Called by Name

Celibacy is discerned alongside the priesthood. In the Roman Church celibacy is a discipline that is the norm for all ordained priests. This is distinct from various eastern Catholic Churches which allow for married priests while all bishops are celibate. The church venerates the celibate life for her priests because our high priest, Jesus Christ, was celibate. The tradition of the church also proclaims that all the apostles, the first bishops, lived celibately following their call from Christ, and that this is not simply a way for priests of the church to ‘have more time’ for ministry, but it is a call into a spousal relationship with the church itself.

Father Nick Adam

The longer I live my priesthood the more I appreciate the spousal aspect of my celibacy. Just as a husband lives for his wife and seeks to give himself to her in all that he does, the priest should do the same for the church. As the love between a husband and wife bears fruit through children and in the community, the priests’ love for the church and his care of protection of her brings forth spiritual fruit in the people of the parish and those that he encounters in the wider community.

Priesthood is most fruitfully lived by men who understand and ‘lean into’ their spousal identity. This means that priesthood is not reserved for men who otherwise would not desire marriage, or who simply want to ‘do good in the world.’ Priesthood is for men who are invited into a relationship with God through the church that brings out a not just a true fatherhood, but first a spousal union. Men are husbands before they are fathers, and so a priest has to be dedicated to giving himself fully to his bride, the church.

When a man is discerning the priesthood, he should pay close attention to the call to celibacy. There should be a discernable movement within the heart of a man as he progresses through the seminary that he is willing and able to give his life away for his bride. Our society has many roadblocks to maturity that sometimes need to be tackled outside the seminary system, and so it is my job and that of the formators at the seminary to help our men see those roadblocks and overcome them. In our day, the ability to commit to lifelong covenant relationship is inhibited by constant distractions, some more gravely immoral than others. Our understanding of our own manhood can be threatened by cultural movements that seek to limit the specific genius of masculinity and femininity. All of these issues are addressed within the seminary as men are encouraged and required to grow in maturity so they are able to be a leaven in society, not to simply go with the flow.

If he is not willing or able to grow in this identity, then he is may not called to priesthood, or he needs to step away in order to grow in maturity and an understanding of who he is as a man. The church needs husbands and fathers seeking to give themselves completely for the life of the church. The call to celibacy must be present if a man is to live out his priesthood as a true spouse of the church, and as he gives himself more and more to that life giving relationship, he will see the fruits of his labor through many spiritual children.

– Father Nick Adam

If you are interested in learning more about religious orders or vocations to the priesthood and religious life, email nick.adam@jacksondiocese.org.

Statues assist in evangelization

From the Archives
By Mary Woodward

JACKSON – Travelling statues is once again the topic of our archives journey.

This past weekend I was in Greenwood at Immaculate Heart of Mary parish for the celebration of Confirmation with Bishop Joseph Kopacz. As you may recall, IHM sadly was vandalized back in January and their beloved statue of the Blessed Mother was severely damaged.

We were able to restore the statue through the gifted hands of Eyd Kazery and return her to the parish in time for the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in June.

This past Sunday for the first time I was able to see her in person adorning her newly designed place of honor in the church. Joy welled up in my heart to see her standing there watching over the congregation.

For centuries statues have adorned churches and churchyards reflecting images of our Catholic faith family. When people ask me why Catholics pray to statues, I respond by asking them if they have photos of their parents and grandparents somewhere such as the staircase wall.

I go on to explain that our statues and images of saints are similar to their family photos. The images invoke reverence for people who have inspired us, and we believe in faith to be in heaven available to offer prayers on our behalf to God. That usually does the trick and in answering the question an act of evangelization has just occurred.

JACKSON – Diocesan seminarian and some strong Belhaven University students were able to move the Sacred Heart of Jesus and St. Francis statues in the Bishop’s Cemetery next to the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle. (Photos courtesy of Mary Woodward)

Statues at the Cathedral took center stage as tools of evangelization the week of Thanksgiving.

Last year two statues in the Bishop’s Cemetery had to be moved to prepare the grave for Bishop Joseph N. Latino. Those two statues – the Sacred Heart of Jesus and St. Francis – never got moved back. We had left them in place not only because the Sacred Heart looked as if it were consoling St. Francis and that is a very appropriate scene in a cemetery, but also because they weigh about 400 – 500 lbs. each.

Herein lies the evangelization moment. We have a Belhaven University baseball player named Luke from Lake Charles, Louisiana, who serves at the 10:30 Mass on Sunday at the Cathedral. He loves his Catholic faith and remarked to me one Sunday in the sacristy that there were several other Catholic players on the team who did not always make it to Mass.

Remembering the misplaced statues, I suggested perhaps we could get them interested in coming to Mass if we had some kind of service project such as moving the statues. Luke took this to heart and the Monday before Thanksgiving he showed up for the daily noon Mass at the Cathedral with several teammates.

It just so happened several of our diocesan seminarians were at Mass and just like that we had 10 strapping young men to move those two statues. Indeed, it was a Holy Spirit moment.

The bonus was we wanted the statues placed in different spots from their previous locales and the young men were so very amenable to wrangling them some 20-25 feet from where they were.

The Sacred Heart statue was first to move. He was the heavier of the two and he was too heavy for the dolly. So, they basically walked the statue into its place along the side wall of the Cathedral. At times it looked like a dance and at other times a wrestling match, but mission accomplished.

St. Francis was lighter and easily moved on the dolly to his spot overlooking the bishops’ burial plots with the Sacred Heart. Passersby may now see both statues more easily and hopefully be inspired to offer prayers for our deceased bishops.

After the project was complete, our seminarians invited the teammates into the Cathedral where I gave them an expedited tour of the stained-glass windows and sanctuary along with a little history of the diocese before they headed back to campus. A couple of the baseball players were so enthusiastic they volunteered to come back and move things whenever we needed help.

Mission accomplished. We had connected them to a parish, and they want to come back and be a part.

Evangelization 101 – invite people to church. We know the Lord uses us in creative ways to bring people closer to him. You never know who is seeking the Lord and may be inspired by your sincere invitation.

Hymns of Advent, source of hope, inspiration

By Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz, D.D.

The season of Advent this year is perfectly balanced with four full weeks, and on this weekend we arrive at the half-way point celebrating Gaudete Sunday, an invitation to rejoice in the Lord.

St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians eloquently prepared the way of the Lord for that early Christian community, and for Christians in every age. “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say: Rejoice! Let your kindness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything but present your needs to God in prayer and petition, with thanksgiving. Then the peace of God which is beyond all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:4-7)

Joy and peace are part of the package of blessings from the Holy Spirit and are the fruits of our salvation in Jesus Christ which the Heavenly Hosts announced to all the world on the first Christmas night, and it has been our hope ever sense.

Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz, D.D.

Following the Lord throughout the year we know that we cannot separate his birth from his suffering, death and resurrection. Yet, even on the night before he died, he prayed that his disciples would know his peace, the power that the world cannot give. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled; be not afraid.” (John 14:27) Upon arising from the dead the first words to his disciples huddled in fear were, “peace be with you” before showing them his hands and his side. (John 20:19)

In the joy of birth and in the sorrow of suffering and death the Lord assures us that his peace can stand guard over our hearts. This is a precious gift for those who are grieving over serious loss during these holy days or holidays. One can easily get more depressed or sorrowful when confronted with the expectation that it is a time to be merry or happy, like in “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” Even “Merry Christmas” can ring hollow if overcooked.

With Mary, our Blessed Mother, we are called to hold and be held by the Son of God and allow his peace to stand guard over our lives. We pray for one another that the peace of Christ which is beyond all understanding dispels the darkness of doubt and fear, grief and shame as the ultimate Christmas gift. May we be present to one another in a way that cuts through that which fades quickly to that place where the Lord dwells within us.

Whatever the circumstances of our lives, let us then continue to prepare the way for the Lord in ways that works for us. The hymns of Advent can be a source of hope and inspiration and in a particular way the church embraces the beloved hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” especially coming down the home stretch that carries the faithful to Christmas Eve.

This hymn contains the O Antiphons which represent the yearning of the people of Israel for the Messiah. The verses of the hymn are applied as the Gospel antiphons beginning on Dec. 17 and they can deepen in us a hunger for the Savior.

“O, come, O Wisdom from on high! O, come, O Lord of power and might! O, come, O Flower of Jesse’s stem! O, come, O Key of David! O, come O Radiant Dawn! O, come, O King of All the Nations! O come, O come, Emmanuel!” This hymn can easily be combined with the Advent wreath in our homes during the week before Christmas to prepare the way of the Lord.

At this point in time in Advent, the Blessed Mother points the way to come to her Son through faith. The feast of the Immaculate Conception and of Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrate her love for the church and her singular role in God’s plan of salvation. The following is the prayer after Communion on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and a fitting ending prayer for the column.

“Lord God, may the Body and Blood of your Son, which we receive in this sacrament, reconcile us always in your love; and may we who rejoice in Our Lady of Guadalupe live united and at peace in this world.”

MADISON – St. Francis parish hosted a special evening of worship and adoration for Advent with Catholic musician, John Finch and his band on Sunday, Dec. 4. (Photo by Melissa Smiley)

Called by Name

The Christmas decorations are going up in the rectory and in downtown Jackson and I know that the halls are being decked at our seminaries as well. As we prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas, we give thanks for the gift of the church, the Eucharist and the priesthood. Here are a couple of updates of note as we near the end of another year!

On May 20, 2023, Ryan Stoer and Tristan Stovall will be ordained to the transitional diaconate. This is the final step before priestly ordination, and it has been a long journey for both Ryan and Tristan to come to this point. The ordination will be at 10:30 a.m. at the Cathedral.

Father Nick Adam

Shortly after their ordination, Ryan and Tristan will be joining myself and two of our other seminarians for a two-month immersion trip to Mexico in June and July. I have written about this immersion in previous issues. It will be an opportunity for our seminarians, and myself, to gain incredibly important language skills so we are better able to walk with all of our parishioners.

Following that trip, they will embark on their diaconal ministry assignment. This is a big step in the journey of every seminarian. The diaconal assignment is always a little longer than a typical summer, and it gives the newly ordained deacon a great chance to celebrate liturgies and to preach at Mass. Ryan will be at St. Joseph Parish in Gluckstadt while Tristan will be a St. Mary Basilica in Natchez. I know that the people of these parishes will be very supportive and I thank Father Matthew Simmons and Father Aaron Williams for supporting our formation program by walking with these men.

On May 27, 2023, Deacon Carlisle Beggerly will be ordained to the priesthood. His initial priestly assignment will be decided at a later date. Deacon Carlisle completed his diaconal assignment at St. Francis in Madison and is now finishing up his Master of Divinity at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. It is always exciting to set these on the calendar, and please keep these men in your prayers as they near these milestones.

I am also happy to report that the proceeds from our 3rd Annual Homegrown Harvest Festival stands at $142,515.06. This is a really remarkable total and speaks to the support that is present for our seminarians and formation programs. A great thanks also to those who gave to the Department of Vocations as a part of #iGiveCatholic. Please keep all nine of our seminarians in your prayers that they have a restful and rejuvenating Christmas holiday and that their upcoming annual retreat is grace-filled and helpful to their discernment.

– Father Nick Adam

If you are interested in learning more about religious orders or vocations to the priesthood and religious life, email nick.adam@jacksondiocese.org.

Baby Jesus’ wish list

Stewardship Paths
By Julia Williams

JACKSON – Odds are you’ve got a Christmas list going by now — gift ideas for everyone from your nephew to your goddaughter to your mailman. But what about the birthday boy? What’s the gift Jesus gets from you this Christmas?

Artwork: Madonna and Child, Provincia di Firenze, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence, c. 1466-1469. Public Domain.

If you’ve ever read the Book of Leviticus, you know all about the sacrifices God asks of the Israelites, referred to in the reading from Hebrews today. Leviticus can be a chore to read — a little repetitive, a little intimidating. There’s a lot of very specific actions that God asks His Chosen People to complete to make up for whatever they have done wrong. In essence, it’s a bit of a wish list for gifts.

But it’s a wish list that can really confuse you. What’s God going to do with a cereal offering? The kidneys of an animal? If you look closely, what God is doing here is beautiful. He’s customized his wish list to only those things He knows the Israelites can give. It’s God saying, in what amounts to theological baby-talk for folks who barely know of Him and His ways, exactly how they could be stewards. “Do this, but don’t do that. If you do that, do this and you will find My mercy.”

Our guide to stewardship — the Gospels of Christ — is less precise because by the time of Christ, God’s people have grown in understanding of love and mercy and relationship with the divine. Through Christ, we find out that God’s real wish list didn’t really consist of cereal offerings and the kidneys of various animals. It’s far simpler, but luckily, it’s something we still have on-hand.

All He wants is our whole heart.

Source: Tracy Earl Welliver, MTS, 4lpi.com.

God’s anger – our feelings of guilt and shame

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

My early religious training, for all its strengths, placed too heavy an emphasis on fear of God, fear of judgment, and fear of never being good enough to be pleasing to God. It took the biblical texts about God being angry and displeased with us literally. The downside of this was that many of us came away with feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred, and understood those feelings religiously, with no sense that they might have more of a psychological than a religious origin. If you had feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred, it was a signal that you were not living right, that you should feel some shame and that God was not pleased with you.

Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Well, as Hegel famously taught, every thesis eventually spawns its antithesis. Both in the culture and in many religious circles today, this has produced a bitter backlash. The current cultural and ecclesial ethos has brought with it a near-feverous acceptance of the insights from contemporary psychology vis-à-vis guilt, shame and self-hatred. We learned from Freud and others that many of our feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred are really a psychological neurosis, and not an indication that we are doing anything wrong. Feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred do not of themselves indicate that we are unhealthy religiously or morally or that God is displeased with us.

With this insight, more and more people have begun to blame their religious training for any feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred. They have coined the term “Christian neurosis” and have begun speaking of “being in recovery” from their churches.

What’s to be said about this? In essence, some of this is healthy, a needed corrective, though some of it also suffers from its own naiveté. And, it has landed us here. Today, religious conservatives tend to reject the idea that guilt, shame and self-hatred are mainly a neurosis (for which our religious training is responsible), while religious liberals tend to favor this notion. Who is right?

A more balanced spirituality, I believe, combines the truth of both positions to produce a deeper understanding. Drawing on what is best in current biblical scholarship and on what is best in contemporary psychology, a more balanced spirituality makes these assertions.

First, that when our biblical language tells us that God gets angry and unleashes his fury, we are dealing with anthropomorphism. God doesn’t get angry with us when we do wrong. Rather what happens is that we get angry with ourselves and we feel as if that anger were somehow “God’s wrath.” Next, most psychologists today tell us that many of our feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred are in fact unhealthy, a simple neurosis, and not at all an indication that we did something wrong. These feelings only indicate how we feel about ourselves, not how God feels about us.

However, that being admitted, it is too simple to write off our feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred as a mere neurosis. Why? Because even if these feelings are completely or largely unmerited, they may still be an important voice inside us, that is, while they don’t indicate that God is displeased or angry with us, they still can be a voice inside us that won’t be silent until we ask ourselves why we are displeased and angry with ourselves.

Here’s an example. There is a wonderfully enlightening exchange in the 1990s movie, “City Slickers.” Three men are having a conversation about the morality of having a sexual affair. One asks the other, “If you could have an affair and get away with it, would you do it?” The other replies: “No, I still wouldn’t do it.” “Why not?” he is asked, “nobody would know.” His response contains a much-neglected insight regarding the question of guilt, shame and self-hatred. He replies, “I would know and I would hate myself for it!”

There is such a thing as Christian “guilt neurosis” (which incidentally is not limited to Christians, Jews, Muslims and other religious persons, but is universal among all morally sensitive people). However, not all feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred are neurotic. Some are trying to teach us a deep moral and religious truth, that is, while we can never do a single thing to make God angry with us for one minute, we can do many things that make us angry with ourselves. While we can never do anything to make God hate us, we can do things that have us hate ourselves. And, while we can never do anything to make God withhold forgiveness from us, we can do things that make it difficult for us to forgive ourselves. God is never the problem. We are.

Feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred do not of themselves indicate whether we have done something wrong, but they do indicate how we feel about what we have done – and that can be an important moral and religious voice inside us.

Not everything that bothers us is a pathology.

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

World Marriage Day celebrates gift of marriage as vocation, sacrament

Kneading Faith
By Fran Lavelle

My first parish after graduating from college was Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Columbus, Ohio. Holy Spirit also had an elementary school and was truly a neighborhood parish. The parish was mostly made up of families with young children and older married couples who raised their children in the parish and school.

Fran Lavelle

That first year at Holy Spirit was the first time I was really aware of World Marriage Day. It may have been that during my high school and college years I had not paid attention, or it might be that our university parish did not celebrate World Marriage Day in a significant way. In any event, I recall the priest at Holy Spirit inviting all of the married couples to stand and re-new their wedding vows. As the married couples stood, I remember looking around and seeing a sea of children still seated along with myself. It was and still remains a powerful image in my mind. I remember witnessing those couples, young and old, recommitting their lives to one another. The vow to love one another in good times and in bad is much more profound knowing that a couple have had their share of both in the years they have been husband and wife.

I have a friend who has been married for over 50 years. In reflecting on her marriage, she speaks to how organically their marriage has evolved over the years. She told me once that she and her husband have had four “mini-marriages” within their one marriage. It is natural that as we age, we grow and mature.

In their marriage they were able to meet the challenges of their changing relationship as they moved through the various stages of life. Now retired, they have had the opportunity to look back and see that the work they put into remaining together built a bond that they could not have imagined on their wedding day. She tells me often that it is all a gift. The good and the not so good helped them grow in their love and strengthened their commitment to one another. If you are a couple or know a couple who have been married for a number of years you know exactly what I am talking about.

The church in her wisdom rightly celebrates the gift of marriage as both vocation and sacrament. It is important for single people, young couples, and newlyweds to see what enduring love and sacrifice look like.

Each February the diocese celebrates the gift and witness of marriage. Under the leadership and planning of the Office of Family Ministry all couples celebrating their 25th, 50th and 60th wedding anniversaries are invited to the Diocesan World Marriage Day celebration. It will be held Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023, at 3 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. Peter in Jackson, Mississippi. There will be a Mass followed by a reception. To register contact your parish office or go to www.jacksondiocese.org/family-ministry to register yourself. For additional information or questions, please contact Debbie Tubertini at the Office of Family Ministry at (601) 960-8487 or email debbie.tubertini@jacksondiocese.org.

May your commitment to your marriage be a great witness to the young people in your life just as those couples were for me all those years ago. This year I will be celebrating my first World Marriage Day as a newlywed. God willing, we will have many years to celebrate the gift of our late life vocation. Keep loving one another well. I know it is my long-term plan!

(Fran Lavelle is the Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Jackson.)

From darkness into light this Advent

GUEST COLUMN
By Sister Constance Veit, LSP

Our motherhouse is located on a large property in a tiny village in rural France. With its old stone buildings, expansive pastures, flower gardens and shaded pathways, it’s a gorgeously bucolic setting and the most peaceful place I’ve ever been.

During the year that I lived there I don’t think I heard a single airplane overhead, an emergency siren or even a car horn. The nighttime silence and dark, starlit skies were especially striking.

Looking up at the stars I felt the deep security of knowing I was enveloped by God’s love.

The memory of those starry Breton skies still quiets my soul and fills me with a sense of peacefulness in the midst of life’s inevitable difficulties.

Sister Constance Veit, LSP

What a contrast this is to the darkness enveloping our Ukrainian brothers and sisters this winter as their country continues to be bombarded on a daily basis. This darkness is not a blanket of security or prayerful serenity – although cries to God no doubt rise from it – but an inescapable cloud of fear and dread.

As I think of the people of Ukraine during this Advent season, I am reminded of the words of the prophet Isaiah about the people dwelling in darkness. (Is 9:2ff) This passage speaks of a burdensome yoke, a taskmaster’s rod, boots tramped in battle and cloaks rolled in blood.

This is harsh military imagery.

The people living in darkness are wounded and oppressed, like our Ukrainian brothers and sisters today. They desperately need someone to shine a light into the cold cellars and improvised bunkers in which they huddle.

They need a savior.

It is just after the winter solstice, the darkest point of the year, that we celebrate the coming of our Savior at Christmas. Isaiah proclaims, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Upon those who lived in a land of gloom a light has shone …For a child is born to us, a son is given to us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”

In their icons Ukrainian Catholics and Orthodox Christians traditionally portray the Nativity scene as a black cave surrounded by jagged rocks. This inhospitable setting represents the cruel and sinful world into which Jesus was born.

From heaven a large star sends a single shaft of light to pierce the darkness and guide the viewer’s eye directly onto the baby lying in the manger. This babe is the light that will dispel all darkness.

An Orthodox monk reflecting on the Nativity icon wrote, “O God, upon whom will the light shine if not those who live in darkness? If I truly feel that I am in darkness, then I surely will seek the light.”

This insight helps us to understand that the miracle of Christmas is not automatic. We must realize our need to be plucked out of the darkness that surrounds us – we must intentionally seek the light.

For most of our contemporary world, Christmas is filled with bright lights, shiny baubles and excesses of every kind. It is difficult to quiet our hearts enough to seek the true light we so desperately need.

Perhaps an act of solidarity with our Ukrainian brothers and sisters can help us to clarify our priorities this Christmas.

Archbishop Borys Gudziak, Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia and the highest ranking Ukrainian clergyman in the United States, recently spoke at a meeting of U.S. bishops.
He suggested that we open wide a window in our home, turn the lights out and sit there long enough to really feel the cold. This act of solidarity, he suggested, will help us to feel what the Ukrainian people are experiencing everyday as this war drags on.

May this simple gesture of empathy and solidarity inspire us to intensify our prayers for peace, that the light of Christ will truly pierce the darkness this Christmas – the darkness of sin and war enveloping our world, and the darkness that lurks in each human heart.

O Lord, God-Hero and Prince of Peace, how we need you! Come into our world anew this Christmas and dispel the darkness with your divine light!

(Sister Constance Veit is the communications director for the Little Sisters of the Poor in the United States and an occupational therapist.)

Called by Name

The Friday before Thanksgiving is a day of great rejoicing for many of our seminarians. For one thing, their Thanksgiving break has arrived and they’ll have a week to spend with family and friends and prepare for their final exams. That Friday is also the day of the annual bonfire at St. Joseph Seminary College. This tradition that goes back many decades and so many of our priests have taken part in it (including myself). The students at St. Joseph (which, because it is a Benedictine monastery, we know as St. Ben’s – confusing I know!) spend the early weeks of November gathering and stacking timber that has fallen around the

Father Nick Adam

property and then stuffing it with as much brush as they can. Thankfully there are 1200 acres of trees at St. Ben’s and usually a hurricane will have pushed through earlier in the fall and provided plenty of raw material. The night before the bonfire the students and faculty have a gathering to bless the fire and ask the Lord to make the next evening a time of fraternity and community that will build up the future priests of the church. Then on bonfire day the men from Notre Dame in New Orleans cross Lake Pontchartrain to join their younger brethren for a football game followed by a great dinner and the lighting of the fire.

My favorite bonfire memories were usually from the football game. It’s amazing how pumped up you can get to compete against another team when there is only one other team to compete against and you only play them once a year. I used to always play receiver, not because I was athletic, but because I was a good field spacer because I knew all the routes and I could open up the field for our more athletic teammates to get open. One time, our quarterback threw me a bone and tossed me a touchdown pass on 4th and goal from the 1-yard line. I was so honored that he trusted me in that moment, but when we talked about it on the sideline, he said — “that was 4th down? I thought it was 3rd or I would have never thrown that to you!”

Those moments are particularly fun for me to reflect on now that I am walking with our current seminarians. Their great memories will be different from mine, but I know that the Lord will give them the same encouragement from these events that I received. The fraternity experienced in seminary is special, and it has endured long after ordination. We have so much great support for our seminarians throughout the diocese, and that support doesn’t just help them learn about theology and liturgy, it gives them opportunities to build friendships that will help sustain their ministry for decades to come.

Father Nick Adam

Can anything good come from Okarche Oklahoma?

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
It is not enough merely to have saints; we need saints for our times! An insightful comment from Simone Weil. The saints of old have much to offer; but we look at their goodness, faith, and selflessness and find it easier to admire them than to imitate them. Their lives and their circumstances seem so removed from our own that we easily distance ourselves from them.
So, I would like to propose a saint for our times, Stanley Rother (1935-1981), an Oklahoma farm boy who became a missionary with the poor in Atitlan, Guatemala, and eventually died a martyr. His life and his struggles (save perhaps for his extraordinary courage at the end) are something to which we can easily relate.

Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Who is Stanley Rother? He was a priest from Oklahoma who was shot to death in Guatemala in 1981. He has been beatified as a martyr and is soon to become the first male born in the United States to be canonized. Here, in brief, is his story.
Stanley Rother was born to a farming family in Okarche, Oklahoma, the oldest of four children. He grew up helping work the family farm and for the rest of his life and ministry he remained forever the farmer more than the scholar. Growing up and working with his family, he was more at home tilling the soil, fixing engines and digging wells than he was reading Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. This would serve him well in his work with the poor as a missionary, though it served him less well when he first set out to study for the priesthood.
His initial years in the seminary were a struggle. Trying to study philosophy (in Latin) as a preparation for his theological studies proved a bit too much for him. After a couple of years, the seminary staff advised him to leave, telling him that he lacked the academic abilities to study for the priesthood. Returning to the farm, he sought the advice of his bishop and was eventually sent to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland. While he didn’t exactly thrive there academically, he thrived there in other ways, ways that impressed the seminary staff enough that they recommended him for ordination.
Back in his own diocese, he spent the first years of his priesthood mostly doing manual work, redoing an abandoned property that the diocese had inherited and turning it into a functioning renewal center. Then, in 1978, he was invited to join a diocesan mission team that had begun a mission in Guatemala. Everything in his background and personality now served to make him ideal for this type of work and, ironically, he, who once struggled to learn Latin, was now able to learn the difficult language of the people he worked with (Tz’utujil) and become one of the people who helped develop its written alphabet, vocabulary and grammar. He ministered to the people sacramentally, but he also reached out to them personally, helping them farm, finding resources to help them and occasionally giving them money out of his own pocket. Eventually he became their trusted friend and leader.
However, not everything was that idyllic. The political situation in the country was radically deteriorating, violence was everywhere and anyone perceived to be in opposition to the government faced the possibility of intimidation, disappearance, torture and death. Stanley tried to remain apolitical, but simply working with the poor was seen as being political. As well, at a point, a number of his own catechists were tortured and killed and, not surprisingly, he found himself on a death list and was hustled out of the country for his own safety. For three months, back with his family in Oklahoma, he agonized about whether to return to Guatemala, knowing that it meant almost certain death. The decision was especially difficult because, while clearly he felt called to return to Guatemala, he worried about what his death there would mean to his elderly parents.
He made the decision to return to Guatemala, fired by Jesus’ saying that the shepherd doesn’t run when the sheep are in danger. Four months later, he was shot to death in the missionary compound within which he lived, fighting to the end with his attackers not to be taken alive and made “to disappear.” Instantly, he was recognized as a martyr and when his body was flown back to Oklahoma for burial, the community in Atitlan kept his heart and turned the room in which he was martyred into a chapel.
A number of books have been written about him and I highly recommend two of them. For a substantial biographical account, read Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda, The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run. For a hagiographical tribute to him read Henri Nouwen, Love in a Fearful Land.
We have patron saints for every cause and occasion. For whom or for what might Stanley Rother be considered a patron saint? For all of us ordinary people of whom circumstance at times asks for an exceptional courage.

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