CLEVELAND – James Joseph Tomek, 76, passed away Aug. 30, 2022, at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. The youngest of three children, he was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Joseph and Anne Tomek. Raised in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, his parents afforded him a private school Jesuit education, sending him to St. Cecilia High School and St. Peters College in Jersey City. His love of literature drew him to study at Duke University where he received a Ph.D in French literature and philosophy. His specialty was 20th Century and his dissertation on the films of Jean Cocteau was directed by Dr. Wallace Fowlie. During that time, he met and married Yvonne Bryan Tomek in Durham, North Carolina, and then embarked upon a career of teaching French and English at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi in 1972 and served until his retirement in 2015.

At Delta State, he was the recipient of the University Foundation Teaching Award and also Teacher of the Year Award in the Division of Languages and Literature and was awarded membership into ODK, a Leadership Honor Society. He received grants to study French literature at summer long NEH Colloquiums in Stony Brook, Dartmouth, Iowa City and Chicago. Writing and delivering numerous papers at national conferences was of interest to him, and he collaborated in writing the books, Windows After Matisse with Terry Everett and Mary Anne Rosse and Fast French with Anne-Marie Bryan and Yvonne Bryan Tomek, a grammar book that he used for several years in his teaching. A philosopher, sports enthusiast, and poet, he often contributed to the literary journal, Tapestry, enjoying the fellowship of annual Fall unveilings and readings in Dockery, Mississippi.

Having always been interested in theology, he decided to pursue a Master’s Degree in Theology from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, while still teaching French and English. He would attend classes in Jackson, Mississippi every Saturday for six years, while arduously contending with a battle of cancer. He graduated in 2009, receiving highest honors in his Oral Exams, which were open to the public for attendance. He was a devout life-long Catholic, and often attended daily Mass and served as lector and assistant in the RCIA program for incoming Catholics at Our Lady of Victories Church in Cleveland. He often led Little Rock Bible studies for those who wished to study the Bible in depth. He was a life-time member of the Knights of Columbus.

In 2010, he was invited by the Bishop Latino to lead Sacred Heart Church in Rosedale, as the Lay Ecclesial Minister every Sunday morning, where he would deliver scriptural breakout reflections, administer Communion and handle business affairs of the church. He enjoyed this mission very much as well as the relationship he made with the parishioners. With fondness for movies, harking back to his dissertation days, he wrote a column for Mississippi Catholic newspaper, entitled “Theology at the Movies” that explored religion as it is evidenced in international movies.

His greatest joys were with his family and friends with whom he loved to play golf, tennis, baseball, go swimming, play cards and watch sports. He was particularly fond of watching New York Yankees baseball, reminding himself of the many afternoons he attended Yankee Stadium during his youth with his family. If he had not had a career in literature, he could have very well loved being a professional baseball announcer.

He lamented having outlived many of his best friends which included Bill Sullivan, Terry Everett, Martin Bond, Ted Solomon, John Tatum, Leroy Morganti, Diane Stewart, Bonnie Horton and his trusted lawyer, Robert Johnston.

His is preceded in death by his parents; his sister Barbara Tomek Maffei; his brother, Joseph Tomek; and nephew Thomas Tomek.

He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Yvonne Bryan Tomek; son Matthew Tomek (Renee) of Memphis; daughter Genevieve Tomek of Cleveland, Mississippi; and his grandsons, Jacob Jones and Renny McKnight of Cleveland, Mississippi.

He also leaves behind his sister-in-law, Jean Tomek, his brother-in-law Stephen Maffei, as well as his nephews and nieces, Richard Tomek (Sherri), Laura Tomek Campbell (Doug); Nancy Tomek Deasey (Bob); Stephen Maffei (Janet), Matthew Maffei (Lori), Joseph Maffei (Stephanie), and their beloved children.
In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made in his name to Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church in Cleveland.

Stewardship Paths
By Julia Williams

JACKSON – St. Vincent de Paul’s holiness had a heart for the poor and was dedicated to the service of those suffering from poverty. He founded the Vincentians and the Daughters of Charity, and over the course of time established many local charitable groups, urging members to see Christ in the poor and attain holiness in their service.

St. Vincent placed service to the poor above nearly every activity in his life. He would maintain: “When you leave your prayer to care for a sick person, you leave God for God. To care for a sick person is to pray.”

His humility and generosity have propelled Christians to greater charity for centuries. Many parishes today have a St. Vincent de Paul Society, or other parish ministries, which carries on the work for the poor.

The feast day of St. Vincent de Paul is Sept. 27, which is the date of his passing in 1660. He is the patron saint of all charitable works.

St. Vincent practiced the seven Corporal Works of Mercy, which are obvious expressions of stewardship.
• Feed the hungry
• Give drink to the thirsty
• Clothe the naked
• Welcome the stranger
• Heal the sick
• Visit the imprisoned
• Bury the dead

A life lived in concern for others is perfect stewardship. Taking care of all God’s creation is the stewardship way of life.

Excerpts: simplycatholic.com

Kneading Faith
By Fran Lavelle

I have been calling for a lay revolution for years. Before anyone calls the Vatican to have me arrested for inciting an insurrection against the church let me be very clear about what I mean.

I am not asking for a lay revolution against the church; rather one within the church in collaboration with the ordained and consecrated. For generations upon generations religious sisters and brothers catechized our children, Father made sick calls to the hospital and nursing homes. Father gave instructions for those seeking to come into the church. He also prepared couples for marriage. Lay people had roles as cooks, housekeepers and janitors, but the heavy lifting of ministry was undertaken by clergy and religious.

In the past nearly 60 years since Vatican II we have seen a sharp decrease in the number of clergy and religious serving the church. Perhaps the laity has not been empowered or encouraged to do so, but it the Synod made it clear that everyone must take part in undertaking the work of the church. The ordained and religious can no longer shoulder that responsibility alone. The lay revolution I am speaking of is for us, the laity, to step up to the plate and take responsibility for our faith and the ministries of the church in a transformational way. We have looked to the leadership of the church to tell us what to do.

The listening sessions for our Synod demonstrated that we, the laity, know what is needed to move beyond a transactional faith. People around this diocese asked for better faith formation of both youth and adults, you asked for an end to partisan politics, you asked for greater unity, you asked for healing. You asked that we do a better job keeping the young church engaged and active.

All that we heard, all that the faithful are seeking is within our grasp. There are more programs, podcasts, video series, websites and resources than one could ever have imagined. We do not need better resources. We do not need a better textbook for education our children in the faith.

We need to call on the Holy Spirit to fill us with a passion to use the resources and tools that we have been given and become leaders within our parishes and communities. What we are in need of are doers of the Word. We need people to say in earnest, “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.”

How do you become a transformational leader in the church? If you see a need, talk to others in your community about what they see. Get input from people who do not look like your or think like you. If the need is validated, develop a plan. Take your plan to the parish council or your pastor/LEM.

Often parishioners come to the church office to bring up a need to the pastor but do not have constructive ideas on how to address the issue. I am not advocating that we all act like urban cowboys and bust up the pastor’s office hell bent on doing what we want. I am suggesting that when we see a need, develop solutions, seek input, listen to others and present a well-formed plan for addressing the issue. We have clutched our pearls for far too long. We have looked to the clergy or someone else to address the issues facing the church.

I have a plaque in my office that says. “Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success.” If we want vibrant, dynamic, communities of faith we have to be dynamic and vibrant people of faith. Multiply the success of your parish community. Be a part of the solution. Step up. Show up. Share the journey.

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

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Henri Nouwen once suggested that if you want to understand the tragedy of the Second World War, you can read a hundred history books about it and watch a thousand hours of video documentaries on it, or you can read the Diary of Anne Frank. In that single memoir of young girl imprisoned and later executed by the Nazis you will see, first-hand, the tragedy of war and what war does to the human soul.

The same might be said about the refugee crisis now taking place everywhere on borders around the world. According to statistics from the United Nations, there are now over eighty million refugees, displaced, homeless, nationless, frightened, and often hungry people on our borders around the world. Two-thirds of these are women and children, and the vast majority are not there by choice, seeking a better economic opportunity in another country. The vast majority of them have been driven from their homes and their countries by war, violence, famine, hunger, ethnic and religious cleansing, and by fear for their lives.

For many of us, this is a faceless, abstract problem. We have a generic sympathy for their plight but not one deep enough to keep us awake at night, unsettle our conscience, or make us willing to sacrifice some of our own comfort and security to do something for them or to pressure our governments into action. Indeed, too often we are over-protective of our borders and the settled, comfortable lives we live inside our nations. This is our country! Our home! We worked hard for the things we have. It is unfair to us to have to deal with these people! They should go back to their countries and leave us alone!

We need a wake-up call. A recent book, a novel, by Jeanine Cummins, American Dirt, gives us a fictionalized account of a young Mexican woman who because of violence and fear of death had to leave her life behind and flee with her young son in an attempt to reach the borders of the United States as an undocumented immigrant. Full disclosure, the book has been heavily criticized by many because it doesn’t always measure up to the exact facts. Conversely, it has also been highly praised by many others. Be that as it may, the bottom-line is that this is a powerful story and a wake-up call, one meant to wake us up to the real tragedy of those who for reasons of poverty, violence, famine, fear and hopelessness are forced to flee their countries in search of a better life (or any life at all!) elsewhere. Whatever the book’s imperfections, it helps shatter the abstractness we can lean on to protect ourselves against having to look at the issue of refugees today.

Admittedly, the issue isn’t simple. There are extremely complex issues involved in protecting our borders and in having millions of people freely enter our countries. However, as men and women who share a common humanity and a common planet with these refugees, can we remain callous to their plight?

Moreover, as Christians, do we accept the fundamental, non-negotiable principle within Christian social doctrine that tells us that the world belongs to everyone equally and we may not adhere to any nationalistic belief that says, explicitly or implicitly, that our country is ours and we have no obligation to share it with others. To espouse this is unchristian and goes against the clear teaching of Jesus.

We might all, I submit, contemplate a certain parable of Jesus (Luke 16:19-31) where he tells the story of a rich man who ignored a poor man sitting at his doorstep and refused to share his food with him. The poor man dies and finds himself in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also dies and finds himself tormented by thirst in Hades. He begs Abraham to send the poor man, whom he had ignored during this lifetime, to bring him some water to quench his thirst, but it turns out this is not possible. Jesus tells us that there is an “unbridgeable gap” between the two of them. We have always simplistically assumed that this unbridgeable gap is the gap between heaven and hell, but that is not exactly the point the parable is making. The unbridgeable gap is the gap that already exists now between the rich and poor, and the lesson is that we had best try to bridge that gap now, in this life.

Notice that Jesus does not say that the rich man is a bad man, or that he didn’t earn his riches honestly, or that he wasn’t an upright citizen, or that he wasn’t going to church, or that he was unfaithful to his wife, or that he was a bad father to his children. It only says that he had one fault, a mortal one – inside his richness he did not respond to a hungry man sitting on the borders of house.

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

FROM THE HERMITAGE
By sister alies therese

On Aug. 9, 2022, we celebrate the feast day of Edith Stein (St. Sister Benedicta of the Cross, OCD), German (born, 1891, in Breslau in what is now Poland) intellectual, scholar, typhoid-nurse hospital worker and Jewess-cum-Catholic Christian (1922) and Carmelite (1933), who at 52 was taken to the Nazi chambers and murdered (1942). I like what Sister Joan Chittister, OSB, points out:

“The fact is Edith Stein is not important because she was martyred for anything. Edith Stein is not a light to take into the 21st century because she was killed by Nazis for whatever reason. Edith Stein is a pathway through darkness because of the courage it takes to critique your own.” (emphasis mine, A Passion for Life, Orbis, 1996)

She might be best known in Carmelite circles, unlike some of her more famous Sisters, Teresa of Avila, or Therese. That she was caught up with Bonhoeffer or Kolbe and others also annihilated for religious reasons during the Nazi regime, points to the highlights (1942) of the brutal reality of authoritarian politics. Though she had been smuggled to the Netherlands, she and her sister Rosa were found out and eventually reached Auschwitz where their earthly lives ended abruptly.

In the day (and maybe today as well?), a sister professing Carmelite life took a ‘title’ pointing her in a special direction within her prayer vocation … in this case ‘of the Cross’ was chosen and the fact that she was born on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, she had been on this path her whole life. She saw her life as one united with the suffering of God, the anguish of the innocent, and the prayer of the powerless. The Cross for her became the Christian marker where the greatest love had been shown, even to those who ravaged the world, who lived out of greed or insensitivity, who barreled through country after country demanding obedience and submission.

Mostly the Cross was the symbol of success, despite its narrow appearance, of the empathy theory she’d studied reminding people that to walk in another’s shoes across barriers (class, culture, ethnicity and…) is to accept a call to build together the beauty of peace. We ‘cross over,’ out of our zones into a graced place serving one another. The beauty of God, reflected in the common good, is torn asunder when the innocent are ravaged when lies become common currency for truth, and when hope seems impossible as attacking armies (of whatever kind) seek to dominate. Aren’t we just a bit too cozy with violence? Just look at Oklahoma, executing 25 men one a month (on Thursdays) for two years beginning this month. That the Cross reaches up and stretches out is a reminder that God is not just the God of ‘me’ but the God of ‘we’; when will we nourish one another and cease scrambling in darkness … perhaps they’ll come for me, for us?

In her book The Wisdom of the Cross, she remarks that through a process of death, all will come to life in Him if we are willing to give our lives.

She says, “This faith in the Crucified – united with devoted love – is for us the doorway to life and the beginning of the glory to come. The Cross is our only boast … But the cross is not the end: it is lifted high and shows us the way to heaven.” (ICS, Washington, 1996)

She had no illusion about what that meant for her, her sister Rosa and so many more; it meant death. Equally, she understood that through her tool of conversion (the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, 1921) she saw ‘the truth.’ Her mother was brought to tears at her conversion. ‘I’ve nothing to say against him (Jesus),’ she told Edith, ‘just that he claimed to be God.’

Before her conversion, during her years as a professor, she was very outspoken about women’s roles and wrote in the Ethos of Women’s Professions, for example: “One could say that every normal healthy woman can hold a position. And there is no profession which cannot be practiced by a woman.” (ICS) Not long after she would become unemployable because she was both woman and Jew. No place in academia for her. Does that sound familiar? How is the truth rejected? What can/not be taught? How do we ignore history?

Next month we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Cross on Sept. 14, and maybe our study of St. Benedicta might open to us deeper wisdom and help us put the suffering, especially targeted violence, at His Cross.
“As for what concerns our relations with our fellowman, the anguish in our neighbor’s soul must break all precepts. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself because God is love.” (ICS)

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

Reflections on Life
By Melvin Arrington

We know we all have a purpose in life. We are here to know, love and serve God. If we come to know Him, we will love Him. And if we love Him, we will want to serve Him. St. Rose of Lima learned these truths at a young age and took them to heart. I, on the other hand, was nearing retirement age when I discovered them and began putting them into practice.

St. Rose of Lima (1586-1617) was born into a well-to-do family in Peru’s capital city during Spanish America’s Colonial era. Early on, she showed an inclination to the austere life, fasting often and praying constantly. As a young lady she was considered to be very beautiful. But she was so fearful of the pitfall of vanity that, before going out into the street, she would soak her hands in lime and intentionally disfigure her face by rubbing pepper on her cheeks to mar her complexion. At one point she began wearing a self-fashioned crown of thorns because of a deep desire to imitate Christ.

Why perform these excessive mortifications? Perhaps it was an attempt to take the words of our Lord a little too literally when He proclaimed, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out” and “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” (Matthew 5:29-30) In any case, the object was to enhance her spiritual rather than physical beauty. These extreme forms of penance seem strange to us, like the actions of someone who is out of touch with reality. But we can also view them as a protest against the materialism and evils of those times, an era plagued by violent acts of cruelty and the savage lust for gold.

When the family fell on hard times, Rose began working in their home vegetable garden by day and doing needlework, including making exquisite lace and embroidered silks, at night. Many friends encouraged her to marry in order to escape poverty, and her great beauty would have easily made this possible. But instead, at age 20, she joined the Third Order of St. Dominic after seeing a black and white butterfly come to rest on her shoulder, taking that as a sign God wanted her to wear the black and white habit. As a member of the Third Order, Rose was allowed to wear the habit and continue living and working at home.

She greatly admired and hoped to imitate St. Catherine of Siena and chose the great Italian saint as her patron. Like St. Catherine, Rose received visions from God and experienced mystical ecstasy. This aroused the suspicions of church authorities, including the Inquisition. But after theologians conducted an examination, they concluded that her holiness was genuine.

Hoping to live a life of solitude, Rose managed to construct a hut as a little hermitage on the grounds of the family home. There she lived as a recluse, spending much time in prayer.

St. Rose reportedly protected the city of Lima from disaster three times. When Dutch pirates invaded the city in 1615, the fearless young woman stood guarding the tabernacle in the Church of Santo Domingo as the raiding party entered the church. When they saw her there, they returned to the ships and canceled their plans to plunder the city. In two other instances her prayers saved Lima, once from attack during an indigenous uprising and, on another occasion, from damage by an earthquake.

In reading about this saint, I found out that she’s considered the founder of social services and social work in Peru. The term “social services” refers to promoting the welfare of others by providing assistance such as medical care and housing for the benefit of those in need in the community, and that’s exactly what Rose did. During the latter portion of her life, in true Dominican fashion, she added an active component to the contemplative life by roaming the city in search of homeless children, the sick, the elderly and the dying and taking them to some rooms reserved in her parents’ house, where she fed and bathed them and saw to their needs. In fact, that’s the sort of thing we should all be doing in some form or other – serving the less fortunate – either directly or indirectly through prayer and financial support.
At age 31 Rose fell sick and died. She was so highly regarded by the citizens of Lima that during the funeral procession the city’s leaders took turns carrying her coffin. St. Rose of Lima is the patron saint of Latin America (feast day, Aug. 23). Canonized in 1671, she was the first person born in the New World to be raised to the altars.

One lesson we can learn from this saintly life is that faith must be put into action. As mentioned earlier, I came to this realization rather late. As a young man, I spent most of my time selfishly caring for my own needs, with relatively little concern for the common good. Later, after I had a family of my own, I just didn’t seem to have enough free time to pull away from obligations at home to become involved in community service. Only in mid life did I come to understand that I needed to make time for volunteer work. There are opportunities for involvement in every community. In retirement I’ve found mine. These activities are good for the soul. They have changed the direction of my life, and clearly for the better.

In the final analysis, we’re here to serve others, not ourselves. As Pope Francis says, “It is not enough to say we are Christians. We must live the faith, not only with our words, but with our actions.” St. Rose of Lima would wholeheartedly agree.

(Melvin Arrington is a Professor Emeritus at University of Mississippi and member of St. John Oxford.)