Millennial reflections
By Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem
May has often been the month for ordinations, especially priests, but deacons as well. Our diocese just ordained two priests and is set to ordain two transitional deacons. As such, May is a big month for jubilees. My Norbertine classmate and I are celebrating 50 years. He spent a lot of years as both a priest and physician in Peru. He still has a hospital in the jungle serving several villages along the Rio Napo, a tributary of the Amazon River. He had a church there. Another Norbertine spent years there and is buried in the native cemetery in Santa Clotilde. He has a cross in our abbey cemetery in De Pere Wisconsin.
Fifty years in the priesthood is anything but humdrum. In a religious community you are supporting one another whether in a common ministry like school teaching or supporting individuals in ministries they are called to do. The call can be from bishops or superiors or responding to needs. That brought us to Mississippi almost 30 years ago. This is bittersweet now that we are closing our priory near Raymond. We had great hopes. Now we return to the abbey that missioned us. Fortunately I and another confrere will be here for another year at least.
I would like to give some advice to seminarians and newly ordained priests or deacons. First, you may think what you are going to do is all planned out. It isn’t. The “people of God” will impact you, and lead to new possibilities even ministries. I know religious appear to have more options to respond to different ministries, and diocesan priest see parishes and pastoring as “the plan.”
As the shortage of priests grows, diocesan priests are now sent out as missionaries all over. Collaboration among bishops is a new norm. One of my confreres just came back from an annual “international priest conference.”
Never rule out the Holy Spirit and new talents and skills you will develop. Dioceses are always alert to people displaying exceptional talents or creatively responding to new situations.
Ordained ministry is not a job. In my day we tried to make in like other professions with some success, but it’s more than that. It changes your life. I see mayself it as servant to the servants of God. Inspire people, be the voice for those who have no voice. I think of Blessed Stanley Rother, a diocesan priest from Oklahoma, sent as a missionary to Guatamala. He was kicked out of the country by corrupt forces. Then God and his adopted people called him back. He was killed, and now is heralded as a martyr in the church. He was ordinary, just like us. But his priesthood changed him.
Let it change you. Know that the Holy Spirit is in charge. I was ordained was on the feast of St. Herman Joseph, a Norbertine. It was also the Vigil of Pentecost. My first Mass was Pentecost Sunday, and the Holy Spirit never left me. Those of you who will be in Mississippi the rest of your life, you are blessed. Mississippi can teach you a lot. It has taught me a lot. Listen to your people. Let them minister to you. All the priests I admire have experienced that.
Another bit advice I would give is one you have been hearing all through the seminary. Stay close to your fellow priests. Most of you will be one-man pastors which is why events that bring us together are so important. I enjoy the annual post Easter clergy retreat at Chatawa. The fellowship with priests is as good as the retreat master. We have a special spirit among us in this diocese that is accepting of new people and makes us glad to be together.
This is the vocation issue. Make your people see how you enjoy this special life. Following “Good Shepherd Sunday” we remind ourselves, we are both shepherds and sheep. We follow the Good Shepherd on the way to God. St. John boils it down to three words “Love one another.”

(Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem, lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)

SPIRIT AND TRUTH
By Father Aaron Williams
In my last column, I discussed the vision of the Second Vatican Council in regard to the active participation of the laity in the Sacred Liturgy. I mentioned that the first time this term was used in a papal document was in 1903 when Pope Saint Pius X proposed the idea in the context of speaking about the role of music in the liturgy. I would like to expand that thought now by considering what the Second Vatican Council proposed as the stand of liturgical music.
Speaking on this topic, the Council Fathers said, “The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy.” This statement needs to be carefully considered. The Council proposes that music is “integral” to the liturgy itself. In other words, it is no mere ornament or decorative element to liturgical act. We Catholics are not called to sing “at” Mass — as if the Mass was some gathering within whose context we burst into song. Rather, we are called to sing “the” Mass.
What does that mean? The post-conciliar document, Musicam Sacram, which remains today the most authoritative Church document on sacred music, gives a pretty firm recommendation in how music is to be incorporated in the liturgy. In fact, it gives three degrees of sacred music in the Mass — numbering them according to importance as to what should one sung. First among this list is the dialogues between the priest and the people. That may seem odd to us. We might imagine the Church desires some sort of hymn be sung before anything else. In fact, in our common experience, we usually associate the priest chanting the dialogues or the prayers as something reserved to really solemn occasions.
The Church, however, sees things a little differently. The dialogues between the priest and the people, the prayers, the preface — these elements constitute the most important parts of the Mass. They are the parts of the Mass where we take our true role as the members of Christ’s Mystical Body. It is fitting, therefore, if these are the moments when we are most participating in the liturgy, that these are the first to be considered when finding the place of music in the liturgy.
In my own practice, I have developed a custom of always chanting the principal dialogues and prayers at the main Sunday Mass when I am the celebrant. I know other priests that do this at all Sunday Masses, and some even on weekdays. By elevating these texts into song, we further unify our voices as one expression of Christ’s body — not only joining in word, but also in tone, and meter, and expression.
The second elements are those parts of the Mass which are unchanging, or what the Church calls the “ordinary” (the Kyrie, Gloria, Creed, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei). Most of these parts of the Mass are normally sung in most parishes, so I don’t think much needs to be said other than that since they are unchanging it is much easier for parishes to memorize settings of the Mass ordinary for singing, thus furthering their ability to truly participate in these acts.
Finally, there is the proper. Most people have no experience of the sung proper. At daily Masses in some parishes, people will experience the antiphons spoken from a missallete. These antiphons are intended to actually be sung, especially in more solemn Masses, and are what the Church calls the “proper” of the Mass. In our ordinary experience, the vast majority of parishes substitute the proper antiphons for hymns (which are rooted in a vastly Lutheran/Anglican/Methodist tradition). While this is certainly permitted by the liturgy, the ideal proposed by the Council Fathers was that the proper of the Mass be truly sung.
I will use the second Sunday of Easter as an example. The Gospel that day was about St. Thomas coming to believe in the Resurrection when Christ says to him, “Bring your hand and feel the place of the nails.” The Church, desiring us to make a connection between the risen flesh of Christ in the Gospel and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, encourages us to take these same words upon our lips as we approach the altar. The Communion antiphon that day is, “Bring your hand and feel the place of the nails, and do not be unbelieving but believing, alleluia.”
In most places, this text was probably not even considered and was replaced by a eucharistic hymn, but by doing so we are replacing parts of the Mass which, like the readings themselves, the Church offers for our own spiritual nourishment. Though there isn’t space to go into all the various options for how these propers may be sung, suffice it to say there are a plethora of resources available readily online for free which can enable any parish to begin approaching this goal.

(Father Aaron Williams is the parochial vicar at Greenville St. Joseph Parish and serves as the liaison to seminarians for the Office of Vocations.)

GUEST COLUMN
By Sister alies therese
“The hour is coming when those who kill you will insist they are worshipping God.” (cf Jn 16:2). Whoever that is or whoever it was in Jesus’ time there is a presumption that hostility from an unbelieving world will be a permanent facet of Christian life. There is the hostility of the external world and frequently great hostility in our inner world. Here it is we learn the wisdom of humility and that humility is necessary for the prayer of our hearts. Thomas Merton quips at one point how humility fares: “Recently in the breviary we had a saint who, at the point of death, removed his pontifical vestments and got out of bed. He died on the floor, which is only right: but one hardly has time to be edified by it – one is still musing over the fact that he had pontifical vestments on in bed.”
I was particularly engrossed in Merton’s Hagia Sofia, a prose-poem about Wisdom (with a focus on humility) (Proverbs 8). He sets the poem in a context of canonical hours. Here is his first stanza at “Dawn. The Hour of Lauds”:
“There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility… the gift of my Creator’s thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.”
Merton explores humility as the day progresses.
At the Hour of High Morning he engages us again:
“…That which is poorest and humblest, that which is most hidden in all things is nevertheless most obvious in them… naked and without care. Sophia, the feminine child, playing in the world, obvious and unseen, playing at all times before the Creator. Her delights are to be with the children of [men]. She is their sister. The core of life that exists in all things is tenderness, mercy, virginity, the Light, the Life considered as passive…Sophia is Gift, is Spirit. She is God-Given and God as Gift. God as all reduced to Nothing: inexhaustible nothingness…Humility as the source of unfailing light.”
And finally from Hour at Sunset we are reminded:
“…through her (Mary’s) wise answer, through her obedient understanding, through the sweet yielding consent of Sophia, God enters without publicity into the human city…She crowns Him not with what is glorious, but with what is greater than glory: weakness, nothingness, poverty. She sends the infinitely Rich and Powerful One forth as poor and helpless, in His mission of inexpressible mercy, to die for us on a Cross.
The shadows fall. The stars appear. The birds begin to sleep. Night embraces the silent half of the earth.
A vagrant, a destitute wanderer with dusty feet, finds his way down a new road. A homeless God, lost in the night, without papers, without identification, without even a number, a frail expendable exile lies down in desolation under the sweet stars of the world and entrusts Himself to sleep.”
Wisdom we know is of divine origin, agreeing with God at the creation of the universe, providing beauty and variety. Now we see her as fully revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ incarnate. It is with humility that we might enter into this powerful relationship when we pray and seek after the gifts and challenges.
That our God allows both profound artistic creativity and such humiliating and painful action, reminds me that my life too is a deep mixture. Not just the ‘good or bad” – rather the ‘whole and the broken; the sin-centered selfishness and the following God’s will. As these days of Easter pass, and the intensity of our Liturgy drives us ever deeper into the humility of God, may we be enriched by all that surrounds us, all that challenges us to serve others, and all that enables us to get out of our beds and die on the floor, after removing our pontifical vestments, choosing Wisdom rather than folly.
We come to the end of a Lenten struggle, perhaps to be beset again, having learned only one prayer, that of the publican: ‘Lord, Jesus, have mercy on me a sinner.’
Now I, too, can go forward, learning to become a delight, filled only with Wisdom and her playful and hopeful energy emanating from the Body of Christ, raised from the dead.
Blessings.

(Sister alies therese is a vowed Catholic solitary who lives an eremitical life. Her days are formed around prayer, art and writing. She is author of six books of spiritual fiction and is a weekly columnist. She lives and writes in Mississippi.)

Dounce of Prevention
By Reba J. McMellon, M.S., LPC
Whether the perpetrator of abuse is a family member, a member of the clergy, a teacher or a stranger, publicly coming forward can take years and sometimes decades. People often wonder why report the crime after so much time has passed.

If a child is in the second grade and is being sexually abused, they can’t get in their car, move away, get an apartment and thus find safety. Second graders have very little power over their lives. They have to go to school every day and blend in academically, learn all sorts of basic math skills, eat breakfast, play on a sports team, interact like a normal child. If the abuse is ongoing, they learn to compartmentalize the trauma so they can go on to the next day, the next year and on with some semblance of a life. Sometimes the trauma of sexual abuse gets buried so deeply it doesn’t surface for decades.
This can be the case no matter how old the person is when the abuse happens. Memories sometimes are repressed completely until triggered later in life. Others don’t completely forget what happened but minimize it and put a lot of energy into not dealing with the damage.
When working with adult survivors of sexual abuse, it is quite common to have women come for counseling in their early 30s, after the birth of their first child.
The experience of pregnancy is one in which the body has been taken over by something one is not completely in charge of. The experience of giving birth is sometimes traumatizing. Having an innocent child of your own changes perspective and sometimes triggers memories. It is common for new mothers come to counseling with excessive worry and fear that something bad was going to happen to their child.
This prompts the survivors to uncover the trauma and walk through it.
It is rare someone wakes up and decides to publicly report sexual abuse and exploitation out of the blue. More often, it is after working with a counselor or spiritual director for a long period of time to build skills, confidence and understanding that it was not their fault. More often than not, it takes years to realize it was life-altering abuse.
Male survivors of sexual abuse often seek counseling after a long history of unstable relationships, promiscuity or the inability to be intimate. Men often come to counseling well into adulthood with a lot of life behind them, before disclosing childhood sexual abuse.
Counselors don’t always encourage the survivor to disclose their abuse publicly. When there is imminent danger to others, reporting the perpetrator is encouraged. If the abuser still has access to children, disclosing the crime publicly serves the greater good and empowers the survivors.
Publicly reporting childhood sexual abuse and exploitation should not be confused with sharing the trauma with trusted friends and family members. Keeping the abuse a complete secret perpetuates the shame and damage.
It takes a strong stable person to be able to speak out with confidence and tell publicly what happened to them. It can be retraumatizing. The public will question the legitimacy of the report and agencies will investigate whether the “story” is credible. Bear in mind, we are talking about intimate and horrifying facts.
The public can unwittingly say incredibly insensitive things such as, “those people just want attention.” It would take a severe personality disorder to humiliate themselves and others for attention. There is a small percentage of individuals who falsely report. It is not difficult to diagnose such a person through the interview process, when the interviewer is appropriately trained.
Statistics consistently show that one in three females are sexually abused before the age of 18. One in five males are sexually abused before age 18. These numbers haven’t gone up or down drastically in the 35 years I have studied child sexual abuse. What we can change is how we respond to reports of abuse whether it’s decades later or immediate.
The healing that can result by breaking the silence of sexual abuse is encouraging. I’ve often said a person cannot recover from what they haven’t uncovered. Wonderful strides have been made in our society when it comes to responding to allegations of sexual abuse.
If you’re tempted to wonder what difference reporting abuse makes now, after all these years, please know it makes all the difference in the world. It leads to healing, safety and hope for the future.
The Lord is close to the broken hearted, He saves those whose spirit is crushed. Psalm 34:19

(Reba McMellon, M.S. is a licensed professional counselor with 35 years of experience. She worked in the field of child sexual abuse and adult survivors of sexual abuse for over 25 years. She can be reached through The Mississippi Catholic or rebaj@bellsouth.net.)