Monthly Archives: February 2015

March inspires Catholic Mississippi youth

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By Aaron Williams
On Tuesday, Jan. 20, I was blessed to gather in the evening with Bishop Joseph Kopacz and around 50 young people from our diocese at Jackson St. Richard Parish for a Mass in preparation for the annual March for Life in Washington D.C. I had been to the March twice before in the first two years of my seminary formation, but this was the first year I was able to travel as a pilgrim with the youth of our own diocese.
From St. Richard we set out on a 20-hour bus ride to our nation’s capital where we joined thousands of other young people who have come from every corner of the country. This is perhaps one of the more significant aspects of attending a pilgrimage such as this. In Mississippi, Catholic young people only see other young Catholics in their Sunday school classes, or maybe at their Catholic school.
For a period of four days, our students were able to see people their age living their faith in the public square. They learned that the Catholic Church is not simply alive, it is thriving with young Catholics who are intoxicated with their faith and are not ashamed that others know. Young Mississippians met and spoke with joyful nuns, zealous seminarians and faithful priests who were not much older than they were. One student said to me, “I didn’t know there were nuns that young, or that they were that happy.”
However, perhaps the most important part of this trip was that they learned not only that there were young people and young vocations in the church, but that there are young people and young vocations in our own backyard and that they are capable of being faithful Catholics and defending life in their own state.
Being present as a seminarian on this trip afforded me the opportunity to show the youth of our diocese that there is someone, indeed a handful of young men, who were once in their shoes and are engaged in something that is counter-cultural and are somehow still happy, perhaps even happier for it. It is my fervent prayer that experiences like this week-long pilgrimage will afford our youth an opportunity to consider how they can live their faith at home and what calling God has placed in their hearts.
None of this would be possible without the generosity of faithful Catholics in our diocese who give annually to the Catholic Service Appeal. Each year, a portion of the appeal is afforded to seminarian education which, while covering the massive expense of seminary tuition, also grants us opportunities to take part in events such as the March for Life and other ventures which are worth far more in the fruit they bear than the price they require.
When I was raised, my parents taught me to always send a thank-you card to those who sent me gifts. This is a practice I have kept during my seminarian formation in response to the exceptionally charitable gifts of those individuals, groups and parishes which send gifts during the year.
However, the somewhat anonymous benefactors of the Catholic Service Appeal often go unthanked, at least by those who directly benefit from their generosity. I hope this can in some way suffice to express my gratitude for those who so freely support my brother seminarians and me by their monetary donations and most especially by their prayers. Please know that I pray often for my benefactors and you are most certainly included in my prayers.
(Aaron Williams is a zealous seminarian for the Diocese of Jackson. He is attending Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans.)

Youth Briefs & Gallery

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CAMDEN Sacred Heart Parish boys and girls ages six-14 are invited to participate in the basketball games which will run from Feb. 21-April 18. (No game on April 4). Details: William Banks, 601-826-3616, or Rashad Hughes, 769-232-5161.

CLEVELAND Our Lady of Victories Parish, celebration of “Scout Sunday” on Feb. 8.  All scouts are invited to wear their uniforms to Mass.

CORINTH St. James Parish, Faith on Fire youth group spaghetti dinner fund-raiser, Friday, Feb. 13, beginning at 6 p.m., eat in or take out. Plates are $6 for 18 and older, $3 for ages 10-18, and free for children younger than 10.

GREENVILLE St. Joseph Parish, cheerleader clinic for middle school, Feb. 16-20 at Our Lady of Lourdes School gym from 3:30 -4:30 p.m. Tryouts will be held at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 28.

JACKSON St. Richard Parish senior dinner, Monday, Feb. 9, at 6:30 p.m. at Robert Brown’s grandmother’s home.

MADISON Cross Connections Conference 2015, “Catholic: And I Mean It!” Saturday, Feb. 28, from 10 a.m. – 11 p.m. at St. Joseph School. Open to youth currently in eighth – 12th grades. Featuring speakers, musicians, concert, Mass and adoration. Guests include Joe Melendrez and his “Hip Hop Rosary” and Leah Darrow and her “reversion.” Cost is $25; registration is open until Feb. 10. Details: Patti, 601-540-7635.

MADISON St. Francis of Assisi Parish annual winter retreat, “Anchored in Hope,” Friday and Saturday, Feb. 27-28. All seventh-12th graders are invited. Led by the National Evangelization Team.

McCOMB St. Alphonsus Parish Lifeteen annual Valentines fund-raiser dinner, “Venice Carnival,” on Saturday, Feb. 14, from 5 – 8 pm. in Liguori Hall.

PEARL St. Jude Parish, “Why Not Now Service Project,” Saturday, Feb. 21, at 10 a.m., participants will prepare food to feed 100 people. Sunday, after Sunday school class and lunch youth will depart for Smith Park in downtown Jackson.

YAZOO CITY St. Mary Parish pastor, Father Arokia  Savio, will meet with the youth in grades eight through 12 and their parents after the 10:30 a.m. Mass on Sunday, Feb. 15, in the church.

Prayer meeting surprises reluctant pastor

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Reflections on Life
By Father Jerome Le Doux
With prayer meeting scheduled for 7:00 Sunday evening, my battery was perhaps only 70 percent recharged from the drain of three Masses and chatter. Three good snoozes only invited a fourth. Furthermore, the acclaimed Schindler’s List was due to show on the All Heroes Channel, and I had not yet seen it.
Encountering me at the wake of Isabell Mesker’s mother, Martin Daley invited me to attend the Sunday evening prayer meeting at the St. Peter Church chapel. “Come if you can!” he pleaded. “Mostly women attend the Thursday meeting, but we men will be at the Sunday evening meeting. We would love to have you.”
He called a couple of days later, then he called again Sunday afternoon to remind me.
This tug of war continued long enough to make me a bit late for the meeting. Upon entering, I laid eyes on a 160-seat chapel brimming with a standing room only crowd of eager, attentive folks keying in on Dan Bradley, a guitar player who sounded for all the world like a somewhat muted James Taylor. Finger work complemented his voice that led a devotional rendering of Alleluia and a medley of sacred compositions.
All was quiet, meditative singing, and, off and on, many hands were raised in thanksgiving and praise, while voices from all around reverently accompanied most of the songs. After a half dozen or so songs, a young lady named Cassie was invited up to sing and then to share a guitar piece. With her strum, strum, strum and at times a thrumpa, thrumpa thrump, she was less polished than Dan, but still good.
Very politely, a handful of folks invited me to move from my standing spot in the rear to a seat somewhere in the nave. I declined until finally I was taken almost by force to the very front right. When Cassie was done, a teen-aged lad next to me was called up to play the guitar and sing. Having accomplished both very well, he returned to his seat and introduced himself as Jim McDonald, grandson of Dan.
Obviously, he came by his musical talents honestly through his grandfather, although his grandfather later told me that he had stopped playing for 20 years until he resumed playing in order to play and sing for his grandchildren. What a loving and pleasant testimony to his grandchildren! Frankly, he sounded professional.
From his up-and-down movement and orchestration of the goings-on, Pat Gorman seemed to be master of ceremonies of the whole prayer meeting. And there I was musing, “I came for a prayer meeting, and here we have a religious concert as an added attraction. As Peter, James and John said on the mountain at the time of the Transfiguration, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here!’”
A mature lady sang “How Great Thou Art” and Pat Gorman sang a couple of songs, one of which he himself had composed. Ted Daley, who had sung delightfully at the wake of Isabell Mesker’s mother, edified us with a baritone selection. Throughout, there were random testimonies and prayers from the congregation about the illness or other problems of relatives or friends of the Irish Travelers.
Though it is understood that all ethnic groups have problems peculiar to their group, the Irish Travelers are people of powerful, expressive faith, of loyalty to their families and friends, and of considerable generosity. It is amazing that I have yet to encounter one person who called or came to beg or borrow. Hitting my bowl of roasted peanuts is the one exception to which everyone – Irish or not – is partial.
Smiling as I say this, I assure you that I have never been enriched by so many calls for confessions, sessions of counseling and impromptu visits as from the Irish Travelers of all ages from teenagers to mature keenagers. It has been an honor to receive visits from a handful to as many as 20 teenagers at a time.
Called to speak toward the end, I noted the close bond between Irish and black music. “’Oh Danny Boy’ is the most famous example,” I told them. Backed by Dan in C, I sang “Danny Boy” a la Jackie Wilson. Then I sang Dottie Rambo’s 1967 soul lyrics to that same Londonderry melody, “Amazing Grace, shall always be my song of praise,” known also as “He Looked Beyond My Fault And Saw My Need.”
All prayer meetings are edifying and inspirational, but, by its sheer size and intensity, this one turned out to be the mother of all the prayer meetings I have attended. Holding hands in conclusion, we formed a power circle that had to be doubled in spots because of the great number. “Lead us in your Our Father!” they asked me expectantly. So, to a sea of smiling faces, we sang the popular “Echo Our Father” that keeps repeating “Hallowed Be Thy Name” after each verse.
“God is love, and all who abide in love abide in God and God in them.”   (1 John 4:16)
(Father Jerome LeDoux, SVD, is pastor of Our Mother of Mercy Parish in Fort Worth, Texas. He has written “Reflections on Life since 1969.)

Vocation not just for consecrated Christians

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Millennial Reflections
By Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem
Pope Francis has designated this year as the Year of Consecrated Life. Among other things, it sheds a spotlight on responding to the call to witness and serve those on the margins. In the churches I serve each week we pray for an increase in the number of priests, brothers, sisters, deacons and lay ministers.
Looking back over the years there never has been a lack of dedicated Christians who, by their lifestyle and service, have made an impact on those they reached out to. Sometimes they, and their ministry, go unrecognized. This is understandable since people on the margins are often invisible.
The initial readings for Ordinary Time stress the prophetic tradition. The Holy Spirit calls people to witness and raise the consciousness of people to rededicate themselves and live their lives authentically. The way the readings are paired up we see that John the Baptist and Jesus both come out of this tradition.
From our baptism we receive the Holy Spirit and throughout our lives we may be called to do something significant. For some of us it is religious life, for others it is a focused lifestyle and a specialized service to specific groups. Many religious congregations started out like this. For example, last week we remembered Angela Merici. She may not ring a bell with many of us, but she was an ordinary woman in her day at the end of the 15th century. Moved by the number of street children, especially girls, she got organized and with her companions started to teach these children. She founded a community dedicated to St. Ursula. The Ursuline Sisters made a huge contribution in building up the American Catholic school system. Their  convent in New Orleans is still visited by many in need of a miracle. People know of the Ursulines, but may not know about their founder.
Another example I will cite is Elizabeth Ann Seton, who founded the Sisters of Charity. She was married, raised a family, widowed and wanted to do more. Many, like these two, were ordinary people whose calling evolved into a religious congregation. Not all do.
Dorothy Day is an example. The Catholic Worker Movement, through witnessing a distinct lifestyle, is still a group made up of lay people. The point I am making is that our baptism is the source of our vocation. When you are baptized you become an active member of Christ’s body, and are called to do what he did. The acronym made popular a few years ago, WJJD, (what would Jesus do?) expresses something about our call as Christians, baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ.
Several people close to me died in the last two months, and all were exceptional Christians. Recently I was at the funeral of one whose whole life reflected her Christian faith and passion for social justice. For her, what happened in the community is as important as what happens in the church. She focused her energy on education, and the rights of students in school. She saw the direct link between dropping out of school and going to prison, so she co-founded a local group that affiliated with a national movement to break the cycle of the school-to-prison pipeline. She was particularly focused on policies that pushed kids out rather than kept them in school. She believed that human rights belong to everyone and are rooted in the Gospel.
She was a fighter for children’s rights in school, a parent advocate on Mississippi Families as Allies for Children’s Mental Health Inc. Board and for 12 years she was on the Holmes County School Board. All of this was driven by her Christian faith, her passion for children being treated fairly and her commitment to enacting policies that protected them and improved the schools.
The organizations and coalitions that she founded or cooperated with were strengthened by her unselfish passion for justice. All the money in the world could not make her do what she did. It was a calling, a vocation. She will be sorely missed, but leaves a powerful legacy.
When we look at vocations, how God calls people to do what they do, we need a wide lens. The Holy Spirit is calling people every day, and many answer the call. We need to support, encourage and pray that more hear the call of God and answer it. I will have more to say on this topic as the year progresses.
“The harvest is ripe, pray the Lord to send laborers into the harvest.”
(Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem, lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)

Call to protect women, girls taken to United Nations

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UNITED NATIONS (CNS) – The plight of women and girls living in conflict zones who often are targeted for violence, including rape, must be addressed without delay, said an official with the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations.
Msgr. Janusz Urbanczyk, charge d’affaires at the mission, called upon the U.N. Security Council to identify programs “to eradicate this scourge,” in an intervention Jan. 30 as the council discussed challenges to the protection of women and girls in armed conflict and post-conflict settings.
Citing Catholic social teaching on human dignity, Msgr. Urbanczyk said all violence is an affront to that dignity, but that women and girls are particularly vulnerable when violence arises.
He said sexual violence against women “tears at the very fabric of society.”
The Vatican official recalled the words of Pope Francis, who told members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See in an address Jan. 12 that humanity must not overlook the fact that wars involve the crime of rape, which the pope described as “a most grave offense against the dignity of women, who are not only violated in body but also in spirit.”
Msgr. Urbanczyk also pointed to violence perpetrated against women and girls because of their faith.
The Vatican’s U.N. delegation “remains concerned about the continued lack of attention and priority to the protection of women and girls who are targeted and attacked purely because of the faith they profess,” he said. “The lack of focus and priority for protecting them is troubling when Christians face extinction in some regions of the world and in other regions Christian schools for girls are targeted and attacked.
“This is a shared reality of members of all faiths and therefore requires the shared commitment of members of all faiths and governments to condemn and confront such violence,” Msgr. Urbanczyk said.
The kidnapping of girls is of particular concern, he added, because they are often trafficked for sex or labor around the world. “This is an abominable trade that must come to an end. This scourge must be eradicated since it strikes all of us, from the individual families to the entire international community,” he said.
Msgr. Urbanczyk called upon world leaders to “reject the ‘culture of enslavement,’ which is incapable of doing good or pursuing peace and accepts as inevitable the spread of war and violence.”
“We must redouble our efforts to replace this ‘culture’ with a culture of life and peace in which governments and the international community fulfill their fundamental responsibility to protect all people,” he said.

Pontifical Council for Culture begins exploration of women’s culture

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By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Violence against women, cultural pressures regarding women’s physical appearance, attitudes that subjugate women or that ignore male-female differences and the growing alienation of women from the church in some parts of the world are themes the Pontifical Council for Culture is set to explore.
The council, whose members are all cardinals and bishops, has chosen to discuss the theme, “Women’s Cultures: Equality and Difference,” during its plenary assembly Feb. 4-7. A document outlining the theme was published in late January, and four women involved in writing it joined Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, council president, at a news conference Feb. 2 at the Vatican.
The cardinal announced to the press that he was planning to establish within his office a special group of female consultants to provide women’s opinions and points of view on a variety of issues.
He also noted that if priests had to follow the Jewish rules for a quorum for prayer — 10 men must be present — many of them would not be able to celebrate daily Mass, even though there would be dozens of women present in the church.
The council’s discussion document, drafted by a group of Italian women and women who have lived in Italy for years, looked at the continuing quest to find balance in promoting women’s equality while valuing the differences between women and men; the concrete and symbolic aspects of women’s potential for motherhood; cultural attitudes toward women’s bodies; and women and religion, including questions about their participation in church decision-making.
The council said the theme was chosen “to identify possible pastoral paths, which will allow Christian communities to listen and dialogue with the world today in this sphere,” while recognizing that in different cultures and for individual women the situation will be different.
While cautioning against generalizations, the document rejects the notions that there are no differences between men and women, and that each person “chooses and builds his-her identity; owns him-herself and answers primarily to him-herself.”
In preparing the document and the plenary discussions, the council sought input from women around the world. However, the process was not without criticism, particularly for the English version of a video featuring an Italian actress, Nanci Brilli, asking women to send in their experiences. Many women felt the use of a heavily made-up actress ran counter to the point of seeking input about the real lives of most women. The council quickly took the English version off YouTube.
At the news conference, Brilli said, “as a woman, a professional, a mother, I feel like this is the first time we have been asked for our opinion” by the church. “The women who responded do not want to be cardinals, but want to take part in the discussion.”
Participating for a year in the group that drafted the document, she said, was such a positive experience that it led to a renewal of her faith, but also to a willingness to do the video and open herself to comments. Some people, she said, instead of wanting to dialogue, “felt represented by making insults. That’s their problem.”
Cardinal Ravasi said the reactions from across Europe were mainly positive and garnered a variety of helpful input about women’s concerns, but in Anglo-Saxon countries, especially the United States and Canada, the reaction focused so strongly on the video — and not on women’s concerns and experience — that they decided to pull it.
Everything he’s done, he said, has garnered strong reaction ranging from enthusiasm to “those who even found satanic dimensions” in what he was doing. Some feel a need to take part in a discussion “by yelling,” he said.
In the section on women and the church, the document described “multifaceted discomfort” with images of women that are no longer relevant and with a Christian community that seems to value their input even less than the world of business and commerce does.
Many women, it said, “have reached places of prestige within society and the workplace, but have no corresponding decisional role nor responsibility within ecclesial communities.”
Council members are not proposing a discussion of ordaining women priests, the document said and, in fact, statistics show ordination “is not something that women want.” However, it said, “if, as Pope Francis says, women have a central role in Christianity, this role must find a counterpart also in the ordinary life of the church.”
The vast majority of Catholic women today do not want a bishop’s “purple biretta,” it said, but would like to see church doors open “to women so that they can offer their contribution in terms of skills and also sensitivity, intuition, passion, dedication, in full collaboration and integration” with men in the church.
The preparatory document looked at how much pressure women face regarding their body image and the way women’s bodies are exploited in the media, even to the point of provoking eating disorders or recourse to unnecessary surgery.
“Plastic surgery that is not medico-therapeutic can be aggressive toward the feminine identity, showing a refusal of the body in as much as it is a refusal of the ‘season’ that is being lived out,” it said.
“’Plastic surgery is like a burqa made of flesh.’ One woman gave us this harsh and incisive description,” the document said. “Having been given freedom of choice for all, are we not under a new cultural yoke of a singular feminine model?”
The document also denounced violence inflicted on women: “Selective abortion, infanticide, genital mutilation, crimes of honor, forced marriages, trafficking of women, sexual molestation, rape –which in some parts of the world are inflicted on a massive level and along ethnic lines — are some of the deepest injuries inflicted daily on the soul of the world, on the bodies of women and of girls, who become silent and invisible victims.”

Bishop William Norvel, SSJ, celebrates 50th anniversary of ordination

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Father William Norvel, SSJ, superior general of the Josephites, a Pascagoula native and former pastor in Natchez, will celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood on March 27 with a Mass and celebration in Moss Point.
He is the first African-American to be elected Superior General of the Josephites, who were founded to serve the African-American community in its 143-year history and he is the only African American to head a community of Catholic priests in the United States.
Father Norvel is the oldest child and only son of the late William and Velma (Wilson) Norvel. He attended St. Peter Elementary School and Our Mother of Sorrows High School in Biloxi.  After being told in the early 1950s by the archdiocese that there was “no place in the church” for him, young William Norvel was invited by his pastor, Father Edward Lawlor, to join the Josephites. Supported by family, friends and his pastor, he left Pascagoula by train following his junior year in high school to enter the seminary in Newburg, NY.
He was ordained on March 27, 1965, at the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis in New Orleans and offered his first Mass at St. Peter the next day.  Friends, family and parishioners who traveled from Pascagoula by bus to the ordination were briefly detained by police who mistook them for “freedom riders.” They were released only when Father Lawlor spotted the bus and stopped to verify their identity and destination.
Father Norvel’s first assignment was at Holy Family Parish in Natchez, Miss. There, he had a brief run-in with the Ku Klux Klan when “city officials” objected to a dance that was being held for teenagers.
Father Norvel stood up to them affirming the right of the church to have safe and wholesome activities for youth. Father has since served as pastor at St. Benedict the Moor in Washington, D.C., St. Brigid in Los Angeles, Calif., Most Pure Heart of Mary in Mobile, Ala., St. Francis Xavier in Baton Rouge, La., St. Francis Xavier in Baltimore, Md., (the Mother parish of African-American Catholics), St. Peter the Apostle Church in Pascagoula, Miss., and Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Washington, D.C.
He has also taught at St. Augustine High School in New Orleans, the Josephite flagship school, and was briefly on the faculty of Notre Dame University and the Institute for Pastoral Ministry in the Black Community at Loyola Marymount University.
Father Norvel has bachelor and master’s degrees in education and philosophy from St. Joseph Seminary in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Knights of St. Peter Claver, the Knights of Columbus and the National Association of Superiors General.

Franciscan leader in Black Catholic ministry named auxiliary bishop

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WASHINGTON (CNS) – Pope Francis has named Franciscan Father Fernand “Ferd” Cheri III, a New Orleans native who currently is director of campus ministry at Quincy University in Illinois, as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Father Cheri has visited the Diocese of Jackson on many occasions, leading and attending workshops here.
The appointment was announced Jan. 12 in Washington by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
Bishop-designate Cheri, 63, has a background that includes extensive roles in black Catholic liturgy, music and spirituality, in addition to having served on the Franciscans’ provincial council and as their director of friar life.
He also is a board member of the National Black Catholic Congress and has been involved in activities including the NBCC gatherings, the U.S. bishops’ subcommittee on Black Catholic worship and the National Joint Conference of Black Religious Planning Committee.
He originally was ordained as a priest for the Archdiocese of New Orleans May 20, 1978. He studied at Notre Dame University and at the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University, both in New Orleans.
During a news conference in New Orleans after his appointment was announced, Bishop-designate Cheri said he never truly left his hometown and was surprised but thrilled that Pope Francis had appointed him as auxiliary bishop in the city where most of his family still lives. He said he is pleased that he will be working alongside Archbishop Gregory V. Aymond.
“I’d like to say first of all thank you to Pope Francis for appointing me to this position,” he said.
“It was a total surprise, but it was a wonderful moment to just be told that I was appointed auxiliary bishop,” added Bishop-designate Cheri. “I also want to thank Greg for accepting me in this position as well. I look forward to just working with the people of New Orleans again. I never left New Orleans. It’s always a part of me. Wherever I go, I bring New Orleans. It’s going to be great to be back in the city.”
Bishop-designate Cheri will be ordained bishop at a Mass March 23 at 2 p.m. at St. Louis Cathedral.
“He is very gifted in music and preaching and liturgy,” Archbishop Aymond said. “This is also a very significant moment, I think, for us as New Orleans (Catholics) – another hometown boy joining us again. But also a great gift from the African-American community to the church and to the archdiocese.”
As a diocesan priest for four years at four parishes in New Orleans and Marrero, La., Bishop-designate Cheri was involved in ministry in the black Catholic community. It was at that time that he began discernment in becoming a Franciscan.
He entered the novitiate for the Order of Friars Minor, in the Sacred Heart Province, based in St. Louis, in 1992 and made his solemn profession as a Franciscan two years later. Since then he has served as a chaplain at Hales Franciscan High School in Chicago and as pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Church in Nashville, Tenn.
He also served as a choir director and guidance counselor at Althoff Catholic High in Belleville, Ill., while part of a contingent that launched St. Benedict the Black Friary in East St. Louis, an outreach to the poor, African-American community.
Prior to beginning his position at Quincy University in 2011, he was director of campus ministry at Xavier University in New Orleans. In addition to his post at Quincy, he is vicar of Holy Cross Friary, located on the campus.
Bishop-designate Cheri said he organized teams of students from Quincy University to provide annual cleanup and repairs in New Orleans. Last year, 50 students made the mission trip.
The New Orleans Archdiocese has had no auxiliary bishops since Bishop Shelton J. Fabre was named in 2013 to become bishop of Houma-Thibodaux. Auxiliary Bishop Dominic Carmon retired in 2006.
(Contributing to this story was Peter Finney Jr. in New Orleans.)

Ashes, rite prepare us for Lenten journey

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By Mary Woodward
JACKSON – Lent will soon be upon us and with that several events will occur that are steeped in the tradition of our church. This penitential and sacred season gives us a chance to spend 40 days symbolically in the desert with the Lord.
It is a time to examine our lives in a profound way and shed ourselves of the things that turn us away from God. Lent begins with the traditional ashes of Ash Wednesday.
Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18, is considered an unofficial holy day of obligation by Catholics. We all like to get ashes traced in a cross on our foreheads.
For some reason the ashes make us feel holy and humble simultaneously. The ashes symbolize our sinfulness and our mortality. There are two phrases that are used when the priest or minister applies the ashes: “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel;” or “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
I think both are very powerful but I have always like the second one because it really emphasizes that we are mortal, we come from creation and will ultimately return to creation. The ashes remind us we are creatures and that our lives were given to us. Our true lasting home, however, is with God.
The ashes also are a witness to others of our faith in Jesus Christ and God’s message of forgivenness and mercy. It is the one time of the year when we walk around with a visible sign of our faith. The ashes on our foreheads give us an opportunity to share our faith with others.
How many of us have gotten strange looks from people in the grocery store or in the bank because we have ashes on our foreheads? This is the perfect time to share your faith in Jesus and explain ‘I’m willing to wear this sign in the world to remind me of from where I come and where I am going. And, I’ve heard the call to turn away from a life of sin and to give my life to living the Gospel of Jesus.”
During Lent, Catholics between the ages of 18 and 59 are obliged to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. In addition, all Catholics 14 years old and older must abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and all the Fridays of Lent.
Another ancient liturgical tradition of Lent is the Rite of Election. This rite is held in cathedrals around the world for catechumens to be presented to the bishop by their godparents to become members of the Elect, which is the final stage before reception into the church at the Easter vigil.
This year’s rite of election will be celebrated on Sunday, Feb. 22, at 3 p.m. in the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle. It is suggested that the rite be held in the cathedral, which is the bishop’s church. Catechumens are on pilgrimage when they come for the rite of election and it should be presented to them by their godparents and RCIA team leaders as a spiritual growth opportunity to make this pilgrimage to the bishop’s church.
Throughout the past year, Bishop Joseph Kopacz has been visiting parishes and missions all over the diocese. The rite of election gives him a liturgical moment to have the faithful gather around him in an ancient church tradition, which dates back in some form 18 centuries.
Pastors, lay ecclesial ministers or RCIA team leaders should contact the diocesan office of worship, if they did not receive the registration form sent out in mid January.
The office may be reached by calling (601) 960-8474; or by email at chancery@jacksondiocese.org.
We wish you all a very blessed and reflective Lenten season. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

United in Faith-United in Love

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By Karla Luke
In St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he reminds the citizens of Philippi to be united in mind, faith and love. Think about it, he wouldn’t have had to remind them unless they had forgotten! The young church in Philippi, after Paul’s departure, had suddenly encountered grave deficiencies such as selfish ambition, conceit, and self-interest. Sound familiar? No matter where we look today, we can find a plethora of examples of selfish ambition, conceit and self-interest. They occur in the political realm, in social and economic arenas and yes, even in the Church.
The good news is that we can all benefit from Paul’s words, “…complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also, everyone, for those of others” (Phil 2:2-4).
Notice how these setbacks relate to self. What a peaceful world we would have if we were all able to put aside our own selfish ambitions, conceitedness, and self-interests. It would be peaceful and ideal, but unfortunately because of our humanity, not very realistic. When we all try to take care of self, and value self-interest above all else, it is likely to cause conflict.
Pope Francis, in his simple and yet humble manner states in paragraph 226 of Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel, that “Conflict cannot be ignored or concealed. It has to be faced. But if we remain trapped in conflict, we lose our perspective, our horizons shrink and reality itself begins to fall apart.” At times, conflict, whether global, local or personal can be so overwhelming, that we lose our perspective which makes it extremely difficult to be “of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.”
He notes three ways in which conflict is treated: ignore it, embrace it or the best way, face it. By inviting the Holy Spirit into our conflict, we are able to resolve it and become the peacemakers Jesus teaches us about in the Beatitudes in Matthew’s Gospel.
We are being challenged as a church to go beyond our conflicts to recognize the deepest dignity of others, whether Christians or not, as sons and daughters of God.  We must believe that our similarities as children of God which unite us are more powerful than the differences that we allow to divide us. “In this way it becomes possible to build communion amid disagreement, but this can only be achieved by those great persons who are willing to go beyond the surface of the conflict and to see others in their deepest dignity. This requires acknowledging a principle indispensable to the building of friendship in society: namely, that unity is greater than conflict.” (Evangelii Gaudium P. 228)
Pope Francis spoke to the general audience in Vatican City on June 19, 2013, saying: “There is communion and unity: all are in relation to one another and all combine to form a single vital body, profoundly connected to Christ. Let us remember this well: being part of the church means being united to Christ and receiving from him the divine life that makes us to live as Christians.
It means remaining united to the Pope and bishops who are instruments of unity and communion and it also means learning to overcome selfishness and divisions, to understand one another better, and to harmonize the variety and richness of each one. In a word, loving God and the persons around us, in our families, parishes, and associations, better. Body and limbs must be united in order to live!”
God blesses and affirms unity most prominently in the Holy Trinity, the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the two natures of Jesus Christ, united as God and man, and the commissioning of Jesus by God to unite the scattered children into one church. So, let us continue to work for unity: unity within ourselves, our families, parishes, cultures, and countries. In working toward unity, we achieve peace.