Monthly Archives: December 2014

Pope teaches children joy of Christmas

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) – No saint was ever known for having a “funeral face,” Pope Francis said; the joy of knowing one is loved by God and saved by Christ must be seen at least in a sense of peace, if not a smile.
Celebrating the third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, Dec. 14, Pope Francis paid an evening visit to Rome’s St. Joseph Parish, meeting with the sick, with a group of Gypsies, with a first Communion class and with dozens of couples whose newborn babies were baptized in the past year.

A Nativity scene and Christmas tree decorate the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican Dec. 15. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

A Nativity scene and Christmas tree decorate the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican Dec. 15. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

“Be joyful as you prepare for Christmas,” he told them at Mass, urging as a first step that people thank God each day for the blessings they have been given.
A Christian’s Christmas joy has nothing to do with “the consumerism that leads to everyone being anxious Dec. 24 because, ‘Oh, I don’t have this, I need that’ — no, that is not God’s joy.”
With Christmas “less than 15 days away, no 13 days, let us pray. Don’t forget, we pray for Christmas joy. We give thanks to God for the many things he has given us and for faith, first of all.”
Earlier in the day, reciting the Angelus with visitors in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis blessed the statues of the Baby Jesus that will take center place in Nativity scenes in Rome schools, churches and homes.
Addressing the children who brought their figurines to the square, the pope said, “When you pray in front of your creche at home, remember to pray for me, like I will remember you.”
At the end of the Angelus, volunteers distributed a little booklet, marked “gift of Pope Francis,” containing the texts of the Our Father and Hail Mary and other “traditional prayers,” as well as prayers drawn from the Psalms and the “five-finger prayer.”
Using the fingers on one hand, the prayer guides people in praying for those closest to them, for those who teach, for those who govern, for those who are weak and – on the pinkie or smallest finger – for one’s own humility.
“The human heart desires joy,” the pope said in his Angelus address. “We all want joy; every family, all peoples aspire to joy. But what kind of joy are Christians called to witness? It is that joy that comes from closeness to God and from his presence in our lives.”
“A Christian is one who has a heart full of peace because he or she knows how to find joy in the Lord even when going through difficult moments in life,” he said. “Having faith does not mean not having difficulties, but having the strength to face them knowing that we are not alone.”

Pope Francis greets a boy as he arrives to celebrate Mass at St. Joseph Parish in Rome Dec. 14. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Pope Francis greets a boy as he arrives to celebrate Mass at St. Joseph Parish in Rome Dec. 14. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

When joy or at least peace shines through a person’s face, he said, others will wonder why, opening the possibility of sharing with them the Gospel.
With Christmas approaching, the pope said, “the church invites us to give witness that Jesus is not just a historical figure; he is the word of God who continues to illuminate people’s paths today; his gestures – the sacraments — show the tenderness, consolation of love of the Father for every human being.”
Dressed in rose vestments for the evening Mass at the parish on Rome’s western edge, Pope Francis explained that usually Advent vestments are a dark color, “but today they are rose because the joy of Christmas is blossoming.”
“The joy of Christmas is a special joy, a joy that is not only for Christmas Day, but for the entire life of a Christian,” he said.
Speaking without a prepared text, the pope said someone could say, “’Oh, father, we make a big meal (at Christmas) and everyone is happy.’ This is beautiful. A big meal is good, but it is not the Christian joy we’re talking about.”
Christian joy, he said, “comes from prayer and from giving thanks to God.” It grows as one reviews all the blessings God has given.
“But there are people who do not know how to thank God; they always look for things to complain about,” the pope said. Speaking confidentially, he told parishioners that he used to know a nun who worked hard, “but her life was all about complaining,” so much so that “in the convent they called her ‘Sister Whiner.’ But a Christian can’t live that way, always looking for something to complain about!”
(Copyright © 2014 Catholic News Service/United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news services may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to, such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method in whole or in part, without prior written authority of Catholic News Service.)

Youth Briefs & Gallery

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MADISON St. Joseph School, college funding workshop, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015, at 6p.m. in the library. Educational Services Foundation (Get2College.org) will be the presenter. Details: Debbie Carrington, 601)898-4817, dcarrington@stjoebruins.com.

SOUTHAVEN Christ the King Parish, Knights of Columbus poster contest for children eight-14 years-old. There are two age divisions eight-11 and 12-14, and two themes: alcohol awareness and abuse or drug awareness and abuse. The four winners (one each age group and each theme) will receive $25. Details: Donna Williamson. The rules are on the back of the entry forms. Deadline is Jan. 30, 2015.

RECOGNITIONS

  • JACKSON Sister Thea Bowman School was selected as a finalist for the Daniel Rudd Fund Grant administered by the National Black Catholic Congress. The funds awarded will be used for the school’s Scholars Program, a mentoring program for upper elementary students at Sister Thea Bowman School.
  • MADISON St. Anthony School’s science teacher, Vicki Moorehead, is a State Finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST).  The award is given on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).  Moorehead is being examined at the national level in the selection process. Lakechia Grant, from the Office of Curriculum and Instruction at the Mississippi Department of Education, presented the award to Moorehead.

Conference set for teens, parish leaders

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JACKSON – Registration is open for Cross Connections, a first of its kind gathering for youth and ministers. The event, organized by the Office of Youth Ministry, is set for Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015, in Jackson from 10 a.m. – 11 p.m. The cost is $25 per person and attendees should make their own hotel arrangements.
“The theme: Cross Connections: Catholic and I Mean It, is meant to help us understand the idea that youth are members of their parish from the moment they are born, not just when they join a class or youth group,” said Kathie Curtis, coordinator of the Office of Youth Ministry.
“We want to work with youth and youth ministers, but we also want to include pastors, DREs, CREs, everyone who works in parish ministry to help integrate the gifts young people bring into the whole life of the parish,” she added. The Catholic population in Mississippi is a minority. Curtis said she wants to help young people embrace their faith and be proud of it, particularly as they reach the age when they are going out on their own and being challenged by other kids their own age.
Speakers will include Brian Topping, with Paradisus Dei, a ministry out of Houston, Texas. Topping has trained staff with Parish Success Group in how to manage, organize and communicate different ministry groups. He will lead a  session for young people and a breakout session for adult leaders only.
Joe Melendrez, famous for his Rosary rap, will also bring his high-energy praise and worship to the event. He will be joined by Leah Darrow, a contestant from America’s Top Model, whose conversion led her to become a Catholic speaker.
Reservations will be open until Feb. 10. Contact Kathie Curtis, 601-949-6934, kathie.curtis@jacksondiocese.org.

Colorful, joyful celebrations honor Our Lady of Guadalupe

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By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Preceded by a procession of flags from the nations of the Americas and the recitation of the rosary in Spanish, Pope Francis and thousands of Catholics from across the Atlantic celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Vatican.
The Argentina-born pope celebrated the Dec. 12 Mass to the sounds and rhythms of many of South America’s indigenous peoples; the principal sung parts of the Mass were from the “Misa Criolla,” composed 50 years ago by the late Ariel Ramirez. His son, Facundo Ramirez, conducted the choir that featured Patricia Sosa, a famous Argentine singer, as well as guitars and traditional instruments from the continent.
With St. Juan Diego’s vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531, the pope said, Mary “became the great missionary who brought the Gospel to our America.”
In his homily, Pope Francis prayed that Mary would “continue to accompany, assist and protect our peoples” and that she would “lead all the children who are pilgrims on this earth by the hand to an encounter with her son Jesus Christ.”
“Imploring God’s forgiveness and trusting in his mercy,” the pope prayed that God would help the people of Latin America forge a future of hope, development and opportunity for the poor and suffering, “for the humble, for those who hunger and thirst for justice, for the compassionate, the pure of heart, peacemakers and those persecuted for the sake of Christ’s name.”
Mary’s “Magnificat,” her hymn of praise to God, he said, proclaims that God “overturns ideologies and worldly hierarchies. He raises up the humble, comes to the aid of the poor and the small, and fills with good things, blessings and hope those who trust in his mercy.”
Pope Francis said the day’s reading from Psalm 66, with its “plea for forgiveness and the blessing of the peoples and nations and, at the same time, its joyful praise, expresses the spiritual sense of this Eucharistic celebration” in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, “for whom devotion extends from Alaska to Patagonia.”
The dark-skinned image of Our Lady of Guadalupe traditionally believed to have been miraculously impressed on Juan Diego’s cloak, the pope said, proclaimed to the indigenous peoples of the Americas “the good news that all its inhabitants shared the dignity of children of God. No more would anyone be a servant, but we are all children of the same Father and brothers and sisters to each other.”
Mary did not just want to visit the Americas, the pope said, the image on the cloak or “tilma” is a sign that “she wanted to remain with them.”
“Through her intercession, the Christian faith began to become the greatest treasure” of the American peoples, Pope Francis said, a treasure “transmitted and demonstrated even today in the baptism of multitudes of people, in the faith, hope and charity of many, in their precious popular piety and in that ethos of the people who show that they know the dignity of the human person, in their passion for justice, in solidarity with the poor and suffering.”
(Copyright © 2014 Catholic News Service/United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news services may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to, such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method in whole or in part, without prior written authority of Catholic News Service.)

Diocese seeks delegation members for World Meeting of Families

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By Maureen Smith
JACKSON – The Office of Family Ministry invites Catholics from any part of the diocese to join a delegation set to attend the World Meeting of Families and the papal visit to Philadelphia in September, 2015. Delegation members must pay their own travel costs, but Jennifer Eidt, head of the Office of Family Ministry said a travel agency will take care of all the details involved in the trip and conference.
In a Dec. 9 letter to Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, which will sponsor the Sept. 22-27 World Meeting of Families, Pope Francis said the church is seeking ways “to proclaim the Gospel of marriage and the family” in a way that responds to “the social and cultural contexts in which we live.”
“The challenges of these contexts stimulate us to enlarge the spaces of faithful love open to life, to communion, mercy and solidarity,” the pope said. Catholic couples, priests and parish communities must “let themselves be guided by the word of God, which is the foundation for the holy construction of the family as a domestic church and of the family of God.”
Saint Pope John Paul II created the World Meeting of Families in 1994 in Rome to explore the critical role the family plays in society. The theme for the 2015 meeting is “Love is our Mission, the family fully alive.” It will feature an adult track for people 18 and older and a youth track for students age 6-17.
There will be keynote sessions with speakers such as Father Robert Barron, founder of Word on Fire Ministries speaking about being created for joy and love and Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, OFM Cap., whose keynote is “the light of the family in a dark world.”
Breakout sessions include topics from dating and parenthood to blended families and the sacrament of reconciliation in a family setting. A preliminary schedule with all the breakouts scheduled so far is available on the website www.worldmeeting2015.org.
The Diocese of Jackson hopes to send at least 25 people to the Synod and papal visit, but needs firm commitments by Jan. 30, 2015, so the tour group can get to work putting together the trip. Contact Jennifer Eidt for information at 601-960-8487 or jennifer.eidt@jacksondiocese.org.

Civil rights attorney to speak at MLK event

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By Maureen Smith
JACKSON – Benjamin Crump, a civil rights attorney famous for representing both the families of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, will headline this year’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. memorial event at the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle, Sunday, Jan. 11, at 3 p.m. The event is sponsored by the Diocese of Jackson and organized by the Office of Black Catholic Ministry.

Crump

Crump

Crump is a partner at Parks and Crump, LLC, based in Tallahassee, Fl., and a graduate of Florida State University School of Law. He gained national attention representing Trayvon Martin, a black teenager who was shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Sanford Florida, but Crump has been involved in civil rights cases for many years. Many of his cases involve violent altercations with police.
Crump represented a college graduate who was shot in the back during a traffic stop and the family of a boy who was killed after being restrained and suffocated at a Florida boot camp. He is currently representing the family of Michael Brown, a teenager shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Mo. A grand jury recently declined to charge the officers involved in the case. Both the shooting and the grand jury decision sparked widespread protests, some of them violent.
“During the 1960s Civil Rights movement the religious leaders and the attorneys led the fight for equal rights. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  We must unite and be the drum majors for justice,’” said Crump.
The Catholic Church in Mississippi was particularly active during the Civil Rights Movement, operating schools and learning centers and speaking out against violence such as the assassination of Medgar Evers.
“I invited Ben because I think his experience translates in to the sort of call for our faith communities, large and small, to continue the fight for social and economic justice in our communities in Mississippi,” said Will Jemison, head of the Office of Black Catholic Ministry. “The Catholic Church in Mississippi has consistently shown its willingness to stand up for what’s right and just and having someone on the national scene share his experiences in fighting against institutional injustices and prejudice seems right for our time,” said Jemison.
Jemison is planning an interfaith event and would welcome groups from any other faith traditions. For more information contact Jemison at 601-949-6935.

Start new Christmas traditions

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Kneading faith
By Fran Lavelle
It’s Christmastide Y’all!
Most of us in ministry have at one time or another been known to say that the family is first and primary catechists for our children. The church is charged with the secondary responsibility of catechesis through Catholic schools and parish-based religious education programs. The two work in tandem to form and educate our young people in the faith. If your family has not taken up the responsibility for being the primary catechist for your children, the Christmas season is an excellent opportunity to do so.
Some families, especially ones with strong ethnic ties, do an excellent job of keeping traditions alive. Other families, who might be far removed from an ethnic identity, have created their own traditions surrounding religious holidays.  My Lavelle and O’Leary family left Ireland in the late 1700s to mid-1800s.
We have lost many Irish traditions over the years, but my parents did offer activities that became family traditions. For example, when I was a child we would have a birthday party for Jesus on Christmas Day. The celebration included newspaper hats that my brother Tom made, a kazoo or two, a horde of Lavelle’s singing “Happy Birthday to Jesus” (loud and off key), and the much anticipated birthday cake.
It’s funny how Baby Jesus and Dad both liked Italian cream cake. After the party, one of the siblings would place baby Jesus in the crib under the tree. In a small way my parents were making the connection back to the place our day had begun, unwrapping gifts under the Christmas tree. And indeed, what a gift the Infant Jesus is!
As we look at and plan for family catechesis, it’s important to know first and foremost what the Christmas season includes. On the liturgical calendar Christmas extends from the first Vespers of Christmas Eve until the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. This time includes many important Christian Holy Days. Some of these are celebrated on fixed dates on the calendar, others are always on Sundays, and therefore have moveable dates.
Dec. 26 – The feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr; Dec. 27 – the feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist; Dec. 28 – the feast of the Holy Innocents, martyrs; Sunday after Dec. 25 – the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph; Jan. 1 – the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God; Jan. 6 or the Sunday after Jan. 1 – the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord; Sunday after Jan. 6 – the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
A great activity is the reinforcement of the season through re-reading the nativity story to your children.  Place the Wise Men in a far off corner of your home and day by day have the children move them closer to the nativity set until they arrive at the crèche on the Epiphany. “We Three Kings,” can be sung each day as the caravan moves closer to finding Jesus in the manger.   Another idea is celebrating the Octave of Christmas with older children. You could compile a personalized family list of eight things your family wants to pray for.
Children may want to re-write the nativity story from the perspective of one of the persons present. For example, the story coming from a shepherd or one of the wise men would be very different than the perspective of Joseph or Mary. One online resource I find helpful is a website called Strong Catholic Family Faith, www.catholicfamilyfaith.org. The Church Year tab will lead you to the link for Christmas.
Keep in mind that whatever activities we do with our children as a family become touch tones as they grow older. They are the very things that our children will pass on to the next generation. Reflecting back, the Lavelle family birthday party for Jesus may have been simple but many (and I mean many) years later I remember that in this simple gesture, Jesus was central to our Christmas celebration as a family.
Christmas calls us contemplate John 1:1-1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  May the Word Incarnate dwell deeply within you during the Christmas Season.  May you find your hearts longing to hold on to the promises it holds.
(Fran Lavelle is the head of the Office of Faith Formation)

Service Learning: one mission of Catholic Schools

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Forming our future
By Paul Artman
The Catholic school principal is constantly bombarded with community requests for volunteer help. While we are always pleased to assist the communities we serve, the wise educator, and parent for that matter, should always insist on a learning component associated with service.
The Catholic school is a profoundly academic institution, but an institution nevertheless rooted in the Gospel values. These values mandate that we shall serve our Lord, his people, and his society.
Jesus lived a life of service and likewise, he called each of us to follow him in a life of service all manifested in a true giving spirit of love and humility. Service learning has now moved beyond a “buzzword” and profoundly into the curriculum at most levels of education. Catholic schools were the first to include service into curricula standards, and consequently Catholic schools have shared the best opportunity to refine this principle of education.
This long-standing mission of Catholic education has now become the norm in education. While service on face value and at any level is valuable, the Catholic experience teaches that service learning should lead to servant leadership, and ultimately to the integration of service as human nature. Our Catholic schools teach so that the fruit of our labors significantly strengthens the futures of our academic, vocational, and service lives.
How can service become second nature? The elevation of corporal works to a honed and skillful second nature of service begins with a plan. This plan includes being authentically Catholic in spirit, matching the curricula standards, and elevating service to a meaningful level for all concerned. Simple concepts in service are valuable, but are much more meaningful when developed into a lasting plan of action. In other words, whom and how do I serve in order to make an impact? This is why we encourage students striving for the next level of scholarship and service to create their own innovative methods of service.
This often means the creation of one’s own service charity and the incorporation of others as volunteers. This indeed makes a powerful statement when a youth conceives and “owns” an important avenue of service to the benefit of many other people.
In the school setting thoughtful service to others must be integrated into the curriculum, supervised by competent adults, and mastered through a reflective activity. Critical thought and a writing activity best serve the aftermath of a service project. What did I observe, whom did I encounter, why was the activity beneficial or not, and how can this service component better serve my fellow man and the community at large? These questions beg for an answer that will allow the service cycle to continue and be enhanced.
Technology and a commitment to community service since 1888, have afforded Greenville St. Joseph School an exceptional opportunity for new avenues of service. The school has introduced a Google Chromebook Initiative funded through grants from the Catholic Foundation and the King’s Daughters and Sons Circle Number Two. This program will be utilized to develop a community-based student initiative designed to identify, research, and propose solutions for current local issues.
This will allow St. Joseph to enhance our Catholic education curriculum focusing on (STREAM) Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts, and Math. The effort shall move across curricula lines. Utilizing exciting new technology, this effort will readily support students with web resources used for research and critical thought. Service can even be high-tech.
Ultimately through all our service, we hope for the emergence, and eventual sustainability, of morally guided Christian witnesses. We do not strive to merely fill empty work billets with able bodies. Rather, we can mold interested young people who will take a service opportunity and allow it to build a lifetime of meaning for themselves and those they so willingly serve. There are many other benefits to service learning including integrated learning, collaboration, and social responsibility.
A quality service learning opportunity also produces a broad range of work experiences, evaluative concepts, and a student voice in matters of community import.
All in all, servant leadership makes for better learning, better people, better communities, and better Christians. Our service should prove that we can learn from all whom we encounter and in all circumstance. Thank you to Catholic schools and our patrons for the basis and legacy for service learning in today’s society.
(Paul Artman, Ed.S., has been the principal at Greenville St. Joseph School for nine years.)

Nativity offers opportunity to embrace joy

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By Karla Luke
“Ever since Jesus entered into history, with his birth in Bethlehem, humanity has received the germ of the Kingdom of God, like the terrain that receives the seed, the promise of a future harvest. There is no need to search elsewhere! Jesus has come to bring joy to all forever. It is not merely a hoped-for joy, or a joy postponed to paradise: here on earth we are sad but in paradise we will be joyful. No! It is not this, but rather it is a joy that is already real and that can be experienced now, because Jesus Himself is our joy, and with Jesus our home is joyful.”
­— Pope Francis
Merry Christmas! As the Advent season comes to a close and the Christmas season begins, once again our faithful Creator has bestowed on us the gifts of hope, faith, joy and peace through the incarnation of His only Son Jesus Christ. Since the beginning of creation, God has constantly demonstrated His love for us by trusting us to love Him in return.
Because we sinned and fell short, God loved us enough to come down into our world to show us the way back to Him, in the person of Jesus Christ. He loved us enough to become us. This alone should fill us with immense joy. Pope Francis wrote in his  about how this joy comes into our hearts.
“A Christian is a person whose heart is filled with peace because he or she knows to place joy in the Lord even when experiencing difficult moments in life. To have faith does not mean not having difficult moments, but rather having the strength to face them knowing that we are not alone. And this is the peace God gives to His sons and daughters”.
— Pope Francis

We are called to experience the true joy of this Christmas season by being in community with others. Yes, we should visit with family and friends as our traditions dictate. However, we should also reach out to those who are forgotten, lonely, poor and imprisoned.
Our true and authentic joy does not come from receiving gifts and new material possessions, but it comes from encountering the different parts of the Body of Christ, no matter where we may find them. As our baptismal promises indicate, we are missionaries of joy and as missionaries of joy we are called to bring that same joy to all others including those who do not know Christ and those who must rediscover Christ.
So as we celebrate this Christmas season, let’s not forget, in the words of Pope Francis, that we are “the terrain that receives the seed for the promise of a future harvest.” We have received Christ, the true seed of joy. Let us plant Him within ourselves to yield a great harvest for the Kingdom of God. Be the joy of Christ to all! Merry Christmas!
(Karla Luke is the coordinator of operations and support services for the Office of Catholic Education. She is writing reflections from Pope Francis’ Joy of the Gospel this year.)

‘Visitation’ mirrors ecumenical invitation

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IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
We are all familiar with the biblical story of the Visitation. It happens at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel. Mary and her cousin, Elizabeth, both pregnant, meet. One is carrying Jesus and the other is carrying John the Baptist. The Gospels want us to recognize that both these pregnancies are biologically impossible; one is a virginal conception and the other is a conception that occurs far beyond someone’s childbearing years. So there is clearly something of the divine in each. In simple language, each woman is carrying a special gift from heaven and each is carrying a part of the divine promise that will one day establish God’s peace on this earth.
But neither Mary nor Elizabeth, much less anyone around them, consciously recognizes the divine connection between the two children they are carrying. The Gospels present them to us as “cousins,” both the children and their mothers; but the Gospels want us to think deeper than biology. They are cousins in the same way that Christ, and those things that are also of the divine, are cousins. This, among other things, is what is contained in the concept of the Visitation.
Mary and Elizabeth meet, both are pregnant with the divine. Each is carrying a child from heaven, one is carrying Christ and the other is carrying a unique prophet, the “cousin” of the Christ. And a curious thing happens when they meet. Christ’s cousin, inside his mother, without explicit consciousness, leaps for joy in the presence of Christ and that reaction releases the Magnificat inside of the one carrying Christ.
There’s a lot in that image. Christian de Cherge, the Trappist Abbott who was martyred in Algeria in 1996, suggests that, among other things, this image is the key to how we, as Christians, are meant to meet other religions in the world.
He sees the image as illustrating this paradigm: Christianity is carrying Christ and other religions are also carrying something divine, a divine “cousin,” one who points to Christ. But all of this is unconscious; we do not really grasp the bond, the connection, between what we are carrying and what the other is carrying. But we will recognize their kinship, however unconsciously, when we stand before another who does not share our Christian faith but is sincere and true to his or her own faith. In that encounter we will sense the connection.
What we are carrying will make something leap for joy inside the other and that reaction will help draw the Magnificat out of us and, like Mary, we will want to stay with that other for mutual support.
And we need that support, as does the other. As Christian de Cherge puts it: “We know that those whom we have come to meet are like Elizabeth: they are bearers of a message that comes from God. Our church does not tell us and does not know what the exact bond is between the Good News we bear and the message that gives life to the other.  … We may never know exactly what that bond is, but we do know that the other is also a bearer of a message that comes from God. So what should we do? What does witness consist in? What about mission?  …  See, when Mary arrives, it is Elizabeth who speaks first. Or did she? … For most certainly Mary would have said: ‘Peace, Peace be with you’. And this simple greeting made something vibrate, someone, inside of Elizabeth. And in this vibration, something was said. … Which is the Good News, not the whole of the Good News, but what can be glimpsed of it in the moment.”
De Cherge then adds, “In the end, if we are attentive, if we situate our encounter with the other in the attention and the desire to meet the other, and in our need for the other and what he has to say to us, it is likely that the other is going to say something to us that will connect with what we are carrying, something that will reveal complicity with us … allowing us to broaden our Eucharist.”
We need each other, everyone on this planet, Christians and non-Christians, Jews and Muslims, Protestants and Roman Catholics, Evangelicals and Unitarians, sincere agnostics and atheists; we need each other to understand God’s revelation. Nobody understands fully without the other. Thus our interrelations with each other should not be born only out of enthusiasm for the truth we have been given, but it should issue forth too from our lack of the other.
Without the other, without recognizing that the other too is carrying the divine, we will, as Christian de Cherge asserts, be unable to truly release our own Magnificat. Without each other, none of us will ever be able to pray the Eucharist “for the many.”
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)