For the Journey
By Effie Caldarola

As my mom grew older, she became less mobile. When we’d visit the mall she wouldn’t walk to the parking lot; we’d find a secure bench outside a store, and she would wait there for us to bring the car around.

Often, when we’d drive up, Mom would be engaged in conversation with someone, sometimes another elderly person sharing the bench. Mom would tell us what she’d learned of that person’s life, and we’d chuckle about her uncanny ability to extract information from strangers – and cringe a little to imagine what she might have shared about us.

Most of us have seen that television commercial where an insurance company, tongue in cheek, explains how new homeowners shouldn’t become their parents. Funny, yes, but I detect a whiff of ageism as the millennials need help not becoming the kind of people – like their boomer parents – who chat up someone in an elevator or attempt to help some stranger find a product on the store shelf.

Admittedly, the ad is a little exaggerated, but is friendliness such a bad thing?

When I visited my daughter on the East Coast, I would often travel along a busy river walk near her home. It was striking to me how no one spoke. Everyone looked determinedly straight ahead. I thought perhaps I’d been a native Midwestern and an Alaskan for too long.

Then, I moved to a small eastern town. Everyone walks here and, almost to a person, everyone says hello. I’ve had 15-minute conversations with strangers who stop to chat. A person I’d never met introduced herself and gave me a treat to feed her little dog. A nanny stopped with her stroller and pointed to a house where she noticed Amazon packages had sat for several days. Should we call in a wellness check? A young man stopped to converse about a house for sale on my block.

What was going on here? In this town, an historic town with lots of big old houses, the population seems racially homogeneous, fairly prosperous and similar in many ways. Does this make people feel safer and more open? The river walk, on the other hand, was a much more diverse mix, from different neighborhoods. And in all fairness, those on the river walk were perhaps more focused on exercise than the neighborhood walkers.

Still, what are the barriers to our friendliness?

I thought about this at Sunday’s greeting of peace at Mass. Still in no-touch COVID mode, people turn, give a little wave and mouth the word “peace.” I smile, but despite our split-second attention to each other, I know that when I leave Mass I won’t know those folks any better.

Coffee and donuts, anyone?

I assure you, I’m not the person who starts a conversation on an airplane. I say hello and pull out my book. I do not chat people up on elevators.

But neither do I want to create a shield to protect me from others. I want to be aware of the person who needs help, who appears ill, or who just needs a friendly smile. I don’t want to fear diversity, or become that person who mutters, “I don’t want to get involved.”

Despite the fact that in our country, people have been shot for turning up the wrong driveway, or for being a Black person shopping for groceries, I want to be with those who notice and care about each other, and act with friendliness. I think this is part of our faith commitment, our seeing Christ in each person we encounter.

Perhaps I am becoming my mother, after all. And you know what? That’s a good thing.

(Effie Caldarola is a wife, mom and grandmother who received her master’s degree in pastoral ministry from Seattle University.)

Reflections on Life
By Melvin Arrington

This time of year families travel to vacation destinations, hoping to occupy their days away from work and school with plenty of fun-filled activities and relaxation. While away, they seek distraction in various forms of entertainment, especially novelty, something unavailable in the locale where they reside. At vacation’s end, many of them, if they are honest with themselves, are actually eager to return to the familiar surroundings of that special place they call home. Whenever I’ve been away for an extended period, I too have been happy and excited when the time came to leave and go back to my family.

Home holds precious memories and evokes a powerful sense of place and of belonging. Everyone sooner or later hears and responds to its irresistible call. Every year at homecoming alumni return to college campuses to renew old friendships and show support for their alma mater. And during the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, family members inevitably converge on their parents’ or grandparents’ house, as if drawn there by a magnet.

We all have a location of one sort or another we can go back to. It may be our birthplace or where we were raised. It may be where we have lived the longest or even where we currently reside. In any case, it’s that specific spot to which we feel deeply connected, the place we love that grounds us and sustains us. It’s where we feel at ease – comfortable, safe and loved. It’s our center, a geographical area we might even refer to as God’s country. As the saying goes, home is where the heart is. Perhaps this is why so many people desire to return to the land of their birth to be buried.

Born and raised in Jackson, I called the Capitol City home for most of my early life. After graduating from college, I moved away and lived for about ten years in several other states before returning to Mississippi and settling in Oxford, where I have resided for the last 40 years. Mississippi is where I’ve spent most of my life and career. It’s where my wife, children and grandchildren live. It’s home, a term that surely must be on the short list of the most beautiful words in our language.

When I fill out forms that ask for my permanent address, I write the location of the house my wife and I live in. But my domicile is not really permanent in the strict sense of the word because this world and everything in it is transitory; it’s slowly but surely passing away. However, one thing will not pass away, and that’s the church.

As members of the Mystical Body of Christ we can all say that our real home in this world is the church. When we’re in God’s house praying along with our brothers and sisters in Christ, uniting our worship with that of the saints in heaven, and receiving communion – the Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord – it’s heaven on earth!

But we can take it a step further because our ultimate dwelling place is the one our Blessed Lord has prepared for us. We believe this because of His promise: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions … I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again, and I will take you to myself; that where I am, there you also may be.” (John 14:2-3) No one knows what it will be like, but it will surely be more beautiful and wonderful than anything we can imagine: “Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love him.” (I Corinthians 2:9)

So, what does this strong impulse to return to one’s point of origin mean? Is it part of a ritual of self-discovery and a search for the meaning of life? Does it signify an archetypal journey back to the source – to God, our Creator and the source of our being? Is it a longing for heaven? Whatever the case may be, in the meantime we remain here in a world dominated by the philosophies of materialism, hedonism, relativism and all the other “isms” that run counter to the Kingdom of Heaven. As C. S. Lewis noted in Mere Christianity, “we are living in … enemy-occupied territory – that is what this world is.” But then he goes on to say “I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death … I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.”

As I get older, I find myself thinking more and more about my ultimate destination. Maybe it will be like Lewis’ beautiful description of Aslan’s country at the conclusion of The Last Battle, the seventh and final volume of The Chronicles of Narnia. Near the end of the book, one of the characters, upon arriving there, remarks: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.”

I love these lines because they perfectly summarize the way I felt when I was received into the Catholic Church. That day, after many years of searching and seeking, I finally reached the end of my journey to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church established by Jesus Christ. I found the fulfillment of my deepest longings and rest for my restless heart. It was like coming home. And as Dorothy says in The Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home.”

(Melvin Arrington is a Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages for the University of Mississippi and a member of St. John Oxford.)

Faith in Action
By Jacob Eftink

TUPELO – For many years Knights of Columbus council #8848 has supported the local crisis pregnancy center, Parkgate Pregnancy Center. Parkgate offers high quality, confidential services. The center has an outstanding, dedicated staff including supportive counselors and a sonographer to guide their clients along the way. All services are free of charge made possible by generous community members, including the Knights of Columbus.

Services include pregnancy tests, ultrasound sonography, and counseling. Parkgate also provides the Empower program, a relevant, real-life class for students in grades 7-12 teaching healthy decision making, sexual risk avoidance and more. Other services include parenting for first time parents; mentor programs to support new parents. Parkgate also connects clients with other resources in the community.

The unique location of the pregnancy center provides visibility to potential clients in an underserved community. The nearest abortion clinic is in Memphis about 100 miles away. There are two major universities and a U.S. Air Force base within 60 miles of the center.

Parkgate’s needed to replace their aging, leased ultrasound machine and the Supreme Knights of Columbus Ultrasound Program was a natural fit. The program has well defined parameters and criteria. With the support of Knights of Columbus supreme and state officers, the local council was able to successfully navigate through the process. Ultimately, Parkgate Pregnancy Center formally qualified for the ultrasound program after a thorough survey on Dec. 6, 2021 by the Diocese of Jackson.

The Tupelo Knights of Columbus council’s major fundraiser event, the 6th Annual Charity Concert Gala, took place on Aug. 13, 2022, at St. James Catholic Church in Tupelo. The concert featured extremely talented musicians from the region. There were over 200 concert goers from the parish and community. Ultimately, about $11,000 was raised at the event. The Mississippi council generously contributed $7,000 for a total of $18,000 raised. Supreme Knights of Columbus ultrasound program added the other 50% of funds for a grand total of $36,000 for the final purchase of the GE ultrasound machine. Collaboration among the Pregnancy Center, the Diocese of Jackson, then local, state, and supreme Knights of Columbus council was been inspiring. This was truly a blessed project.

The local ultrasound program officially concluded with a dedication ceremony on May 23, 2023 at Parkgate Pregnancy Center. Parkgate staff, board members, parishioners from St. James Catholic Church, and Knights of Columbus members were in attendance to enjoy the celebration.

One of the highlights was when the sonographer, Stacy Armstrong, demonstrated the new machine and the images of unborn babies it produces. She commented the new machine’s quality is a marked improvement over the old one. We agreed the ultrasound room is sacred space where decisions for life are made every day as a direct result of mothers seeing the images of their unborn children.

(Jackob Eftink served as chairman for the ultrasound program for the Father Reitmeier Knight of Columbus Council #8848 in Tupelo)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Elizabeth Poreba ends a poem, No Good Company, with these words:
I’ve got no banter,
I’m all judgement and edges, an edgy white lady
Wondering what to do, what to do next
As in Jesus is coming, look busy.

At the wedding feast in Cana, Mary tells Jesus – they have no wine – asking him to create some. What do wine and banter have in common? Both bring a needed extra into our lives.

Let’s start with wine. Wine is not a protein, something the body needs to be nourished and kept alive, part of an essential diet. It’s an extra that provides something special for one’s health. Taken with the right spirit and in moderation, wine can help lift the mood, lighten the heart and warm the conversation, even as it helps (at least for the moment) lessen some of the tensions among us. It’s a grease that can help make a conversation, a family dinner or a social gathering flow more pleasantly.

Banter? Well, like wine, if taken with the right spirit and in moderation, it can also lift the mood, lighten the heart, warm a conversation and lessen tensions at a gathering. Classical Greek thought suggested that love has six components: Eros – emotional and sexual attraction; mania – emotional obsession; asteismos – playfulness and banter; storge – care and solicitousness; pragma – practical arrangement and accommodation; philia – friendship; and agape – altruism.

Normally, when we think of love, we think of each of these components, except the aspect of banter and playfulness. Our romantic selves identify love very much with emotional obsession and sexual attraction. Our religious and moral selves identify love with care, friendship and altruism; and our pragmatic selves identify it with practical arrangement. Few speak of the place and importance of banter or playfulness, of healthy teasing, of humor, but these are often the grease that keeps the others flowing more smoothly.

Here’s an example: For all my adult life, I’ve lived in various religious houses, in community with other vowed religious (in my case, men). We don’t get to pick with whom we live, but are assigned to a community, along with everyone else who lives there. And we come together with our different backgrounds, different personalities and different eccentricities. This can be a formula for tension and yet, for the most part, it works, is pleasant and provides life-giving support and fellowship. What makes it work? Why don’t we end up killing each other? How do we live (for the most part) pleasantly together beyond our differences, immaturities and egos?

Well, there’s a common mission that keeps us working together and, most importantly, there’s regular common prayer that helps us see each other in a better light. But, very importantly, there is banter, playfulness, healthy teasing and humor which, like wine at a table, help take the edge off things and ease the tension inherent in our differences. A community that doesn’t stay light-hearted through banter, playfulness and healthy teasing will eventually become everything that light-hearted is not, namely, heavy, drab, full of tension and pompous. In every healthy community I’ve lived in, one of the things that made it healthy (and pleasant to come home to) was banter, playfulness, loving teasing and humor. These are rich wines that can enliven the table of any family and any community.

This, of course, like drinking wine, can be overdone and be a way of avoiding harder conversations that need to be had. As well, banter can keep us relating to each other in ways that actually hinder genuine community. Humor, banter, the jokester and the prankster need to know when enough is enough and when serious conversation needs to happen. The risk of overdoing banter is real, though perhaps the greater risk lies in trying to live together in its absence.

Banter, playfulness, loving teasing and humor don’t just help us relate to each other beyond our differences, they also help deflate the pomposity that is invariably the child of over-seriousness. They help keep our families and communities grounded and pleasant.

I grew up in a large family, with each of us having strong personalities and plenty of faults; yet save for very few occasions, our house, which was physically too small for so large a family, was pleasant to be in because it was perennially filled with banter, playfulness, humor and healthy teasing. We seldom had wine, but we had banter! When I look back on what my family gave me, I am deeply grateful for many gifts: faith, love, safety, trust, support, education, moderation and moral sensitivity. But it also taught me banter, playfulness, healthy teasing and humor. No small gift.

At the wedding feast in Cana, Jesus’ mother noticed that, even though a wedding celebration was happening, something wasn’t right. Was it a heaviness? An over-seriousness? Was it an unhealthy pomposity? Was there a noticeable tension in the room? Whatever. Something was missing, so she goes to Jesus and says: “Son, they have no banter!”

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

Things Old and New
By Ruth Powers

The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is coming up on July 16, so it is appropriate at this time to learn about a popular sacramental used by Catholics that has its origin in the Carmelite order. Many people are at least somewhat familiar with the brown scapular, and may even wear one regularly, without realizing what it means and what responsibilities the brown scapular places on the wearer.

The brown scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel traces its origin to an English Carmelite friar, St. Simon Stock, who lived about 250 years ago. It symbolizes the garment of the Blessed Virgin and represents in a very small scale the brown and cream habits of the friars, nuns and sisters of these orders. On a larger scale the scapular is the habit of the Secular Carmelites in both congregations. This scapular places the wearer under the protection of Mary in a special way.

Many people who are not associated formally with the Carmelite orders also wear the brown scapular as a sign of their devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, but in so doing share not only in the resulting graces but also in the responsibilities which those graces confer. Because it incurs spiritual responsibilities, an individual should be invested with the brown scapular by a priest or other authorized person. Thereafter, either the brown scapular or the scapular medal may be worn.

The official manual of the Carmelite orders on the catechesis of the brown scapular provides the following description of Carmelite spirituality:

1. Frequent participation at Mass and reception of Holy Communion;
2. Frequent reading of and meditation on the Word of God in sacred Scripture;
3. The regular praying of at least part of the Liturgy of the Hours;
4. Imitation of and devotion to Mary, the woman of faith who hears the word of God and puts it into practice;
5. The practice of the virtues, notable charity, chastity (according to one’s state in life), and obedience to the will of God.

Those who wear the brown scapular are expected to take part in these practices to the extent possible according to their state in life.

Since the brown scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a sacramental administered by the two Carmelite orders, a person who wears this scapular or medal is affiliated with the Carmelite community throughout the world, however loosely, and many find hope and consolation in the writings of the three Carmelite doctors: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and St. Therese of Lisieux.

The official manual of the brown scapular states the following:

The brown scapular is not:

1. A magical charm to protect you;
2. An automatic guarantee of salvation; or
3. An excuse for not living up to the demands of the Christian life.
   

The brown scapular:

1. Is a sign which has been approved by the church for over seven centuries (since the founding of the Carmelite orders);
2. Stands for a decision to follow Jesus, like Mary;
   a. Open to God and His will;
   b. Guided by faith, hope and love;
   c. Close to the needs of people;
   d. Praying at all time; and
   e. Discovering God present in all that happens around us.

Unfortunately, there is a great deal of misinformation in some Catholic circles regarding the brown scapular. Perhaps the most common misconception involves the “Sabbatine Privilege.” The so-called Sabbatine Privilege alleged that wearers of the brown scapular would receive early liberation from purgatory (on the first Saturday after death) through the special intercession of the Virgin Mary. This derived from a papal bull attributed to Pope John XXII, which has been known to be fraudulent since 1613, and the Carmelite order is prohibited from mentioning or supporting this “privilege.”

The brown scapular is a powerful sacramental gift to us, but one which must be understood and used properly in order to gain the graces it promises. As the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel approaches, give some consideration to making this devotion part of your life.

A special thanks goes out to Elizabeth Boggess, a member of the Secular Carmelite community in Natchez, for her invaluable help in preparing this column.

(Ruth Powers is the program coordinator for The Basilica of St. Mary in Natchez.)

On Ordinary Times
By Lucia A. Silecchia

If it is graduation season, then it is graduation speech season too.

High schools, colleges, and even elementary schools seek out high profile speakers to impart their wisdom to graduates – or, at least, they aim to. I am a bit dubious about what a pampered celebrity or popular sports figure could possibly know about the life of an average graduate, and I am disappointed when political speakers bring disheartening division to what should be a final moment of unity for a class that has lived four or more years together.

When I think about the wisdom imparted to me in the speeches at my graduations, I cannot recall what any speaker said to my classmates and me.

What I have recalled, through decades of university life, is all the wisdom imparted to me by those who did not tell me how to live a good and great life, but by those who showed me how to do so. With prayerful gratitude, I can remember so many people whose lives well lived told me more than the most eloquent of speeches ever could. In the quiet, humble ways so loved by Christ, their lives were silent speeches I will never forget.

So, if you are graduating this year, enjoy your graduation and the speeches given that day. I hope that they inspire you to goodness, greatness, and holiness.

However, I hope that you will also think about what you have been taught by the people you met along the way. In their silence, not in their speeches, what did you learn from:

• The maintenance worker who, after long days at work, left for a second job to support his family and see his children attend college and live the dreams he dreamt for them?
• The staff member battling a serious illness who still spent time patiently helping students with problems that must have seemed so trivial to her?
• The teacher who taught an early morning class with grace and good cheer after spending most of her evening awake with a parent suffering with dementia and unable to sleep – or to recognize the daughter who kept vigil with her?
• The campus chaplain who became the voice of hope and courage when public tragedy struck campus – or private heartache struck any member of the campus community?
• The fellow student who made sure that a classmate who went home after the sudden death of a parent did not fall behind, and shared notes, wisdom and review time with kind generosity?
• The server in the university cafeteria who greeted everyone with love, asked how all were doing – and really, truly wanted to know?
• The quiet classmate who found the courage to confront a bully, and in an instant changed the culture of the playing field?
• The student athlete who lost a critical match and, with grace and good sportsmanship, congratulated a victorious opponent with genuine admiration for a job well done?
• The roommate who prayed quietly at the break or close of day and whose example reawakened your own faith?
• The professor whose family extended a Thanksgiving invitation to anyone who could not travel home for the holiday weekend?
• The classmate who gave birth to a child – planned or unplanned – and did not sacrifice motherhood for mortarboard? All those who supported her with material and intangible support?
• The professor who noticed that you were not yourself and cared enough to ask what was wrong?
  

I have known some of these people. Others have told me about some of them.

The truth is that schools and universities are filled with people such as these. They are people who will often not be well known, whose names will not be announced as graduation speakers, and who will not be receiving honorary degrees.

Yet, if you are graduating, I hope you will think about those whose lives touched yours and whose lives were loving lectures without words. If you can, thank them with your words and with your prayers. No matter how eloquent your graduation ceremonies may be, it is those such as these who impart the wisdom of ordinary time.

May God bless them, and the class of 2023!

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)