From the Holy Land to Mississippi

REFLECTION
By Carlisle Beggerly
HOLY LAND – One of my favorite things about being Catholic is the church’s ancient devotion to holy relics. Over the years, I have been blessed to obtain quite a few of them. They range from pieces of bone from the bodies of saints to clothing that belonged to them to even articles associated with Christ Himself. The most prized relic of which I have custody is a tiny fragment of the True Cross of Our Lord, discovered by Saint Helena in the Holy Land when she made a pilgrimage there after her son’s conversion to Christianity.
This summer I was able to visit the same sites which Helena visited some 1,700 years ago and to obtain holy relics to bring back for veneration. Like her, this was not my only reason for going to the Holy Land. To walk in the footsteps of Christ draws the believer closer to the Lord and one cannot help but be transformed in some way by the experience. However, I wanted to recover physical, tangible reminders of those places in which God has made His presence known in a unique and corporeal way.
There are few places on earth where the very ground on which one walks is considered sacred. Lourdes, Fatima, the Catacombs of Rome perhaps come to mind. But nowhere is so holy as the land designated by the moniker Terra Sancta. Here, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The Mother of God made her home here and raised up a son to be called the savior of the world.
The first stones I gathered were in Hebron, the location of the Oak of Mamre where all three Persons of the Trinity manifested themselves to Abraham. From here we went to the Cave of the Patriarchs, the resting place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Jacob. The next day I found olive leaves in the City of David; a stone from Caiphas’s palace; and a piece of the Pool of Siloam where Our Lord healed the man born blind. I came upon a sliver of the cave in which Saint Gabriel announced to the Shepherds the birth of Jesus before serving Holy Mass at the Church of the Nativity. A friar gave me scrapings of the walls of the cave where Our Lady nursed the Lord before setting out for Egypt, a drop of her milk having turned the limestone thereof a brilliant, lactescent white when it fell to the ground.
Over the next days, I procured some stone from the Jordan River where the Lord was baptized and later gathered flowers on the Mount of the Beatitudes and the site of the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes. I gained a bit of the house of Saint Peter before traveling to Bethlehem where I collected pieces of Saint Joseph’s house and the grotto of the Annunciation.
After a week of archaeological excavation at a first century synagogue in the Golan Heights, I extracted a bit of the Mensa Christi, a makeshift stone table on which the Resurrected Lord cooked breakfast for His disciples along the shores of Galilee. On the following morning, I acquired stones from the site of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor after serving at the Holy Sacrifice there. At Jericho, I picked up a rock from the stream St. Elisha made potable again by casting salt into it and a seed from a descendant of the Zacchaeus sycamore.

We then returned to Jerusalem where I was able to fetch a bit of Lazarus’s tomb before collecting relics from the site where Our Lord taught the Pater Noster and the place where He wept over Jerusalem. We went to the Garden of Gethsemane from which I plucked some olive leaves; took stone from the birthplace and location of the Dormition of Our Lady; the place of the Ascension; the Caenaculum; and King David’s tomb.
As my pilgrimage came to an end, while at Mass inside the Aedicule of the Holy Sepulchre, I managed to find a bit of stone which had come loose from the interior walls. It serves to remind me of the extraordinary moment when I received the Sacred Body of the Lord in Communion inside the tomb of His Resurrection. Here I also retrieved some rock from the recesses of the cavern in which Saint Helena found that holiest of relics, the True Cross.
I now write this back at home in Mississippi as I gaze at the two reliquaries containing the tiny treasures from my journey. Like Helena before me, I look on these relics with holy joy. They are more than mere souvenirs. They contain a bit of the sacred in a bodily form. They are blessed by the presence of God and His saints. They serve as a prompt to recall the memories of the countless pilgrims who have gone before me. They evoke a kind of anemnesis of the whole economy of salvation. The stones themselves remember and attest to the Glory of God and His Incarnation. My humble collection is a connection to the special place on this planet where the incorporeal God was made flesh. These are sacred gifts of a holy land that I will treasure for many years to come.

(Carlisle W. Beggerly is a seminarian for the Diocese of Jackson studying at Notre Dame Seminary, New Orleans after studies in Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology in Franklin, Wis.)

Por Berta Mexidor
JACKSON – La hermana Geraldine del Cuerpo y la Sangre de Cristo, OCD hizo votos solemnes perpetuos de pobreza, castidad y obediencia el 16 de julio, día de la virgen del Carmen, durante rito solemne de profesión y velo en el Monasterio de Carmelitas Descalzos de Jackson. La misa fue presidida por el obispo Joseph Kopacz, con homilía del padre Danilo Fauste, OCD superior de El Monte de Nuestra Señora, en las Filipinas y con la presencia del obispo Joseph Latino.
La capilla estuvo concurrida; allí se reunieron para celebrar el emotivo momento ocho sacerdotes co-celebrantes en el altar, las hermanas armelitasel grupo de Carmelitas seculares, amigos de la comunidad Carmelita y creyentes en la Virgen del Carmen.
Las Carmelitas Descalzas establecieron su monasterio en Jackson en 1951. Como monjas de clausura, las hermanas dedican su tiempo a orar por la Diócesis de Jackson. En la página web de los Carmelitas Descalzos, de la Curia General del Carmelo Teresiano se resume “…Entendemos por espiritualidad carmelitana una forma de sentir y vivir el evangelio desde determinadas premisas que nacen de la experiencia de los “grandes profetas” de la familia del Carmelo Descalzo: Teresa de Jesús, Juan de la Cruz, Teresa del Niño Jesús, Edith Stein, como son: la experiencia de Dios que lleva a descubrir al Dios interior y a dar un sentido teologal a la vida; la experiencia cristológica, que lleva al Cristo histórico del evangelio; la experiencia de la Iglesia, como pertenencia y preocupación por el bien de la misma…”
En su homilía el padre Fauste le recordó a la hermana Faustina lo difícil de la promesa de vida y oración contemplativa, que enseñan la virgen del Carmen y Santa Teresa, para” tener una relación personal con Jesucristo” que incluye pobreza, castidad y obediencia,”… Los votos hablan por tu pasado, presente y futuro … y reflejarán a otros el toque y el amor de Jesús,” dijo el padre Fauste.
La Hermana Geraldine del Cuerpo y la Sangre de Cristo, OCD cantó, entre sollozos, la canción Santo es su Nombre, escucho la letanía a todos los santos postrada en el piso, hizo sus promesas y firmó delante del obispo los documentos de sus votos perpetuos.
La hermana Geraldine, después de un largo camino de vida religiosa como Franciscana, entró a la Sagrada Familia del Carmelo en San Fernando, La Union en Filipinas. Ahora, la Hna. Geraldine se une para siempre a las Carmelitas de Jackson, quienes en su monasterio ejercitan su espiritualidad y administran una tienda de regalos, que les sirve para auto financiarse. Y cito ”…En la vida cotidiana las monjas unen la oración ferviente y el trabajo manual. Este trabajo incluye tanto las tareas domésticas comunes, como las formas específicas de actividad encaminada a obtener fondos para el mantenimiento como, por ejemplo: hornear las hostias, bordar los ornamentos litúrgicos o realizar iconos. Las carmelitas descalzas, escondidas en el silencio del monasterio y aparentemente desconocidas para el mundo, están presentes en todo el orbe.” Al final de la misa, el obispo Joseph Kopacz agradeció a la hermana Jane Agonoy, OCD, priora de la comunidad de Carmelitas, y demás por la preparación de la ceremonia, a todos por su compañía y felicitó a la hermana Geraldine por su decisión de servir a la Diócesis de Jackson. Durante la recepción que siguió, la hermana Geraldine mostró su felicidad compartiendo sonrisas y fotos de acción de gracias.

Fotos

SOUTHAVEN – Sacred Heart first and second graders planted cabbage they received from Bonnie Plants after learning about gardening. Later this year, the students will eat the fruit of their labor. (Photos courtesy of Sister Margaret Sue Broker)

By Berta Mexidor
Religious women across America put their own twist on celebrating International Women’s Day when they celebrated National Catholic Sisters Week (NCSW), March 8-14. According to the website dedicated to the event, “NCSW is an annual celebration to honor women religious. It is a series of events that instruct, enlighten and bring greater focus to the lives of these incredible women. It’s our chance to recognize all they have done for us. It’s also our hope that as more young women learn about women religious, more will choose to follow their example.
“National Catholic Sisters Week, a branch of National Catholic Sisters Project headquartered at Alverno College in Milwaukee, Wisc., is headquartered at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minn., and is held in conjunction with Women’s History Month.”
The website, https://nationalcatholicsistersweek.org/, includes testimonies to promote religious vocations and a range of activities celebrated by sisters around the country.
Certainly the history of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson is full of stories of the service and dedication of women religious. In the earliest days, they ran orphanages and schools. In the modern era, they founded and ran hospitals, worked as nurses, teachers, parish administrators and cloistered prayer warriors.
Mississippi Catholic thanks and honors the more than 100 religious serving throughout the Diocese in schools, hospitals, convents, community centers and prison ministry. Some, including Sister Thea Bowman, whose cause for canonization opened last year, are more famous than others, but they all give their lives in service to the Church and her people. They represent more than a dozen congregations including:
• The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes, – CSA;
• Missionaries Guadalupanas of the Holy Spirit, MGSpS;
• School Sisters of Notre Dame, SSND;
• Sisters of Humility of Mary, CHM;
• Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, RSM;
• Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, DC;
• Sisters of Charity of Halifax, SC;
• Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, OSF;
• Order of Discalced Carmelite Nuns, OCD;
• Dominican Sisters of Springfield, OP;
• Congregation of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, FSPA;
• School Sisters of St. Francis, Milwaukee, WI – OSF
• Sisters of St. Francis, Aston, OSF
• Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, SCN
• Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, Minnesota
• Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes
• Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Family
• Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, SNJM;
• Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate, S.H.Sp;
• Union of the Sisters of the Presentation of the BVM, PBVM;
• Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Louis Province – CSJ.
• Sisters of St. Joseph, CSJ

OXFORD – Knights of Columbus Council 10901, St. John the Evangelist, prepare pulled pork sandwiches for the Pregnancy Center Bar-B-Q benefit held on February 9. The benefit sold 350 plates and served them from 5-7 p.m. Many Knights as well as spouses and volunteers from the Oxford Pregnancy Center assisted. (Photo by Summer Farrell)