paul to the Galatians, comparing those who allow the Holy Spirit into their lives with those who close themselves off to the Spirit through selfishness, “rigid legalism,” neglecting Jesus’ teachings, and so on.

“Closing oneself off from the Holy Spirit means not only a lack of freedom; it is a sin,” he said.

On the other hand, the pope explained, the world is in need of those who are open to the Spirit.

“The world needs the courage, hope, faith and perseverance of Christ’s followers,” as well as the fruits of the Holy Spirit, as cited in the day’s readings: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22).

Pope Francis turned his reflection to the account of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and Mary from the day’s first reading.

Receiving this outpouring of the Holy Spirit which filled “their minds and hearts,” the pontiff said, the Apostles “received a new strength so great that they were able to proclaim Christ’s Resurrection in different languages.”

The pope also how Mary, “the first disciple and the Mother of the nascent Church,” who was present at Pentecost, “accompanied the joyful young Bride, the Church of Jesus.”

With the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles came to understand all that Jesus had

said and done, especially with regard to the “scandal” of His death and Resurrection.

“To the Apostles, who could not bear the scandal of their Master’s sufferings, the Spirit would give a new understanding of the truth and beauty of that saving event.”

The pope explained that the Apostles had hidden themselves away in the Upper Room following Christ’s death out of fear.

“Now they would no longer be ashamed to be Christ’s disciples; they would no longer tremble before the courts of men,” he said.

“Filled with the Holy Spirit,” the Holy Father continued, the Apostles “would now understand ‘all the truth’: that the death of Jesus was not His defeat, but rather the ultimate expression of God’s love, a love that, in the Resurrection, conquers death and exalts Jesus as the Living One, the Lord, the Redeemer of mankind, of history and of the world.”

Pope Francis concluded his homily by reminding the faithful of the responsibilities which come from having received the Holy Spirit.

“The gift of the Holy Spirit has been bestowed upon the Church and upon each one of us, so that we may live lives of genuine faith and active charity, that we may sow the seeds of reconciliation and peace,” he said.

“Strengthened by the Spirit and His many gifts, may we be able to battle against sin and corruption without compromise, devoting ourselves with patient perseverance to the works of justice and peace.”

Shortly after the conclusion of Mass in the Basilica, Pope Francis led the crowds in St. Peter’s Square in reciting the Regina Caeli address for the last time for the Easter Season.

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