mILLENNIAL REFLECTIONS
By Father Jeremy Tobin, OPraem
On the days of Holy Week, in our tradition, the ritual itself really preaches the sermon. No powerful preaching now. Nothing to take us away from being there. We do it by the signs that bring it back. Beginning at Palm Sunday, we entered a different dimension. We transcended time. We entered a holy place where God talks to humans, and humans talk to God. In our tradition the ritual, the ceremonies are a way to go back in time, to be one with these events that saved us.
The reading of the Passion of Jesus places us in Jerusalem on that Passover Feast when Jesus died. We witness the trial. We remember the scourging. We hear the shouts, “Crucify him!” We see a ruthless Roman governor hand down the death sentence for another radical. They do not know what they do. His followers scatter. Everyone is afraid. We stand at the cross.
“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” The old hymns have it right. “Only Jesus knows the trouble I’ve seen. Only Jesus knows the pain I feel. Only Jesus knows…” Jesus pays the price for humanity’s evil. “Down at the cross where my Savior died. Down where the cleansing from sin I cried. There to my heart was the blood applied. I was washed clean in his saving blood.” No greater love than this! He said, and proved it. He gave his life that we might live! “Glory to his name!” O, yes God so loved the world – but Palm Sunday was only the beginning.
Though we read the story, we celebrated it the whole week. There was the day we remember the gift that makes it all real again. There was the day of the cross. There was the day of burial.
Then came the entrance of the divine, the seal of our redemption. A woman  announced the news, “He is risen!” We cannot separate his death from his resurrection. We celebrated Easter for three days: Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday beginning with the night Vigil. This was Holy Week.
The entire week was marked with special ceremonies and unusual ritual all emphasizing healing, redemption and deliverance. Tuesday before Easter, at the Cathedral the bishop and the priests and people celebrated the Chrism Mass, the Mass to bless the oils. “There is a balm in Gilead, that makes the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead that heals the sin sick soul.” Once again we see Jesus present in sacred signs of healing and blessing. We speak of holy anointing. To be anointed is to be healed. To be anointed is to be cleansed. To be anointed is to be given a mission.
These oils for anointing the sick, for anointing with the Holy Spirit, for consecrating people and things to continue the work of Jesus are blessed by the bishop and sent to every parish, church and monastery all throughout our diocese. This stresses that we are in union with one another and the bishop. Then Thursday we celebrated the Lord’s Supper, the new Passover, the sign of Jesus’ presence down the ages.
Friday we stood by that “Old Rugged Cross, the emblem of suffering and shame, and cherish it for what it did to me,” and sang, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” Thank you Jesus! We told the story of our deliverance once again. This time from John. We made present the events of the trial, the Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross. The Lamentations of Jeremiah wail in the background. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, be converted to the Lord your God!” Then Saturday night we gathered by the tomb. We bless the new fire, the Spirit of God alive in the world! We remember God moving in the waters. We remember creation. We remember the parting of the Red Sea.
We remember liberation. We remember the life giving waters of baptism. We remember those entering the church. “We shall gather with the saints at the river that flows by the throne of God!” This is our night and day. This is redemption time! This is liberation time! This is the day the Lord has made! Alleluia! Alleluia! We celebrate the resurrection and glorification of Jesus the Christ! Our deliverer and Messiah! Thank you Jesus for loving us in spite of ourselves! Glory to God, glory!
(Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem, lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)

Kneading Faith
By Fran Lavelle
The Easter Vigil and the entire Easter season is full of experiences which express the depth and beauty of the Sacraments of Initiation. Many parishes celebrate full initiation of Catholics at the Easter Vigil. Many parishes will celebrate confirmation for their high school students. Most parishes will celebrate First Holy Communion, while others based on the demographics of the parish will not witness these sacraments this year.
What is important for all of us to remember, no matter how small or large or parish or how active we will be sacramentally this Easter season, we are all members of the Body of Christ and as such we all celebrate and benefit from the building up of the church.
I was thinking about First Holy Communion the other day. While seeing the young ones in their suits and dresses is a moment of great pride for parents, grandparents and even doting aunties, it is not just fodder for Facebook, it is for these young people the beginning of their most intimate relationship with Jesus.
If we treat the day like another milestone or photo op (thank you Instagram) and not as the personal, intimate encounter with Jesus that it actually is then we have missed the point entirely. In our increasingly hyper responsive social media driven world we are losing sight of the present moment because we are trying to capture it with our cell phone cameras. Parents, grandparents and other family members are to be living examples of what it looks like to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. If we are not, where do we expect our young people to gain that insight? I am not talking about acting like ‘Piety Patty’ or ‘Holy Harry,’ I am talking about our ordinary ever day response to the invitation to become that which we have received.
A spiritual director once challenged me in asking if I believed that I was becoming that which I receive in the Eucharist. The way I see it, I’ve been receiving the Body of Christ since 1971. In the past 45 years, have my thoughts, actions and words become more Christ like? If not, I need to re-examine the disposition of my heart in my reception of Jesus in the Eucharist. First Holy Communion day is special, but every Eucharist in every liturgy is special.
Perhaps we need to do a better job in explaining the role of the assembly. Proper catechesis of the assembly is perhaps the ultimate prerequisite to understanding our sacramental lives as Christians. Without understanding the importance of the body, its role and its members, than we are not full, active and conscious participants in our faith. If we believe that the gathering of persons is the church, then at the end of Mass the “church” leaves the building.
Yes, the CHURCH leaves the building. By our presence and participation we are enriched, if you will, with the sustenance of both Word and Eucharist, to be the Body of Christ in the world. Gathering the assembly edifies and nourishes the Body of Christ so that we can become that which we received in the Eucharist, namely, Christ for one another. As Christ in the world we take on the work of Jesus.
We are called to discipleship in effectively living out the directives articulated by Jesus in the Gospels. As members of the Body of Christ the coming and going, the gathering and dismissal, taking and receiving are all one continuous movement. Liturgy, however, is not often perceived that way nor do we teach the faithful that Mass is organic in as much as the Body of Christ is organic. We are leaven, we are sowers, we are proclaimers of the Word, we are doers, and all of that activity comes from being essential members of and participants in the Body of Christ.
When you gather to celebrate the Sacraments of Initiation this Easter season, especially First Holy Communion, ask yourself what you can do as a member of the assembly to demonstrate what it means to become that which we have received.  St. Augustine challenges us beautifully, “Behold what you are; become what you receive.” God’s blessings this Easter Season!
(Fran Lavelle is the Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Jackson.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Fear is the heartbeat of the powerless. So writes Cor de Jonghe. That’s true. We can deal with most everything, except fear.
The late Belgium spiritual writer, Bieke Vandekerkehove, in a very fine book, “The Taste of Silence,” shared very honestly about the demons that beset her as she faced a terminal illness at age nineteen. She singled out three particular demons that tormented her as she faced the prospect of death, sadness, anger and fear, and she suggested that we can more easily cope with the first two, sadness and anger, than we can with the third, fear. Here’s her thought:
Sadness can be handled through tears, through grieving. Sadness fills us like a water glass, but a glass can be emptied. Tears can drain sadness of its bite. We have all, no doubt, experienced the release, the catharsis, that can come through tears. Tears can soften the heart and take away the bitterness of sadness, even while its heaviness remains. Sadness, no matter how heavy, has a release valve. So too does anger. Anger can be expressed and its very expression helps release it so that it flows out of us.
No doubt we, too, have experienced this. The caution, of course, is that in expressing anger and giving it release we need to be careful not to hurt others, which is the ever-present danger when dealing with anger. With anger we have many outlets: We can shout in rage, beat drum, punch a bag, use profanity, physically exercise until we’re exhausted, smash some furniture, utter murderous threats and rage away at countless things. This isn’t necessarily rational and some of these things aren’t necessarily moral, but they offer some release. We have means to cope with anger.
Fear, on the other hand, has no such release valves. Most often, there’s nothing we can do to lighten or release it. Fear paralyzes us, and this paralysis is the very thing what robs us of the strength we would need to combat it. We can beat a drum, rage in profanity, or cry tears, but fear remains. Moreover, unlike anger, fear cannot be taken out on someone else, even though we sometimes try, by scapegoating. But, in the end, it doesn’t work.
The object of our fear doesn’t go away simply because we wish it away. Fear can only be suffered. We have to live with it until it recedes on its own. Sometimes, as the Book of Lamentations suggests, all we can do is to put our mouth to the dust and wait. With fear, sometimes all we can do is endure.
What’s the lesson in this?
In her memoirs, the Russian poet, Anna Akhmatova, recounts an encounter she once had with another woman, as the two of them waited outside a Russian prison. Both of their husbands had been imprisoned by Stalin and both of them were there to bring letters and packages to their husbands, as were a number of other women. But the scene was like something out of the existential literature of the absurd.
The situation was bizarre. First of all, the women were unsure of whether their husbands were even still alive and were equally uncertain as to whether the letters and packages they were delivering would ever be given to their loved ones by the guards. Moreover the guards would, without reason, make them wait for hours in the snow and cold before they would collect their letters and packages, and sometimes they wouldn’t meet the women at all.
Still, every week, despite the absurdity of it, the women would come, wait in the snow, accept this unfairness, do their vigil, and try to get letters and packages to their loved ones in prison. One morning, as they were waiting, seemingly with no end in sight, one of the women recognized Akhmatova and said to her: “Well, you’re a poet. Can you tell me what’s happening here?” Akhmatova looked at the woman and replied: “Yes, I can!” And then something like a smile passed between them.
Why the smile? Just to be able to name something, no matter how absurd or unfair, no matter our powerlessness to change it, is to be somehow free of it, above it, transcendent in some way. To name something correctly is to partly free ourselves of its dominance.
That’s why totalitarian regimes fear artists, writers, religious critics, journalists and prophets. They name things. That’s ultimately the function of prophecy. Prophets don’t foretell the future, they properly name the present. Richard Rohr is fond of saying: Not everything can be fixed or cured, but it should be named properly. James Hillman has his own way of casting this. He suggests that a symptom suffers most when it doesn’t know where it belongs.
This can be helpful in dealing with fear in our lives. Fear can render us impotent. But, naming that properly, recognizing where that symptom belongs and how powerless it leaves us, can help us to live with it, without sadness and anger.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
What most moves your heart? I was asked this question recently at a workshop. We were asked to respond to this question: When do you most naturally feel compassion in your heart? For me, the answer came easily. I am most moved when I see helplessness, when I see someone or something helpless to tend to its own needs and to protect its own dignity.
It might be baby, hungry and crying, too little to feed itself and to safeguard its own dignity. It might be a woman in a hospital, sick, in pain, dying, helpless to get better, also unable to attend to her own dignity. It might be an unemployed man, down on his luck, unable to find work, the odd man out when everyone else seems to be doing great. It might be a little girl on the playground, helpless as she is teased and bullied, suffering indignity. Or it might just be a baby kitten, hungry, helpless, pleading with its eyes, unable to speak or attend to its own need. Helplessness tugs at the heart. I am always touched in the softest place inside me by helplessness, by the pleading of finitude. I suspect we all are.
We’re in good company. This is what moved Mary, Jesus’ mother, at the Wedding Feast of Cana to go over to Jesus and say: “They have no wine!” Her request here has different layers of meaning. At one level, it is a very particular request at a particular occasion in history; she is trying to save her hosts at a wedding from embarrassment, from suffering an indignity.
No doubt the shortage of wine was due to some poverty on their part, either a shortage of money or a shortage of good planning, but, either way, they stood to be embarrassed before their guests. But, as with most things in the Gospels, this incident has a deeper meaning. Mary isn’t just speaking for a particular host on a particular occasion. She’s also speaking universally, as the mother of humanity, Eve, voicing for all of us what John Shea so aptly calls, “the cries of finitude.”
What is finitude? The finite, as we can see from the word itself, contrasts itself to the infinite, to what is not limited, to God. God, alone, is not finite. God, alone, is self-sufficient. God, alone, is never helpless, and God, alone, never needs help from anyone else. Only God is never subject to sickness, hunger, tiredness, irritation, fatigue, bodily and mental diminishment and death. God, alone, never has to suffer the indignity of need, of getting caught short, of inadequate self-expression, of not measuring up, of being embarrassed, of being bullied, of being unable to help Himself, and of having to beg silently with His eyes for someone to come and help.
Everything else is finite. Thus, as humans, we are subject to helplessness, illness, lameness, blindness, hunger, tiredness, irritation, diminishment and death. Moreover, within all these, we are also subject to indignity. So many of our words and actions are, in the end, cries of finitude, cries for assistance, the cries of a baby for food, for warmth, for protection and for a safeguard from indignity. Although we are infinitely more sophisticated in our humanity, we are all still, at one level, the baby kitten, pleading with our eyes for someone to feed us, and all the assertions of self-sufficiency of the rich, the strong, the healthy, the arrogant, and of those who seemingly need no help are in the end nothing other than attempts to keep helplessness at bay.
Not matter how strong and self-sufficient we might believe ourselves to be, finitude and mortality admit of no exemptions. Tiredness, illness, diminishment, death, and painful hungers will eventually find us all. Our wine too will eventually run out. Hopefully someone like the Mother of Jesus will speak for us: They have no wine!
What’s the lesson in this? A number of things:
First, recognizing our finitude can lead to a healthier self-understanding. Knowing and accepting our finitude can help quell a lot of frustration, restlessness and false guilt in our lives.
I once had a spiritual director, an elderly nun, who challenged me to live by this axiom: Fear not, you are inadequate. We need to forgive ourselves for our own limits, for the fact that we are human, finite, and are unable to provide ourselves and those around us all that we need. But inadequacy is a forgivable condition, not a moral fault.
Beyond forgiving ourselves for our helplessness, recognizing and accepting our finitude should challenge us too to hear more clearly the cries of finitude around us. And so whether it’s the cry of a baby, the humiliation in the eyes of someone looking for work, the ravaged eyes of the terminally ill patient or simply the pleading eyes of a young kitten, we need, like Mary, to take up their cause and ensure that someone spares them from indignity by changing their water into wine, by calling out: They have no wine!
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

Light One Candle
By Tony Rossi
Easter is the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, the event that makes it possible for us to rejoice in the fact that we will be able to see our family and friends again some day in heaven. That’s a powerful and comforting thought for anyone who’s lost a loved one — and who among us doesn’t fit into that category.
Jay Fagnano and his wife Mary sure do. And they’ve experienced the most devastating loss possible: the death of a child, their son Nick. At the same time, I can’t help but think of their story this Easter because it’s also a story of hope due to an essay they found on Nick’s computer after his death.
As reported by Brian Kravec on the website CatholicMom.com, it was the summer of 2014, and Nick was looking forward to attending the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy, whose mission is “to improve the quality of life for people and their communities, here and abroad.”
Nick attended Mass at St. Brendan Church in Hancock Park, Los Angeles, with Jay and Mary, then joined some friends on Venice Beach to enjoy the sunny California day. Kravec writes, “Nick was in the ocean at approximately 2:20 p.m. when several rogue clouds drifted over the beach amid the clear, blue skies. And at least four direct lightning strikes touched the sand and water. There were 13 lightning strike victims. Nick was the only fatality.”
Jay and Mary, of course, were shattered at losing their son, who was known for his winning smile, friendly personality, and deep faith that caused him to radiate God’s love. The deepness of that faith became even more evident when the Fagnanos discovered an essay on Nick’s computer that he had written in 2013 as a freshman in college. It was called “The Reality of Heaven,” and this is the passage that stood out:
“Regardless of heaven being beyond my comprehension, the afterlife that I want to be a part of involves joy, excitement, and gratitude, as we will finally be reunited with the loved ones that we have lost on earth. Perhaps ‘rest in peace’ is actually not the best term in relation to death; rather, a phrase such as ‘thrive in joy’ best represents how I will want to spend eternity.”
Jay and Mary saw that essay as a charge to keep their son’s name and legacy alive. They created the Thrive in Joy Nick Fagnano Foundation, which encourages and rewards character through education and recreation. One of their initiatives is a scholarship for “an incoming transfer student (just as Nick would have been) entering USC’s Sol Price School.” Another supports poor urban communities in the Dominican Republic because Nick, when he was a 13-year-old Little League player, organized a fundraiser after hearing that many young people there couldn’t play baseball due to a lack of equipment.
Despite lighting a candle in the darkness of his grief, Jay still struggled with his faith until he heard a recent homily in which the priest said, “No matter what you have to face, whether it be adversity, sadness, or tragedy, if you utter these words, it will be OK . . . I believe.”
Jay concluded, “That’s been the biggest challenge in my life since Nick’s loss. I’m not sure I really did believe. But I do. I believe that Nick is ‘thriving in joy’ and someday we’ll be with him and we will thrive in joy together.”
(Tony Rossi is the Director of Communications for The Christophers, a Catholic media organization founded by Maryknoll Father James Keller to promote the idea that every person has a special vocation from God. For more information, visit www.christophers.org)

Forming our Future
By Paul Artman
It is a natural in education that we rely on the alphabet, so naturally we all remember that “Y” follows “X.”  The generations of society have recently taken on the concept of being named by this alphabetized genre, thus this brings us to the study of Generation Y or as some have noted Generation Why.  Here are classic examples of the prevailing generation as played out in your home, school and workplace.  We can also ask, how do we better prepare this generation of learners?
First, we offer a historical primer on the generations that began to be defined as a result of the world wars’ experiences.  People of the Greatest Generation were born prior to 1928, and offer the heroism that saved our freedom through the sacrifices of World War II. I am proud to pause and salute my United States Naval veteran dad at this moment. As a result of his service he gained the opportunity to witness history by being present while the Japanese Surrender Instrument was being signed.
This generation deserves our respect for selfless acts of courage portrayed as the mundane, but hardly so! May God forever bless this Greatest Generation. The other generations followed one by one, including one we can call our own. So, how do we deal with our present generation?
The Silent Generation was born between 1928 and 1945, but then came the not so silent Baby Boomers breathing first breath from 1946 to 1964. Much has been written about we Baby Boomers, but fast on our heels was Generation X born between 1965 and 1980.  Births from that point until the early 2000s have been dubbed Millennials or Generation Y. If you teach, work with, or better yet, live with a member of Generation Y, then you probably want and deserve this explanation and insight into one of the rarest generations to ever grace God’s green earth.
So, what is so unique about navigating Generation Y?
As we interchange Generation Y for Generation Why, it was teen expert Eric Chester who coined this new term. His generational understanding is based, in large part, on youth who continually question standards and expectations imposed by society. In other words, these students, and now young adults, often co-workers, ask the questions, “Why does it matter?” or “Why should I care?” You may ask, “Why do they ask such questions?”
However, we as educators and parents must realize that we have within our charge a generation that has never worked in a world without computers, never known a world without the possibility of destruction, does not understand the concept of black and white television or endured a building without air conditioning.
This generation grew up with “neighbor strangers” and thinking that everyone of worth has tattoos and piercings, or at least should have such. Likewise, these students have inherited more family responsibility and baggage than any previous generation. Are you getting a clearer picture?  Here is a generation whose values have been molded by television and their view of success hinges on figuring out an angle or maybe “just winning the lottery” to solve all their financial needs forever.
Generation Whyers are impatient, disengaged, skeptical, image driven and blunt. These attributes seem difficult with which to deal or perhaps even insurmountable. Our work may be cut out for us, but Whyers also have many positive attributes. All is not lost as this generation is resilient, loyal, tolerant, innovative, self-reliant, creative and motivated learners. This may seem to be a dichotomy, but in reality this is a true snapshot of our complex, young friends.
With that said, we also realize that they are clay with which we attempt to mold a lasting and fruitful future.  As teachers and parents, how do we work with Generation Whyers? It is a must that we accentuate the positive and set only positive tones at all times. This generation responds to relationships built on trust, openness, and honesty. Today’s youth are motivated by the digital world; therefore, adults must join the world of technology to understand, analyze and meet learner needs.  Many adults will become the second in the family to adapt to the digital world, but this adaptation is a must for relating to our younger charges.
Today’s learners thrive on instant feedback and possess unlimited energy; on the other hand, they have short attention spans and must be afforded motivation.  Here again, technology’s bells and whistles play a part in relating to and teaching our students. Remember, this generation has been fed a constant diet of high-energy games, digital images, and constant communication even during sleep time. As parents and teachers we must be cognizant of the differences in generations and especially of the individual children who count on us for education, guidance and love.
St. Ignatius of Loyola offers us the key to teachers teaching and parents rearing their children, “They are to adapt themselves to the temperaments of the individuals with whom they deal and, to win them over, they are instructed to enter the other’s door but to come out their own.”
Simple enough, no matter the generation or the generational differences, we are charged in Catholic education and the Christian home to be faithful, understanding and to find ways to bring up our young in a manner which positively sustains the future for all of us. It is up to us as teachers and families to remain prayerful, motivated and optimistic no matter the generational characteristics.  We must be able to continually adapt to the matters at hand, as we remain flexible and motivated in our dealings with the younger generation. If we do all these, we will certainly have another productive generation to follow.
(Paul Artman, Ed.S. has been the  principal of Greenville St. Joseph School for 10 years.)