The Catholic Spirit - November 10, 2022

RAKE-A-THON Father Nick Hagen, pastor of St. Raphael in Crystal, helps bag leaves Oct. 29 at the 17th annual Rake-A-Thon fundraiser for the parish’s elementary school. Helping Father Hagen with a parishioner’s lawn are seventh-grader Ruby Chico, left, kindergartner Garrett DeLawyer, and Leo Stute, younger sibling of St. Raphael second-grader Michael Stute. More than 70 adults and 80 children from the school of 149 students participated in the fundraiser, which raised about $19,300 through pledges for students’ efforts at raking yards. The money will go to tuition assistance at the school.

NEWS notes

The Cathedral of St. Paul’s All Saints Day Masses Nov. 1 in St. Paul noted the 181st anniversary of the first Mass at the log Chapel of St. Paul — the first predecessor to what is now a national shrine to the great apostle. Father Lucien Galtier began the process of building the chapel in October 1841. It was dedicated that same year on the feast of All Saints Day. In a letter, Father Galtier noted that “In 1841 and in the month of October I caused some logs to be cut, prepared and put up and soon after a poor church of logs and fitted so as to remind one of the stable of Bethlehem was built. Now the nucleus of Saint Paul was formed. This church thus remained dedicated to Saint Paul and I expressed the wish to call the place by no other name.”

The Nov. 15 deadline for a guaranteed spot is fast approaching for people interested in attending World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal, through the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Nick Brady, director of adult faith formation called Next Steps at St. Paul in Ham Lake, is helping lead the trip, along with Michelle Boris, coordinator of young adult ministries at St. Mary of the Lake in White Bear Lake. Both leaders have experience traveling overseas, and Brady was on a World Youth Day pilgrimage to Poland in 2016. WYD is held every three years. Next year’s event will run from July 29 through Aug. 7. More details and registration forms can be found at archspm org/world youth day-2023

The president and CEO of Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis is reaching out in a 100-day effort, talking with 100 people the nonprofit organization serves, its staff, donors and volunteers as well as government, business and faith leaders, including Archbishop Bernard Hebda. Michael Goar says the challenges of providing social services and housing to people in need — the core of what Catholic Charities does — are increasing, and it’s important to build a strong community together. People who would like to participate or share ideas for the effort can email Catholic Charities at info@cctwincities org. Wendy Underwood, Catholic Charities’ vice president for social justice advocacy and engagement, noted that Goar took the helm of the organization in the beginning of 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time there were no vaccines. Keeping clients and staff safe and wrapping up projects planned before he came meant Goar’s agenda was not his own until now, Underwood said. The 100 x 100 campaign began in mid-October and is expected to wrap up by early January. With the input, Goar plans to start putting together immediate and long-term plans.

A native of Minneapolis and graduate of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul who went on to a career in military intelligence and law enforcement left a special gift for children when he died in January at age 92. Jean Gray’s legacy gift of $1.5 million to Chicago-based NPH USA, or Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (Our Little Brothers and Sisters), will continue to provide for the annual needs of nearly 7,000 vulnerable children in nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Gray was on the board of advisors for Catholic Studies at UST, received the university’s Humanitarian Award in 1998 and the Msgr. James A. Lavin Award in 2017. He was a member of the combined board of trustees at The St. Paul Seminary and St. John Vianney Seminary in St. Paul. Gray’s gift to NPH, presented by his brother, John Gray Sr., at an Oct. 1 NPH gala in Minneapolis, was added to NPH’s Father John Wasson Endowment Fund, which Gray helped create. Gray was a special agent of the Office of Special Investigations for the Air Force, and he served nearly 30 years in the FBI. A source he developed in Washington, D.C., supplied critical intelligence that helped defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, NPH officials said. Among other roles, Gray also served as a legal attaché in Mexico City for six years and Manila for three.

Carleton College in Northfield named its football field Bob Sullivan Field Oct. 15 to honor its winningest head football coach. Sullivan had 102 wins in 22 seasons. Sullivan previously coached football and baseball at then-Hill High School in St. Paul, now Hill-Murray School in Maplewood, from 1959-1969, winning multiple Central Catholic Conference championships and the Catholic Conference state football championship in 1964 and 1966. He also taught English and physical education at Hill.

VENERATION

A woman venerates a relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis during a Nov. 4 Cor Jesu event at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. Adoration of the Eucharist, music and time for confession were part of the evening, which included Archbishop Bernard Hebda and Father Tim Tran, parochial vicar of St. Stephen in Anoka and the archdiocesan point person for the National Eucharistic Revival, a multi-year effort by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to emphasize Christ’s true presence in the Eucharist. Venerating first-class relics of Blessed Carlo and St. Manuel Gonzalez Garcia — the two patrons of the national revival — was part of the Cor Jesu event. The relics were in Minnesota Nov. 3-5 as part of a National Eucharistic Revival Relics Tour.

ON THE COVER: Brother James Voeller of the Franciscan Brothers of Peace helps Louis Hurd navigate the brothers’ food shelf at their Queen of Peace Friary in St. Paul Sept. 19. Hurd has been coming for assistance for the last 13 years. “They’ve always had my back,” said Hurd, who is battling cancer and has only one lung. “They’re like family.”

PRACTICING Catholic

On the Nov. 4 “Practicing Catholic” radio show, host Patrick Conley interviews Jason Adkins, executive director and general counsel for the Minnesota Catholic Conference, who discusses making informed decisions at the voting booth. The latest show also includes interviews with Judy Cozzens, former president of the U.S. Council of Serra International, who describes Serra and how it promotes and supports vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life; and Christina Krutza, Called & Gifted presenter for the Catherine of Siena Institute, who talks about discerning one’s God-given charisms. Listen to interviews after they have aired at practicingcatholicshow com or anchor fm/practicing catholic show with links to podcasting platforms.

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DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

ONLY JESUS | ARCHBISHOP BERNARD HEBDA

Responding to the universal call to holiness

On a recent pilgrimage of thanksgiving to Italy with some of the leaders of our Archdiocesan Synod, I had the privilege of spending a few days with them in Assisi. I have been enamored with Assisi for nearly four decades. The medieval art and architecture are unparalleled, the vistas breathtaking, the citizens unfailingly kind and the pastas amazing, especially in truffle season. But what really distinguishes Assisi for me is the way in which the city continues to offer an encounter with Francis and Clare.

When I first visited Assisi, I was a young seminarian trying to discern how the Lord might be calling me to serve his Church. Not surprisingly, I was captivated by the witness of Francis and Clare, who each independently heard the Lord inviting them to a radical form of discipleship and, in spite of their youth, responded generously to their vocation. While the rigors of their groundbreaking models for consecrated life initially prompted their family members and many of those in authority to question the validity of the call discerned by Francis and Clare, their wholehearted and joyful response, despite the adversities they faced, eventually inspired many of their young peers to join them.

Nearly 800 years later, their witness continues to capture the imagination of young women and men around the world, reminding us that the Lord brings blessings beyond our imagining whenever we respond to his call, whatever that call might be.

As Providence would have it, I’ve been blessed in the weeks since my visit to Assisi with some powerful experiences suggesting that the Lord is continuing to do amazing things in young hearts.

I am thinking, for example, of the testimonies offered at the annual Rector’s dinner by two of our seminarians. They spoke eloquently about the blessings they had received as they put aside their smartphones and secular career goals for a year in order to create a space in their lives that would enable them to hear the Lord’s call more clearly.

I am thinking as well about the young aspirants, postulants and novices who attended the archdiocesan gathering for those in the various forms of consecrated life. Each year we continue locally to see a greater number of young sisters and brothers in religious life, as well as new vocations to consecrated virginity and secular institutes. I’m delighted that our annual seminarian poster is now paired with a second poster asking for prayers for a good number of young people from our archdiocese who are discerning consecrated life in any of its forms. God be praised!

I am recalling, moreover, the faces of the hundreds of young adults and youth who recently gathered in such great number to pray with the relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis and Saint Manuel Gonzalez Garcia, two of the intercessory patrons for the first year of the USCCB’s National Eucharistic Revival. At the event for young adults at the Cathedral, I was particularly impressed, moreover, to see how many young couples had come to pray before the relics and the Eucharist. I am confident that we are going to see strong marriages when our young couples make room for Christ in

their relationships and see marriage as a vocation to holiness.

Pope Francis, in his 2019 exhortation, “Christus Vivit,” reminded us of the universal call to holiness and stressed that we have to see all vocations as a “call to missionary service to others,” whereby God calls each of us “to share in his work of creation and to contribute to the common good by using the gifts we have received” (n. 253).

Our three-year synodal journey has reminded us that the harvest is rich, but the laborers are still few. We surely need to call upon the Holy Spirit to help us recognize our gifts and to discern how best to place them at the service of one another.

I hope that you will join me in praying in particular for our brothers and sisters who have yet to discern their vocation, that they will allow themselves to be gently shaped and guided by the God who has a plan for each one of us, just as he has a plan for our archdiocese.

At the same time, please join me in praying in thanksgiving, for the many priests, deacons, consecrated women and men, and laity who are already responding to the Lord’s call and who have placed their considerable gifts at the service of this Church. May there always be a respect in this archdiocese for all vocations and for the collaboration that strengthens us as the Body of Christ.

En una reciente peregrinación de acción de gracias a Italia con algunos de los líderes de nuestro Sínodo Arquidiocesano, tuve el privilegio de pasar unos días con ellos en Asís. He estado enamorado de Asís durante casi cuatro décadas. El arte y la arquitectura medievales son incomparables, las vistas impresionantes, los ciudadanos siempre amables y las pastas increíbles, especialmente en la temporada de trufas. Pero lo que realmente distingue a Asís para mí es la forma en que la ciudad sigue ofreciendo un encuentro con Francisco y Clara.

Cuando visité Asís por primera vez, era un joven seminarista que intentaba discernir cómo el Señor podría estar llamándome a servir a su Iglesia. No es de extrañar que me cautivara el testimonio de Francisco y Clara, quienes de forma independiente escucharon al Señor invitarlos a una forma radical de discipulado y, a pesar de su juventud, respondieron generosamente a su vocación. Si bien los rigores de sus modelos innovadores para la vida consagrada inicialmente llevaron a sus familiares y a muchas de las autoridades a cuestionar la validez del llamado discernido por Francisco y Clara, su respuesta sincera

y alegre, a pesar de las adversidades que enfrentaron, eventualmente inspiró a muchos de sus jóvenes compañeros a unirse a ellos. Casi 800 años después, su testimonio continúa capturando la imaginación de mujeres y hombres jóvenes de todo el mundo, recordándonos que el Señor trae bendiciones más allá de nuestra imaginación cada vez que respondemos a su llamado, cualquiera que sea ese llamado.

Tal como lo quiso la Providencia, he sido bendecido en las semanas posteriores a mi visita a Asís con algunas experiencias poderosas que sugieren que el Señor continúa haciendo cosas asombrosas en los corazones jóvenes. Pienso, por ejemplo, en los testimonios ofrecidos en la cena anual del Rector por dos de nuestros seminaristas. Hablaron con elocuencia sobre las bendiciones que habían recibido al dejar de lado sus teléfonos inteligentes y sus metas profesionales seculares durante un año para crear un espacio en sus vidas que les permitiera escuchar el llamado del Señor con mayor claridad.

Pienso también en los jóvenes aspirantes, postulantes y novicios que asistieron al encuentro arquidiocesano de personas en las diversas formas de vida consagrada. Cada año seguimos localmente viendo un mayor número de hermanas y hermanos jóvenes en la vida religiosa, así como nuevas vocaciones a la virginidad consagrada ya los institutos seculares. Estoy

encantado de que nuestro afiche anual de seminaristas esté ahora emparejado con un segundo afiche pidiendo oraciones por un buen número de jóvenes de nuestra arquidiócesis que están discerniendo la vida consagrada en cualquiera de sus formas. ¡Alabado sea Dios!

Estoy recordando, además, los rostros de los cientos de jóvenes adultos y jóvenes que recientemente se reunieron en tan gran número para orar con las reliquias del Beato Carlo Acutis y San Manuel González García, dos de los patronos intercesores del primer año de la USCCB Avivamiento Eucarístico Nacional. En el evento para jóvenes adultos en la Catedral, me impresionó particularmente ver cuántas parejas jóvenes habían venido a orar ante las reliquias y la Eucaristía. Confío en que vamos a ver matrimonios fuertes cuando nuestras parejas jóvenes den lugar a Cristo en sus relaciones y vean el matrimonio como una vocación a la santidad.

El Papa Francisco, en su exhortación de 2019, “Christus Vivit”, nos recordó el llamado universal a la santidad y enfatizó que debemos ver todas las vocaciones como un “llamado al servicio misionero a los demás”, en el que Dios nos llama a cada uno de nosotros “a compartir en su obra de creación y contribuir al bien común con los dones recibidos” (n. 253).

Nuestro camino sinodal de tres años nos ha recordado que la mies es rica, pero los obreros todavía son

pocos. Seguramente necesitamos invocar al Espíritu Santo para que nos ayude a reconocer nuestros dones ya discernir la mejor manera de ponerlos al servicio de los demás. Espero que os unáis a mí en la oración en particular por nuestros hermanos y hermanas que aún no han discernido su vocación, que se dejen moldear y guiar suavemente por el Dios que tiene un plan para cada uno de nosotros, así como él tiene un plan para nuestra arquidiócesis. Al mismo tiempo, únanse a mí para orar en acción de gracias por los muchos sacerdotes, diáconos, consagradas, consagradas y laicos que ya están respondiendo al llamado del Señor y que han puesto sus considerables dones al servicio de esta Iglesia. Que siempre haya respeto en esta arquidiócesis por todas las vocaciones y por la colaboración que nos fortalece como Cuerpo de Cristo.

OFFICIAL

Effective October 25, 2022

Respondiendo al llamado universal a la santidad

Archbishop Bernard Hebda has announced the following appointment in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis:

Deacon Adelmo Gracia, assigned as permanent deacon of the Church of Saint Mary in Le Center. This is a transfer from his previous assignment at the Church of the Assumption in Richfield.

As Providence would have it, I’ve been blessed in the weeks since my visit to Assisi with some powerful experiences suggesting that the Lord is continuing to do amazing things in young hearts.

Global fraternity

Pope Francis greets Bishop Joseph Williams of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the pope’s official residence, the Apostolic Palace, at the Vatican in Rome Sept. 19, as part of a week of formation for newly ordained bishops from around the world. “It was encouraging,” Bishop Williams said of his first meeting with the pope beyond seeing the Holy Father pass by at World Youth Day in Panama City, Panama, in 2019. The pope spent two hours with Bishop Williams and 169 other bishops who had been ordained in the last year, assuring them they could ask anything they wished. “He was very much at ease,” Bishop Williams said of the pope. “There was no sense of a rush for time with his bishops.” Formation from Sept. 13-20 included administrative details as well as encouragement in proclaiming the Gospel, Bishop Williams said. The bishops heard from leaders of dicasteries, or ministries and departments in the Vatican, such as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Bishops, Bishop Williams said. A highlight was spending time in fraternity with brother bishops, sharing classes, meals and prayers, and learning about the episcopal calling experienced across the globe, the bishop said.

VATICAN MEDIA

Parish staff prepare to receive Archbishop Hebda’s pastoral letter

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

St. Joseph in New Hope welcomed parish staff from across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Oct. 27 for a Synod Formation Day to pray, talk with colleagues, ask questions and offer insight into implementing an anticipated pastoral letter from Archbishop Bernard Hebda that will outline the archbishop’s priorities for the coming years.

The day fell nearly five months after the three-day Archdiocesan Synod Assembly in June and three weeks before Archbishop Bernard Hebda issues his pastoral letter on the feast of Christ the King, Nov. 19-20.

Archbishop Hebda celebrated Mass at the gathering, and speakers included Bishop Joseph Williams; Deacon Joe Michalak, director of the archdiocesan Office of Synod Evangelization; and Douglas Bushman, director of parish formation and mission at St. Joseph in West St. Paul.

Vianney Nguyen, 26, youth evangelization and discipleship coordinator at St. Mary and St. Michael in Stillwater, said it was important for parish staff to gather at the event, in unity with the local Church and the universal Church.

It can be easy to be drawn into the inner workings of one’s own parish, Nguyen said, but “there’s so much goodness in being able to meet with other parish workers and … continue to have that united vision through our bishops and, ultimately, through the Holy Father, as well.”

The archbishop’s letter is expected to address three major themes that rose out of the three-year Archdiocesan Synod process: 1) Forming parishes that are in the service of evangelization, 2) Forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’ love and respond to his call and 3) Forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young.

Bishop Williams and Deacon Michalak offered remarks on “Co-workers in the Vineyard.”

Stressing the importance of parishes forming

lay leadership for evangelization, Bishop Williams illustrated his point through an example he encountered on a mission awareness trip to Guatemala with his brother, Father Peter Williams. They met a priest there, Bishop Williams said, who spent about 70% of his parish ministry forming lay catechists.

Bishop Williams said he left there asking himself, “what if I spent 70% of my priestly ministry as a leader in the parish forming the laity, the staff, the lay missionaries, the couples, etc.? How would that change my parish?”

A “lack of witnesses” to the love of Christ and his

Church has placed the Catholic Church into decline, Bishop Williams said, especially in the Northern Hemisphere and the Western world.

“Witnesses bring people to Jesus, as Pope Francis says,” the bishop said. Witnessing to Jesus is how the Church began, in the Acts of the Apostles, in the apostolic times, he said.

“We can only do that through the gifts that we’ve received from the Holy Spirit,” Bishop Williams said. “Without cultivating those gifts and equipping the faithful, is it surprising the Church is shrinking?”

Bishop Williams recalled talking with a cousin from an evangelical family at the wedding of one of his brothers. She was on a “church planting team.”

Bishop Williams said he was impressed that her church empowers laypeople to build what he believes would be a satellite parish for a megachurch.

His cousin felt empowered as a layperson, Bishop Williams said. “I thought, ‘are we doing that in the Catholic Church?’ Do our laypeople feel that kind of empowerment? What else is at stake? The growth of the Church.”

Deacon Michalak paraphrased Pope Francis that “ours is not an age of change, but a change of the ages.” Popes John Paul II, Benedict and Francis emphasized this theme, he said, “trying to open our eyes to reality, simply the situation in which we now live.” “You might call it, therefore, the task of the Church. It needs to move from a Christendom mode of being Catholic once again to an apostolic mode of being Catholic,” he said.

“The shift that we’re being invited to is not to focus on how are we going to keep it going, but rather embrace proclamation, evangelization, apostolic mission, the announcement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” Deacon Michalak said.

Bushman, who, for eight years held the St. John Paul II Chair of Theology for the New Evangelization at the Augustine Institute in Denver, addressed “The Synod as a Grace of the New Pentecost of Vatican II.” He said

Priests, deacons encouraged to form fellow laborers ‘in the vineyard’

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit

Archbishop Bernard Hebda and Bishop Joseph Williams lived out synodality — by praying, sharing a vision for the future and answering questions focused on the archbishop’s upcoming pastoral letter — with about 180 priests and deacons during their biannual Clergy Study Day.

“As we get closer to the publication of the pastoral letter, the Church is waiting,” Bishop Williams said Oct. 25 at St. Peter in Mendota. “We are in the Upper Room and we’re waiting for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But we’re waiting also for our marching orders. You might say the Magna Carta of evangelization for the next several years is going to come through that, through our archbishop’s pastoral letter.”

Archbishop Hebda is preparing the letter for release as the Church celebrates the Nov. 19-20 feast of Christ the King.

The letter will outline the archbishop’s priorities for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and its parishes in the coming half-decade, including a method for helping more people come to know the Good News of Jesus Christ. These priorities, the archbishop has said, were formulated through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the archdiocese’s three-year Synod process. Those years of listening, preparation and engagement included reaching thousands of parishioners, religious and clergy and helped shape a Synod Assembly in June

that honed three major themes: 1) Forming parishes that are in the service of evangelization, 2) Forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’ love and respond to his call and 3) Forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young.

The Clergy Study Day, titled “In the Footsteps of Christ the Builder,” included talks by Bishop Williams and Douglas Bushman, director of parish formation and mission at St. Joseph in West St. Paul. The speakers offered thoughts and outlined a path forward to support priests and deacons in the formation of missionary disciples in their parishes, people who can spread the love of Christ to the wider community. A similar, virtual town hall presentation for deacons was held the evening of Oct. 27 and drew about 65 clergy.

Priests and deacons at St. Peter also spent a holy hour in prayer together with Archbishop Hebda, a refreshing and delightful time, said Deacon Joe Michalak, director of the archdiocesan Office of Synod Evangelization. “I heard over and over from the men that as good as everything else was, being in the presence of our merciful Lord in silent receptivity was the highlight of the day,” Deacon Michalak said.

The method for sharing the Good News includes inviting 12 people from each parish to act as Synod Evangelization Teams and preparing them for their roles in a seven-week School of Discipleship formation program early next year through the

Archbishop Flynn Catechetical Institute in St. Paul.

Those 12 will attract more missionary disciples, who will attract still more, much as Christ grew his Church in choosing 12 Apostles, Bishop Williams said. “Jesus, who’s always the way, now shows us the way of evangelization, the true apostolic path, and it’s going to be with brothers,” the bishop said.

Bishop Williams acknowledged the tumultuous time priests and deacons have faced the last several years, particularly with the archdiocese coming out of bankruptcy reorganization stemming from clergy sexual abuse claims and the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering that, Jesus’ model of forming missionary disciples could bring great consolation to priests and deacons, even as it broadens and deepens the Church’s ability to share God’s love, the bishop said.

Jesus acknowledged his own limitations when he proclaimed at one point in his ministry that the “harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few,” the bishop said.

“His divine heart embraced each and every person in that crowd, but by his incarnation, he’s confined himself,” Bishop Williams said. “He’s now limited in his humanity. He can’t heal everyone through his sacred humanity. He realizes his limitations. And out of that comes the ‘harvest is abundant, but the labors are few. So, ask the Master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.’” Bushman discussed the dignity God

gives each person to be co-workers for his kingdom, and the need to prepare people well to do that. “We must take up the task of equipping the faithful for ministry,” Bushman said. “This must be a real priority at this point in the Church’s history.”

Vatican II and the new evangelization call for a new Pentecost, inviting the Holy Spirit through the baptismal priesthood of all the faithful to serve as witnesses to Christ’s love, by living good, beautiful and virtuous lives, and spreading the faith, Bushman said.

“God is the sovereign master of his plan, but to carry it out, he also makes use of his creatures in cooperation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness,” Bushman said. “God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of cooperating in the accomplishment of his plan.”

By inviting people to actively participate in God’s plan of salvation, priests, deacons and others are forming friends in the faith, encouraging each to maturity, much as a father and mother form their children, Bushman said.

“One way to describe the goal of fatherhood is to work yourself out of a job,” Bushman said. To be able to say, “I see so much of Christ in you. You are now a brother laboring in the vineyard with me, with your own unique set of gifts that bring you to the common task of the new evangelization.”

BARB UMBERGER | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Carol Goecke, faith formation assistant, and Cindy Mitchell, office manager at St. Rita in Cottage Grove, pick up materials for Synod Formation Day Oct. 27 at St. Joseph in New Hope.

Joyful gathering of young adults: ‘This is what Christ’s Church looks like’

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit

Urged to find their joy in the Lord, rely on Jesus to enter the fullness of life and support one another, more than 100 young adults and others smiled, prayed and laughed as they gathered for Mass with Archbishop Bernard Hebda, a rousing speaker and fellowship at St. Albert the Great in Minneapolis.

Asked what brought him to the Oct. 26 evening sponsored by Edinabased Center for Evangelization and Discipleship, Chad Berg, 29, of St. Mark in St. Paul said it was quite simple: “This is living out my faith. This is what Christ’s Church looks like.”

Chris Stefanick, an internationally known Catholic speaker, author and multimedia presence, spoke in the church after Mass on finding joy grounded in faith that remains even through great hardship.

Stefanick recalled that as a teenager he admired tough guys, including a comic-book-like character on a poster he put in his room called Slash. Until his parents coerced him into attending a religious retreat and he met a 65-yearold man who looked truly happy and noted, “This guy was not cool. He looked nothing like Slash. I looked at him and I thought, ‘Slash is dead. I am dead. I want what he has. I want joy.’”

In his homily, the archbishop noted the day’s Gospel from Luke, when Jesus is asked who will be saved and he responds, “Strive to enter the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.”

“Think about getting through any narrow gate, it’s not really in my nature,” Archbishop Hebda said with humor, while noting that Christ didn’t talk about being nimble or small enough to go through the gate — but being strong enough.

“We all know when we are strong and weak, the limits of what we can do,” the archbishop said. “Only when God works through us can we do more.”

“I hope that relying on Christ will be enough to get me through,” Archbishop Hebda said.

The archbishop, Stefanick and Frank Kiesner, a member of CEND’s founding board of directors, in their remarks to the group, pointed to the importance of youth and young adults to the

Church, stressing that one of three pastoral themes of the Archdiocesan Synod, which culminated with a Synod Assembly in June, is forming “youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young.”

The archbishop is writing a pastoral letter to be released on the feast of Christ the King, Nov. 19-20, that will give direction for meeting the priorities of the Synod, which also include 1) Forming parishes that are in the service of evangelization and 2) Forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’ love and respond to his call.

“We have such great hope in young people, not only now in renewing the life of the Church, but in the future leadership roles you will take on,” the archbishop said in closing remarks at the Mass.

Archbishop Hebda, as well as Stefanick, Kiesner, young adults and others, stayed well after Stefanick’s talk, sharing food and conversation in the church hall. Brenda Sevcik, 24, of St. John the Baptist in Savage, came to the event with a friend from that parish, Kathryn Gaydos, 30.

Sevcik said she was propelled to attend the event because she knew about Stefanick’s ministry, had heard about CEND, which was formed in 2020 to bring young adults together and amplify their involvement in the Church, and hoped to meet fellow

Catholics in the archdiocese.

“I see a great need for God and Jesus, for joy,” in her generation of young people, said Sevcik, the music director at St. John the Baptist. “How can we bring the Gospel to them, to let them know they are loved and saved?”

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Archbishop Bernard Hebda talks to attendees in the basement of the church following Stefanick’s talk.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Chris Stefanick engages young adults and others gathered for his talk after Mass Oct. 26 at St. Albert the Great in Minneapolis

NCCW convention: Find the lost sheep of the faith

By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit

Christ the Good Shepherd delights in finding those who are lost, but he may also call the faithful to be shepherds to help others find their way, said Liz Kelly Stanchina, addressing nearly 500 people at the opening session of the National Council of Catholic Women’s convention in Minneapolis Nov. 3.

“I think we all think of the Good Shepherd passage as Jesus coming to save us. Of course, he does, but I do wonder how often he asks us to go in search of the lost in his place,” Kelly Stanchina said, referring to the day’s Gospel from Luke chapter 15, at a convention whose theme was “Wide Open Hearts: Abiding in Faith, Hope and Love.”

Offering stories of two women as virtuous examples of responding to God’s call, both as shepherd and lost sheep, Kelly Stanchina, a retreat leader, speaker, author and columnist for The Catholic Spirit, encouraged those gathered to pray for the grace to make the virtues of faith, hope and love visible in their lives.

Attendees, including some priests, gathered at the Nov. 2-5 event for prayer, liturgies, presentations, decision making and socializing.

At the opening Mass, Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis encouraged the congregation to use their gifts to help priests and bishops find the lost sheep —including Catholics who haven’t returned to their parishes since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s really only when we’re able to demonstrate a deep charity that we can ever have the hope of attracting people back to our Church, and you my sisters, do that in spades,” Archbishop Hebda said in his homily, thanking the women for their commitment to faith and service. “We’re so grateful for the ways in which you demonstrate charitable concern for our sisters and brothers.”

About 15 priests and several bishops concelebrated with the archbishop. Later in the convention, Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Williams of St. Paul and Minneapolis and William Wack of Pensacola-Tallahassee, NCCW’s episcopal liaison, also presided at Masses.

The NCCW’s charitable concern and commitment to service was clear in other presentations that morning from several

national and international organizations the council partners with to serve the poor and vulnerable, including Catholic Relief Services and Cross Catholic Outreach.

Founded in 1920, the National Council of Catholic Women is a nonprofit organization that seeks to respond to Church and societal needs. With thousands of members nationwide, the council works to support, empower and educate all Catholic women in spirituality, leadership and service.

The 489 convention goers, many of them 50 or older, hailed from a majority of states and dioceses in the U.S., and included more than 100 representatives from Minnesota. The Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women hosted the conference. The ACCW has more than 2,000 members and 89 affiliated parish councils in the archdiocese, its website says.

This year’s event was the fifth NCCW annual or biennial convention held in the Twin Cities since the organization was founded.

Andrea Cowell, 72, of St. Pius X in White Bear Lake, said it was a “real joy” to be part of the group of Catholic women. “When you think of all the people here, we’re all from different backgrounds. They’re all faith-filled Catholic women. It’s inspiring really.”

Barb York, 69, also of St. Pius X, said

she was attending for the first time, and as the new president of her parish’s council, she anticipated meeting with other presidents to gain ideas. What women learn at the convention they bring back to their parishes, said Carol Shukle, 70, of Our Lady of the Lake in Mound and past ACCW president. “It’s always a wonderful experience to come to the convention and (hear) the speakers,” she said. “It’s always kind of uplifting and rejuvenating.”

The convention’s theme was inspired by Pope Francis’ teaching on hope in his 2020 encyclical letter, “Fratelli Tutti” and on St. Paul’s writing on love in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, said NCCW President Patricia Voorhes of Salt Lake City.

In her opening statement to the convention, Voorhes encouraged women to “celebrate the many ways you respond with Gospel values to the needs of the Church and society, and go forward from this convention with open hearts, ready to try new things to brighten and enliven your councils.”

Voorhes later commented, “People need to know what good works these women do in every single diocese. They are phenomenal ... I am so proud to be their president.”

Along with fresh ideas and renewed energy, ACCW President Mickey Nickelson said she hopes those at the

Theology Day events 2022-2023

DOWN TO BUSINESS

uAttendees approved a resolution to encourage and promote praying the rosary daily and to promote the First Saturday devotion of the rosary, Mass and confession requested by Our Lady of Fatima.

uThose attending the convention brought boxes and boxes of hygiene items for Sharing and Caring Hands, a ministry in Minneapolis that serves the homeless, including families.

Mary Jo Copeland, who founded the ministry, has been a longtime supporter of the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women, and councils of the ACCW have supported her work, said Kathy Zweber, a member of St. Piux X in White Bear Lake and convention volunteer coordinator. “Mary Jo has provided education for our councils to understand the needs of the women and children,” Zweber said. “Part of our mission statement is service, leadership and development.”

convention share their personal stories, especially their faith journeys, and support each other in their burdens. “I’ve met people here whose family is in need medically, spiritually, emotionally, and when we stop and say ‘we’ll pray for you right now,’ you feel a sense of the Holy Spirit on you, right then and there.”

Organizers draped the convention stage with colors to inspire reflections on spirituality, leadership and service, along with ways to strengthen and empower other Catholic women, the Church and society, said Beth Mahoney, of Taunton, Massachusetts, NCCW president-elect.

Talks throughout the weekend focused on one of the theological virtues that inspired the convention theme. Kelly Stanchina’s presentation emphasized love, and Immaculate Heart of Mary Sister Xavier Mariette Ezeokoli described her ministry of service at Sharing and Caring Hands in Minneapolis in a talk focused on hope for the homeless.

As part of a panel discussion titled “Discover your Fiat,” Minnesota women Therese Coons, Kristin Molitor and Susan Stabile shared their faith stories. On the final day of the convention Yen Fasano, associate director of the archdiocese’s Drexel Mission Schools Initiative, tied the virtues together and sent the participants out on mission.

who are seeking a deeper understanding of their faith and its place in their everyday lives to learn from and interact and Seminary.

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Exploring the Art and eology of Icons by Jane Rodehe er, Ph.D.

In the presence of actual icons, Jane will explore ways in which artwork not only invites contemplation, but participation in God’s closeness, vulnerability, and total involvement with us on:

Friday, December 2 - 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Emmaus Hall, Saint John’s University December 2022More news

Participation is FREE, but registration is required. Go online to CollegevilleMN.com/Theologyday or call 320 363 3560

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Liz Kelly Stanchina addresses the National Council of Catholic Women’s convention Nov. 3 in Minneapolis. Listening is Beth Mahoney, NCCW president-elect.

Three consecutive years of enrollment growth invigorate Catholic schools across the archdiocese

By Debbie Musser For The Catholic Spirit

Principals and school officials with the Archdiocese of S. Paul and Minneapolis expressed excitement and gratitude as they reflected on a third straight year of enrollment growth in Catholic schools across the archdiocese.

The numbers tell part of the story: 31,011 students are in Catholic preschool through 12th grade in the archdiocese this school year, a nearly 9 percent increase from 28,618 students in 2019-2020.

“Last year, 69 percent of our schools experienced growth,” said Jason Slattery, the Archdiocese’s director of Catholic Education.

“The growth sustained in K-8 schools has been remarkable, as has the ninth through 12th grade segment — they’ve been able to hold on and grow during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Slattery said.

“And our preschool segment, which was probably the most impacted by the pandemic in the early days, has seen a strong trend of rebuilding and strengthening those enrollment numbers,” he said.

Founded in 1952, St. Raphael Catholic School in Crystal — a preK-8 school celebrating its 70th year of providing education based on faith — is also celebrating a 22 percent increase in school enrollment this past year.

“Our low point was in 2019 when we were down to 88 students in K-8,” said Jason Finne, St. Raphael principal.

“At the end of last school year, we had 112 enrollments; this year we grew to 149,” he said. “Our largest and fastestgrowing class is our preschool, which we hope will translate into kindergarten enrollments.”

Finne noted that the school is in an area where there are many new families to Minnesota.

“In our communications with these families, we’re able to overcome the lie that Catholic classical education is inaccessible,” Finne said.

“This year we implemented a new tuition option called the variable tuition rate, a process by which families are able to share their financial needs and our school tuition rate adjusts accordingly,”

he said.

“Made possible thanks to the generosity of donors, this new option prioritizes Christ-centered education for families that otherwise may never have applied to our school,” he said.

“Half of our students are from first generation or immigrant families, largely from west Africa and Mexico, and oftentimes our school parents speak English as a second language,” Finne said. “The beautiful result is that our school really does represent the universal Church.”

“Also, our parent volunteer groups are becoming increasingly active with our growth, and the families are united in their love of Christ and of our school,” Finne said. “We are excited for another year of steady growth.”

Community,Spirituality,Justice

St. Jude of the Lake Catholic School in Mahtomedi has been a robust part of the community since it opened its doors in 1954. But from 2012 to 2017, the school’s enrollment had been in a steady decline.

“There was a perfect storm of a very well-respected public school and a challenging financial climate putting pressure on the school’s enrollment,” said Carrie Hackman, the school’s principal. “The difficult decision was made in 2014 to close the middle school to release some of the burdens on the budget.”

In 2017, the school’s enrollment was 43 students in K-5; the following year it grew to 53, and in 2019, the number of students totaled 74.

“We implemented a business plan that included an overhaul of the school building from top to bottom, a robust marketing plan to start sharing our story, a school spirit revamp … and an active campaign to connect with our alumni,” Hackman said.

“Currently, our enrollment is at 198 students — nearly 500 percent growth in five years,” she said. “In addition to growing enrollment, another blessing is that we are retaining the students and families at an over 95 percent rate each year.”

“Word of mouth brings family, friends and neighbors to our community,” Hackman said. “In a lot of respects, our enrollment growth has been our greatest recruiting tool and fundraising engine.”

As enrollment started to grow at St. Jude of the Lake, families asked to reinstate the middle school, Hackman said.

“Our pastor, Father Chad VanHoose, pulled together a committee to determine the viability of adding a middle school; there was an overwhelming positive response, and in

GROWTH IN A PANDEMIC

There are 78 Catholic elementary schools — including 77 preschools — and 16 high schools across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ 12-county region. On March 17, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced that all school buildings would close on or before March 19.

“We opened then with the buildings closed but students still in school (via distance learning) through the end of that school year, and we announced in May 2020 that we fully anticipated opening the buildings in the fall of 2020,” Slattery said.

“We in earnest spent that summer building school safety plans. Families wanted their children in school, and we proved that fall that we could operate safely during the pandemic,” he said. “And we grew, which was kind of remarkable.”

“What the pandemic did was show in an unmistakable way the relevance, vitality and essential nature of Catholic education,” Slattery said. “It gave us that space to provide with an encounter of Jesus Christ in the classroom, and a space where the whole child is educated — their complete wellbeing — which was essential with families experiencing significant challenges and children coming to school with different fears than ever before.”

Holy Family Catholic High School in Victoria, which opened in the fall of 2000 with 134 ninth and 10th graders, currently serves 561 students in grades nine-12, as well as several seventh and eighth grade math and language students from partner schools and nine international students. The school added 11th grade in 2001-2002 and 12th grade in 2002-2003, graduating its first class in 2003.

“Our enrollment was trending upward before the pandemic started; however, COVID certainly helped accelerate our trajectory,” said Mike Brennan, Holy Family president.

“The curtains were pulled back on all academic institutions — parents got a good look under the hood of how their local schools were operating, what their focus was and what drove their decision making,” Brennan said.

“Families are coming to and staying at our school because they are finding a school community that is clear about its Lasallian Catholic college preparatory identity; all decisions start and end with the whole student in mind,” Brennan said.

“While most of our students come to us from about a 10- to 12-mile radius of our school, we are seeing exponential growth from communities without a nearby Catholic high school option,” he said.

“The demand is real.”

2021, sixth grade started the three-year reinstatement timeline, adding seventh grade in 2022 and eighth grade in 2023,” she said.

“Currently there are 35 happy sixth and seventh graders in a newly renovated middle school environment, space that is super innovative and custom-built for the specialized needs of our students; it is seriously cool,” she said.

— Debbie Musser

COURTESY ST. JUDE OF THE LAKE CATHOLIC SCHOOL

St. Jude of the Lake Catholic School seventh-graders John Chlebeck, left, and Henry Shipman pour water into the school’s aquaponics degassing tank during a system water change Nov. 3 for the agricultural ecosystem of fish and plants. The school in Mahtomedi is among Catholic schools across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that have seen enrollment increase over the last three years. At St. Jude of the Lake, it has increased nearly 500 percent in the last five years, from 43 students in K-5 in 2017 to 198 students this year.

Annual Catholic Campaign for Human Development takes place Nov. 19-20

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

The city of St. Paul and the St. Paul Police Department started St. Paul Youth Services more than 45 years ago to address increasing numbers of youth of color encountered in the juvenile justice system. According to its website, SPYS offered innovative programs targeting early intervention in schools and the community.

SPYS expanded in 2017, adding a leadership institute called YouthPowerMN that focuses on youth leadership, social entrepreneurship and activism. The SPYS institute changed the organization’s focus from “systems changing kids to kids changing systems,” said Tracine Asberry, SPYS executive director.

Those youth leaders acted during the COVID-19 pandemic, Asberry said. One example was using what they had learned to brainstorm ways to stay connected with and to help peers, from “help text threads” to online forums for athletes to discuss at-home workouts, she said.

Asberry credits the work to some of the funding SPYS receives from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development for its overall operations, with a focus on YouthPowerMN programs.

YouthPowerMN programs are offered in person after school and during the summer, where youth participate at least two days a week in three program elements: healing and identity, exploration and innovation, and creating policy change. In those sessions, youth propose ways to create change on issues that impact their lives. For example, in past years, youth have held forums for school board candidates, advocated against punitive curfew laws and proposed new ways of distributing city charitable funds for youth organizations.

A parish collection for CCHD in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will take place Nov. 19-20. About 25% of the collection will be distributed locally

Working on the Margins

during the 2023-2024 grant year, through a Christian Sharing Fund managed by the Center for Mission with assistance from an archdiocesan advisory board.

Recipients for 2022-2023 are Hispanic Outreach of Goodhue County, which advocates for equal and just treatment of Hispanic people, including in housing, safety and immigration rights; and St. Paul-based Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing (MICAH).

St. Paul Youth Services is one of three organizations in the archdiocese that applied for and are receiving national funding for the 2022-2023 grant year from CCHD. The others are CTUL (Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en La Lucha), a Minneapolis-based workers’ rights organization, and the Ostara Initiative, which, in Minnesota, supports incarcerated pregnant women and new mothers through the Minnesota Prison Doula Project.

The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops founded the CCHD in 1970 to assist domestic anti-poverty

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NATIONAL SCOPE

The work supported by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. bishops’ domestic anti-poverty campaign, “is empowering communities to build resilience and stand in solidarity with their most marginalized members,” said Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell of Los Angeles.

Bishop O’Connell made the remarks in a Nov. 1 statement as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ CCHD subcommittee. The annual special collection for CCHD is taken during Masses in November at most U.S. parishes.

CCHD grants are awarded to community groups that typically train residents of neglected neighborhoods to become leaders who help others determine their community’s most pressing problems and work for solutions.

For example, seven dioceses in Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas engaged in an initiative, “Recognizing the Stranger,” where 700 immigrant parishioners were mentored to become social and pastoral leaders.

According to the USCCB, this dialogue resulted in three police departments agreeing to honor parish identification cards for those lacking government identification. The cards eased community tensions and led to a surge in parish registrations by Catholics “who had previously stayed in the shadows,” it said. In 2021, CCHD distributed more than $12.7 million to more than 200 groups across the United States that are addressing the root causes of poverty and empowering people who are most vulnerable.

— Catholic News Service

organizations that support community and economic development programs nationally and locally.

To learn more about the work of groups funded through CCHD, reserve a link to a Zoom presentation taking place Nov. 15 from 6:30-8 p.m. Find the RSVP by searching for “Journey to Justice” at archspm.org.

Preparing Catholic School Leaders with Faith and Excellence

Support the Catholic Campaign for Human Development

COURTESY U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS

Enlarge the tent: Document for Synod of Bishops sees desire for greater inclusion

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

Around the world, listening sessions for the Synod of Bishops gave many participants a sense of finally being listened to. But they also raised questions about how to promote greater inclusion in the Catholic Church while staying true to Church teaching.

Two of the issues raised most often in reports recently sent to the Vatican were the need to respect and value the contributions women make to the Church and the need to face “the impact of a lack of trust and credibility resulting from the abuse crisis,” according to the working document for the synod’s continental stage.

Titled “Enlarge the Space of Your Tent” — the Lord’s command to the people of Israel in the Book of Isaiah — the document said, “This is how many reports envision the church: an expansive, but not homogeneous dwelling, capable of sheltering all, but open, letting in and out, and moving toward embracing the Father and all of humanity.”

The document released Oct. 27 is the result of a group reflection on the syntheses of synod discussions submitted by 112 of the world’s 114 bishops’ conference, all 15 Eastern churches, 17 of the 23 dicasteries of the Roman Curia, the men’s and women’s international unions of superiors general, dozens of Catholic associations and more than 1,000 individuals, it said.

The general secretariat of the synod chose an international group of laity, religious, priests and bishops to read the submissions, pray about them and then draft a document that would help participants in the next phase reflect on the faith, hopes and concerns witnessed to in the reports. The document was approved by the cardinals and bishops belonging to the synod’s general council.

What emerged from the reports, it said, “is a profound re-appropriation of the common dignity of

all the baptized. This is the authentic pillar of a synodal church and the theological foundation of a unity which is capable of resisting the push toward homogenization. This enables us to continue to promote and make good use of the variety of charisms that the Spirit with unpredictable abundance pours out on the faithful.”

Those who most often feel unwelcome in the Church or undervalued, it said, include: women, young people, people with disabilities, the poor, those who are divorced and civilly remarried, single parents, those in polygamous marriages and members of the LGBTQ communities.

Responding to experiences of exclusion and discrimination shared by Catholics with disabilities, the document said that “in spite of its own teachings, the church is in danger of imitating the way society casts them aside.”

Reflecting the central place of the Eucharist in the life of the Church, it said most submissions included a call for greater participation by all Catholics in the liturgy, working to ensure that it is less “concentrated on the celebrant,” involves more young people and women, including in preaching, and is more reflective of local cultures.

At the same time, the document also noted that in several reports, including that from the United States, some participants in the local listening sessions “lamented” Pope Francis’ decision to limit celebrations of the Latin-rite Mass according to the rite used before the Second Vatican Council.

The document also highlighted a common desire to find solutions to various forms of “sacramental deprivation,” including for people in remote towns and villages without a priest, as well as for civilly remarried Catholics and those in polygamous marriages.

In synod listening sessions around the world, participants noted that women are the majority of Catholics regularly attending the liturgy and staffing most paid and volunteer parish activities, yet it is mostly men who make the decisions in the Church.

“Many reports ask that the church continue its discernment in relation to a range of specific questions: the active role of women in the governing structures of church bodies, the possibility for women with adequate training to preach in parish settings, and a female diaconate,” the document said.

Between January and March, smaller groups of Church representatives are to meet on a continental or regional level; organized by bishops’ conferences, the groups are to include bishops, priests, religious and laypeople to read the document, pray about it and discuss which issues raised in it are most important and urgent for Catholics in their region to address in order to increase participation, a sense of communion and a commitment to missionary outreach.

Questions of faith: Vatican project sends theologians to ‘the margins’

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

A Vatican office sent dozens of theologians and pastoral workers to refugee camps, prisons, shelters, street corners and markets in 40 cities and towns on every continent to listen to the faith experiences and, especially, the faith questions of people often tossed aside or ignored by society and even the Catholic Church.

“This type of listening has been a long-neglected, yet fundamental basis for rigorous critical thinking on theology, especially in the face of contemporary challenges,” according to the project website of the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The project, “Doing Theology from the Existential Peripheries,” was coordinated by Father Sergio Massironi, a staff member of the dicastery. He told Catholic News Service Nov. 1 that while it was done

PARISH STAFF CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

the whole message of Vatican II’s renewal was that the faithful should become the Church of Christ more perfectly, “and the fruit of that will be an outpouring of proclamation of the good news of God’s love for us.”

Any time some of the faithful are more deeply converted, “God is not just loving us, but he’s loving others that he wants to reach through us,” Bushman said.

Mary is the burning bush that was not consumed, Bushman said. “We, like her, are now the rushing wind, the tongues of fire,” he said. “It is our life of holiness that we hope people will notice and ask

quietly through most of 2022, he was in constant contact with both the office of the Synod of Bishops and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

It was not a listening exercise done for the synod, although the 508 people interviewed echoed many of the points bishops’ conferences around the world reported from their local synod listening sessions.

In both the theological project and the synod sessions, he said, “if there was one thing that the ‘sensus fidei’ (the sense of faith of believers) understands in a unanimous way, it is that the Church needs to be more hospitable.”

“It is incredible how the official synodal process with the syntheses of the bishops’ conferences and our project, which bypassed all the institutional structures and went out to listen to those on the ‘outside,’ arrived at the same conclusions,” the priest said.

The prisoners and prostitutes and just about everyone else the project interviewed recognize that they are sinners, he said. They know Church teaching.

questions about. And when they ask questions, then we can verbalize our witness to God’s love in Jesus Christ.”

Kelly Wahlquist, director of the Archbishop Flynn Catechetical Institute in St. Paul, described a formation program that will be used in preparing missionary disciples in parishes across the archdiocese, called the School of Discipleship, and Estela Villagrán Manancero, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Latino Ministry, described plans to welcome more Latinos to parishes.

Seventy-five percent of the 300,000 Latinos in Minnesota say they are Catholic, but “they are not in our churches,” Villagrán Manancero said.

But they also believe they have a place in the Church with all the other baptized who are seeking God, hoping for divine mercy, wanting to serve others and longing for support in living their faith more deeply each day.

Meghan J. Clark, an associate professor of moral theology at St John’s University in New York and assistant coordinator of the project’s North American working group, said that while many synod reports expressed sadness about people missing from the process, the theology project went out to find them.

“In the U.S. situation,” she told CNS Nov. 2, “the most profound of those conversations were with LGBT Catholics, who are there in the parishes and yet still invisible to much of the Church. And so sometimes going to the peripheries is going one pew over.”

As many theologians become more specialized or more focused on teaching, “we often forget why we are doing theology. It’s not for us, but to serve the whole Church,” Father Massironi said.

Bishop Williams suggested laity be part of an advisory team to make recommendations for Latino outreach. Villagrán Manancero also invited multicultural parishes to conduct holy hours bilingually, as well as bilingual prayers and songs “as one community.”

Archbishop Hebda led a 20-minute question and answer session, with topics including the upcoming pastoral letter and its distribution.

Sarah Moylan, director of religious education at St. John the Baptist in Dayton, said she welcomed the chance to be in community and check in with parish workers from across the archdiocese. “Those of us who work

in the parishes are in our own little communities,” she said, adding that she also wanted to know what’s next after the Synod.

Marianne Charbonneau, coordinator of religious education at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Minnetonka, said she enjoyed all the speakers’ remarks and felt it was “energizing for the Synod as we’re moving forward.”

The day gave her a better sense of where the local Church is going and how the fruits of the Synod will be implemented, Charbonneau said. “This whole process, the steps in the (Synod) process, pulling people together from the parishes, felt good,” she said.

CNS | JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES

Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, speaks during a news conference at the Vatican Oct. 27 to present the document for the continental phase of the synod on synodality.

uCardinal tells leaders at COP27 they have duty to act on climate change. Leaders gathered in Egypt for the U.N. climate summit have “a moral obligation” to act seriously and together to safeguard the planet, while offering concrete aid to people suffering the “more frequent and more serious humanitarian impacts caused by climate change,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin. The Vatican secretary of state led the Holy See’s official delegation to COP27, the 27th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh Nov. 6–18. The cardinal told world leaders Nov. 8 that “the growing phenomenon of migrants being displaced” by climate change is something they must act on because currently “they lack access to international protection” recognizing them as deserving special care. And, he said, if it is not possible to give them special status as refugees, “it is important to recognize migration as a form of adaptation and to increase the availability and flexibility of pathways for regular migration.” The 2015 Paris Agreement, which the Vatican has signed on to, set out “four pillars” for immediate action: mitigation, adaptation, finance, and loss and damage payments.

Cardinal Parolin told the summit that the four pillars are “interconnected and are a matter of fairness, justice and equity.”

uFrench cardinal admits to abuse, French ‘abusive bishop’ retirement draws anger. French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, former head of the French bishops’ conference, admitted to abusing a 14-year-old girl 35 years ago. The revelation came in a letter from Cardinal Ricard read by Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort of Reims, president of the bishops’ conference, during a news conference on abuse Nov. 7, during the French bishops’ general assembly. The cardinal said the “reprehensible” action occurred when he was a priest, and he said his behavior “has necessarily caused serious and lasting consequences for this person.” He said he asked the woman for forgiveness and asked for forgiveness from her family. The cardinal is a member of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office charged with investigating clerics accused of abuse. In a separate controversy, the French bishops’ conference overhauled its agenda for its November plenary meeting to deal with “the anger, shame, powerlessness (and) incomprehension” they and their people felt after discovering that a bishop allowed by the Vatican to retire actually was disciplined for sexual abuse. Archbishop Moulins-Beaufort announced the changed agenda Nov. 3 and urged his fellow bishops to have as their first concern “the victims, those who spoke out two years ago and more recently, and those, perhaps, who have not yet made themselves known.” When the Vatican announced in 2021 that Bishop Michel Santier of Créteil was retiring, the bishop had said it was for health reasons. No one contradicted him publicly until mid-October, when the Diocese of Créteil confirmed he had been credibly accused of sexual misconduct and disciplined by the Vatican.

uMinnesota bishop expresses outrage over desecration at Catholic cemetery. Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester expressed outrage Nov. 2 over the desecration of several graves and the columbarium at the diocese’s Calvary Cemetery in Rochester “with hateful and obscene graffiti” on Halloween night. He assured his prayers for families “of those whose final resting places were so dishonored.” The diocese “will cooperate with police in assuring that those responsible are brought to justice,” he added in a statement

issued on All Souls’ Day, when the Catholic Church “honors our beloved dead. Cemetery staff is working diligently to repair the damage and restore the grounds,” Bishop Barron said, and he pledged to bless and reconsecrate “this sacred space” once the staff’s task is completed. Arson, vandalism and other destruction have taken place at more than 100 Catholic sites across the United States since May 2020.

uVatican announces plans for Christmas tree, Nativity scene. This year’s Nativity scene at the Vatican — which will sit under a 98-feettall silver fir tree in the middle of St. Peter’s Square — will feature 19 life-sized figures carved in cedar by artisans in the northeastern Italian town of Sutrio. The tree comes from Rosello, a village of only 182 residents, in Italy’s central Abruzzo region, said a news release issued Oct. 28 by the office governing Vatican City State. The decorations on the tree are being made by young adults at a residential psychiatric facility in Rosello. The tree will be lit, and the traditional Nativity scene unveiled Dec. 3, the office said. The display will remain up until after the feast of the Baptism of the Lord Jan. 8.

uIrish priest’s comments about transgenderism, gays result in suspension. A spokesman for Ireland’s deputy prime minister referred to Pope Francis’ famous line “Who am I to judge?” after a priest said the politician would go to hell if he did not repent for being gay. The spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told reporters Nov. 2 that Varadkar respects the right of Father Seán Sheehy “to express his religious beliefs freely” but “profoundly disagrees with Father Sheehy’s views.” It was the latest in a string of comments by the priest and replies that prompted media coverage and resulted in the retired priest — who often covers for priests on vacation — being removed from his duties in the diocese. Bishop Ray Browne of Kerry apologized for Father Sheehy’s controversial homily, delivered in County Kerry Oct. 30, saying the views expressed were not representative of Christianity.

uUSCCB elections, ‘Faithful Citizenship’ discussion, prayer on agenda. The fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will find the bishops voting on a new president and vice president and how to proceed in disseminating their quadrennial

How to Stress Less

Over Year-End Giving

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document on Catholic participation in public life. The agenda for the Nov. 14-17 gathering also incorporates more time for prayer and reflection with opportunities for wider engagement and interaction with each other to build fraternity. Public sessions are scheduled for the afternoon of Nov. 15 and all day Nov. 16.

uSummit explores role of ethics in developing artificial intelligence.

Universities around the world are taking steps alongside major technology companies to explore ways to bolster ethics education in the field of artificial intelligence, or AI, in line with an initiative supported by the Vatican. The effort seeks to help people understand that products should help humanity rather than pose uncontrollable challenges to human life. A global summit at the University of Notre Dame Oct. 25-26 explored ways to encompass ethics education in coursework. The Vatican’s role stems from its involvement in the “Rome Call for AI Ethics,” which calls for ethical principles and guidelines in AI development so that products promote the good of all humanity.

— Catholic News Service

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BrianGibson met Michael Gaworski in February 1981 at a charismatic prayer meeting in Shakopee. It was right before Gaworski founded Prolife Action Ministries, which is where Gibson works today, as its executive director.

“We became friends very early on,” Gibson, 66, recalled. “He was very inspiring in his call to action to be pro-life.”

At the time they met, Gaworski was seriously considering religious life, and eventually started his own religious group of men a year later, the Franciscan Brothers of Peace. It is designated canonically as a public association of the faithful, and this year is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Gaworski said he felt drawn to the Franciscans, and he felt God speaking to him about starting a Franciscan group of religious men.

The Franciscan Brothers are the first religious group of men founded and organized in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis as a Catholic entity. Modeled after traditional Franciscan orders, the brothers take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Over the last 40 years, they have remained stalwart in their defense of life and in serving the poor and vulnerable, operating a weekly food shelf and opening the doors of their two friaries in St. Paul for anyone in need. They serve members of the Karen community in St. Paul, have an AIDS ministry and provide housing for victims of torture from other countries.

They also have worked through tremendous hardships, including sickness, life-altering events and even death. But through it all, they continue their joyful service to the archdiocese, and say the difficult and painful trials have helped them grow and mature, plus deepen their relationships with one another.

The effort started one man at a time.

When Gibson and Gaworski saw each other again at another charismatic conference, this one at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, Gaworski, who eventually became Brother Michael, approached Gibson with an invitation to join his new group. His argument for joining was convincing, but too late.

“Brother Michael, I’m engaged; I am getting married,” Gibson recalled saying to the group’s founder. And, with a laugh, Gibson added: “He was recruiting me right up to the day of the wedding.”

Brother Michael honored and supported his friend’s vocation to marriage, and he served as a lector at Brian and Julie Gibson’s wedding on Oct. 30, 1982. Soon after, Brother Michael recruited Paul O’Donnell, a friend from their days at St. John Vianney College Seminary at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, who became Brother Paul O’Donnell. The two served side by side for nine years, growing the group’s membership to nine and making an impact with their pro-life work.

Gibson, meanwhile, stayed connected with the brothers and started working for them at Prolife Action Ministries. As the brothers’ various outreach efforts grew and spread, Gibson became executive director of PLAM in 1989.

Tragedy strikes

In 1991, the first of several tragedies struck the brothers. Brother Michael contracted pneumonia that caused cardiac arrest and a lack of oxygen to his brain. Doctors revived him, but he was left with a severe brain injury. The brothers cared for him for 12 years at their original residence, called Queen of Peace Friary, next door to St. Columba in St. Paul, until his death in 2003 at age 45.

The loss was felt deeply. Brothers had taken turns caring for Brother Michael round the clock.

Brother Paul, who before Brother Michael’s illness had been working with him at a residence they started for AIDS patients called Samaritan House, stepped into the leadership role of the group, at that time called “guardian overall.”

As the brothers split time between caring for Brother Michael and maintaining their ministries, tragedy struck again. Brother Joseph Katzmarek, a hard-working handyman with strength enough to move boulders about the grounds to improve landscaping, suffered a fall while walking in an area of road and sidewalk construction near downtown Minneapolis in 2001. It left him a paraplegic and wheelchair bound. Since then, he has spent hours a day in prayer, and needs the continual help of other brothers to handle daily tasks like bathing.

The tragedies continued. Brother Paul, who dealt with his own health issues, died in his sleep in 2015. At that point, after just 32 years of existence, the group had to move forward without its founder and without a man who had served in the primary leadership role for more than two decades.

Moving forward

Move forward it has. Despite these difficulties, the Franciscan Brothers of Peace continue to grow and bear fruit in the archdiocese. They started with five men and remain at nine in St. Paul, with one — Brother Didacus Gottsacker — making his final vows Oct. 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, their patron (a 10th brother is living in the Philippines, his native country, and awaits a visa to return to the U.S.). Their ministries have grown to include outreach to the Karen community (refugees from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma) at both St. Casimir parish in St. Paul and St. Jerome Catholic School in Maplewood, in addition to sidewalk counseling at Planned Parenthood in St. Paul and a presence at other pro-life gatherings, plus regular visits to patients at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis.

In addition, they have added a second friary, which is adjacent to the church of St. Patrick in St. Paul. And they built a spiritual center in northern Minnesota about 10 miles inland from Lake Superior, a place where the brothers, other priests, friends and supporters can go for renewal and relaxation.

On top of that, they gained their first priestly vocation — a desire of Brother Michael’s from the very beginning — when Father Seraphim Wirth, 42, formerly Brother Seraphim, was ordained in 2019. Father Seraphim, who joined in 2007 and made his perpetual vows in 2013, is today the overall leader, now called community servant. He is heavily involved in ministry to the Karen community, celebrating Masses and doing baptisms and weddings, along with Brother James Voeller, 59, who joined the brothers in 1998.

Father Seraphim got to know Brother Paul during his early years in the community, and both went to Rome for the canonization of Sts. John Paul II and John XXIII in 2014. Being at the friary when Brother Paul died and seeing and hearing about the other trials the men have faced over the years, he and the other brothers have pondered what God’s plan and purpose could be.

“There’s a great mystery in this,” Father Seraphim said. “It’s not an easy question for us to answer.”

As leader of the brothers, he tries to help the men look forward to what God might have in store, while at the same time continuing their present ministries. One of these outreaches, the food shelf, operates every Monday morning and as needed on other days. It traces its roots back to the earliest days of the group when Brother Michael and Brother Paul, having served at Mary Jo Copeland’s Sharing and Caring Hands in

40 years and

Franciscan Brothers of and marginalized from

Minneapolis, started their own food shelf to serve the poor in their St. Paul neighborhood.

‘They’ve always had my back’

The ministry offers tangible fruits of their efforts. Last year, the food shelf at Queen of Peace Friary served 3,500 individuals, including regulars like Louis Hurd, 48, who lives near the friary in an apartment with his 12-year-old daughter. He has dealt with several struggles since 1996, when he moved to the Twin Cities from Memphis,

Tennessee, and he has been for 13 years. It’s a place where physical and spiritual support that run deep.

“They’ve always had my who is battling cancer and “They’re like family. I really family.”

For a while, he would hang brothers and do things like said they have treated him

ABOVE LEFT Brother John Mary Kaspari greets Carleton Reynolds, left, and Denise Martinez, ABOVE RIGHT Brother Didacus Gottsacker signs an oath during his profession of final vows

Story and photos by Dave Hrbacek

Father Seraphim Wirth baptizes a baby from the Karen community during Mass at St. Casimir

and counting of Peace serve the poor from two

St. Paul friaries

Hrbacek • The Catholic Spirit

been coming to the friary where he has found support and formed bonds

my back,” said Hurd, 48, and has only one lung. really consider them my hang out with one of the like go to the movies. He him “like I was one of

them.” Whenever he is struggling, they always take time to pray with him, while also teaching him simple lessons like “have faith and believe in miracles.”

“I love them,” Hurd said. “They’re good people.”

Skip Olchefske first met the brothers in 1982 when he was a volunteer at Sharing and Caring Hands. For more years than he can remember, he has been helping at the brothers’ food shelf on Mondays, putting together hygiene kits they give

to people in need along with food. In addition to coming every Monday morning, he helps on other days when asked.

“Whatever they want; they’ve got my phone number,” said Olchefske, 79, a Catholic who lives in Shoreview. “They’re good friends. I’ve known these people a long time and they’re a good organization.”

Brothers have come and gone over the last 40 years, but a core group has been together for much of that time. Brother John Mary Kaspari, 64, the group’s oldest member, joined in 1989 and does accounting for the brothers and serves at the VA Medical Center.

“I was discerning my vocation at the time,” Brother John Mary said of the days leading up to his entry into the group. “I would go and listen to Michael preach at various parish functions. I was so attracted to his zeal and his energy and his enthusiasm. That’s what led me to join. He was led by the Spirit.”

Brother John Mary said the brothers made one decision that has had a lasting impression and shaped how the men view suffering. After Brother Michael’s illness left him bedridden and needing daily care, the brothers were urged to move him to a facility like Little Sisters of the Poor’s Holy Family Residence in St. Paul. This idea was brought to Brother Paul, who had practical reasons to place Brother Michael into the hands of professional caregivers.

“But Paul wanted him home,” Brother John Mary recalled of the decision to keep Brother Michael at the friary, “as the model of the suffering Christ in our midst.”

Taking his turn caring for Brother Michael, plus caring for sick and dying patients at Samaritan House and at the VA Medical Center for the last 19 years, have given Brother John Mary a “heart for the sick and suffering” and cemented his passion for this ministry.

Today, suffering still resides within the friary walls. Brother Joseph lives with daily pain that has been his companion since his accident in November 2001. Over the last 10 years, it has gotten worse. He worked tirelessly the first 10 years after the accident to strengthen his arms and shoulders after he lost the use of his legs. He pushed himself hard with rigorous workouts and rehab that included lifting weights. He poured himself into any physical tasks at the friary that he could handle. He even found a way to hold and move his body in an upright position using a special chair. Eventually, it all took a toll.

“After 10 years of being really active ... I ended up having to stop walking, and I had to stop lifting weights, and then I had to stop standing on the chair even, because of the pain I was getting that felt like being sawed in half,” said Brother Joseph, 63, the middle of seven children who grew up in the Twin Cities (Golden Valley and later Bloomington) and joined the brothers in 1991.

Today, his “real ministry” is “prayer and suffering,” something he never imagined 31 years ago when his journey toward joining the group began while his father was praying that one of his children would choose a religious vocation. During that time, Brother Joseph developed a desire to volunteer at Sharing and Caring Hands, and his dad “got excited” because he had met Brother Michael and Brother Paul and knew they were serving there. He urged his son to contact the group.

“I called them, and they invited me for dinner and evening prayer,” Brother Joseph said, “and the rest is history.”

That visit was the only time he ever talked with Brother Michael, who just weeks later suffered his catastrophic illness.

Brother Joseph’s accident radically changed the way he serves the Franciscan Brothers of Peace. He went from the go-to handyman and friend of

the homeless to the go-to prayer warrior. He dutifully intercedes for people’s intentions during his daily prayer, which can last three or four hours. At the top of his daily list are his two primary intentions — the souls in purgatory and the lost souls on earth.

Intense prayer

Doing this intensive prayer routine helps him place a value on the suffering he endures every day and likely will have to endure for the rest of his life.

“Uniting our sufferings with our suffering Lord is what I feel God’s calling me to do,” he said. “There’s an intimacy there that makes you oblivious to the pain because of the power of his love and feeling that closeness to him.”

This is one example of how the brothers feel their community has matured over the last 40 years, as they work through their trials and continue to serve the poor day by day. Along the way, they have been refreshed and renewed by newer members, like Brother Didacus, who brings zeal and dedication to their ranks.

When he joined in 2017, Brother Didacus, whose birth name is Steven, joyfully engaged in the process of picking his religious name, a long-time tradition of the brothers that involves submitting three names to the community servant, who makes the final selection. Didacus was Steven’s top choice, partly because the saint’s feast day is the same day as Steven’s birthday, Nov. 7. The new name serves as a daily reminder of the life in Christ he now lives, which is a significant deviation from his life before joining.

At one time, he was considering job prospects in his field of international development, while in a serious dating relationship that he thought might lead to marriage and family. But, the relationship ended, and he found himself “kind of in a rut.”

“I didn’t really know where to go or what God wanted me to do,” Brother Didacus said. “So, I just picked up my rosary, and I was praying. I heard Jesus speak to me through the Blessed Mother. She basically said something akin to ‘Chase after me more than you’ve chased after any woman, and I will reward you more than any video game you’ve ever played. That sounds like a weird thing for most people, but for me, that’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

After “pushing God in the background” for six or seven years, Brother Didacus recognized that “the Lord was moving.” He researched religious orders and zeroed in on Franciscans, which eventually led him to check out the Franciscan Brothers of Peace. Their long and dedicated prolife ministry especially drew him.

He is in a unique position, being the only brother who never met either Brother Michael or Brother Paul. But their passion for prolife ministry has been implanted deep in his heart, and he now works to carry on that significant part of their legacy.

“I appreciate the courage and heroism of these two brothers to know that this (prolife ministry) was the right thing to do,” Brother Didacus said. “And, in many ways, I feel that both of them are interceding for my vocational journey.”

From prolife ministry to food shelf service, the Franciscan Brothers of Peace keep going as a spiritual force in the archdiocese. Gibson, for one, sees their shining light of prayer, dedication and service.

“They continue to love God, they continue to be that radical love of Christ that it was intended to be from the very beginning,” he said. “It’s amazing — amazing what they’ve gone through and what God is still using them to do. … This is an amazing religious order.”

Martinez, who came to the Queen of Peace friary in St. Paul Sept. 19 for food and other assistance. Oct. 4 at St. Patrick in St. Paul.

Casimir in St. Paul Sept. 11. Assisting him are Brothers James Voeller, right, and Paschal Listi.

The Murray Institute: Educating the educators

By Maura Keller For The Catholic Spirit

Like most educators, the principal of St. Thomas More Catholic School in St. Paul embraces professional educational opportunities for himself and his fellow Catholic administrators and teachers. That’s why Pat Lofton and hundreds of other Catholic school professionals have turned to the Murray Institute for Catholic Education at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

The institute grants scholarships for certificates and post-graduate degrees for educators in Catholic schools and religious educators in parishes across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Since its founding in the 1960s, the Murray Insitute has served about 1,000 educators — and the good news gets around.

“I learned about the Murray Institute at the University of St. Thomas from other teachers and principals,” said Lofton, who graduated from the program in 2008.

All the institute’s programs are funded from a $15 million endowment built out of a combination of gifts from benefactors who have given through the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which founded the College of St. Thomas and helped found the institute, and what evolved into UST. The endowment funds allow teachers at no expense of their own to obtain advanced degrees, said Bernard ‘Bernie’ Brady, director of the Murray Institute and associate director of the university’s Office for Mission.

“Given the expense of graduate education, many Catholic educators could not envision working to attain advanced degrees,” Brady said.

This fall, the institute is serving about 100 students: 50 students working on degrees in the School of Education, about 30 students in the College of Arts and Sciences (which includes programs in Catholic Studies, music, Spanish, English and art history), about 15 students in the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul and several students in STEM education in the School of Engineering.

Mary Kate Miley, a new cohort in the master’s degree program in Educational Studies, with a concentration on K-12 reading, said her main goal is to further her education to best contribute to the lives of her students at Annunciation Catholic School in south Minneapolis.

“By completing this program, I have deep confidence that I will be better equipped to serve my students — and they deserve the very best,” Miley said. “I am also looking forward to making meaningful connections with other teachers from different Catholic schools. I will have these connections and this support system for years to come. The way that the Murray Institute brings people together is a very special thing.”

Having the graduate programs fully funded by the scholarships is a life-changing opportunity and a big draw for many, Miley included.

“I earned my BA in elementary education from the University of St. Thomas in 2020,” she said. “This is my third year of teaching kindergarten and I am lucky to be able to wake up every day and go to work at a

place that I love.”

Lofton, whose experience at the Murray Institute included obtaining an educational specialist degree, said that from his first appointment as a middle school teacher at St. Mark Catholic School in St. Paul from 2000-2006, to his role as associate superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, to his current position as principal of St. Thomas More, he has celebrated the opportunity to bring quality Catholic education that can help “shape students into young people who are faith-filled, intellectually curious and prepared to make a difference in the world.”

The Murray Institute has long taught a cohort of educators taking the same courses together in the same program, but in the fall of 2021 adjusted its model to include students working toward different degrees, Brady said.

“This opened the possibility of supporting students in a range of programs that in the past we could not support — for example STEM education, music education, Spanish, English, Catholic Studies, and art history,” he said. “We now also support students taking a single graduate course to ‘freshen up’ on a topic they may be teaching or to sharpen their teaching skills.”

In 2019, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office for the Mission of Catholic Education, the University of St. Thomas and the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul created the Institute for Catholic School Leadership, offering certificates in Catholic school leadership for principals and aspiring principals in the archdiocese.

On the school side at the Murray Institute, the most popular program over the past several years has been the master’s degree in Educational Studies, Brady said. In that program, teachers study current theories and methods of teaching while also focusing on a particular area of pedagogy, for example, K-12 reading or STEM education.

“The M.A. in Educational Studies produces an

Instructor Lucy Payne, center, talks with students Julie Steege, left, and Nikki Gibbs, right, during class Sept. 20 at the Murray Institute at the downtown Minneapolis campus of the University of St. Thomas. Steege is a teacher at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, and Gibbs is a teacher at St. Michael Catholic School in St. Michael.

Payne is an associate professor in UST’s School of Education.

DAVE HRBACEK THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

enriched teacher on two accounts — on the methodology of teaching and on the particulars of the subject matter the teacher teaches,” Brady said. “And while there are a variety of concentrations, a growing area is special education, which helps teachers learn about and respond to the variety of learning styles that students have when they enter the classroom.”

On the parish side, the Murray Institute supports students in programs at the St. Paul Seminary, particularly the master’s in pastoral leadership.

Emily Dahdah of the archdiocese’s Office for the Mission of Catholic Education, where she directs the Department of Educational Quality and Excellence, is among members of the Murray Faculty Committee. Thanks to the Murray Institute, she said, Catholic school teachers have an opportunity to strengthen their professional skills while deepening their vocation to serve in the ministry of Catholic education.

“The Roadmap for Excellence in Catholic Education, which is the strategic direction for Catholic education that was led by Archbishop Bernard Hebda and all the stakeholders involved in Catholic education, and was established in 2019, sets the strategic direction for Catholic education in the archdiocese and we are grateful to have the Murray Institute’s support,” Dahdah said. “Essentially we have everyone rowing in the same direction for Catholic education.”

The Institute for Catholic School Leadership was one of the fruits of the Roadmap, education officials have said.

Jesuit Father Christopher Collins, vice president for mission at UST, said the Murray Institute is committed to helping Catholic educators. “It’s always hard to be a teacher, but anything we can do to invest in teachers and into their professional development is very important,” Father Collins said.

“Everyone is called to professional competence, and the depth of learning of our teachers and school leaders is really enhanced by this program,” he said.

Kidney donation a ‘rescue mission’ from God

By Christina Capecchi For The Catholic Spirit

After a fellow parishioner from St. Hubert in Chanhassen sent out a desperate email last winter pleading for a kidney donation to save her husband’s life, a series of events led Dave Hoffman to believe God was calling him on a “rescue mission.” In a short span of time, the 50-year-old father of two was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester donating a kidney. “God is all over this,” said Hoffman, a tax manager at Cargill.

Q A few days after you received the email about Brian, you prayed, “God, I don’t have a lot of time to pray about this kidney thing, so if you want me to do something here, you’ll have to make it obvious.” That’s so relatable. We all feel busy!

A Right. I too easily dismiss something — “Oh, I’m too busy” — and move onto the next thing. I just need to show up.

Q After that quick prayer, you headed to Mass and listened to the Gospel where St. John the Baptist preaches about the end times and instructs people, “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none.” You had two healthy kidneys at the time — Brian had none.

A That was God being very obvious with me. This got the ball rolling. A few weeks later, I was driving in rural Wisconsin, kind of lost, and I realized it was almost noon and figured there must be a Relevant Radio station around there broadcasting the Mass. Before Mass began, the priest read a quote attributed to St. Margaret of Hungary: “Many of the people who look forward to a long life put off doing good works … as for me, I prefer to be among those who consider that they have no time to lose if they wish to give God all the glory they can.”

Q Two months later, you and your wife drove to the Cathedral on a whim, where Father Joseph Bambenek happened to be celebrating Mass. He

was your high school bandmate in Hastings.

A It was the feast of St. Joseph, and he gave a beautiful homily about why God would choose Joseph to be the foster father of God — because he knew Joseph would respond when called upon.

Q Your memory of him from high school was how quiet he was — and there he was, preaching with passion at the pulpit of the Cathedral!

A Right! I was the drum major, so I was trying to rev people up, and I couldn’t get him to say much. Now he’s a great preacher.

Q The next day you saw an article in the Star Tribune with the headline, “Kidney Donors Climb Mount Kilimanjaro.” And the following day, you emailed to ask Amy if Brian still needed a kidney. At that point you were convinced this was God’s will.

A I was very, very sure.

Q Was it still scary to send that email?

A Yes. It felt like I was shoving off into

unchartered waters. I tried to keep busy with work and family. But then my desire started to change. I went from feeling like, “Let’s see if I’m a match” to “I really, really want to be a match.”

Q Brian and you became friends. Father Aric Aamodt, the associate pastor, anointed you both in June, and your families began to bond. Before they’d simply been acquaintances who you occasionally ran into at school and Mass. Four days later, the successful transplant surgeries took place. Two weeks later, you were back to work — from home — and a month after that you were running 5ks.

A Brian and I are doing a lot of unpacking together. I don’t need all the answers. That’s not my role. We’re just glad that we got to be a part of it. Our conversations are deep. We just got together on Saturday night for a bonfire at our house. His friendship is a true gift.

Q How else has God blessed your generosity?

A I feel more in relationship with God the Father, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The

idea that this world is a struggle between good and evil and that we’re all family and in this together — those aren’t just remote ideas for me. They’re very real now.

Q Tell me more.

A It’s a feeling that I’m more part of a team, and I can converse, and we’re working together on a project. I don’t even know what the project is! It’s like, “Hey, what are we going to do today, God?”

Q

Put me in, Coach!

A Probably the answer will be: You’re going to work on taxes and then pick up your daughter for soccer, which is fine — I like that too.

Q Soccer is fine. You’ve been on a wild journey!

A God was so gentle and loving in leading me along. I keep notebooks. Basic, spiral-bound notebooks. I’m on No. 8. Going back and looking at my notebooks, I see how God was preparing me for this over many years. It started with a reawakening of the faith, what I call “an invasion of grace” and being geared toward helping people. Then, for whatever reason, in 2019, I decided to get healthier. I lost about 25 pounds, started exercising and cut back on alcohol — all things that are very helpful for people who are going to donate a kidney.

Q Has your rediscovery of Catholicism rubbed off on your 15-year-old and 12-year-old?

A I don’t know how it happened. They used to fight me about going to Mass. Now it’s a highlight for them. They want to do everything — be eucharistic ministers, usher, Leo wants to be a soundboard operator. We show up at 5:15 for 6 p.m. Mass and we stay late and they don’t complain!

Q What do you love about being Catholic?

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Christian Brother: Beauty of consecrated life options is like a tapestry

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

To many, the term religious vocation refers to priests and nuns. It’s about the parish pastor or the religious sisters who teach at the local school or help with faith formation at church.

But the world of religious vocations is much broader: More than 700 religious institutes and societies of apostolic life are found in the U.S., according to the National Religious Vocation Conference. Each and every vocation is celebrated during National Vocations Week, this year Nov. 6-12.

Christian Brother Larry Schatz said he uses the image of a tapestry as a metaphor, with “all kinds of different colored threads woven together into a wonderful design” and capturing the varied beauty of consecrated life.

Brother Larry said his 40 years in consecrated life have been “the greatest adventure.” Today he serves at St. Mary’s University in Winona, as director of vocation ministry for the Christian Brothers of the Midwest District.

Greg Darr, originally from Chisago City, said he first thought he might be called to the priesthood. But in learning about “the extraordinary range of opportunities” for service in religious

life, he realized he was called to do missionary work. He graduated from the University of Minnesota and served with Catholic lay volunteer programs in Florida and Philadelphia.

Darr joined the Maryknoll Lay Missioners in 1992 and was sent to Kenya, East Africa, where he worked with community and Church leaders in creating grassroots initiatives in peacemaking. Today, he is based in Minneapolis as a member of the Vocation Ministries team of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. Darr is married and has two college-age daughters.

Secular institutes are an option, too. Natasha Sager made her first dedication to the Caritas Christi secular institute at age 34 last September at Epiphany in Coon Rapids. Members of her secular institute, a form of consecrated life, live and work in society, different than religious sisters living in community, but they share commitments to prayer and their institute’s apostolate.

On November 22nd join the greater archdiocese at St. Peter’s Catholic Church (Mendota) for the

LEADING WITH FAITH AWARDS

“One of the things that we need a lot of help with in the Catholic Church is understanding the full range of consecrated life” because people think of being a father, brother or sister as the definition of religious life, said Sister Sue Torgersen, of the Congregation of St. Joseph. “They automatically go there, and (we need to) help people widen the picture, and let them know there’s a range of vocation possibilities within the

Greg Darr, lay staff member of the vocation ministries team of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers; Sister Sue Torgersen of the Congregation of St. Joseph; School Sister of Notre Dame Stephanie Spandl; and DeLaSalle Christian Brother Larry Schatz participated in the National Religious Vocation Conference in Spokane, Washington, Nov. 3-6.

COURTESY SISTER SUE TORGERSEN

term ‘consecrated life.’’’

“We who are in these various forms of consecrated life would welcome invitations (from) Catholic schools, faith formation programs, youth ministry, campus ministry,” she said. Resources are great for learning, she said, but people interested in consecrated life might consider in-person visits.

School Sister of Notre Dame Stephanie Spandl said it’s also important to create a culture of vocation and of being invited “from childhood on.” “That’s the sense that we’re all called by God, we’re all called to holiness and that we live that out in different ways and at different points in our lives,” she said.

Vocation ministers can help create “that culture of vocation, so that people are always discerning, listening for God’s call in their life,” said Sister Stephanie, who is one of four members on the vocation team for her order’s North American provinces.

For more information and resources visit 10000vocations org and the National Religious Vocation Conference website at nrvc.net. Vision Vocation Network can help those discerning religious life, at vocationnetwork org, as can the blog anunslife org. For information about secular institutes, visit the U.S. Conference of Secular Institutes website at secularinstitutes org. Brother Larry suggested a podcast called Brothers Banter, created by two religious brothers.

Presented by the St Joseph Business Guild Register to attend by November 15th at sjbusinessguild.com

Contact Sr. Katherine Mullin, kathfmullin@gmail.com. Visit us at www.visitationmonasteryminneapolis.org.

The Visitation Sisters welcome you to explore a life of prayer and presence with us in our new northside monastery home.

Robert Scalia

Owner & President of iComp Payroll & Human Resource Services

Greg Pavett Board Chair & Executive Director of The Humanity Alliance

Jon Westerhaus Owner & President of Survey and Ballot Systems

Terry Furlong Mayor of North Saint Paul

Congratulating the 2022 Honorees

FDIC

Premier Banks

DeLaSalle

Four Catholic workplace leaders win 2022 Leading With Faith Awards

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

Four business leaders in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are being honored with the 2022 Leading With Faith Award: Terry Furlong, who serves as mayor of North St. Paul; Greg Pavett, founder and board chair of the Humanity Alliance; Robert Scalia, owner and president of iComp Payroll and HR; and Jon Westerhaus, founder and president of Survey and Ballot Systems.

The awards have been bestowed since 2002, when The Catholic Spirit chose winners from a pool of nominees. This is the first year that the award process — from nominations to selection of winners and the awards banquet — is led by the St. Joseph Business Guild, sjbusinessguild com

Roger Vasko and three other parishioners of St. Peter in North St. Paul founded the St. Joseph Business Guild in 2019. Its mission is supporting families by connecting Catholic business owners to workers and customers. The Guild helps members find jobs, employees, mentors and more business.

TERRY FURLONG

Furlong, a parishioner of St. Peter in North St. Paul, serves as mayor of North St. Paul and works in community relations and business development for Premier Bank in Maplewood.

His nominator, who has known Furlong for years, said he is a kind and humble leader with a servant’s heart.

“Terry exemplifies the sage advice of St. Francis,” the nominator wrote. “‘Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.’ Terry’s Catholic sense of fairness, justice and service are evident in everything he does, both as an elected official and through the many charitable organizations he serves. He accomplishes all of this not by preaching, but by his generous example of service and caring for others.”

Furlong’s strong Catholic faith is “evident and authentic,” the nominator said. “He readily shares his gifts of time, talent and treasure to help build a better world on this side of heaven.”

Furlong said he was surprised to receive the award, but does try to “live my faith.”

“Even when I was sworn in as mayor, … I had our pastor … do a blessing, not only blessing me but he blessed the whole city council and (everyone) at the ceremony,” he said.

Furlong recalled that when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Minnesota hard in March 2020, he reached out to all the churches in his community to set up a virtual support group for people who needed a connection with others during the pandemic. “It was well received,” he said.

ROBERT SCALIA

GREG PAVETT

A member of St. Victoria in Victoria, Pavett is founder and executive director of Victoria-based Humanity Alliance, a nonprofit he started in 2018.

The organization repurposes “excess food rescue” before it goes into dumpsters. According to the alliance, in one year, more than 24 tons of food were rescued and used to feed individuals and families in need.

In 2021, the alliance purchased and renovated a group home where individuals and small families can find housing, employment assistance, food and mental health assistance. The alliance also provides volunteer opportunities for hundreds of people each week.

One of Pavett’s nominators noted that he “leads with his Catholic faith in the workplace and throughout the counties he serves by living his faith in much of what he does during normal workdays,” working with hundreds of volunteers each week, numerous school groups, churches and civic, youth and nonprofit organizations.

Another nominator wrote that what Pavett believes influences the way he lives his life. “Greg’s hard work and success in helping thousands of people in need over the past four years … is a testimony to his belief that faith without work is hollow and is lacking in what it truly means to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Pavett said the award is an honor and humbling, and it “continues to lift us up.” “We’ve been shown this opportunity so now it’s our responsibility to do what Jesus would do,” he said. “God has a way of making sure I can see the gap in the need.”

AWARDS BANQUET

This year’s Leading With Faith Award winners will be honored at a public banquet Nov. 22 at St. Peter in Mendota, with a 5:30 p.m. social hour and 6:30 p.m. dinner.

Msgr. James Shea, president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, will be the keynote speaker. Archbishop Bernard Hebda will present awards.

Tickets are $24; free for clergy. To register, visit sjbusinessguild com/events/leading with faith awards

JON WESTERHAUS

Westerhaus, a member of Sts. Joachim and Anne in Shakopee, is president of Eden Prairie-based Survey and Ballot Systems, which he founded in 1990. The technology company is one of the largest data collection and election management companies in the U.S., with a growing global presence. It serves associations, cooperatives, financial institutions, clubs, unions and member-based organizations.

Westerhaus’ nominator said he exemplifies servant leadership every day at the company and encourages employees to grow in all facets of their lives, understanding the need to spend time with family. He said Westerhaus brings prayer to the office, opens the annual meeting with prayer and “is not afraid to glorify God and give thanks during staff meetings, in email reflections and through client interaction.” He noted Westerhaus’ “generous heart,” giving back to employees and the community “through time and treasure.”

“... Jon inspires me and all (his) contacts with his outspoken joy and minute-by-minute Catholic witness in every action he takes, every word he speaks, and care he sends for others. Jon brings Jesus Christ to everyone he meets.”

Westerhaus volunteers for and serves on the board of directors at the nonprofit Achieving Cures Together and the board of directors for St. John Vianney College Seminary. He is a founding member of the seminary’s “Virtuous Business Leaders” program presented to seminarians. He also volunteers for pro-life ministries.

Westerhaus said he felt confused at first on hearing he won the award because he sees many examples of people leading by faith in their everyday lives. “Every single one of us is really called to lead with faith at all times,” he said, whether at home, in public or in the workplace. “It truly is what our Christian calling, our Catholic mission is,” he said.

A parishioner of Epiphany in Coon Rapids, Scalia owns and is president of iComp Payroll and HR, which provides payroll and human resources services to ease the administrative burden at small businesses in the Twin Cities metro area and across the country.

Scalia’s nominator said he treats everyone with respect and is patient and kind, while focusing on the needs of others before himself

and “celebrating our successes and helping us to accomplish goals.” Spending much of his day on the telephone, the nominator said Scalia “makes connections and relationships with others where he shares his faith openly and often.”

Scalia likes to check in with staff, his nominator said. “We have all developed a connection with Rob where faith is a common topic of conversation. He is never shy about sharing his beliefs and faith with others. He really meets everyone where they are in life and can respect differing opinions while still giving his own.”

At his parish, Scalia and his family have been involved in several ministries, including being a sponsor for confirmation, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and for newly engaged couples. He also has served on the school advisory council and parish finance committees, and as a sponsor for the Epiphany School Gala.

Scalia said it was an honor to receive the award, in part because it reaffirmed that “we’re doing some of these things the right way.” When he was in college and graduate school, Scalia said he would hear talk about “value-based business” but for him, it’s about being “values-based.”

Every single one of us is really called to lead with faith at all times, whether at home, in public or in the workplace.

It truly is what our Christian calling, our Catholic mission is. Jon Westerhaus

Pope tells young people: Skip Google, search God first for advice

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service

Everyone needs help to mature and to grow as a person of faith, Pope Francis told young people in Bahrain, so reach out to someone a bit older and wiser and don’t forget to pray.

“Before you go to the internet for advice, always seek out good counselors in life, wise and reliable people who can guide and help you,” like parents, grandparents, teachers, the elderly and a good spiritual guide, the pope told students at Sacred Heart School in Awali Nov. 5.

“Each of us needs to be accompanied on the road of life!” he told them. And turn to God, who is always there, waiting “for you to ask him to give you a hand,” the pope said.

Pope Francis’ Nov. 3-6 visit was the first by a pope to the archipelago nation in the Persian Gulf. Highlights of his trip included promoting interreligious dialogue and meeting the small, mostly expatriate Christian community.

The principal of the Sacred Heart School told Pope

Francis that the schools’ 1,215 students from 29 different nationalities, cultures, languages and religious backgrounds were a “miniature symbol” of the peaceful co-existence and culture of care he has called for.

“Your presence here with us will surely raise awareness about our cultural diversity and shared beliefs, as well as our commitment to establish a vibrant and respectful society for present and future generations,”

Sister Roselyn Thomas, a member of the Sisters of the Apostolic Carmel, told the pope. Students filled the gym and areas outside the school; some wore clothing traditional to their culture or religion. As the pope entered, a choir sang, “All are welcome in this place.”

In the 74 years since the sisters founded the school in Bahrain, “you have been its most treasured and most revered guest,” Sister Thomas told him.

Another honored guest was school alumnus, Lt. Abdulla Attiya. A member of the Bahrain Royal Guard, he broke a world record in December last year, running a marathon in full military gear in 3 hours, 40 minutes and 7 seconds, which also got him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

“I can be a champion on the field but what really matters is becoming a champion off the field,” he told the pope. Despite all the hard work, sacrifice, success and medals, he said, he realized the “trophies will eventually rust. It’s friendship and fraternity that will last forever.”

As a Muslim at the school, he said he had “the opportunity to celebrate Christmas, Diwali and many other heart-warming feasts … with no discrimination if one participated in the other’s happiness.”

Speaking on behalf of all young people in Bahrain, Nevin Varghese Fernandez told the pope that growing up as a Catholic in Bahrain “was risk-free and secure, as we are blessed to be living in a country that promotes and supports various religions.”

The pope encouraged the students to cultivate a life of prayer and trust that the Lord “constantly watches out for us and keeps us safe.”

The Church and the world “need your creativity, your dreams and your courage, your charm and your smiles, your contagious joy and that touch of craziness that you can bring to every situation,” the pope said.

The world is coming to an end

This is the message of the first reading and holy Gospel for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. The timing of this proclamation is not accidental. It comes one week before the feast of Christ the King, and the subsequent start of Advent one week later. As anyone who has lived through the Church’s liturgical year a few times knows, this is the time of the year when the Church reminds us of the reality of the Final Judgment, a solemn truth of our Christian faith. At some point, we know not when, the Lord will return to judge the living and the dead, and all men and women will need to give an account of their lives.

This judgment will be dreadful for those who are not prepared, and particularly for those who have trampled upon the rights of the poor or who have obstinately rejected the kingship of Christ within their lives. But for the humble, the poor in spirit, the compassionate, the faithful, the ones willing to suffer for love, it will be a day of rejoicing, as all eyes will witness the final victory of the good, and the eternal reign of righteousness will commence.

There are many who are deeply disturbed by current events in our Church and in our world. And, as has happened in every era of challenge throughout human history, some see the signs of the end all around us. Is this when the Lord will finally return? The authentically Christian answer is …. maybe. Frankly, it doesn’t really matter. Because how we are to live does not change based

Jesus, the model for married couples

Jesus is the greatest of all marriage counselors. His advice is simple and straightforward: “Love one another as I love you” (Jn 15:12). His example reveals the high road and the preferred choices for couples as they make the journey of married life together.

Jesus went to the synagogue or the Temple every Sabbath. Go to church and attend Mass together each weekend. Jesus also went off by himself to pray. Set aside quality time, find a private place, quiet yourselves and pray together, ideally every day.

Jesus was constantly teaching and preaching, he shared tremendous amounts of information with his disciples, and he was an excellent communicator. Chat constantly with your spouse. Speak openly, honestly and often. Share what you know. Do not hold back. The information you share builds and strengthens the bonds of love.

When Jesus taught his disciples, there were many times that they failed to comprehend what he was trying to say. Jesus was frustrated with them at times, but he did not get angry, and he frequently needed to re-explain his message to them. If your spouse does not understand you, be patient, do not get angry, and find another way to better express yourself.

Jesus went fishing on the Sea of Galilee with his disciples. Go on fishing trips together. The opportunities are excellent for couples in the state of Minnesota with all our lakes. If you do not like fishing, go to the lake anyway. Spend time together swimming, water skiing, going for boat rides, or enjoying yourselves on the lakeshore.

Jesus went on walks with his disciples. Go for walks together.

KNOW the SAINTS

upon the timing of the Final Judgement. Regardless of whether the Lord returns in glory tomorrow or in 10 million years, the shape of the Christian life remains the same. Fidelity, hopefulness, sacrificial love — these are the ingredients of a well lived life, and of a soul prepared to stand before the judgment seat that all will endure.

Today’s second reading provides us with a description as to what such a life might look like. St. Paul exhorts his readers to, well, mind their own business and to keep their attention turned to fulfilling the duties of their own state of life and the needs of the community of faith. I wonder what St. Paul would think of social media … Don’t get me wrong. I am certain that the great saint of the missions would utilize the tools of the current day to make the Gospel known and Jesus loved, including the internet. But those sites and bloggers who are dedicated to speculation, gossip, and the faults of others? I think his judgment would be severe.

Leaving aside the question of justice and the charity Christians are obligated to show to others, including one’s enemies, it is also the case that so much of social media is an enormous waste of time, sucking away our day and our hours, never to be found again. And this time would be infinitely better spent in trying to be better priests, dads, moms, employees, friends, children and, oh yeah … Christians. At the end of our life will anyone ask themselves why they didn’t spend more time on the internet, on blogs, on chat rooms, or on Tik Tok? I doubt it. Much more likely will be the regret that they did not spend more time in service to others, using the limited time they had to prepare better for the judgment that is coming to all of us.

The Lord is coming back my friends. We know not when, but he is on his way. Mind your own business. You’d hate to be the one with eyes glued to your screens when Jesus comes to ask what you’ve been up to.

Father Erickson is pastor of Transfiguration in Oakdale. He can be reached at frerickson@transfigurationmn org

Take a hike. Go for a bike ride.

Jesus traveled to many different places with his disciples, to Chorazin and Bethsaida, Tyre and Sidon, the Decapolis and Samaria. Go on trips with your spouse, up along the North Shore or to the state parks, to the Iron Range or the bluffs along the Mississippi River, and during the winter months, go to Florida or Arizona.

Jesus went with his disciples to the big city, Jerusalem. Take a vacation to a big city, nearby to the Windy City, Chicago, or farther to the Big Apple, New York, or the City of Angels, Los Angeles, or maybe across the ocean to Paris or Rome.

Jesus ate with his disciples and sometimes went to banquets with them. Share as many meals as possible with your spouse, and sometimes go out to a nice restaurant.

Jesus worked great miracles. Do great and mighty deeds with and for each other. Be a partner with your Creator God in the miracle of having children. Raise a family. Calm storms with your even temperament. Cast out evil spirits with your courageous faith and fierce conviction.

Jesus had great compassion for the sick and he healed many. When your spouse is sick, be present and provide comfort, support, encouragement and assistance.

Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. Do menial tasks together. Be partners cooking meals, cleaning the house, doing laundry, shopping, doing fixit projects and running errands.

Jesus was disappointed with his disciples when they fought among themselves, and he was hurt by his disciples when they betrayed, abandoned and denied him. Jesus kept his composure, did not yell or scream, and did not punish. Instead, remarkably, he said, “Peace be with you” and he forgave them. When your spouse disappoints or hurts you, keep your composure, do not yell and scream, do not retaliate or try to get even, be compassionate, and forgive.

In the end, Jesus laid down his life for his friends. Lay down your life for your spouse. Do everything possible for your spouse’s benefit.

Father Van Sloun is the clergy services director for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. This column is part of a series on the sacrament of marriage.

DAILY Scriptures

Sunday, Nov. 13

Thirty-third Sunday In Ordinary Time Mal 3:19-20a 2 Thes 3:7-12 Lk 21:5-19

Monday, Nov. 14 Rv 1:1-4; 2:1-5 Lk 18:35-43

Tuesday, Nov. 15 Rv 3:1-6, 14-22 Lk 19:1-10

Wednesday, Nov. 16 Rv 4:1-11 Lk 19:11-28

Thursday, Nov. 17

St. Elizabeth of Hungary, religious Rv 5:1-10 Lk 19:41-44

Friday, Nov. 18 Rv 10:8-11 Lk 19:45-48

Saturday, Nov. 19 Rv 11:4-12 Lk 20:27-40

Sunday, Nov. 20 Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe 2 Sm 5:1-3 Col 1:12-20 Lk 23:35-43

Monday, Nov. 21 Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Rv 14:1-3, 4b-5 Lk 21:1-4

Tuesday, Nov. 22

St. Cecilia, virgin and martyr Rv 14:14-19 Lk 21:5-11

Wednesday, Nov. 23 Rv 15:1-4 Lk 21:12-19

Thursday, Nov. 24 Thanksgiving Day Sir 50:22-24 1 Cor 1:3-9 Lk 17:11-19

Friday, Nov. 25 Rv 20:1-4, 11—21:2 Lk 21:29-33

Saturday, Nov. 26 Rv 22:1-7 Lk 21:34-36

Sunday, Nov. 27 First Sunday of Advent Is 2:1-5 Rom 13:11-14 Mt 24:37-44

St. Gertrude the Great (1256-1302) Born in Germany’s Thuringia state, this virgin was entrusted at the age of 5 to the Cistercian nuns at Saxony’s Helfta Abbey, where she was educated and became a nun. At 25, she had a mystical “conversion” and thereafter lived a contemplative life. Her experiences are included in “Revelations of Gertrude and Mechtilde.” Gertrude also was among the first to promote devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1738, Pope Clement XII decreed that the feast of this important medieval mystic be celebrated throughout the Western church. Her feast day is Nov. 16.

SUNDAY SCRIPTURES | FATHER JOHN PAUL ERICKSON

FAITH FUNDAMENTALS | FATHER MICHAEL VAN SLOUN

ECHOES OF CATHOLIC MINNESOTA REBA LUIKEN

Stained glass at Basilica tells tale of former church

In the winter of 2021, my friends at Modern Catholic Pilgrim invited me to participate in a journey from the Basilica of St. Mary to a vacant lot in north Minneapolis about a mile away. The walk was inspired by the stainedglass windows that hang in Teresa of Calcutta Hall in the lower level of the Basilica. They originally belonged to a mission church named St. Martin that once stood on the vacant lot we visited on the corner of Bryant and Fifth Avenue North.

St. Martin was established to serve the African American community in north Minneapolis. It is not clear which St. Martin the parish was named for, but it was not, at least officially, St. Martin de Porres, who was not canonized until 1962. However, a parish can be dedicated to a patron different than its name, and Blessed Martin de Porres was the parish’s patron.

St. Martin’s first Mass was held at the nearby Phillis Wheatly Settlement house on Sunday, Feb. 25, 1940. By August of that year, the pastor, Father Leonard Hirman, had raised enough money to buy a plot of land and to break ground. Parishioners gathered on Dec. 15 to celebrate the building’s dedication with a turkey dinner. The ceiling beams had been salvaged from another building in Minneapolis, and the bell in its belfry was sourced from a railroad engine that originally belonged to James J. Hill. All told, the church only cost $9,000 (about $300,000 today). The following year the stained-glass windows were designed and installed by a local company of that time, Weston and Leighton Ecclesiastical Stained Glass & Decoration of Minneapolis.

St. Martin’s neighborhood was poor and home to people who had been excluded from living in other areas of the city. They were mainly African American, Jewish, and Italian. As a mission parish, it was not

SIMPLE HOLINESS | KATE SOUCHERAY

Calming the body and brain

When we think about fearful experiences or events, we ignite in our physical bodies a fear response of fight, flight or freeze. If we live in a fear modality, we will cause ourselves to live in a fear-filled way. Following the past two and a half years of pandemic living, we may have found ourselves in a fear response more often than a calm response, which is completely normal, given the circumstances we faced. But now that the pandemic has subsided somewhat, it would also be normal to find ourselves still expecting to respond to stimuli with fear, rather than calm. The fear response can elicit a sense of scarcity; a calm response can bring about a response of abundance.

But what can we do to assuage our fearful nervous system, which seems to respond to stimuli with fear, whether there is anything to fear or not? We can begin to think about and notice abundance everywhere we see it or experience it and then celebrate it. You see, scarcity thinking manifests negativity and loss. It elicits in us a fear response that creates more fear. Our brain does

These windows depicting the prophet Zephaniah, left, and Jesus hang in Teresa of Calcutta Hall on the lower

of St. Mary in Minneapolis.

expected to be able to financially support itself, and the pastor established the Blessed Martin Mission Guild to help support his work and his parishioners. The women who joined the guild lived outside the neighborhood, and many were cousins or family friends of Father Hirman.

Like many African American neighborhoods across the country, the area around the parish was transformed by redevelopment in the mid-1950s. City planners decided that nearby homes were slums and designated them to be cleared in 1956. Public, low-rent housing units were planned for the area around the church. St. Martin was to be an anchor of the redeveloped neighborhood.

In the summer of 1958, the parish closed amidst nearby construction. During its final Mass, its pastor, then Father Francis Byrne, consumed the last of the consecrated hosts and left the tabernacle door open. The church’s statue of Blessed Martin de Porres and its stained-glass windows were removed for safe keeping, and the building was boarded up. The closure was

not measure the accuracy of our assessment, it simply responds with what it believes will bring us to safety, even when we are completely safe and have nothing to fear.

The problem with the maintenance of a fear-induced mentality is that it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: we get more of what we fear because we are drawing more of this to ourselves, even if we insist we do not want it. I used to tell my clients that we have to challenge our thinking in order to change our thinking. Otherwise, we will be left to contend with the negative world we have helped create.

But how do we do that, we may wonder. Magical thinking is not going to solve the fear we experience when we see empty grocery shelves; masks on every person we pass, no matter where we are; isolation and the latest news on the state of our world; or the threat of world instability. It was a frightening time, indeed.

What we can do is examine our thinking and ask ourselves if the fear we are feeling is correct. Does this situation call for a fear response? If we reason that it does not, then we must calm our bodies and replace our fearful thinking with an optimistic, hopeful response. We may have to do that through sheer will, which can be challenging, but not impossible.

We begin by closing our eyes and taking a deep breath. This interrupts the central nervous system’s automatic response to the perceived threat, which helps reset our brain and our body. What is so interesting is that the fear response we experience, whether real or imagined, begins in our gut, rushing the information that there is a serious need to respond to danger to

meant to be temporary, but the parish never reopened. More than 1,000 families were displaced by the neighborhood clearance, and most never returned. Instead, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis sold the building and land to the city, which later sold it to Prince of Glory Lutheran Church.

The windows, however, returned to the church. The archdiocese gifted them to the new congregation, who used the church as a central hub for social ministry in the local neighborhood until 1995. From 1999 until 2004 the Lao Evangelical Lutheran Church used the building to serve the local Southeast Asian community. But the church was ultimately demolished by the city in 2006 in a new round of redevelopment. Today, the windows from St. Martin are owned by the Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA, and they are on loan to the Basilica.

Luiken is a Catholic and a historian with a doctorate from the University of Minnesota. She loves exploring and sharing the hidden histories that touch our lives every day.

ACTION CHALLENGE

uRealize that the fear we feel may be here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Make the effort to find ways to overcome a fear response by taking a deep breath and calming your body and your brain.

uDuring November, read about the life of your favorite saint and learn how he or she overcame the struggles with prayer and a close connection with God.

our brain. When that occurs, the part of our brain we use for reasoning and thinking is overcome by the emotional response that is created by the message from the gut. Taking a deep breath interrupts this process and reengages our thinking brain, which allows us to respond logically to the situation at hand.

God gave us this very beautiful ability to remain calm when our body perceives that there is a very real need to fight, flee or freeze. We do not have to be a pawn to our circumstances, whatever they may be. We can remain calm in a situation that presents stress and fear. This requires us to take a step back, breathe, think things through and make good decisions. When we do so, we are able to take control of the situation that might otherwise overwhelm us.

Soucheray is a licensed marriage and family therapist emeritus and a member of St. Ambrose in Woodbury. Learn more at her website ifhwb com

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

level of the Basilica

TWENTY SOMETHING | CHRISTINA CAPECCHI

Saluting the digital minimalists

It started with news from Camp Wapo, the Bible camp I’d attended as a kid. The camp counselors in Amery, Wisconsin, enforce a strict no cellphone policy: Ditch your iPhone when you arrive, get it back when you leave.

My reaction surprised me. I felt relief, triumph, a sense that the arc of the moral universe, to quote MLK, had been snapped toward justice by noble adults undeterred by the protests of preteens.

This means that kids today can have the same authentic camp experience I’d had, that generations have had. New friends, tippy canoes, midnight adventures. Sun tanning, star gazing, soul searching. Camp could mean something more — not just be a backdrop for TikTok videos.

Georgetown professor Cal Newport makes the case for less screen time in his 2019 book “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World.” A digital minimalist, he explains, is someone who gets lost in a book, a sunset or a woodworking project. These people

ALREADY/NOT YET | JONATHAN LIEDL

What if love is not enough?

The song begins pleasantly enough. In a track from her album “Already, Always,” English folk singer Bess Atwell sings sweetly about walking in the rain to her significant other’s house, wondering if her contentment means “I love you more than I thought I did before.”

But in the midst of pondering this desire and where it points, hesitation interrupts: “But what if love is not enough to keep us?”

Atwell’s question is one that many people ask these days, perhaps especially younger adults, whose openness to self-giving love and permanent commitment has been undermined by the prevalence of divorce amongst their parents. Love, from this perspective, indeed seems like it is not enough. It makes promises it cannot keep, and it can even cause more hurt than the good it brings about.

In such a climate of fear and uncertainty, many are deterred from following love to where it logically leads — for as Chesterton noted, “it is the nature of love to bind itself, and the institution of marriage merely paid the average man the compliment of taking him at his word.” Better to have never loved at all — or to have loved with limitations, which is to say the same thing — than to have loved and risked loss, goes the new wisdom of the age.

And yet, for those who don’t evade or deny it, the ache for a love that fully satisfies and lasts forever remains. What are we to make of it? Is it a compass pointing to nowhere, an unfulfillable longing and therefore a curse?

Atwell entertains the possibility, the next line of her refrain wondering whether the promise of love is nothing but “the biggest joke the big man’s had, and we bear the brunt.”

But as convenient as it might be to explain away the longing for love as a divine hoax, a product of culture, or even a trick of

have developed “a philosophy that puts our aspirations and values once again in charge of our daily experience … a philosophy that prioritizes long-term meaning over short-term satisfaction.”

underpinnings: values pave the way, the big picture trumps fleeting pleasures.

spiritual impact of social media in her new book “I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet.”

every single day and expecting the constant noise and jostling not to take their toll on your spirit,” she writes.

stadium?

discern their vocations and their next steps, they are eliminating the noise.

stage program, a year of preparation before young men enter seminary (or pursue other paths). They may only use their cellphones on Saturdays — a policy the men have come to appreciate.

with each other on a much deeper level than we might initially do right away,” said Dominic Wolters, 23, a St. Paul native who participated in the program last year and is now in his first year of theological studies at the seminary. “It was challenging but also deeply enriching.”

evolutionary biology, something even more fundamental breaks through Atwell’s guarded skepticism. “I don’t want to go adrift,” she repeats several times at the conclusion of the song with increasing insistence (even imploration), before asking the song’s thematic question one last time.

Why, in the face of such evidence of the apparent impossibility of attaining it, does the longing for love persist? Why do we continue to expect something, as if the universe has promised it to us?

The Italian priest Luigi Giussani describes the sort of tension faced by Atwell and so many others today as a place of “impossible aspiration,” a desire for something that you nonetheless have lost hope you will ever possess. As Giussani says, this position is “not so much an openly negative option as it is like stopping oneself, bewildered, on the threshold of the true conclusion—it’s like being the prisoner of a query which continually reopens the wound.”

The desire for love constitutes the human person. To deny it outright is to reduce the person to an object; but to deny that it has a corresponding answer is to render our lives incoherent and without meaning.

The fact that there is so much fear and hesitation surrounding the decision to give ourselves away to someone in love these days, while problematic, is also an affirmation of the fundamental character of our desire for love. As Giussani says, “The more something involves the meaning of living, the more we fear affirming it.”

Our desire for love is not illusory; it is also not a hopeless burden. Rather, it reveals the deepest truth of who we are as human persons. A love that corresponds to this infinite desire exists, but it is true that the love our little hearts generate on their own steam “is not enough to keep us” faithful to it. This is not a flaw, but a feature. We need community and culture as invaluable supports. And, most fundamentally, we need God, who offers us a share of his own selfless love and is the one who our love ultimately desires.

Liedl, a Twin Cities resident, is a senior editor of the National Catholic Register and a graduate student in theology at The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.

Now that the election is over, many people are asking, “Now what?”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops makes it clear that “responsible citizenship is a virtue and participation in political life is a moral obligation.” (USCCB, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, 13)

The obligation to engage in the public square is both a Catholic and American mandate. Our representative republic calls us into active ongoing relationships with our elected officials. Participation drives our system, which means important decisions are left to those who show up. One might not like that the political process requires ongoing effort to build the common good, but that’s the system (“a government of, by, and for the people”) we have. It is why the Church calls us to “faithful citizenship.”

We have many newly elected officials who have been entrusted to fashion the public policies that impact our daily lives. Each needs to receive the Good News and our counsel on legislation. By bringing them the Good News and providing our counsel on legislation, they’ll be better equipped to uphold life, dignity and the common good. By building communication, we help them make informed votes and good laws.

One easy way to begin building these relationships is joining our Catholic Advocacy Network (CAN), mncatholic org/join

Our work as faithful citizens must be led by prayer — Ora et Labora. So, the Minnesota Catholic Conference invites you to join our staff for Adoration at the Capitol.

Join us each first Friday of the month from January to May any time between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the Governor’s Dining Room at the Minnesota State Capitol. In April, adoration will take place April 14 due to Good Friday. By bringing Christ to the Capitol, we can together pray for our elected officials at their place of work.

We are also excited to announce that the great formation and opportunities to meet your legislators that you’ve had through our Catholics at the Capitol events will now be available every week during session.

Join us at our new office next door to the Capitol any Thursday (except Holy Week) at 10 a.m. (January through May). We will equip you to successfully advocate for policies that we’re working on before visiting the Capitol and your legislators. All in about an hour.

Head to mncatholic org/events for details and to RSVP. There you will also find information for First Friday Adoration.

“Inside the Capitol” is a legislative update from Minnesota Catholic Conference.

By Laura Daily Why I am Catholic

Most people who know me would describe me as an overwhelmingly joyful person. Generally, I view this as a good thing, though my housemates have instituted a decibel cap in an attempt to control my particularly audible outbursts. I find great solace in inspiring joy and laughter, and I believe God has especially entrusted me with the mission to do so.

So what’s the deal with Laura? Why is she so joyful? The answer lies in the title of this article. Behold the terribly mundane explanation to my Catholicism: My parents baptized me as an infant. The end.

Just kidding! Ha. My baptism set into motion a beautifully unique roller coaster of a journey, one that only God could have created. I’ve only now come to realize that it has largely focused on surrender.

I had a fairly typical childhood: My years at All Saints Catholic School in Lakeville built a strong foundation for my faith and somehow formed me into the weirdo I am today. I discovered my love for making people laugh and that I didn’t mind acting like a fool to do so. I felt great confidence in my oddities and knew that God loved them all and wanted me to spread humor like butter on the bread of the world.

Fast forward to today: I stand as a witness that true joy lies in Christ. In my teenage and early young adulthood years, I turned to materials and vice in an angst-filled search for satisfaction and a sense of belonging. The instant gratification offered by the world sufficed for a time, but eventually I found that I just felt empty. I wandered aimlessly away from God, wondering why I didn’t feel fulfilled. In hindsight, I think I can say that my missteps came from a place of pride. I wanted complete control of my life and to bask in my worldly attachments.

Thankfully, the Good Shepherd chased after his lost little

Laura. I found a community of amazing, devout Catholics in college that simply glowed with the light of Christ’s love. That light intrigued me, and I learned that it shone out of trust in him. As I learned more and more of Christ, he slowly became more and more irresistible, and I couldn’t help but place my trust in our lovely Savior as well.

What a walk in the park since I had that realization (I say with complete and tasteful sarcasm). Surrender is an active, continual, intentional choice every single day. I can testify that some days the choice is easier than others. In my experience, choosing to surrender relieves the burden of being horribly lost and alone. We have a good Father who walks with us even in the valleys of death. We have a generous Savior who gave his life to save us. How can we not rejoice at that?

I can only hope that my joy, my confident weirdness, will act as a witness to God’s pursuit of me and our unfolding love story. I hope that my joy will act as a witness to the freedom he promises us. I hope that my joy will cause others to stop and wonder, “What’s with her?” so I have the opportunity to openly and joyfully share the light of Christ’s love.

Daily, 25, regularly attends Mass at Nativity of Our Lord and St. Mark, both in St. Paul, and also goes to eucharistic adoration at St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony. She plays softball and volleyball, and belongs to Catholic Softball Group. She likes “breaking into silly dances,” exploring the outdoors, going camping with friends, baking, singing and spending time with loved ones. She hopes to do more traveling and works for a nonprofit called Wishes and More.

Submit your story in 300-500 words to CatholiCSpirit@arChSpm org with “Why I am Catholic” in the subject line.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

“Why I am Catholic” is an ongoing series in The Catholic Spirit. Want to share why you are Catholic?

PARISH EVENTS

Turkey Bingo — Nov. 12: 6:30–9 p.m. at St. Timothy, 707 89th Ave. NE, Blaine. Cost: $10/1 card; $15/2 cards; $20/3 cards. 25-30 rounds. Refreshments. Freewill offering. Hosted by Knights of Columbus Ladies’ Auxiliary. Proceeds will benefit their charities. churchofsttimothy com

Christmas Bazaar — Nov. 12-13 at St. Joseph, 171 Elm St., Lino Lakes. 9 a.m.–3 p.m. Nov. 12; 9 a.m.–noon Nov. 13. Gifts, crafts and decorations from more than 50 vendors. Hand crafted candy and bake sale. KofC beef jerky, egg rolls and more. mystjoes me

Fall Market — Nov. 12-13 at St. Therese, 18323 Minnetonka Blvd., Deephaven. 9 a.m.–7 p.m. Nov. 12; 9–11:45 a.m. Nov. 13. Market Place, bake sale, silent auction, ‘Money Jar’, books, puzzles, DVDs, and a Bottle Bonanza raffle st therese org/events

Lebanese Bake Sale and Country Store — Nov. 12-13: 9 a.m.–1 p.m. at St. Maron Maronite, 602 University Ave. NE, Minneapolis. Lebanese cuisine and other baked goods. Treasures and bargains at the Country Store. stmaron com

CCW Christmas Bazaar — Nov. 12-13 at St. Alphonsus, 7025 Halifax Ave. N., Brooklyn Center. 9 a.m.–7 p.m. Nov. 11; 9 a.m.–3 p.m. Nov. 13. Handmade crafts/gifts, homemade candy/ jellies, the “Christmas Attic” and used bookstore. Delicious multicultural food. stalsmn org

Turkey Bingo — Nov. 13: 1–3 p.m. at Guardian Angels, 8260 4th St. N., Oakdale. Fun family event. $10/person (three cards). Ages 6 and under get a free card. Unlimited pop and popcorn. Gift cards, holiday pies, turkeys and cash prizes. guardian angels org/event/8773466-2022-1113-turkey bingo

Craft and Bake Sale — Nov. 19: 9 a.m.–6 p.m. at Our Lady of Victory, 5146 Emerson Ave. N., Minneapolis. Crafts. Baked Goods. Raffles.

Holiday Boutique — Nov. 19: 10 a.m.–4 p.m. at St. George, 133 N. Brown Road, Long Lake. Merchandise vendors, homemade pies and Christmas cookies. General Store has theme baskets available to purchase, special baked goods, and unique shopping items. Lunch available

AND A CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

A I love the fullness. It’s seldom an either-or, more often it’s a both-and. Sacred Scripture and sacred tradition. Faith and works. We can come to know God through faith and reason.

Q How has this kidney donation

while shopping or to-go. Raffle. st georgelonglake org

Quilters for a Cause Holiday Sale — Nov. 19: 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. at St. Jerome, 380 Roselawn Ave. E., Maplewood. Kitchen items, table runners, pillowcases, baby items and more. Proceeds will support the work of Quilters for a Cause, which makes blankets for charities in the Maplewood area. stjerome church org

Turkey Bingo — Nov. 19: 5:30–9 p.m. at St. Michael, 22120 Denmark Ave., Farmington. Cost: $10 first card; $5 additional cards. $5 for kids with adult purchase.

Sloppy Joe dinner: $9 adult; $5 children 6-12; $40 family (max). Hosted by The Farmington Knights of Columbus. stmichael farmington org

Turkey Bingo — Nov. 19: 7–10 p.m. at Presentation of Mary, 1725 Kennard St., Maplewood. 12 Turkey door prizes. Cost: $0.50/card per game. Great family event. Food available at 6 p.m. presentationofmary org

Annual Sausage Supper — Nov. 20: Noon–6 p.m. at St. Mary, 8433 239th St. E., Hampton. Drive-thru only. Cost: $5 for ages under 9, $15 for ages 10+ years old. Age 90+ free. No need to pre-order — drive-up and pick up meal. stmarys newtrier com

Turkey Bingo — Nov. 20: 5–8 p.m. at St. John the Evangelist, 2621 McMenemy St., Little Canada. Fun-filled family event. 15 turkey games, 15 other games, plus three grand prizes. Door prizes drawn after every game. Free popcorn. Other food items priced at 1980s prices. Concessions open 4 p.m. sjolc org Sts. Peter & Paul Christkindlmarkt — Nov. 26: Noon–8 p.m. at Sts. Peter and Paul, 150 Railway St. E., Loretto. Old World Advent/Christmas fair featuring live music, local artisans and vendors, Bavarian Grill, kids’ games (free), bingo and silent auction. Authentic German and Austrian cakes, along with artisan coffees in our Cafe Vienna. sspap org/christkindlmarkt

PRAYER/RETREATS/WORSHIP

Gold Mass for Scientists and Engineers — Nov. 14: 7 p.m. at St. Mark, 2001 Dayton Ave., St. Paul. Sponsored by the Society of Catholic Scientists. A talk and reception will follow Mass. onestrongfamily org Special Mass for People with Memory Loss —

Nov. 17: 1:30–3 p.m. at St. Odilia, 3495 Victoria St. N., Shoreview. For those with memory loss and their caregivers. Hospitality will follow the Mass with community resource information available. (Please enter through Door 11 on the SE side of the building.) Information at 651.484-6681. stodilia org Advent Day of Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina — Nov. 30: 9 a.m.–3 p.m. at Christ the King Retreat Center, 621 First Ave. S., Buffalo. Advent offers an opportunity to nurture inner life with God through centering prayer. Lectio Divina. Beginners welcome. kingshouse com

SCHOOLS

BSM Senior High Fall Musical: Irving Berlin’s White Christmas — Nov. 17-20 at Benilde-St. Margaret, 2501 Highway 100 S., St. Louis Park. 7 p.m. performances Nov. 17-19, with a 2 p.m. performance Nov. 20. bsmschool org/student life/activities/drama

SPEAKERS

The Word Come to Life — Nov. 17: 6:30 p.m. at Mary, Mother of the Church, 3333 E. Cliff Road, Burnsville. From ‘Inspiration to Illumination’ is a presentation of The St. John’s Bible, with Tim Ternes, Director of The St. John’s Bible at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library at St. John’s University in Collegeville. Free. mmotc org

Journeying Through the Gospel of Matthew — Nov. 21: 7-9 p.m. at St. Frances Cabrini, 1500 Franklin Ave. SE, Minneapolis. Five-part program, also Feb. 13, March 20, March 27, April 17 on the Gospel of Matthew led by Art Zannoni. Ninety-minute talks with 30-minute discussion. Freewill offering. cabrinimn org/journeying through matthew

OTHER EVENTS

‘Sense and Sensibility’ — Nov. 11-13; 18-20: 7–9:45 p.m. at St. Agnes, 530 Lafond Ave., St. Paul. Missed The Boat Theatre. More information and tickets at missedtheboattheatre com Risen Savior Missions Gala — Nov. 12: 5:30–9 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (Mall of America area), 3200

CALENDAR submissions

DEADLINE: Noon Thursday, 14 days before the anticipated Thursday date of publication. We cannot guarantee a submitted event will appear in the calendar. Priority is given to events occurring before the next issue date.

LISTINGS: Accepted are brief notices of upcoming events hosted by Catholic parishes and organizations. If the Catholic connection is not clear, please emphasize it in your submission. Included in our listings are local events submitted by public sources that could be of interest to the larger Catholic community.

ITEMS MUST INCLUDE the following to be considered for publication:

uTime and date of event

uFull street address of event

uDescription of event

uContact information in case of questions

Thecatholicspirit com/calendarsubmissions

E. 81st St., Bloomington. Mary, Mother of the Church and Knights of Columbus #6374 are partnering with Risen Savior Missions, a Catholic missionary organization, to host their “Every Child is a Gift” Gala. Social hour, dinner, silent auction, wine pull, quilt raffle, and a short video of the mission work. More information, cost and registration at tinyurl com/3yamtnuk

Ring in the Holidays — Nov. 17: 5:30–9:30 p.m. at the Landmark Center, 75 5th St. W., St. Paul. Elevate Life’s annual gala to help 37 pregnancy resource centers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Swing dancing with live music by the NorthStar Big Band. Guest speaker is Seth Gruber, founder and president of The White Rose Resistance, and host of the podcast “UnAborted.” elevatelifeusa org/gala

Trivia Night — Nov. 19: 5:30–7:30 p.m. at Guardian Angels, 8260 4th St. N., Oakdale. Tables of eight adults. Tickets: $20 in advance online or $25 at door. Or purchase a table online. Proceeds support 2023 GA Youth Mission Trip. Pizza, popcorn, snacks, wine, pop and beer available. tinyurl com/yc3j4f5a

shifted your thinking about gift giving?

A It’s hard for people to receive gifts. For Brian, it was hard for him to receive this gift. I had the easier role. Early on in the process, he told me, “If this all works out, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to thank you.” I didn’t know how to respond. I mentioned it to the Mayo social worker, and she said, “If he says

that again, you just say, ‘Live a good life. Be happy.’” So, I told him that the next time he brought it up. And now his family has a little sign above the fireplace that says, “Live a good life.” I guess it was for sale at the Mayo gift shop.

Q Sometimes “thank you” doesn’t feel like enough. You just have to gratefully accept the gift, knowing words are inadequate.

A And that’s OK.

Q We’re entering into a season of giving thanks. What have you come to understand about the role of gratitude in the spiritual life?

A Gratitude leads to joy. And we’re all created for joy. It’s hard to be crabby when you make a habit out of counting your blessings.

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PRAYERS

NOTICE: Prayers must be submitted in advance. Payment of $8 per line must be received before publication.

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THELASTWORD

Post-Roe v. Wade

March for Life 2023 will mark celebration, determination

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit

JackDorcey, a landscape designer and member of St. Pius X in White Bear Lake, plans to go. So does Bill Dill, youth ministry events coordinator in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office of Marriage, Family and Life.

At least 146 others from the archdiocese will join them Jan. 17-22 for the first post-Roe v. Wade March for Life in Washington, D.C. — a pro-life event that began in 1974 and protested the first anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in all 50 states.

March for Life draws tens of thousands of people to the streets of the U.S. capital every year.

With the high court overturning Roe v. Wade June 24, the Jan. 20 march and rallies, expositions and conferences surrounding it in Washington will have a decidedly celebratory flavor. But with the question of abortion back in the hands of federal and state lawmakers, there also is the reality that battling for the unborn — while spiritually and materially helping women who struggle with the decision to choose life — is not over.

“When we first started it was the (President Barack) Obama years,” Dorcey said, noting his first year at the March for Life in Washington was in 2011. “So, it was rather bleak. It felt like an insurmountable hill we were climbing.”

Yet Dorcey, others in the archdiocese and across the country persevered. At least on the U.S. Constitution front, the right to life has won.

“I always knew it would come,” Dorcey said. “I didn’t think it would come this fast.”

Dorcey has made every March since 2011, although community health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic turned the 2021 March for Life into a mainly virtual event and prompted the archdiocese to instead hold a “Life: Youth and Family Conference” at several sites in St. Paul that drew more than 600 people.

Dill said he was camping with his family in the Colorado mountains when they got word from text messages that Roe v. Wade had been overturned.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” Dill said, even though word had leaked out that the high court might rule the way it did. “It was overwhelming. It was unbelievable, even though the report had leaked, that it could happen.”

“Having this reversed was a triumph of truth, even though we still have a long way to go,” Dill said. “Hitting that turning point, it was profound.”

As Dill and other organizers in the archdiocese get ready to fill buses this year, they also are considering staying home in the future, to help change hearts and minds among abortion rights forces in Minnesota. The success of the event in St. Paul in 2021 appears to demonstrate that approach is effective, he said.

While March for Life organizers plan to hold the annual march in Washington, D.C., this year and, at least for now, into the future, the focus on that team also is turning to the states. March for Life President Jeanne Mancini has said there is a new emphasis on statewide marches, an effort that began in her organization a few years ago.

The Archdiocese’s Office of Marriage, Family and Life, is sponsoring the trip to Washington this year, just as it has since 2009 — first for college students only. This year it has about 40 places left for high school students and their family members and for college students to sign up for the trip. People can learn more and register at archspm org/marchforlife A special invitation is also going out this year to

High

Washington, D.C.,

2012,

‘UNTIL ABORTION IS UNTHINKABLE’

When the Supreme Court ruled June 24 that there is no constitutional right to abortion, the historic decision came a day before what would have been the 98th birthday of Nellie Gray, founder of the March for Life.

The march — which Gray, a Texas-born government lawyer, founded in 1974 to mark the first anniversary of the court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide — is a fixture of Catholic pro-life activism and bus pilgrimages to the nation’s capital.

The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and Gray’s mission accomplished, led to speculation as to the future of the national march.

Will it continue?

Yes, said Jeanne Mancini, who became March for Life president in 2013, a year after Gray’s death.

But there’s a new emphasis on growing statewide marches, an effort that began a few years ago.

“We will still be having our federal legislative battles,” Mancini said on a June 29 webcast, “Life Beyond Roe,” sponsored by a consortium of pro-life groups.

But “I would say the voices will have more impact at the state level” as state legislatures act on abortion legislation, she said.

March for Life has held state marches in several states, including Connecticut, Virginia and California. Growing year by year over the next six years, the plan is to have March for Life marches in all 50 state capitals.

In a June 25 statement, Mancini promised, “We will continue to march until abortion is unthinkable.”

—

Kurt Jensen, Catholic News

Service

people who have made the trip in the past, Dill said.

The March for Life has been a critical part of pro-life efforts, Dill said. It brought the issue to the attention of the entire country, year after year. Speakers and conferences have helped give people — young people in particular — the wisdom, knowledge and words to engage people in respectful conversations about life — when it begins, and the reverence it needs to be given, he said.

“I’ve said this many times,” Dill said. “Many young people came on the trips intuitively pro-life, but they weren’t really sure why. When they came home, they knew why, and they could discuss it.”

COURTESY ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. PAUL and MINNEAPOLIS

school students and others from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis join the March for Life in the streets of

in

the second year the archdiocese organized the pilgrimage for high school youth.

COURTESY ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS Pilgrims from the archdiocese on the March for Life in 2020 pose for a photo in front of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.