Remaking ordinary time

ON ORDINARY TIMES
By Lucia A. Silecchia

She was selling her wares at a rural autumn festival – the hand-knitted scarfs, sweaters, baby clothes and blankets that she made to sell to those of us gathered around her table to admire her creations.

I had purchased a few things from her last year – for myself and for loved ones. So, I was glad to see that she was back. Patience is not a strong suit of mine. Hence, my admiration for those who take so much time to make something beautiful by hand is particularly great. This year, I bought a blanket knitted with some favorite colors in a joyful design.

Lucia A. Silecchia

There was a fortunate, brief lull in the activity around the table – interrupted only by a young woman who stopped by to buy a dinosaur hat that, somehow, she managed to wear with style. The chill in the air, perhaps, prompted this otherwise unlikely fashion choice.

In that interlude, I asked how long it took to make a scarf, or a baby blanket, or, yes – a dinosaur hat. The friendly artisan gave me her best estimates. But then she told me that it could take much longer because sometimes she found herself in the midst of a project, would look at it honestly, decide it was not right, unravel it and begin again.

I suppose it should not have surprised me that someone who created such beautiful things would have a bit of the perfectionist in her. Yet, it also struck me that it must be difficult to look at something that had taken so much time and effort to make and be willing to unravel it all and start anew.

I wonder, though, if there is great wisdom in having the strength to do just that. To make a change and to unravel errors, misplaced values and mistaken priorities takes grace and strength. To start afresh without clinging to the false starts of the past is a gloriously difficult challenge.

Perhaps, as the days shorten and another year is winding down, the knitter’s wisdom may have a place. When we start to look back at the year that is drawing to a close and prepare for the excitement of a new year with its fresh starts and resolutions, it is easy to tinker around the edges of things and make some small adjustments to the patterns of everyday life.

Yet, sometimes in life, there can be an invitation to do more and to make more radical new beginnings.
I suppose that I would never have noticed if the blanket I bought had defects in it. “Pretty good” would have been good enough for me. Yet, it would not have been good enough for the talented woman who knitted it together. She knew that sometimes starting over was the best way to move beyond “pretty good.”

Maybe in this season of joyful hope and new plans, a prayer for the grace to unravel the old and begin again is a prayer worth praying.

A blanket, hat or sweater created from the unraveling of imperfect ones are beautiful things. Yet, we have also been promised that “whoever is in Christ is a new creation.” 2 Cor. 5:17. I have to think that a newly created son or daughter of God is far more beautiful.

So, with gratitude for the good example of a knitter willing to unravel the old and reweave the new, I hope she is an inspiration to do the same and remake our ordinary times.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America. “On Ordinary Times” is a biweekly column reflecting on the ways to find the sacred in the simple. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

‘Take care to guard against all greed’

FOR THE JOURNEY
By Effie Caldarola (CNS)

My great-grandfather, a refugee from the devastating famine in Ireland, came to Nebraska to farm. Generations later, I grew up on that farm.

I have roots – literal and figurative – in the land he purchased, a very small acreage of which I still own.
These roots help me to identify with the farming images of the Gospel. Jesus lived in a largely agrarian economy.

Sowing, reaping, noticing weeds along the roadside – this was Jesus’s world. He saw sheep grazing on hillsides, fishing boats plying the waters, full measures of grain being pressed into laps.
He knew the familiar smells of manure, and the fishy odor of a catch being unloaded. Jesus lived in an earthy, messy, tactile world.

Effie Caldarola writes for the Catholic News Service column “For the Journey.” (CNS photo)

So, the other day when the Gospel reading was about the man who was harvesting so much grain that he decided to tear down his barns and build bigger ones, I could identify.

I’m familiar with the language of grain prices, yields (how many bushels did an acre produce), the perennial worries about hail and drought.

And I certainly know people who have built bigger barns. We might call that success or business acumen, and sometimes it is.

But in the reading from Luke 12, Jesus couches his story about the rich man who built bigger barns as a story of greed. Why?

First of all, notice how often Jesus rails against hypocrisy and greed. These are the social sins he cares deeply about.

Jesus lived among the poor, in a society that offered no “safety net.” The rich grew richer without fair taxation, a story familiar in America today.

So what’s the problem with the successful farmer? I don’t think his ample harvest is what Jesus decries.

No, instead it’s his attitude toward wealth and his inability to see the bigger picture of his own life.

In Jesus’ parable, the rich farmer dies and is called to account for his life that very night, after his big barns are built and he’s feeling flush. What good is his wealth to him now? All of us will face that day.

Jesus says, “Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.”

He adds, “Take care to guard against all greed, … for one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

Stuff. We Americans have an enormous amount of stuff, and yet we always want more. We rent millions of storage units for our possessions, and yet we want more.

It’s a spiritual challenge, especially with the excess and consumerism of an American Christmas approaching.

It’s normal to save and plan for retirement. And yet, how often do we obsess about it?

Like the greedy farmer, we yearn to eat, drink and be merry – when we have “enough.” But what is “enough”?

Our church proclaims a “preferential option for the poor.” This term was first used by Father Pedro Arrupe, leader of the Jesuits, in 1968. St. John Paul II wrote of an “option for the poor” in his 1991 social encyclical “Centesimus Annus.” This concept runs throughout Hebrew and Christian Scripture.

Does it run through our lives? Do we vote with this concept in mind? Do we give, not just from our excess, but sacrificially, to the Lord through his poor, first? Do we feed the hungry? Welcome the refugee, like my great-grandfather? Clothe the naked?

When Jesus tells us to “take care,” I think he wants us to understand how short life is and how much better our lives and world could be if we lived simpler, more generous lives in every way.

(Effie Caldarola writes for the Catholic News Service.)

Bishop’s charter marks 20 years, church desires hope and healing

By Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz, D.D.
This year in the Catholic Church marks the 20th anniversary of the Dallas Charter, when the American Catholic Bishops through the charter document and its essential norms “promised to protect and pledged to heal,” committing the church to safe environments for our children, young people and their families.
Because of our sins and crimes, justly, as an organization, the church has been in the crucible, and the purification continues. Yet, the experience of the past twenty years has shown that an organization’s culture can be transformed when best practices are put in place and all in the organization are required to abide by them. In the church, this includes all the ordained, professed and baptized who work with children.

Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz, D.D.

Over the past twenty years new allegations and actual proven cases of abuse are far and few between. Even one case is one too many, but we have learned how to protect in our church programs and gatherings. Moreover, the pledge to heal comes from the heart of Jesus Christ because we are his body, far more than an organization, who hunger and thirst for healing and peace for all who have been so unjustly harmed by wolves in sheep’s clothing. This Gospel imperative must be at the center of all that the church does on the road back to the abundant life Jesus promised to all believers.

For all in the church and in the world who are steadfast in their love for children’s safety and flourishing, we can rejoice in the recent declaration of the United Nations.

On Nov. 10, 2022, the General Assembly declared Nov. 18 as the World Day for the Prevention of, and Healing from Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Violence. The resolution, which was sponsored by Sierra Leone and Nigeria and co-sponsored by more than 120 countries, was adopted by consensus and a bang of the gavel by the assembly’s acting president, which was greeted with loud applause. Following the action, H.E., Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, Permanent Observer of the Holy See United Nations, New York addressed the Assembly expressing appreciation for the UN’s action, and the full support of the Vatican State for the newly adopted World Day.

Over 50 individuals including leaders of prominent child welfare and advocacy organizations, and survivors of child sexual abuse (CSA), including several who experienced abuse by clergy, joined H.E. Fatima Maada Bio, the First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone, a survivor of child marriage, as she addressed the General Assembly urging action. “Child sexual abuse is a global public health crisis. We must acknowledge this problem, and take every necessary action to protect our children, especially our girls, from this tragic human condition.” Her eloquent, impassioned speech was greeted with a round of applause, and cheers from survivors in the gallery.

Mark Joseph Williams, an abuse survivor, speaks during a Nov. 15, 2022, session of the fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

“Child sexual abuse is one of the greatest violations to human dignity, one can suffer,” said H.E. Ambassador Alhaji Fanday Turay. “The World Day for the Prevention of, and Healing from Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Violence is a critical step in bringing institutional recognition to this horrific childhood trauma. Too many victims of child sexual abuse are suffering in shame and silence. Many live anguished lives. By adopting this Resolution, we can provide a platform for all nations and civil society to mobilize and take actions to protect children from this tragedy.”

“We promoted the World Day to increase awareness of the actions all governments can take to prevent abuse and bring healing to survivors,” said Dr. Jennifer Wortham, a researcher at Harvard who founded the Global Collaborative, the survivor led network that led the international advocacy campaign to launch the world day. Wortham’s brothers are clergy abuse survivors, and Wortham shared that they have struggled with the effects of their abuse for their entire lives. “The World Day will help my brothers and all survivors of child sexual violence to know that the world cares about them, that they matter, that what they experienced was unjust, and that healing is possible,” said Wortham.

Finally, the world has spoken, and this is a victory for us all,” said Mark Williams, clergy abuse survivor, and advisor to the Archdiocese of Newark. “This day has been extraordinary, I am filled with awe, and peace.” At the Bishop’s recent meeting in Baltimore, Williams addressed the assembled body along with Cardinal Joseph Tobin, his Archbishop of Newark, N.J. to encourage the bishops that the Lord can make a way where there is no way. Healing, hope, and a new dawn are God’s desire for all in the church, especially the victims of sexual abuse.

Williams and Cardinal Tobin’s witness and friendship from the center of the church, the United Nations declaration, and a growing world-wide commitment to human flourishing on behalf of children and young people make this Thanksgiving an extra special day of gratitude in our nation and in our world.

Cemeteries house archives written in stone

From the Archives
By Mary Woodward

JACKSON – Cemeteries are fantastic, visual archives. The history of a community, a church, a family is literally written in stone. In a few short phrases, a person’s life is summed up: “Devoted Mother,” “Beloved Son,” “Christian, Southern Gentleman,” “Faithful Wife.” Often it is a favorite scripture verse such as John 3:16 or a favorite poetry line such as “horseman pass by.”

Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA, asked that the words “she tried” be on her tombstone. William Faulkner has “Belove’d Go with God” on his marker. One poignant one I have seen is “In the end it all comes down to one word, Grace.” And we all have that person in our family who warrants the “I told you I was sick” epitaph. As Catholics, we like to see R.I.P. on a grave for requiescat in pace or rest in peace.

Currently, the chancellor’s office is assisting in an inventory of Catholic cemeteries in the diocese. We have a listing of all the parish connected cemeteries, but often when a chapel or mission church closed decades ago, small cemeteries can be left off of the registry. We welcome any information on these locations.

JACKSON – Mary Woodward uses a pickaxe to assist in digging a grave at Chapel of the Cross Episcopal Church in Madison County. On left, Woodward left Bishop Joseph Latino’s favorite flower on his gravesite in the Bishops’ Cemetery next to the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle in Jackson. (Photos courtesy of Mary Woodward and Joanna Puddister King)

In our diocese, we have several Catholic cemeteries dating back to the early 1800s. Paulding St. Michael, the second oldest parish in the entire state, has a beautiful cemetery filled with founding family members. There is a forest of bamboo standing 30-feet high that surrounds much of the back of the cemetery. Not long ago, St. Michael parishioners with the advice of Mississippi State’s Extension Service invested in a barrier to keep the bamboo from spreading farther into graves. They also built a fence around the graveyard to keep the occasional nocturnal burial from occurring as can happen in small country cemeteries.

It is fitting we are doing this during the month of November. November is the month to remember the dead in our Catholic faith. It opens with the Solemnity of All Saints where we honor all those ordinary people in our lives who were saints to us. The next day is All Souls in which we honor the dead and, in many traditions, decorate graves and have picnics in cemeteries.

The Bishops’ Cemetery on the Cathedral grounds is right across the street from the Chancery. Each year we place flowers on the graves of Bishops Richard Gerow, Joseph Brunini, William Houck and Joseph Latino. This year, as we positioned the roses and sunflowers, I was able to reflect on these men and the act of assisting in burying three of the four.

Because of the location and design of the Bishops’ Cemetery, the graves are hand dug. This is a very arduous task which takes a team of gravediggers many hours to complete.

Burying the dead is a corporal work of mercy and we all have in some way participated in burying the dead by planning funerals, being present for the family, celebrating the funeral Mass, bringing food to the repast. But actually digging the grave with a shovel and pickaxe is a profound way to fully immerse oneself in the act of mercy.

Recently, I participated in two such acts. My brother is head of the gravedigger’s guild at Chapel of the Cross Episcopal Church in Madison County. He invited me to join in for a dig in August and then again last week.

The cemetery at the Chapel dates back to the mid-1800s and is on a serene piece of property off Hwy 463. The congregation has never allowed equipment onto the property to dig graves. All the graves have been hand dug and the guild coordinates the digging. It is seen as a unique ministry to the family of the deceased – an act of love.

My brother had marked the grave and at 4 p.m., the top sod was removed and set aside, then the team began making its way through soil, clay, roots and the occasional brick down into the cool, damp earth. The shovel crew would give way to the pickaxe crew, who would break up a few more inches of terra firma for the shovellers to get back in and remove. Eventually there is room for only one in the grave at a time. All stand around in support waiting to relieve the current digger by pulling her/him out and the next digger goes in.

This past week, as we dug down to the target depth, the family of the deceased, along with those who had come to pay their respects at the wake service, ventured over to the dig bringing food for the guild and chairs to watch the completion of act. Family members even participated in helping to dig, climbing down into the grave of their loved one and shoveling out clay.

At the end of the dig, the grave was blessed, and libations were passed around in a shared bottle as the deceased was toasted by the team and the gathered assembly. All of this took place under God’s watchful November sky.

As we continue this journey through the month of the dead and we pray for our deceased loved ones, let us be reminded of the sacred places where we bury our family and friends. These are true archives of our communal life and of lives well-lived awaiting the resurrection of the dead – a collection of short epithets giving a permanent record of and an eternal glimpse into those lives.

(Mary Woodward is Chancellor and Archivist for the Diocese of Jackson.)

Spotlight on Catholic Education: Luke gives summary of year, so far

By Karla Luke
JACKSON – Things have been very active in the Office of Catholic Education since school began in August. It hardly seems possible that the first quarter for our administrators, faculty and students has come and gone. The 2022-2023 school year is significant for us as we fully embrace our annual theme of service; the Office of Catholic Education (OCE) seeks to better serve the school community at large by providing more support for administrators, teachers and students.

For the first time since the pandemic, the Office of Catholic Education held the annual Diocesan Professional Development Day for Catholic Schools in person at St. Joseph Catholic School in Madison.The event welcomed over 450 teachers, teacher assistants, staff, administrators and pastors from 19 different institutions for Mass, spiritual refreshment and reconnection.

Members of the chancery also joined us on this special day with the educators. The day began with Bishop Joseph Kopacz celebrating Mass and sharing his message with all for a spirit-filled and successful school year.

MADISON – Father Tony Ricard of the Archdiocese of New Orleans speaks to educators during the Office of Education’s annual Diocesan Professional Development Day in September. (Photo by Karla Luke)

The keynote speaker for the morning was Father R. Tony Ricard, a priest for the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the campus minister and theology teacher at St. Augustine High School in New Orleans.

Father Tony spoke on the Office of Education’s theme for the year: “Serve the Lord with gladness!” As a former third grade public school teacher, Father Tony related to the difficulties educators face while uplifting them and connecting their experience with our vocation as Catholic school educators.

During the afternoon, teachers met in small groups to discuss common issues and share best practices for addressing current issues facing schools today. Some groups met with chancery employees to discuss daily practices, new policies and procedures. The feedback for the day was very positive and illustrated the importance of gathering in the community.
Another significant project that the Office of Catholic Schools is currently undertaking is strategic planning for all schools, Early Learning Centers and the Office of Catholic Education.

Since the pandemic surged worldwide in March 2020, the face of education has also undergone significant changes. The current social-emotional status of our students, the economic state of our state and country, and the rapid pace of technological development all call for a revaluation of our mission and vision to continue providing opportunities for an exceptional Catholic education in the Diocese of Jackson. The Office of Catholic Education will continue to provide updates on this initiative as they become available.

Please continue to support Catholic education in the Diocese of Jackson by supporting your local parish schools. If there is no school in your parish, please support our administrators, teachers and school families with your prayers to produce service-oriented citizens of the Gospel.

(Karla Luke is the executive director of Catholic School for the Diocese of Jackson)

Called By Name

“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

As I was preparing my homily for daily Mass recently, I was reflecting on these words of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Our Lord’s statement reveals that a little faith doesn’t just go a long way, it also produces miracles. After all, it is impossible for a mulberry tree, or any other tree, to be planted in the sea!

But our faith can be shaken. A mustard seed is tiny and is easily lost if we don’t protect it. This is one of the reasons I continue to write this column. We need to be reminded that our faith is shared and we need to build one another up to keep up the fight. It is hard to be a Catholic in a land that has so few. It is hard to promote priestly vocations from our parishes when there are so many other forces in our culture that might distract young people from their calls. But it is a fight worth fighting, and with a little faith, God can work miracles through us!

Father Nick Adam

As Joanna King reported elsewhere in this edition of the Mississippi Catholic, our 3rd annual Homegrown Harvest Festival was a great success, and I have come away from that experience more confident than ever that the Lord is going to do great things in our vocation department. Our POPS group (Parents of Priests/Seminarians/Sisters) continues to solidify with many of our parents supporting one another and coming up with great ideas for the coming year. I am also working with our diocesan chancery on new ways to engage Catholics throughout the diocese to help more people get involved in our vocation initiatives and in supporting our seminarians.

But the most important thing we can all do is pray. Please continue or begin to pray for an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life in our diocese. If everyone who reads this would pray regularly for this intention, I know that it would make all the difference. We ask for the intercession of Mary, Mother of Priests to nurture and protect the vocations of those who are discerning or who will discern the priesthood in the coming year.

The next time you attend Mass, I invite you to offer your Mass intention for an increase in vocations, or better yet, offer your Mass for a young man or woman you know in your parish who you think would make a great priest or religious. Some people ask me: how do I offer an intention at Mass? Well, when the gifts are coming up to the altar, in your mind’s eye ‘place’ your intention on the altar with the bread and the wine. God can work miracles with all that his people present offer to him in the Mass!

Thank you for your continued support of our mission for a Homegrown Harvest, let’s continue to build one another up so we can keep the faith because God is working and he will work miracles as long as we are open to his will for us!

– 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.

Celebrating fifty years of ordination

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Fifty years ago, on an overcast, cold, fall day in the gymnasium of the local public high school, I was ordained to the priesthood. Beyond the grey sky, another thing marked the event. This was a tender season for my family and me. Both our parents had died (and died young) within a year and a half just prior to this and we were still somewhat fragile of heart. In that setting, I was ordained a priest.

Within the few words allowed in a short column, what do I most want to say as I mark the fiftieth anniversary of that day? I will borrow from the novelist Morris West, who begins his autobiography this way: When you reach the age of seventy-five, there should only be three phrases left in your vocabulary, thank you, thank you, and thank you!

Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

I just turned seventy-five and reflecting on fifty years of priesthood, many thoughts and feelings come to mind; life, after all, has its seasons. However, the feeling that overrides all others is that of gratitude, thank you, thank you, and thank you! Thank you to God, to grace, to the church, to my family, to the Oblates, to the many friends who have loved and supported me, to the wonderful schools I have taught in, and to the thousands of people I have encountered in those fifty years of ministry.

My initial call to the priesthood and the Oblate congregation was not the stuff of romance. I didn’t enter religious life and the seminary because I was attracted to it. The opposite. This was not what I wanted. But I felt called, strongly and clearly, and at the tender age of seventeen made the decision to enter religious life. Today, people may well raise questions about the wisdom and freedom of such a decision at age seventeen, but looking back all these years later, I can honestly say that this is the clearest, purest, and most unselfish decision that I have yet made in my life. I have no regrets. I wouldn’t have chosen this life except for a strong call that I initially tried to resist; and, knowing myself as I do, it is by far the most life-giving choice that I possibly could have made. I say this because, knowing myself and knowing my wounds, I know too that I would not have been nearly as generative (nor as happy) in any other state in life. I nurse some deep wounds, not moral ones, but wounds of the heart, and those very wounds have been, thanks to the grace of God, a source of fruitfulness in my ministry.

Moreover, I have been blessed in the ministries that have been assigned to me. As a seminarian, I dreamed of being a parish priest, but that was never to be. Immediately after ordination, I was sent to do graduate studies in theology and then taught theology at various seminaries and theology schools for most of these fifty years, save for twelve years that I served as a provincial superior of my local Oblate community and on the Oblate General Council in Rome. I loved teaching! I was meant to be a religious teacher and religious writer and so my ministry, all of it, has been very satisfying. My hope is that it has been generative for others.

In addition, I have been blessed by the Oblate communities within which I lived. My ministry usually had me living in larger Oblate communities and through these fifty years, I estimate that I have lived in community with well over three hundred different men. That’s a rich experience. Moreover, I have always lived in healthy, robust, caring, supportive, and intellectually challenging communities that gave me the spiritual and human family I needed. There were tensions at times, but those tensions were never not life giving. Religious community is unique, sui generis. It isn’t family in the emotional or psychosexual sense, but family that is rooted in something deeper than biology and attraction – faith.

There have been struggles of course, not least with the emotional issues around celibacy and living inside a loneliness which (as Merton once said) God, himself, condemned. It is not good for someone to be alone! It is here too where my Oblate religious community has been an anchor. Vowed celibacy can be lived and can be fruitful, though not without community support.

Let me end with a comment that I once heard from a priest who was celebrating his eighty-fifth birthday and his sixtieth anniversary of ordination. Asked how he felt about it all, he said, “It wasn’t always easy! There were some bitter, lonely times. Everyone in my ordination class left the priesthood, every one of them, and I was tempted too. But I stayed and now, looking back after sixty years, I’m pretty happy with the way my life turned out!”

That sums up my feelings too after fifty years – I’m pretty happy with the way it has turned out – and deeply, deeply grateful.

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

With gratitude and thanks in all circumstances

THINGS OLD AND NEW
By Ruth Powers
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. –1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
During the month of November, we in the United States traditionally focus on the virtue of gratitude, looking back to that feast celebrated by the Pilgrims as they gave thanks for a good harvest after the first terrible winter they spent in the New World. However, as Catholics and as Christians, we are called to make gratitude one of the central virtues in our lives. We are, first, called to gratitude by the Scriptures. Both the Old and the New Testament speak of the importance of giving thanks to God in all things and all circumstances. The psalms contain many beautiful hymns of thankfulness and praise, that God is the source of all things and that when we recognize this truth, we are moved to thanksgiving. St. Paul teaches about the virtue of Christian thankfulness in many of his letters even when the communities to whom he writes are undergoing trials. Gratitude is also a theme in the writings and teachings of too many saints to enumerate.

Ruth Powers

Often, though, we are more likely to forget that all we have we owe to God, and to become distracted by the concerns of our daily lives and forget to give God the thanks He deserves for all He gives to us. We are much more likely to complain about what is going wrong in our lives than to focus on the gifts we have been given. True gratitude (and not mere politeness) flows out of humility. It begins with the realization that we lack something that has been freely supplied by another because at that time we could not get or do it for ourselves.
As people of faith, we also know that God is the ultimate source of “life, the universe and everything” and so must be the ultimate object of our gratitude. It’s easy to think of doing this when all is well, but St. Paul reminds us that we are to give thanks in all circumstances, not just the good ones, because we never know what part even seemingly bad or uncomfortable things may have in God’s plan for us.
There is a passage in Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place where she and her sister give thanks for the fleas that infest the bunkhouse where they are living in Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. Later they realize that the guards have not searched their bunks and found their contraband Bibles because of the fleas.
At the end of his life, St. Francis of Assisi was blind and in constant pain; yet in these seemingly terrible circumstances, he wrote his most famous prayer, which was a hymn of thanks: “Praise be my Lord for Brother Sun…, Sister Moon and the stars…, Sister Water …, Brother Fire…, our Sister Mother Earth…, Praise and bless my Lord and give him thanks.” We are reminded to cultivate gratitude even when it seems things are going badly for us.
The other issue that cultivating the virtue of gratitude will help to combat is the culture of entitlement that seems to permeate our society. Many people seem to feel that the world owes them preferential treatment for no other reason than an inflated vision of their own importance. Gratitude teaches us that our own labors, important as they may be, have their source in gifts given to us by God and thus should be sources of humility and gratitude toward the one who loves us enough to give us those gifts. We run into immeasurable trouble when we begin to give ourselves credit for what we have rather than giving thanks to the one who is the true source of all.
Although November may be the time culturally when we think about giving thanks, gratitude needs to be nurtured and expressed daily. A very wise retreat master once challenged a group of retreatants to this meditation: “Think about what your life would be like if you woke up one morning and all you had left in your life was what you had thanked God for the day before.” We would do well to meditate on this frequently.

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

Mississippi agates

FROM THE HERMITAGE
By sister alies therese

Did you know Jackson sits on an extinct volcano 2,900 feet under the Mississippi Coliseum, having erupted 75 million years ago and unlikely to blow any time soon? Well, who knows how many Mississippi agates (usually found in volcanic material) there might be?

Maybe you’d find a three-inch thunder-egg shape of varied colors. Agates are often rust-red from the oxidizing iron or yellow, brown, black, grey, pink and even sometimes green. White bands of quartz separate the colors. The translucence of the quartz allows light to shine through and even glow. Fossils are billions of years old, and many are found in our gravel pits. The Mississippi agate is a mere 323 million years old.

Sister alies therese

Shapes are important too, how the water has formed them in the streams as they travel down from the Nashville Dome in Tennessee to the Appalachian Mountains of Alabama. All these rivers are moving toward the gulf and their deposits are still to be discovered near where I live in Northeast Mississippi. They say these ancient gravel deposits were recycled by erosion and made new bars in modern rivers like the Tombigbee. Sometimes they were embedded in floating ice!

Treasures of the heart are frequently the result of much refining and pressure, often formed by the water of tears. Have you noticed? The diamond is beautifully created under pressure; who knew when the first person discovered the magnificent geode’s insides or that a bland and ‘regular-looking- outer- rock’ had a purple amethyst encrusted within?

Consider the Great Star of Africa, (Cullinan I), part of a larger diamond discovered beneath the earth in South Africa in 1905…the largest of the Crown Jewels we learned about during the passing of the queen. It was formed over 400 miles deep in the earth. Worth millions…whose money is it? South Africans think it’s theirs. Why not, it was a gift ‘taken’ from the people’s pocket.

What are the pressures we seem to be under that shave off our rough edges and when someone looks inside, they discover such magnificence? Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman reminds me of one whose guileless splendor exploded through the pressures!

I’ve always been a bit of a rockhound and often collected a small stone from places I’ve visited…a stone from St. Kevin’s Hermitage near Glendalough in Ireland (where his slab of sleeping rock remains), finding a rock with a fossil in a Kentucky creek. A friend brought me the plainest looking rock from her refugee camp in Iraq, another from Elijah’s cave on Mt. Carmel, and another from her workplace in Alaska.

The thing about these stones is that they are indeed plain, nothing could get a big WOW! They are a perfect example of ‘what you see is what you get’. Various sorts of collections like this provide us with ‘prayer-stones,’ reminding us of just who we are praying for. I have a stone from the gravel outside the prison in New Jersey where a friend was on death row. Another stone from Helen Keller’s place in Alabama, and one from a lonely wild cliff in Scotland. Other times I’ve challenged myself to collect perfectly round stones.

Markers have always shown up biblically, sometimes as treasures, sometimes as tablets of information, and sometimes as a place to rest while on an agonizing journey. Stones were piled up for altars and places of worship, as signals of the way to go, and as weapons of destruction; five small ones for David.
Houses, fences and walkways, birdhouses, prisons and barriers, abound in various cultures. We find stone spirals or labyrinths. There is a power in the stone, stability, and a substance not easily blown over even by the strongest of storms. Jesus is our ‘cornerstone.’ That is a forever thanksgiving gift!

Of course, the gems that come from deep within are still the natural resources of the nations, looked for and often sold on markets that do not respect the miner’s work. You might remember the issues around diamonds…were they ‘blood diamonds’ or not, one would ask the jeweler…some knew what you were talking about, and others either did not or ignored the question.

These natural resources were part of what was wanted by colonizers and those who came to take the land (and gem resources) from indigenous peoples and tribes. Rubies, emeralds, agates, diamonds and sapphires are among the beauty God created under the pressure of earth and stone.

Consider this from Exodus 28:15ff: “On the breastplate of decision, you shall have made you shall mount four rows of precious stones: in the first row a carnelian, a topaz, and an emerald; in the second a garnet, a sapphire and a beryl; in the third row a jacinth, an agate and an amethyst; the fourth a chrysolite, an onyx and a jasper…each stone engraved like a seal with the name of one of the twelve tribes.”

How do you mark your breastplate of decision? Have you discovered your deep withins? Have you turned your pressures and ‘I’m going to blow up’ into something extraordinarily beautiful? Well, even though the Mississippi state stone is petrified wood, the Mississippi agate is there for you to find. Goin’ lookin’?

BLESSINGS.

(Sister alies therese is a canonically vowed hermit with days formed around prayer and writing.)

Remembering Bishop Latino

From the Archives
By Mary Woodward

JACKSON – This past Friday, Oct. 21, would have been the 85th birthday of Bishop Joseph Nunzio Latino of happy memory. +Joseph Nunzio was born in 1937; ordained in 1963; became a monsignor in 1983; and ordained a bishop in 2003.

Bishop Joseph Nunzio Latino

+Joseph Nunzio was a second generation American whose four grandparents emigrated to New Orleans from a small town on the central plains of Sicily known as Contessa Entellina. In New Orleans, most Sicilian heritage citizens come from Contessa.

Contessa is part of the Eparchy of Piana degli Albanesi, which serves the descendants of the Albanians who came to Sicily in the 1500s after holding off the Ottoman’s. The pope gave them five towns in Sicily. Albanians are Roman Rite and Byzantine Rite Catholics. +Joseph Nunzio’s father was Roman Rite, hence the name Latino; his mother’s family was Byzantine Rite (Italo-Albanesi). He had a cousin who was a Byzantine Rite priest named Papas Mateo Sciambra, who taught music in the seminary in Palermo.

In 2012, +Joseph Nunzio was finally able to visit his ancestral home and meet many Sciambra cousins in Contessa. New Orleans descendants formed the Contessa Entellina Society to celebrate their proud heritage. To our knowledge, +Joseph Nunzio was the only man to receive the Society’s Man-of-the-Year Award twice.

Since this week’s paper is a digital edition only, I thought I would share some images of him that give a small glimpse into his life of service to the Lord as a priest, bishop and faithful servant. There are far too many to share…

(Mary Woodward is Chancellor and Archivist for the Diocese of Jackson.)

more about Bishop Latino:

Bishop Latino in memoriam

Bishop Joseph Latino – farewell humble shepherd

Remembering Joseph N. Latino

From the top, left to right to bottom: Bishops Latino and Houck look out over Sferracavallo during 2012 visit Latino’s ancestral homeland of Sicily; Chris Luke and Bishop Latino at his 80th birthday celebration at the chancery on Oct. 21, 2017; first Solemn Blessing concluding his first Mass on May 26, 1963; Father George, Bishop Latino, Bishops William Houck and Sotir Ferrara, during a visit to Italy in 2012.(Photos courtesy of archives)