Rewarding reading

COLUMBUS – For the second year in a row Annunciation Catholic School won the Scholastic Award for the most summer reading minutes logged in Mississippi.
Annunciation students read and logged 106,859 minutes.  The school ranked in the top five percent of the 7,311 schools around the world participating in the annual program. The school won by a margin of only 100-150 minutes.

Steve Lowry and Les Kevehazi, representatives from Scholastic Books, present Annunication School principal Joni House, with an award for reading the most number of minutes in the state. This is the second year the school has won the summer reading challenge sponsored by Scholastic. (Photo by Heather Skaggs)

Steve Lowry and Les Kevehazi, representatives from Scholastic Books, present Annunciation School principal Joni House, with an award for reading the most number of minutes in the state. This is the second year the school has won the summer reading challenge sponsored by Scholastic. (Photo by Heather Skaggs)

“We are so excited about winning the Scholastic award again,” said Terri Doumit, librarian. “We’ll be in the world record book again. Our children and their parents should be commended because not only did they read, but logged their minutes. I’m so blessed to work with families eager to read. Best job ever.”
The program challenges students to read all summer and record the number of minutes per day on a website. Doumit creates online accounts for each student before the school year ends to encourage them to participate.

Early learning an opportunity for joy

Forming our Future
By Jennifer Henry
“Announce the Good News! Read the sign of the times.” These are the words of Sister Paula Blouin, SSND, director of Madison Assisi Early Learning Center, and trailblazer in early childhood education in the Diocese of Jackson. “There is a tremendous need for quality childcare. Young families are looking for a loving, safe, educational and nurturing environment for their children. Mothers and fathers want to feel good about leaving their children,” added Sister Blouin.
There are three early learning centers now in the Diocese of Jackson:  Assisi Early Learning Center, Natchez Holy Family Early Learning Center and Flowood St. Paul Early Learning Center.  Sister Blouin opened Assisi Early Learning Center in 1987 answering a need for early childhood education. She built a center that is a model for the rest of the diocese. Three years later she helped Father Edward Balser, pastor of St. Paul Parish, open St. Paul Early Learning Center. Holy Family is the oldest in the group. The parish was first established in 1890.
Sister Blouin warmly welcomes visitors to her center and has willingly and generously helped many parishes explore the possibility of establishing early learning centers in Mississippi. Sister believes there is a great need for early childhood education. “We don’t just babysit. We are more than a daycare,” she explained. She is like the foundress of her order, Blessed Mother Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger,  a revolutionary and exceptional educator who sent her sisters into communities where they taught girls who would have otherwise been deprived of an adequate education. Gerhardinger is quoted as saying, “The love of Jesus sees into the future.”
Research about early learning is filled with optimism about the possibilities of shaping children’s academic success through early intervention. We know how important it is to talk to babies, to read to them. This contributes to a child’s academic success. Sister Blouin says that it is a well-known fact that 50 percent of values and morals are formed by five years of age. The early years are a crucial time for children to grow in mind, body and spirit.
Catholic educators are particularly privileged  at early learning centers to observe and share in the development of the spiritual growth of children.  At St. Paul Early Learning Center, we have begun using the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program  where the mystery of God meets the mystery of the child. This program teaches young children about the covenant relationship with God. “I have called you by name, you are mine….Because you are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you,” (Isaiah 43:1, 4).
Gianna Gobbi, Maria Montessori and Sofia Cavelletti, all pioneers in early childhood education, each played important roles in creating the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Their work designed a curriculum where children could develop concentration, order, grace and courtesy, care of self and the environment. The children are surrounded by a prepared environment, the atrium, that is simple, beautiful, neat, organized and authentic. The materials allow children opportunities to use their multiple intelligences. As Montessori said, “The hand is the avenue to the brain.”
The Good Shepherd program is rooted in scripture and liturgy. The children learn to live the life of the liturgy in the atrium. They listen to scripture, meditate on the stories and wonder. The work in the atrium helps the children build that relationship with Jesus that He initiates so we may have life to the full and joy.
Joy! It is what children bring to us so innocently, lovingly and generously. Pope Francis has called us as God’s people to live the joy of the Gospel. Early childhood centers are certainly a ministry of the church that create multiple ways of meeting the needs of parents and children. There is good news to share about the Early Learning Centers in the Diocese of Jackson.
Like Sister Blouin, hopefully more parishes will respond to the sign of the times and embrace the most important instruction at the most crucial time in our children’s lives.  As Jesus said, “let the children come to me, do not prevent them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these,” (Matthew 19: 14).
(Jennifer Henry is the director of the Early Childhood Learning Center at Flowood St. Paul Parish.)

Synod looking at doctrine through lens of development, not revolution

Word on Fire
By Father Robert Barron
The controversies surrounding the recent Extraordinary Synod on the Family have often put me in mind of John Henry Cardinal Newman, the greatest Catholic churchman of the 19th century. Newman wrote eloquently on an extraordinary range of topics, including university education, the play between faith and reason, the nature of papal authority and the subtle manner in which we come to assent in matters of religion. But the arguments around the Synod compel us to look at Newman’s work regarding the evolution of doctrine.
When he was at mid-career and in the process of converting from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, Newman penned a masterpiece entitled “On the Development of Christian Doctrine.” In line with the evolutionary theories that were just emerging at that time — Hegel’s work was dominant in most European universities and Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” would appear just a few years later — Newman argued that Christian doctrines are not given once for all and simply passed down unchanged from generation to generation.
Rather, like seeds that unfold into plants or rivers that deepen and broaden over time, they develop, their various aspects and implications emerging in the course of lively rumination. It is assuredly not the case, for example, that the doctrine of the Trinity was delivered fully-grown into the minds of the first disciples of Jesus and then passed on like a football across the ages. On the contrary, it took hundreds of years for the seed of that teaching to grow into the mighty tree of Augustine’s formulations in the “De Trinitate” or Aquinas’s complex treatise in the first part of the “Summa Theologiae.”
Moreover, Newman felt that even those definitive theological achievements in turn develop and unfold as they are mused over, turned around, questioned and argued about. He concludes: “a real idea is equivalent to the sum total of its possible aspects.” And those aspects appear only in the course of time and through the play of the lively minds that consider them. It is precisely in this context that Newman penned the most famous line of “On the Development of Christian Doctrine:” “In a higher world it is otherwise; but here below, to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.” Ideas change because they are living things.
I realize that many, upon considering this view, will get nervous — as did many in Newman’s day. Does this mean that doctrine is up for grabs? Should we keep our dogmatic statements, as one cynical wag once put it, in loose-leaf binders? To get some clarity on this point, I would recommend that we delve a little further into Newman’s great book and examine the criteria that he laid out to determine the difference between a legitimate development (which makes the doctrine in question more fully itself) and a corruption (which undermines the doctrine). Newman presents seven in total, but I should like to examine just three.
The first is what he calls preservation of type. A valid development preserves the essential form and structure of what came before. If that type is undermined, we are dealing with a corruption. Mind you, type can be maintained even through enormous superficial changes, as, to use Newman’s own example, “a butterfly is a development of the caterpillar but not in any sense its image.”
A second criterion is what Newman refers to as “conservative action upon its past.” An evolution that simply reverses or contradicts what came before it is necessarily a corruption and not a development. In Newman’s own words, an authentic development “is an addition that illustrates, not obscures; corroborates, not corrects the body of thought from which it proceeds.” In accord with this idea, Christianity could be seen as the development of Judaism, since it preserves the essential teachings and practices of that faith, even as it moves beyond them. Cardinal George Pell alluded to this principle when he said, during the recent Synod debates, “the Church does not do back-flips on doctrine.” So, for example, if a proposal were put forth at the Extraordinary Synod that simply contradicted the teaching of John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio or Paul VI in Humanae Vitae, it would certainly reflect a corruption.
A third criterion that Newman puts forward is what he calls “the power of assimilation.” Just as a healthy organism can take in what it can from its environment, even as it resists what it must, so a sane and lively idea can take to itself what is best in the intellectual atmosphere, even as it throws off what is noxious. Both total accommodation to the culture and total resistance to it are usually signs of intellectual sickness.
Now how does all of this apply to the Synod? Well, let’s consider the proposal made by Cardinal Walter Kasper regarding communion for the divorced and re-married. Is it an authentic development or a corruption of Catholic moral teaching and practice? Would Newman be opposed in principle to change in this regard? Not necessarily, for he knew that to live is to change. Would he therefore enthusiastically embrace what Cardinal Kasper has proposed? Not necessarily, for it might represent a corruption. As the conversation continues to unfold over the coming months, I think all sides would benefit from a careful reading of “On the Development of Christian Doctrine.”
(Father Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and the Rector/President of Mundelein Seminary. He is the creator of the award winning documentary series, “Catholicism”  and “Catholicism: The New Evangelization.” Learn more at www.WordonFire.org.)

USCCB leader: walk with families, help them grow closer to mercy of Jesus

By Patricia Zapor
BALTIMORE (CNS) – Acknowledging that families come with complications, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reminded his fellow bishops Nov. 10 that their role is to accompany their family of the church through their fears and concerns.
“Evangelizing means witnessing to our hope in Jesus,” said Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, in opening the USCCB’s annual fall general assembly in Baltimore. It was his first address as conference president.
“As pastors, we accompany so many families who face their own fears and concerns and who yearn to experience the love of Jesus in and through his loving family – the church,” he said. “Together, brothers, we seek to walk with these families and to build their confidence in faith.”
Archbishop Kurtz framed his remarks around a conversation he had recently with Italian journalist Paolo Rodari, who has a brother with Down syndrome. Archbishop Kurtz for many years was responsible for the care of his late brother, who also had Down syndrome.
The two discussed how they learned to communicate with their brothers through the things that were important to their siblings – film and books – and that they otherwise could be difficult to understand.
“Paolo has learned to understand Giovanni, because they’re family,” Archbishop Kurtz said, continuing the metaphor as an example of what the bishops are called to do – “walk with our brothers and sisters, helping them grow closer to Jesus through his mercy.”
He noted that Pope Francis has said the church is “a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel.”
The archbishop commented about some of his experiences over the last year as USCCB president – such as visiting the Philippines with Catholic Relief Services to see the relief work after Typhoon Haiyan, and the conference’s work on issues such as religious freedom and respect for life.
“We all strive to be faithful pastors, so we know what this looks like,” he said. “Think of the home visits we’ve all done in parishes. When I’d come to someone’s home, I wouldn’t start by telling them how I’d rearrange their furniture. In the same way, I wouldn’t begin by giving them a list of rules to follow.
“Instead, I’d first spend time with them, trying to appreciate the good that I saw in their hearts. I’d acknowledge that, like them, I was in the process of conversion toward greater holiness,” the archbishop said.
“I would then invite them to follow Christ and I’d offer to accompany them as we, together, follow the Gospel invitation to turn from sin and journey along the way. Such an approach isn’t in opposition to church teachings; it’s an affirmation of them.”
(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.)

Media created ‘tale of two synods’ say bishops

By Mark Pattison
BALTIMORE (CNS) – October’s extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family was just one event, but “a tale of two synods” emerged from it, according to the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
Speaking to reporters Nov. 10 after the morning session of the USCCB’s annual fall general assembly in Baltimore, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, acknowledged the differences in the synod experienced by the bishops participating in it and news accounts disseminated outside the synod.
Those differences were highlighted by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York in remarks delivered during the assembly’s morning session.

Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans, center, listens to a speaker Nov. 10 during the annual fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. Behind him on the left is Archbishop Thomas Rodi of Mobile, Metropolitan Archbishop for the Diocese of Jackson. (CNS photo/Bob Roller

Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans, center, listens to a speaker Nov. 10 during the annual fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. Behind him on the left is Archbishop Thomas Rodi of Mobile, Metropolitan Archbishop for the Diocese of Jackson. (CNS photo/Bob Roller

“There must have been two synods,” he said, and the participating U.S. bishops “happened to be at the wrong one.”
From what he said he had heard and read about the synod, one synod was “confrontational and divisive,” “hijacked by left-wing dissenters intent on eluding doctrine,” with proceedings “smothered by new Ottavianis, dug in to resist the fresh breeze” of change, Cardinal Dolan said, referring to Italian Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani known for his opposition to the changes being brought about in the church during the Second Vatican Council.
“Too bad we missed that one,” Cardinal Dolan added. “The one we were at was hardly as spicy (and) juicy.”
The synod Cardinal Dolan said he attended “was a synod of consensus. This synod was led by a pope with a radical charism for attentive listening,” he said of Pope Francis, adding the only time the pope spoke was in “reciting the Angelus – twice.”
At this synod, “we listened to married couples who found God’s love in one another and their kids,” Cardinal Dolan said. “At this synod, we listened to bishops form Africa who said the (church’s) teaching on marriage, so widely dismissed in the First World, was enhancing their culture. … We saw brother bishops asking how we can expedite and simplify marriage (annulment) cases.”
It was at this synod, Cardinal Dolan said, that “life-giving marriage” was the focus of “meeting the most urgent vocation crisis of the times.”
Archbishop Kurtz, in addressing his fellow bishops, noted that each one of the 62 paragraphs that constituted the final “relatio,” or report, of the synod met with majority approval — and all but three of the paragraphs with approval by at least two-thirds of those voting.
Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, at a news conference following the morning session, said Pope Francis had asked that the “votation” be published along with the text to indicate the degree of accord shared at the synod.
Archbishop Kurtz said there were 12 documents in all to be considered at the synod before the final “relatio” was discussed: the first two “relatios” – one offered at the synod’s beginning and a second draft issued mid-synod – plus separate documents produced by each of 10 small working groups.
“The work of the second ‘relatio’ was the work of the small groups,” Archbishop Kurtz told reporters.
Cardinal Wuerl added that press covering the synod and those bishops participating in it “have different perspectives.”
“So many people tend to reflect now in terms of sound bites,” he said. “In the church, we’re learning to speak a little more crisply, but our teaching is not reducible to sound bites.”
He noted it took some time for the final “relatio” to be translated into English from the official Italian. But he urged the bishops to wait for the translation, noting that the final “relatio” serves as the “lineamenta,” or outline, for next year’s world Synod of Bishops.
Archbishop Kurtz said the Vatican was holding a meeting later in November to construct a system of reflection for bishops’ conferences to use in seeking input from dioceses to be used in preparation for next year’s synod.
(Editor’s note: Bishop Joseph Kopacz attended the USCCB meeting.)
(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.)

Embrace light, purpose of Advent

By Elsa Baughman
I remember reading years ago in a religious column that the only place where Advent has not disappeared is in the church. It usually begins at the end of November or early December, when people are thinking more about Christmas presents, parties and activities than  preparing themselves spiritually for the coming of Christ. This liturgical season of anticipation can be very noisy, surrounded by secular music, lights, and television, newspaper and radio ads urging us to buy gifts for this or that special person.
When we go to church on the four Sundays of Advent we are reminded of the true meaning of this season by the Scripture readings which reflect on the coming of our savior.

COVINGTON – On October 25, 2014 Father Brian Kaskie, pastor of McComb St. Alphonsus, led a group of about 30 members from his parish to St. Joseph Abbey. The group attended Mass, ate lunch and had a tour of the Abbey, which has undergone recent renovations to mark its 125th anniversary this year. Diocesan seminarians attend the college there.  (Photo submitted by Ruth E. Phillips)

COVINGTON – On October 25, 2014 Father Brian Kaskie, pastor of McComb St. Alphonsus, led a group of about 30 members from his parish to St. Joseph Abbey. The group attended Mass, ate lunch and had a tour of the Abbey, which has undergone recent renovations to mark its 125th anniversary this year. Diocesan seminarians attend the college there. (Photo submitted by Ruth E. Phillips)

Here in the Diocese of Jackson parishes and missions observe Advent with a variety of activities. Some  schedule time for silent prayers and reflection, others hold retreats, candlelight vigils or celebrate daily Mass, and the majority offer penance services.
Just as last year, Pearl St. Jude Young Apostles will pray an illuminated Advent rosary in their rosary garden. In Corinth St. James Parish children brought ornaments (symbols of a Bible story or figure) to place on a “Jesse Tree” while hearing a short story about each character from the ancestry of Jesus during Advent last year.
New Albany St. Francis of Assisi Parish has spiritual reflections on Wednesdays. Every year, Madison St. Francis of Assisi Parish holds an Advent Fair where children make Advent wreaths for their homes.

Carmelite Sisters L. J. Therese Lazard (left) and Mary Jane Agonoy arrange the display of the Advent wreaths at the Carmelite Gift Shop. The store carries a wide selection of wreaths, candles and pamphlets for the Advent season. The open house weekends and bake sales run from Nov. 15-Dec. 21. (Photos by Elsa Baughman)

Carmelite Sisters L. J. Therese Lazard (left) and Mary Jane Agonoy arrange the display of the Advent wreaths at the Carmelite Gift Shop. The store carries a wide selection of wreaths, candles and pamphlets for the Advent season. The open house weekends and bake sales run from Nov. 15-Dec. 21. (Photos by Elsa Baughman)

The church does its best to encourage all of us during these four weeks to center our lives, minds and hearts on the coming of Christ. It’s up to us to hear the message and anticipate his coming, not with fanfare but with a quiet, humble heart, a burning heart.
For me, this year is special. I wanted to do something different to really immerse myself in the “coming” of our King. I bought an Advent wreath! I have been wanting to participate in this tradition for years, but always put it off for one reason or another.
The wreath is an old tradition meant to remind us of the coming of the light of the world. It has three purple candles, symbolizing penitence and preparation, and one pink candle, used on Gaudete Sunday, to symbolize hope. As the days of winter get darker and shorter, we light another candle each week until we welcome Christ, the real light of the world, at Christmas. There are many prayer books and online resources with prayers you can use with  your Advent wreath.
As I light each candle on my Advent wreath, I am preparing my heart to receive Christ with a new purpose in life.

This Advent wreath is on sale at the Carmelite Gift Shop. The wreath is an old tradition meant to remind us of the coming of the light of the world.

This Advent wreath is on sale at the Carmelite Gift Shop. The wreath is an old tradition meant to remind us of the coming of the light of the world.

I might also try to do something similar to what my sister does during Advent. She makes a list of simple things to do each day during the season – just one per day. For instance, one day she would pray for the intentions of the pope; another day she buys a small toy for a needy child, or calls a friend who is sick or going through a hard time in life. They are all very small sacrifices but with a kind, loving purpose.
During this Advent season, let us prepare our hearts to hear the message of our savior and receive him in all his glory.
(Editor’s note: see page 2 for Advent services and programs in parishes.)

Pray for us … intercessions powerful tools

By Karla Luke
Intercessory prayer, to pray and seek good for others, is a powerful form of prayer and evangelization. It involves pleading with and thanking God on behalf of another person or persons. God loves a heart that is generous for others and we can find many examples of this in Scripture.
Consider St. Paul’s letter to Timothy, “First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.  This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:1-4)
Jesus Christ is our ultimate intercessor, as he stands between us and God, leading and modeling for us the way to the Father. Jesus himself said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Jesus’ life is an example of interceding for us to the Father.
He interceded for the bride and groom at the wedding in Cana, for Mary and Martha when he raised Lazarus, and for countless sick and suffering people through healing miracles. Because Jesus is our holy model, He is showing us that He wants us to plead to our heavenly Father on behalf of others as well. This month, we honor the great intercessors of our faith, the saints. In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis highlights the graces realized from intercessory prayer.
“At the same time, it is the gratitude which flows from a heart attentive to others. When evangelizers rise from prayer, their hearts are more open; freed of self-absorption, they are desirous of doing good and sharing their lives with others.
“The great men and women of God were great intercessors. Intercession is like a “leaven” in the heart of the Trinity. It is a way of penetrating the Father’s heart and discovering new dimensions which can shed light on concrete situations and change them. We can say that God’s heart is touched by our intercession, yet in reality he is always there first. What our intercession achieves is that his power, his love and his faithfulness are shown ever more clearly in the midst of the people.” (282-283 Evangelii Gaudium)
Just as a mother prays for her children, so Mary, the mother of God and our mother too, prays for us! Just as we pray for our brothers and sisters, so the saints and angels pray and intercede for us. As we follow the model of Mary and the saints, let us also pray in thanksgiving to Jesus and to the holy men and women of God who are constantly praying, watching, guiding, pleading and thanking Him on our behalf until we are able to be with them in heaven.
(Karla Luke is the coordinator of operations and support services for the Office of Catholic Education.)

Bear crosses without bitterness

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Among Jesus’ many teachings we find this, rather harsh-sounding, invitation: Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
I suspect that each of us has a gut-sense of what this means and what it will cost us; but, I suspect too that many of us misunderstand what Jesus is asking here and struggle unhealthily with this invitation. What, concretely, does Jesus mean by this?
To answer that, I would like to lean on some insights offered by James Martin in his book, “Jesus, A Pilgrimage.” He suggests that taking up our cross daily and giving up life in order to find deeper life means six interpenetrating things:
First, it means accepting that suffering is a part of our lives. Accepting our cross and giving up our lives means that, at some point, we have to make peace with the unalterable fact that frustration, disappointment, pain, misfortune, illness, unfairness, sadness, and death are a part of our lives and they must ultimately be accepted without bitterness. As long as we nurse the notion that pain in our lives is something we need not accept, we will habitually find ourselves bitter – bitter for not having accepted the cross.
Second, taking up our cross and giving up our lives, means that we may not, in our suffering, pass on any bitterness to those around us. We have a strong inclination, almost as part of our natural instincts, to make others suffer when we are suffering. If I’m unhappy, I will make sure that others around me are unhappy too! This does not mean, as Martin points out, that we cannot share our pain with others. But there’s a healthy way of doing this, where our sharing leaves others free, as opposed to an unhealthy kind of sharing which subtly tries to make others unhappy because we are unhappy.
There’s a difference between healthily groaning under the weight of our pain and unhealthily whining in self-pity and bitterness under that weight. The cross gives us permission to do the former, but not the latter. Jesus groaned under the weight of his cross, but no self-pity, whining, or bitterness issued forth from his lips or his beaten body.
Third, walking in the footsteps of Jesus as he carries his cross means that we must accept some other deaths before our physical death, that we are invited to let some parts of ourselves die. When Jesus invites us to die in order to find life, he is not, first of all, talking about physical death. If we live in adulthood, there are a myriad of other deaths that we must undergo before we die physically.
Maturity and Christian discipleship are about perennially naming our deaths, claiming our births, mourning our losses, letting go of what’s died, and receiving new spirit for the new life that we are now living.  These are the stages of the paschal mystery, and the stages of growing up. There are daily deaths.
Fourth, it means that we must wait for the resurrection, that here in this life all symphonies must remain unfinished. The book of Proverbs tells us that sometimes in the midst of pain the best we can do is put our mouths to the dust and wait. Any real understanding of the cross agrees. So much of life and discipleship is about waiting, waiting in frustration, inside injustice, inside pain, in longing, battling bitterness, as we wait for something or someone to come and change our situation. We spend about 98 percent of our lives waiting for fulfillment, in small and big ways. Jesus’ invitation to us to follow him implies waiting, accepting to live inside an unfinished symphony.
Fifth, carrying our cross daily means accepting that God’s gift to us is often not what we expect. God always answers our prayers but, often times, by giving us what we really need rather than what we think we need. The Resurrection, says James Martin, does not come when we expect it and rarely fits our notion of how a resurrection should happen. To carry your cross is to be open to surprise.
Finally, taking up your cross and being willing to give up your life means living in a faith that believes that nothing is impossible for God. As James Martin puts it, this means accepting that God is greater than the human imagination. Indeed, whenever we succumb to the notion that God cannot offer us a way out of our pain into some kind of newness, it’s precisely because we have reduced God down to the size of our own limited imagination.
It’s only possible to accept our cross, to live in trust, and to not grow bitter inside pain if we believe in possibilities beyond what we can imagine, namely, if we believe in the Resurrection. We can take up our cross when we begin to believe in the Resurrection.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

Foster mother treated to service project

JACKSON – Volunteers from Mississippi Home Corporation repainted the home of Rosie Williams as part of a “Make a Difference” project, Thursday, Oct. 23. Williams has been a foster parent for Catholic Charities’ Therapeutic Foster Care program for more than 20 years. The Home Corporation provided the

manpower, paint and materials for the project. This is the second time Catholic Charities has benefited from the organization’s generosity. Two years ago they painted rooms in the Domestic Violence shelter. (Photos by Kim Thomason)

Local Knights win national recognition

JACKSON – Knights of Columbus Council #15131 of St. Richard Parish has earned the distinction of Triple Star Council, for the 2013-2014 fraternal year. The award recognizes overall excellence in the areas of membership recruitment and retention, promotion of the fraternal insurance program and sponsorship of service-oriented activities. State Deputy Jim McCraw presented the award to members of the council at a special ceremony held on Wednesday, October 15.
The triple star refers to the fact that the council reached 300 percent of its quota.
“Please accept my sincere congratulations upon attaining this prestigious award. Your dedication to the Order is seen in the high standard of excellence you have achieved,” said Carl A. Anderson, chief executive officer of the national organization.  “At the same time, I encourage you to carry forward this enthusiasm to meet the challenges that will face the Knights of Columbus in the years ahead.  May this award be a reminder and an inspiration to the members of your council to continue to promote the ideals of Columbianism for the good of the church, your community and the order,” he added.
“Receiving the Triple Star Council Award is quite an honor for us. We’re extremely proud of the accomplishment,” proclaimed David Fisher, head of the local council.
The Knights of Columbus is the world’s largest Catholic lay organization. It provides members and their families with volunteer opportunities in service to the church, their communities, families and young people. With more than 1.8 million members in more than 15,000 councils around the world, the Knights of Columbus annually donates more than $10 million and 70 million hours of service to charitable causes.