Category Archives: Columnists

Training an opportunity to inspire, invest

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Kneading faith
By Fran Lavelle
My home in Starkville is out in the country.  On my way home by way of a narrow gravel road, I pass by the Volunteer Fire Department.   It occurred to me the other night that I have volunteers in my local rural community that are trained and prepared to come to my assistance if I ever experienced a fire on my property.  These folks are trained to save lives. I am grateful that there are people in my community who take on that responsibility and take with it the seriousness of being prepared.  Sometimes, however, folks in ministry are hesitant to ask “too” much of the people in the pews.  The concern is that as volunteers we fear that by placing too many requirements on them, they will quit. I think the opposite is true.
Proper training gives us a certain level of competency. The more competent one is, the more willing they are to take continue to take on responsibility.
It’s easy to become overwhelmed with and extensive increasing list of things to do and decreasing budget and/or energy to do them. Sometimes we just need to spend the money, time and energy to gain insight, perspective and rest that we most need to do our ministry with competency and care. So it was for the more than 50 people from the Diocese of Jackson who recently made the journey to Kenner, La., for the 33rd Annual Gulf Coast Faith Formation Conference.  This year’s theme, “Christ Centered People: Called, Gifted and Sent,” drew more than 900 people from the Gulf Coast region and beyond.
One of my favorite parts of the weekend was seeing contemporaries from around the diocese. Our delegation from the Jackson diocese included priests, sisters and lay people.  I am still very new to this job and this was the first time for me to attend this conference.  I take no credit for the success of the weekend, but I must say I was so proud of each and every member of our diocese who attended.  The weekend was educational, reflective and challenging.
One of the best keynote speeches was given by Father Steven Bell, CSP.  Father Bell was formerly on the staff at Busted Halo and now serves as the pastoral associate at St. Thomas More Newman Center in Columbus, Ohio. We had a chance to chat before his remarks as I had been asked to introduce him.  Father Bell challenged us to step out of our role as “church people” and look at our ministry with new eyes. What if I were coming to this event/activity for the first time?  What would my experience of hospitality be? How would I fit in?  Hospitality should resonate in every aspect of what we do in ministry.
It does not matter if one is the pastor, DRE, youth minister, catechist, book keeper or janitor hospitality should be the hallmark of all that we do. This is a challenge that I keep before me in my ministry and in working with college leadership underscored often. It does not hurt, however, to be reminded of it again.
While it is a regional conference, speakers came from all over the US.  Hearing the perspective of someone who comes from a different place can be beneficial and enlightening.  In those moments we realize how much a like we are and that no place is free of challenges. For example, a workshop speaker made a statement that I have not heard before but resonated with me immensely.  He said that we’ve got to stop treating youth like a problem and start treating them as vital and integral members of our parishes. Zowie! They are NOT, he reminded us, the future of our Church. They are in every way, the Church of today.
His challenge made me think about the ways our Office can better serve the people in our parishes chosen to minister to our youth. Just like my volunteer firefighters down the lane, I want our catechist and DREs/CREs to feel like they have the education, training and tools to do their very best.  And, like my volunteer firefighters, there is something life-saving about the mission.  If your parish is not already taking catechetical training seriously, maybe this will serve as food for thought.  I encourage you to make the investment.
(Fran Lavelle is the Director of the Office of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Jackson.)

Mission of Catholic education remains solid

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Forming our future
By Jules Michel
Let the children come unto me!
As an educator, I have always liked this quote from the New Testament.  Jesus was a teacher who invited the children to come to him to learn about the kingdom.  What more powerful statement is there of the priority of Catholic education in the kingdom of God.
The Plenary Councils of Baltimore, Maryland, in 1852-1884 pronounced the support of the American Bishops of that period when they proclaimed that every new parish created in the country must have a Catholic school affiliated with it!
So many times Mississippi is considered last in education, but that cannot be said of Catholic education.  We have one of the oldest, continually operating Catholic schools in the country, Natchez Cathedral School, founded in 1847.  It is also the oldest school in the state still in operation despite a Catholic population of only 3 percent. The four remaining Catholic high schools in the diocese represent 593 years of uninterrupted Catholic education of not only Catholic students, but those of every race, nationality and religion in the world.
This could only have happened through the Holy Spirit as He inspired the religious men and women who founded and established our school system. It could not have happened without the parents and parishioners of the past 170 years social and financial sacrifices. Yes social sacrifices, as there were times when it was not socially acceptable to attend a Catholic school.  In the African American community it was an even more socially dividing institution.  In the black communities some Catholic school patrons were made to feel as if they were trying to “be white.” In the white communities many felt the Catholic Church should not educate the African American for fear he might learn enough to buck the white social system existing in America.
I am sure the Italian, Syrian, Irish and German immigrant Catholics in America were made to feel the same way in their respective communities. (This is not unlike the social road blocks that existed in the time of the early church as it followed its mission of evangelizing the Gentiles.) For nearly 2,000 years we have seen that you cannot separate God and learning!
So what about Catholic education in Mississippi? We have seen from where it has evolved, but where is it going? Does the Catholic school system have the same mission as it did in 1847 or has that changed also?
As a person who has spent 43 years of his life in Mississippi’s Catholic Schools, I can say without a doubt our mission has NOT changed.  In fact I think it is even more appropriate now than it was 168 years ago.  If we consider that the mission is to provide a Catholic, faith-based academic education to all those persons desiring such a school, then it has not changed. What has changed is who. Who is staffing our schools and who are our current students.
In the post Vatican II era of the 1960’s we saw a dramatic decrease in the number of religious men and women choosing Catholic education as their vocation. I began working in the Catholic schools about this time, 1974. Within 10 years, the schools became almost totally staffed by lay persons, some even non-Catholic.
The challenge of the schools at this time was to make sure the lay staff and administration was totally vested in the original Catholic school mission and the charism of the religious who founded the state’s Catholic schools. Among men and women religious, even on a national scale, there was concern that lay educators just could not keep our schools “Catholic.”  Amid many obstacles I feel we have not only kept them Catholic but added the dimension of the lay Catholic charism. Since most of the Catholic school educators were products of religious-led Catholic schools, they tended to keep these traditions alive. In addition many of our lay administrators were married and had children which added another dimension to how they perceived their ministry of Catholic education.
I believe one of the most successful changes in the new era Catholic school has come in the teaching of religion or theology. These programs have not only embraced the traditional teachings of the church but also the social teaching of the universal church. Lay staffs are modeling how students must take not only their academic training into their adult life but also the spiritual training that requires them to be lay, adult witnesses to the teaching of Jesus Christ. They have become the St. Pauls of modern times.
The second major change in the 21st century has been the larger number of persons of other faith beliefs choosing a Catholic education. We can assume they are not all here to become Catholic, although a significant number do convert. No, they are here for quality academics, a safe environment and an education intertwined with Christian values. This addition means we have added a new dimension to Mississippi Catholic education, that of evangelization!
So what does the future hold? Well, that is up to you, the patrons and alumni and to our former students. If you feel our schools have given you a quality education and preparation for life, then you will support us with your children and patronage. If you are open to selecting a ministry in Catholic education you will support us with your talents. With only 14 of our schools still open since 1847, I can only hope that the Holy Spirit will work in them as He did in the early, catacomb church.  As Father (Alfred) Camp always said, “It ain’t easy!”
(Jules Michel is principal of Vicksburg, St. Aloysius, and has been principal of Jackson St. Richard School, Natchez Cathedral School and Greenville St. Joseph Schools.)

God loves us all equally

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IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
It’s common for us to see God’s grace and blessing in what unites us. We naturally sense the presence of grace when, at our core, we feel a strong moral bond with certain other persons, churches, and faiths. That, biblically, is what defines family.
But what if what separates us, what if what makes other persons, churches, and faiths seem foreign and strange is also a grace, a difference intended by God? Can we think of our differences, as we think of our unity, as a gift from God? Most religions, including Christianity, would answer affirmatively.
Thus in both the Jewish and the Christian scriptures there is the strong, recurring motif that God’s message to us generally comes through the stranger, the foreigner, from the one who is different from us, from a source from which we would never expect to hear God’s voice.
Added to this is the notion that when God speaks to us we generally experience it as a surprise, as something unexpected, and as something that does not easily square with our normal expectations as to how God should work and how we should learn. There’s a reason for this. Simply put, when we think we are hearing God’s voice in what’s familiar, comfortable, and secure, the temptation is always to reshape the message according to our own image and likeness, and so God often comes to us through the unfamiliar.
Moreover, what’s familiar is comfortable and offers us security; but, as we know, real transformative growth mostly happens when, like the aged Sarah and Abraham, we are forced to set off to a place that’s foreign and frightening and that strips us of all that is comfortable and secure.
Set off, God told Sarah and Abraham, to a land where you don’t know where you’re going. Real growth happens and real grace breaks in when we have to deal with what is other, foreign, different. Learn to understand, writes John of the Cross, more by not understanding than by understanding. What’s dark, unfamiliar, frightening, and uninvited will stretch us in ways that the familiar and secure cannot. God sends his word to the earth through “angels” and they’re not exactly something we’re familiar with.
If this is true, then our differences are also a grace. Accordingly, seeing things differently does not mean that we are not seeing the same things. Accordingly, different notions about God and different ways of speaking about God do not mean that we’re speaking of a different God. The same holds true for our churches, having difference concepts of what it means to be church does not necessarily mean that there isn’t some deeper underlying unity inside our diversity.
Similarly for how we conceive of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, how we imagine Christ as being really present inside of bread and wine, can take many forms and can be spoken of in different ways, without it meaning that we’re speaking of a different reality.
John Paul II, addressing an interfaith gathering, once commented that “there are differences in which are reflected the genius and spiritual riches of God to the nations.” Christian de Cherge, after a lifetime of dialogue with Islam, suggests that our differences have a “quasi-sacramental function”, that is, they help to give real flesh in this world to the riches of God, who is ineffable and can never be captured in any one expression.
Our differences then are part of the mystery of our unity. Real unity, which needs to reflect the richness of God, does not exist in uniformity and homogenization, but only in bringing into harmony many different gifts and richness, like a beautiful bouquet of flowers brings together of a variety of different flowers inside one vase. Our legitimate differences are rooted inside of the same God.
This has implications for every area of our lives, from how we receive immigrants in our countries, to how we deal with different personalities inside our families and places of work, to how we deal with other Christian denominations and other religions.
Without endorsing a naive syncretism and without denying the rightful place for discernment, it must still be affirmed that our differences, conceived as an expression of a deeper unity that we cannot yet conceive, open us up more fully to the deep unfathomable, ineffable mystery of God and, at the same time, prevents us from making an idol of our own ideas, our own religious traditions, our own ways of understanding faith, and our own theologies and ideologies. Moreover, accepting differences as being intended by God and as the presence of grace in our lives should prevent us from constructing our identity, particularly our religious identity, on the basis of opposition to others and the unhealthy need to forever protest our own uniqueness and truth against what’s other.
God loves us all equally. Difference, then, understood as part of the mystery of unity, should help keep us humble and honest enough to let others take their proper place before God.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

Celebrating Catholic schools

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By Bishop Joseph Kopacz
This week’s publication of the Mississippi Catholic puts the spotlight on the living tradition of Catholic schools within in the Diocese of Jackson.  This vital arm of the Catholic Church’s mission to make disciples of all of the nations has a rich history in Mississippi as has been pointed out and celebrated countless times in this paper.  Next week is “Catholic Schools Week” and there will be a myriad of activities in each of our schools that manifest the pride of each school in their uniqueness, as well as the communion they share with one another and with God as educational faith communities in the Body of Christ, the Church.
During the autumn months of last year I had the opportunity to celebrate the Mass in each of our elementary and High School communities and it was a joyful and meaningful experience for me to enter into the heart and mind of each of them, including Christ the King and Holy Family, St. Elizabeth, and St. Francis, Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Joseph, St. Francis Xavier and St. Aloysius, Cathedral High School and Elementary, St. Anthony and St. Joseph, St. Richard and Thea Bowman, St. Patrick and Annunciation. (I have omitted the locations so that you can connect the schools with their towns and cities, a geographical excursion around the diocese.)
Times have changed and the Diocese of Jackson has fewer Catholic Schools then it once had, but the commitment of families, educators, and diocese remains strong and we continue to sacrifice in order that our schools may continue to flourish in contemporary society. Indeed, there are many challenges that families and school communities face in our world that experiences so much upheaval and instability.
In the 2007 document published by the Congregation of Catholic Education in Rome Educating together in Catholic Schools we read of the enormous challenges in the introduction: “The unexpected and often contradictory evolution of our age gives rise to educational challenges…These challenges emerge from the social, cultural, and religious complexity in which young people are actually growing up…There is a widespread lack of interest for the fundamental truths of human life. Likewise, individualism, moral relativism and materialism permeate above all rich and developed societies…Add to that rapid structural changes, globalization and the application of new technologies in the field of information that profoundly affect daily life and formation…
In a society that is at once global and diversified, local and planetary, young people find themselves faced with different proposals of values, or lack thereof… There are also the difficulties that arise from family instability, hardship and poverty… All of this exposes our young people to the danger of ‘being tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine’ (Eph 4,14).
With this picture of the social and cultural milieu all school communities are acutely challenged to accomplish their mission to educate with purpose and promise.  Yet, our Catholic School communities have considerable resources to fulfill the mission of educating the whole person, in knowledge and wisdom, faith and grace.
In the United States and the Diocese of Jackson we carry forward a tradition and a legacy that is well over 150 years old. Our schools are an extension of our diocese, our parishes and our families; therefore parents, teachers, administrators, laity and religious, priests and bishop, are all part of our school communities, either directly or in directly, on site or present in spirit, laboring to nurture our school communities that seek to infuse the sacred into all academic disciplines, social and athletic events.
The mission of our Catholic School educators is a noble vocation, but it can also be daunting in light of the world in which we live. The document cited above encourages a vision that the world cannot give. “The Catholic School educator’s vocation is a journey of permanent formation which demands a ready and constant ability for renewal and adaptation, and not just about professional updating in the strict sense. The synthesis between faith, culture, and life is reached by integrating all the different aspects of human knowledge through the subjects taught in the light of the Gospel, and in the growth of Christian virtues.”
“Catholic educators need a ‘formation of the heart’. They need to be led to that encounter with God in Christ that awakens their love and opens their spirits to others so that their educational commitment flows from their faith, a faith that becomes active through love. In fact care for instruction means loving.”
When we take a minute to think about this mission and vocation we know that it is only by the grace of God that it can be achieved in its fullness.  It is rooted in the promise of the Lord Jesus to be with us until the end of time.
As Catholic Schools Week dawns we give thanks to our educators who care to instruct and administrate with great love, to the support staff of each school, to our parents who sacrifice to support their children’s education, to our parishioners whose generosity is directed in part to the support of our schools, to our pastors and pastoral ministers who provide the spiritual guidance that sustains parish and school communities, and to so many who have gone before upon whose shoulders of sacrifice and commitment we continue to stand today.
Have a spirited Catholic Schools Week, and may the Lord who has begun the good work in you continue to bring it to fulfillment.

Desenvolviendo el regalo vitalicio de Cristo

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Las celebraciones de la Navidad, la fe, la familia y la amistad, han empezado a desvanecerse a medida que el Nuevo Año 2015 se apodera de nuestras vidas con todas sus urgentes demandas. Aunque el tiempo nos presiona, estaríamos de acuerdo en decir que el corazón y el alma de nuestros rituales y tradiciones con las comunidades de fe, las familias y los amigos son intemporales. Lo que se ve es transitorio, lo que es invisible es eterno, (2Cor. 4:18).
Espiritualmente en nuestra tradición católica, la Fiesta de la Epifanía, la manifestación del Señor Jesús a todas las naciones, y el Bautismo del Señor, el primer misterio luminoso del rosario, nos llevan a la culminación de la temporada navideña. El nacimiento físico, jubilosamente celebrado en la Encarnación, a una velocidad increíble llega al Bautismo del Señor, 30 años después. Las palabras del arcángel anunciando la buena nueva del gran júbilo del nacimiento del Salvador son ahora trascendente por divina majestad en las palabras de Dios el Padre en el Bautismo del Señor, este es mi Hijo amado, en quien me complazco, (Mat. 3:17).
Podemos seguir desenvolviendo el entendimiento y la sabiduría, la valentía y la esperanza de la Navidad dentro del Año Nuevo porque nosotros también damos gracias por nuestro propio nacimiento a la luz del día y nos alegramos de haber renacido por la luz de la fe a través de las aguas del Bautismo en la Palabra hecha carne.
Aún más, la aventura de la Navidad todavía tiene vida. San Juan Pablo II nos enseñó que la Navidad se mantiene viva espiritualmente en el corazón de la Iglesia hasta el 2 de febrero con la fiesta de la Presentación del Señor en el Templo, 40 días después de la celebración del nacimiento del Señor en el establo. Cuarenta días en la Cuaresma, cuarenta días desde Semana Santa hasta el jueves de la Ascensión, y cuarenta días de la temporada de Navidad son convincentes paralelos que  pueden ser una ayuda durante la oscuridad y el frío de enero.
En la fiesta de la Epifanía los cristianos celebran la perseverancia, la sabiduría y el valor de los Reyes Magos, Gaspar, Melchor y Baltasar. Ellos nos inspiran a vivir nuestra fe cristiana en un nivel personal profundo y en el nivel de la misión universal de la Iglesia, la proclamación de Cristo a todas las naciones.
En esta manifestación de la gloria de Dios estamos conscientes a través de la fe, que nuestra identidad católica es un trayecto, una peregrinación sin fronteras. El impulso misionero de la Iglesia es parte integrante de nuestra identidad, la razón por la cual el Papa Francisco  nos desafía a ser discípulos misioneros. La manera del evangelio de la vida es a menudo contrarrestado, rechazado, ridiculizado o incluso atacado por el espíritu del mundo moderno.
Sin embargo, continúa prosperando a pesar de las múltiples formas de oscuridad que felizmente extinguirían la luz de la fe. Como el prólogo del evangelio de san Juan proclama: “la luz brilla en las tinieblas, y las tinieblas no la han vencido”. Esto fue cierto en el primer siglo, y sigue siendo cierto en el siglo veintiuno.
Los Reyes Magos nos enseñan que la luz de la fe y el impulso de la esperanza, a pesar de todo, se arraigan en las vidas personales en la búsqueda de mujeres y hombres. Es profundamente personal, precisamente porque es universal. Lo que a menudo es más personal en nuestras vidas también es universal de la condición humana. Dios no cesa de poner esa Estrella de gracia en nuestro horizonte, sediento de nuestra fe en su Hijo amado. Al encontrar este amor eterno que siempre está con nosotros, volvemos a nuestra vida cotidiana con un nuevo horizonte, la mente y el corazón de Jesucristo. Podemos decidir como los Magos a volver a nuestra casa por otro camino, la guía de Dios para nuestra vida.
Saliendo del tiempo de Navidad, podemos decir claramente que nuestra relación con el amado Hijo de Dios es un ciclo eterno de dar regalos. Tanto amó Dios al mundo que dio a su Hijo único, el don de amor eterno. Respondemos por la gracia de Dios con el don de la fe que nos conduce a la adoración en la tradición de los Reyes Magos, y en acción de gracias por el regalo que nunca está fuera de temporada. La Eucaristía especialmente es el acontecimiento de la Encarnación que se hace carne en la vida cotidiana de los discípulos que son el cuerpo vivo del Señor en este mundo, llamados a vivir con amor y justicia.
Para la gente de fe, la temporada de Navidad es un regalo invaluable que nos permite iniciar un nuevo año con fe, esperanza y amor a pesar de la oscuridad que nos puede ahogar. Pedimos seguir los pasos de los Reyes Magos en un espíritu de perseverancia, sabiduría y valentía. Son modelos eternos para nosotros porque mantuvieron los ojos fijos en la estrella hasta el momento en que podrían fijar su mirada en el Señor. Que todo lo que nos inspira en este mundo sirva para guiarnos a la Luz del mundo.
Qué la celebración del bautismo del Señor, la fiesta culminante de este tiempo de gracia, profundicen nuestra conciencia de que a través de nuestro bautismo en el Cuerpo de Cristo, la Iglesia, somos los hijos amados de Dios. Recordemos la escritura de la carta de san Pablo a los Gálatas en la fiesta de María, la madre de Dios, el primer día del Año Nuevo, porque estas palabras son nuestra esperanza y nuestra paz, y últimamente nuestro eterno destino.
Y porque somos sus hijos, Dios ha enviado a nuestros corazones el Espíritu de su Hijo, que nos ha impulsado a llamar, “Abba, Padre. Ahora que ya no eres esclavo, sino hijo de Dios, y como tú eres su hijo, Dios te ha hecho  su heredero. (Gálatas 4,6 -7)  ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!
(NOTA DEL EDITOR: Lea la columna de esta semana en la pag. 3 de la edición en inglés)

Mary models evangelization for all

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By Bishop Joseph Kopacz
As this Christmas season unfolds with the proclamation of the Incarnation we can savor once again the joy of our salvation. It is the way of the disciple, faithfully following the Way, The Truth, and the Life, Jesus Christ, the Lord. The Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth of the Lord, the praise of the Heavenly Host, the visit of the Shepherds, the Star that guided the Magi, all are moments of grace that direct us to God’s glory. As we gaze heavenward during these majestic days, we are at the same time planted on the earth where we incarnate the joy of the gospel into the flesh and blood of our lives.  Let us look to the Blessed Mother, the Lord’s first disciple who models for us the way of a disciple.
Her encounter with the Angel Gabriel reveals a mind and heart open to God that set her on course as the first evangelist, the one who joyfully carried the Savior in her heart and in her body. From three minutes to three days after the encounter with the Archangel Gabriel she was likely to be fixed in place taking this great mystery to heart.  From three days to three month, she was experiencing the growth of the new life within, and making plans with Joseph to build their lives together.  Three months later she was bounding along in the mountains of Judea en route to assist her elderly cousin Elizabeth who was further along in her pregnancy with John the Baptist.
With the scene of this Visitation before him, Pope Francis lovingly calls Mary our Lady of Promptness.  She is a woman at peace with the Lord’s call in her life, and inspired to serve.  Her radiance was so palpable that the baby John leapt for joy in his mother’s womb.  We can sense the heart of evangelization in this encounter with Mary and Elizabeth.  She embodied a joyful promptness to serve, because she carried the Lord within her, the one who came not to be served, but to serve.  Elizabeth and her unborn son could easily sense this and rejoiced in the presence of the Lord.  Joy is contagious.  Mary in turn rejoices:  “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
What a gift for all of us to cherish as the Lord’s disciples. Peace and joy are fruits, or living signs, of the Holy Spirit alive in us through faith. Consider the profound joy of Mary as she held the child Jesus in her arms during and after the visit of the Shepherds who saw the glory of God on the face of the child in the stable.  The evangelist Luke tells us that once the Shepherds encountered the Lord they too became evangelists.  Meanwhile, “Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.”
Not all of our days and experience leave us feeling happy, but the joy of the gospel runs much deeper than happiness. It’s the abiding sense of God’s presence even when the clouds of darkness and doubt, sadness and suffering envelop us.  In these times we need to recall that Emanuel, God with us, is the Lord who is always near, assuring us of God’s loving presence.  Even when the clouds of death had darkened Jesus last night on earth, he could still pray that His joy may be in his disciples so that their joy may be complete.
We can never minimize the horror of the Lord’s suffering and death through crucifixion, because it devastated his disciples. The Blessed Mother who had cuddled the infant Jesus in her arms, now held the broken body of her Son at the foot of the Cross. In this same sense we can never minimize the power of sin and shame to ravage the life of God within us. However, we can never underestimate the power of the resurrection through which the risen Lord healed and empowered his disciples for the mission to evangelize the nations. When they were huddled in fear and shame behind locked doors he came into their midst to grant them forgiveness and peace.  His suffering and theirs, those bloody wounds of body and soul became the source of new life.
“The disciples rejoiced when the scales fell from their hearts in receiving the Lord’s peace, and their mission began when he breathed into them the life of the Holy Spirit saying that “as the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  This was the Pentecost moment in John’s gospel.
The final biblical image that I want to recall is the day of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles. Here we have Mary again, but this time not in solitary prayer receiving the Angel’s greeting, or cuddling her newborn child in a stable, nor holding a broken, lifeless body, but with a community of faith waiting in joyful hope for the power that would come from on high. This was the second birth for her, for the Church, and for us, when the Holy Spirit empowers us to know the unfathomable riches of God’s love. They were not disappointed, and when the driving wind of the Spirit and the burning flames of God’s love embraced them.  Nor are we disappointed as we take up the torch of evangelization in our generation.
The words of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta take up the mandate of Jesus, “you are the light of the world; a city on a hill cannot be hid.” “You cannot hide your Christian character. Love cannot be hidden anymore than the sun in the sky.  When you exercise yourself in a labor of love, in any kind of good work, you are observed.  We may as well try to hide a city as to hide a Christian. Every Christian should be in open view according to God’ purpose to give light in the house.”
Throughout the Christmas season Mary teaches us that the work of evangelization can be a steady state in our lives. Each time we gather to celebrate the sacred mysteries, we bask in the glory of God, the power from on high, and we pray that we, like Mary, can be prompt to proclaim the greatness of the Lord, and prompt to live, love, and serve as disciples on the path of salvation.  Merry Christmas!

María es modelo de evangelización para todos

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Por Obispo Joseph Kopacz
A medida que esta temporada de Navidad se desarrolla con el anuncio de la Encarnación, podemos saborear una vez más la alegría de nuestra salvación. Es el camino del discípulo, siguiendo fielmente el camino, la verdad y la vida, Jesucristo, el Señor. La Anunciación, la Visitación, el nacimiento del Señor, la alabanza de la Hueste celestial, la visita de los pastores, la estrella que guió a los magos, todos son momentos de gracia que nos dirigen a la gloria de Dios.
Cuando echamos una mirada al cielo durante estos majestuosos días, al mismo tiempo estamos plantados en la tierra, donde encarnamos la alegría del evangelio en la carne y la sangre de nuestras vidas. Miremos a la Virgen Madre, la primera discípula del Señor que modela para nosotros el camino de un discípulo.
Su encuentro con el ángel Gabriel revela una mente y corazón abierto a Dios, que la afirma como la primera evangelista, quien con alegría lleva al Salvador en su corazón y en su cuerpo. De tres minutos a tres días después del encuentro con el Arcángel Gabriel es probable que tuviera fijada su atención y su corazón en este gran misterio.
De tres días a tres meses, estaba experimentando el crecimiento de la nueva vida dentro de ella, y haciendo planes con José para vivir su vida juntos. Tres meses más tarde, estaba de camino a lo largo de las montañas de Judea en ruta para ayudar a su anciana prima Isabel que estaba más avanzada de su embarazo con Juan el Bautista.
Con la escena de la Visitación ante él, el Papa Francisco amorosamente llama a María nuestra Señora de la Prontitud. Ella es una mujer que está en paz con la llamada del Señor en su vida e inspirada a servir. Su resplandor era tan palpable que el bebé Juan salta de alegría en el vientre de su madre. Podemos sentir el corazón de la evangelización en este encuentro de María e Isabel. Encarnaba una alegre prontitud a servir ya que llevaba al Señor dentro de ella, el que vino a no ser servido sino a servir. Isabel y su hijo podían fácilmente sentir esto y regocijarse en la presencia del Señor. La alegría es contagiosa. María a su vez se alegra: “Mi alma proclama la grandeza del Señor, mi espíritu se alegra en Dios, mi Salvador”.
Qué regalo tan valioso para todos nosotros estimar como discípulos del Señor. La paz y la alegría son frutos o signos vivos del Espíritu Santo vivo en nosotros a través de la fe. Consideren la profunda alegría de María cuando sostenía al niño Jesús en sus brazos durante y después de la visita de los pastores que vieron la gloria de Dios en el rostro del niño en el establo. El evangelista San Lucas nos dice que una vez que los pastores vieron al Señor, ellos también se convirtieron en evangelistas. Mientras tanto, “María apreciaba todas estas cosas y las meditaba en su corazón.”
No todos nuestros días y la experiencia nos deja contentos, pero la alegría del evangelio se extiende mucho más allá de la felicidad. Es la constante sensación de la presencia de Dios aún cuando las nubes de la oscuridad y la duda, y la tristeza y el sufrimiento nos envuelve. En estos tiempos tenemos que recordar que Emanuel, Dios con nosotros, es el Señor que siempre está cerca, asegurándonos de la presencia amorosa de Dios. Incluso cuando las nubes de la muerte habían oscurecido la última noche de Jesús en la tierra, él todavía podía rezar para que su gozo estuviera en sus discípulos para que el gozo de ellos fuera completo.
Nosotros nunca podemos minimizar el horror de los sufrimientos del Señor y su muerte por crucifixión, ya que devastó a sus discípulos. La Virgen que había  abrazado al niño Jesús en sus brazos, ahora sostenía el cuerpo quebrantado de su hijo a los pies de la cruz. En este mismo sentido, nunca podemos minimizar el poder del pecado y la vergüenza para que arruine la vida de Dios dentro de nosotros. Sin embargo, no podemos subestimar el poder de la resurrección a través de la cual el Señor sanó y facultó a sus discípulos para la misión de evangelizar a las naciones.
Cuando estaban apiñados en el miedo y la vergüenza a puertas cerradas él se les presentó para concederles el perdón y la paz. Su sufrimiento y el de ellos, esas heridas sangrientas de cuerpo y alma se convirtieron en la fuente de la nueva vida. “Los discípulos se alegraron cuando las dudas se disiparon de sus corazones al recibir la paz del Señor y  su misión comenzó cuando sopló en ellos la vida del Espíritu Santo diciendo que “como el Padre me ha enviado, también yo os envío”. Este fue el momento de Pentecostés en el evangelio de Juan.
La última imagen bíblica que quiero recordar es la del día de Pentecostés en el libro de los Hechos de los Apóstoles. Aquí tenemos otra vez a María, pero esta vez no orando en silencio recibiendo el saludo del ángel, o acariciando a su hijo recién nacido en un establo, ni sosteniendo un quebrantado cuerpo sin vida, pero con una comunidad de fe esperando en gozosa esperanza por el poder que vendrá de lo alto. Este fue el segundo nacimiento para ella, para la iglesia, y para nosotros, cuando el Espíritu Santo nos capacita para conocer las insondables riquezas del amor de Dios. Ellos no estaban decepcionados cuando el viento impetuoso del espíritu y las llamas del amor de Dios los abrazó. Ni nosotros nos sentimos decepcionados al tomar la antorcha de evangelización en nuestra generación.
Las palabras de la Beata Teresa de Calcuta toman el mandato de Jesús: “Ustedes son la luz del mundo; una ciudad en lo alto de una colina no se puede ocultar. Ustedes no pueden ocultar su carácter cristiano. El amor no se puede ocultar más que el sol en el cielo. Cuando ustedes hacen obras de amor, cualquier tipo de buen trabajo, ustedes son observados. Es como tratar de ocultar una ciudad como para ocultar a un Cristiano. Todo cristiano debe estar abierto a ser visto de acuerdo al propósito de Dios para dar luz en la casa”.
Durante la temporada de Navidad María nos enseña que la obra de la evangelización puede ser un estado estable en nuestras vidas. Cada vez que nos reunimos para celebrar los sagrados misterios,  nos saboreamos en la gloria de Dios, en el poder de lo alto, y oramos para que nosotros, como María, podamos estar dispuestos a   proclamar la grandeza del Señor, y dispuestos a vivir, a amar y a servir como discípulos en el camino de la salvación. ¡Feliz Navidad!

Start new Christmas traditions

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

Nativity offers opportunity to embrace joy

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

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

‘Visitation’ mirrors ecumenical invitation

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