Category Archives: Columnists

Called by name

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PEARL – St. Jude hosted the diaconate ordination of Andrew Bowden on May 15, 2021. Pictured are all seminarians for the Diocese of Jackson. Pictured left to right: Grayson Foley, Tristan Stovall, Bishop Joseph Kopacz, Carlisle Beggerly, Deacon Andrew Bowden, Ryan Stoer, William Foggo and Father Nick Adam. (Photo by Tereza Ma)

It takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to raise priests and religious for our parishes, schools and ministries. I spent some time in Little Rock, Arkansas in early May to discover why the heck they have so many seminarians. They have about 30 seminarians and about 25 of them are from Arkansas. They also have nine men and women who are studying for religious life. This is Little Rock, not New Orleans. This is a diocese that is 5% Catholic and very rural. And they have 30 seminarians and nine men and women studying for religious life! I studied their vocations poster, and it reveals a diverse cast of characters representing many corners of their very large diocese. There are some wonderful missionaries who have come to study for the diocese, but the vast majority come from within.

Father Nick Adam
Father Nick Adam

I left my visit extremely fired up: we can do this! The thing that impressed me most about Little Rock’s program is the culture that has been built over years of collaboration between the Vocation Department, the Bishop’s Office and the Chancery, parish leadership, and the people of God. Everything in that department is geared toward serving the people of God in Arkansas. There is a clear message that God could be calling you to serve, and we are going to support you in that call. It takes a village, and we are that village.

This sort of support is certainly present in communities in our diocese. It took a village for Andrew Bowden to be ordained as Deacon Andrew Bowden on May 15. It took a village for Tristan Stovall to be supported through the RCIA process in Philadelphia and finally to see him off to seminary formation. It took the villages of St. Paul Flowood, St. Richard and St. Joseph Schools and St. Joseph Starkville to inspire Will Foggo to enter the seminary this past year. But we can create a bigger, more cohesive village, and that’s what I learned in Little Rock. This summer I hope our village gets a little bigger as I host our first ever Quo Vadis? Young Men’s Retreat. This fall I hope it gets even bigger with our second annual Homegrown Harvest Seminarian Gala. And I also understand that this village will not be built overnight, and I am not building it alone. If you have ideas or just want to get involved in supporting our seminarians and young men and women who are discerning, please let me know. You can always email me at nick.adam@jacksondiocese.org. There are great things happening in the church, and there are great things happening in our diocese. Please continue to pray for vocations, and live in great hope, because the Lord will respond to these prayers, and we need to support one another as we look to build up our culture of vocations.

Seminarian poster for the Diocese of Little Rock. (Photo by Malea Hargett, editor of Arkansas Catholic)

Pneuma: can you hear me now?

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From the hermitage
By sister alies therese
The ‘season of the Spirit’ is upon us and have we used the many opportunities to explore the ‘beauty?’ As we ‘turn green’ from the glory of Easter/Pentecost’s golds and reds we are called to practically live out what has been given. We discover in the Scriptures and from contemporary writers, the various ways this Pneuma has been heard and experienced. What sort of life might we live having received such ourselves? How do we set ourselves up to receive? How do we respond to the generosity and kindness of God?
Carlo Carretto, (Selected Writings, 1994, Ellsberg, Ed. page 83) … points us to our reality:
“And then, what do rocks matter? What matters is Christ’s promise, what matters is the cement that binds the rocks into one: the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit alone can build the Church with stones as ill-hewn as we.”
To admit I am ill-hewn is always an ‘ouch’ as I’m pretty sure God meant better for us! But the Spirit shows me a different picture and promises to transform. Pope Francis in the Joy of the Gospel (2013) speaks of:
“Spirit-filled evangelizers, fearlessly open to the working of the Holy Spirit … Jesus wants evangelizers who proclaim the good news not only with words but above all a life transfigured by God’s presence…”
And then the Scriptures showed us:
“A strong heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing the rocks before the Lord — but the Lord was not in the wind … and after the fire there was a whispering sound. When he heard this Elijah hid his face in his cloak.” (1Kings 9)
“The tiny whisper is imperceptible and tells of the spirituality of God. It was fitting Elijah, whose mission it was to re-establish the covenant and restore the pure faith, would have returned to Horeb where the covenant was revealed to Moses and through him to Israel’s people.” (NAB, notes, page 336)
Have we heard the driving wind or the small voice? God is generous, clearly a hope in us that we don’t miss our call, indeed, that we get the memo!

Sister alies therese

“From up in the sky there came a noise like a strong, driving wind: the wind and the Holy Spirit are associated in John 3:8: ‘the wind blows where it will. You hear the sound it makes but you do not know where it comes from nor where it goes. So it is with everyone begotten of the Spirit.’” (NAB, notes, page 1172)
I don’t know where I’m going half the time (perhaps not in an ‘ultimate sense’). Is this a blessing of aging? Anyway, this Spirit does not just call on us once … or even twice. Frequently we can hear that whisper, or large boom, when we are at prayer, or trying to pray. Note:
CCC 2623: On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of the Promise was poured out on the disciples, gathered ‘together in one place. While awaiting the Spirit, ‘all these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer.’ The Spirit who teaches the church and recalls for her everything Jesus said was also to form her in a life of prayer.”
CCC 2655: …Prayer internalizes and assimilates the liturgy during and after celebration. Even when it is lived out ‘in secret’, prayer is always the prayer of the church; it is a communion with the Holy Trinity.’
So, the coming of God’s Spirit is really to form us ill-hewn ones for prayer, for that marvelous encounter with Jesus. If God, as Spirit, has gotten our attention, what next? W. H. Auden in Prayer, the Nature of in a Certain World, 1970, writes:
“To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever one so concentrates attention…that one completely forgets the ego and desires, one is praying.
To forget my ego … ah, that is where I am indeed ill-hewn! You?
In Praying With Icons, Jim Forest, 1997, points out:
“When the Most High came down and confused the tongues, God divided the nations. But when God distributed tongues of fire, God called everyone to unity. Therefore with one accord we glorify the all-Holy Spirit.” — Kontakion for Pentecost
How is this Spirit wending her way through our pandemic ridden world? Are we not, indeed a people in darkness awaiting illumination? Are we not a people called to unity, burned together by this fire? This unity comes in prayer and action, and trust in an unseen God.
Finally, in The Word in the Desert, Douglas Burton-Christie 1993, mentions Abba Cronius, who reminds the brothers/sisters that “vigilance, singlemindedness, and abandonment to God’s will gives birth to the Holy Spirit in one’s soul.” (page 207)
We pray the Spirit will give us just these graces for that birth that we might together glorify God, ill-hewn as we are.
Blessings.

(Sister alies therese is a canonically vowed hermit with days formed around prayer and writing.)

Rich kids growing up without money – or understanding

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IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Gloria Steinem once confessed that, while never having been overweight, she has always been concerned about her weight because the genes she inherited from her parents predisposed her in that direction. So, she says, I think of myself as a fat woman who is slim at the moment. Her comment helped me to understand something I misunderstood years before in a classroom.
Early on in my seminary studies, taking a course on the sociology of poverty, I was struggling to accept our professor’s explanation as to why poverty isn’t always the consequence of personal failure, but is often the product of unchosen circumstances, accidents and misfortune. Many of us in the class weren’t buying it, and this was our logic. Most of us had come from very humble economic backgrounds and believed that we had pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Why couldn’t everyone else do the same?
So we protested: we grew up poor. We didn’t have any money. We didn’t get free school lunches. We had to work to pay for our clothes and books. Our parents never took any handouts. Nobody helped them – they took care of themselves. So have we, their kids. We resent those who are getting things for nothing. Nothing came to us free! We’ve earned what we have.

Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Our professor answered by telling us that this is precisely why we needed a course on the sociology of poverty. He wasn’t buying the notion that we had grown up poor and had earned things by our own hard work. Then, this surprising phrase: “None of you were poor as kids; you were rich kids who grew up without money; and where you are today isn’t just the result of your own hard work, it’s also the result of a lot of good fortune.”
It took me years (and Gloria Steinem’s comment) to understand he was right. I was a rich kid who grew up in a family without money. Moreover, so much of what I naively believed that I’d earned by my own hard work was in fact very much the product of good fortune.
I doubt our society understands that. A number of popular clichés have us believe that one’s background should never be an excuse for not being a success in this world, that success is open equally to everyone. We’ve all inhaled the clichés. Any poor kid can grow up to be President of this country! Any poor kid can go to Harvard! Anybody industrious can make a success of his or her life! There’s no excuse for any healthy person not having a job!
Is this true? Partially, yes; kids from poor economic backgrounds have become president, thousands of poor kids have found entrance into the best universities, countless kids who grew up poor have been highly successful in life, and people who are motivated and not lazy generally do make a success of their lives. However, that’s far from the whole story.
What really makes for the separation of rich and poor in our world? Is everyone really on equal footing? Is it really virtue that makes for success and lack of it that makes for failure?
In a best-selling book, Elderhood, Louise Aronson, makes this comment about her mother and Queen Elizabeth, both who aged wonderfully and gracefully: “They both were born into privilege: white, citizens of developed countries, wealthy and educated. Both were gifted with great genetic DNA, and both had the good fortune of not ever having been assaulted, abused, felled by cancer, or in a debilitating car accident. … These advantages are not a matter of character. Indeed, willpower and capacity for wise decisions are often by-products of fortunate lives.” (Emphasis, mine)
Success isn’t predicated only on personal character, hard work and dedication. Neither is failure necessarily the result of weakness, laziness, and lack of effort. We aren’t all born equal, set equally into the same starting blocks, have equally gifted or abusive childhoods, are allotted equally the same opportunities for education and growth, and then are parceled out equally the same measure of accidents, illness and tragedy in life. However, it’s because we naively believe that fortune is allotted equally to all that we glibly (and cruelly) divide people into winners and losers, judge harshly those we deem losers, blame them for their misfortunes, and congratulate ourselves on what we have achieved, as if all the credit for our success can be attributed to our own virtue. Conversely, we see those who are poor as having only themselves to blame. Why can’t they pull themselves up by their bootstraps? We did!
But … some of us have genes that predispose us to become fat, some of us are rich kids who grow up without money, and willpower and capacity for wise decisions are often the products of a fortunate life rather than a matter of character. Recognizing that can make us less cruel in our judgments and far less smug in our own successes.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

They were filled with the Holy Spirit

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By Father Clement “Clem” Olukunle Oyafemi
JACKSON – On Pentecost we celebrate the birthday of the Catholic Church. In other words, we celebrate the inauguration of the Universal Church. When Jesus rose from the dead, the first gift he gave to the church was the Holy Spirit. He says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them” (Jn 20:22-23).
Before his ascension, Jesus makes a promise to his disciples. He says to them, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Padre Clement Olukunle Oyafemi


On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and as the Bible attests, “They were devout men (and women) even in Jerusalem from every nation on the earth … and each one was bewildered to hear these men (the apostles) speaking his own language.” (Acts 2:6) They questioned: How does it happen that each of us hears them (the apostles) in his own native language? (Acts.2:8) What is the implication of this message? How does it affect us today?
What happened on Pentecost was a miracle. The miracle was that God spoke to people of different nationalities in their own native tongues through the Apostles who were uneducated men. It was a reverse of the division that was experienced at the Tower of Babel (cf Gn 11:1-9). Praise God!. The human race is once again united after many centuries of division and confusion. Through the Holy Spirit the divided world, marked by misunderstanding, conflicts and confusion, is now united.
Today there is a serious attempt by some schools of thought to teach the whole world the same verbal language to unite them. That, however, seems to be an expensive joke.
What we need today is “inculturation.” That is to allow the gospel message to be born in every culture. Today we are challenged to break down the barriers of division and sectarianism. We are challenged to bring the Gospel to every race and culture and help them understand the marvels of God in their own native languages. We are challenged to help people connect with God in their own concrete historical conditions. We do not need to learn any foreign language to communicate with God, our loving Father. If the church is defined as “the people of God,” then, the language of the church must be the language of God’s people in every part of the world.
What we really need in today’s church is the language of love. It is non-verbal and does not require an interpreter. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we will be able to speak the nonverbal language of love, which cannot be taught by any human technique. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we will be able to understand each other in family, in the church, and in society.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, the church will have the courage to carry out the universal Mission entrusted to her by Jesus. She will be comforted, directed, and strengthened especially at difficult times. At confirmation, each one of us received the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is meant give us the courage to always witness the Faith, even in the face of death.
May the Holy Spirit, which came on Pentecost day, come upon each, and every one of us and renew the face of the entire earth.

(Excerpt from the book Theological Reflections for Sundays and Solemnities of Liturgical Year B, 2011 by Father Clem-alias Clemente de Dios, Coordinator of the Intercultural Ministry of the Diocese since 2020. Father Clem has two master’s degrees, one in theology and the other in religious education, and a BA in Philosophy. Sharing with Sister Thea Bowman a passion for the Lord and music, Father Clem founded the Rejoice Ministry of African Worship Songs –AFRAWOS– in 2002.)

They were filled with the Holy Spirit

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By Father Clement “Clem” Olukunle Oyafemi
JACKSON – On Pentecost we celebrate the birthday of the Catholic Church. In other words, we celebrate the inauguration of the Universal Church. When Jesus rose from the dead, the first gift he gave to the church was the Holy Spirit. He says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them” (Jn 20:22-23).
Before his ascension, Jesus makes a promise to his disciples. He says to them, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Padre Clement Olukunle Oyafemi

On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and as the Bible attests, “They were devout men (and women) even in Jerusalem from every nation on the earth … and each one was bewildered to hear these men (the apostles) speaking his own language.” (Acts 2:6) They questioned: How does it happen that each of us hears them (the apostles) in his own native language? (Acts.2:8) What is the implication of this message? How does it affect us today?
What happened on Pentecost was a miracle. The miracle was that God spoke to people of different nationalities in their own native tongues through the Apostles who were uneducated men. It was a reverse of the division that was experienced at the Tower of Babel (cf Gn 11:1-9). Praise God!. The human race is once again united after many centuries of division and confusion. Through the Holy Spirit the divided world, marked by misunderstanding, conflicts and confusion, is now united.
Today there is a serious attempt by some schools of thought to teach the whole world the same verbal language to unite them. That, however, seems to be an expensive joke.
What we need today is “inculturation.” That is to allow the gospel message to be born in every culture. Today we are challenged to break down the barriers of division and sectarianism. We are challenged to bring the Gospel to every race and culture and help them understand the marvels of God in their own native languages. We are challenged to help people connect with God in their own concrete historical conditions. We do not need to learn any foreign language to communicate with God, our loving Father. If the church is defined as “the people of God,” then, the language of the church must be the language of God’s people in every part of the world.
What we really need in today’s church is the language of love. It is non-verbal and does not require an interpreter. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we will be able to speak the nonverbal language of love, which cannot be taught by any human technique. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we will be able to understand each other in family, in the church, and in society.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, the church will have the courage to carry out the universal Mission entrusted to her by Jesus. She will be comforted, directed, and strengthened especially at difficult times. At confirmation, each one of us received the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is meant give us the courage to always witness the Faith, even in the face of death.
May the Holy Spirit, which came on Pentecost day, come upon each, and every one of us and renew the face of the entire earth.

(Excerpt from the book Theological Reflections for Sundays and Solemnities of Liturgical Year B, 2011 by Father Clem-alias Clemente de Dios, Coordinator of the Intercultural Ministry of the Diocese since 2020. Father Clem has two master’s degrees, one in theology and the other in religious education, and a BA in Philosophy. Sharing with Sister Thea Bowman a passion for the Lord and music, Father Clem founded the Rejoice Ministry of African Worship Songs –AFRAWOS– in 2002.)

Bishop pierces ‘cloud of hate and fear’ with statement after 1963 assassination of civil rights leader, Evers

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From the Archives
By Mary Woodward
JACKSON – June 12, 1963, is a date that every Mississippian should remember for it was on this day that Medgar Evers was gunned down outside his home in Jackson upon returning home at night after meetings of the NAACP. It was just before midnight of June 11. Evers was the local Field Secretary and was a target of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
Normally, Evers’ routine upon arriving at home was to walk around the front of his car and into his house, thus putting the car between himself and the darkness where someone could be hiding. That fateful night because of items in the back of the car to be unloaded he went the opposite direction and a gunman shot from the bushes and killed him.
One of the bullets went through Evers’ body through the window of the house and into the kitchen. He bled to death in his driveway in front of his wife and children. The driveway still holds the stain of his blood. Byron de la Beckwith was convicted of the crime some 30 years later. Evers is buried in Arlington National Cemetery as he was a veteran of WWII.
During this same time, the diocesan priests and Bishop Gerow were on retreat in Bay St. Louis. Word of the assassination arrived there later that morning. The following accounts are taken from the diary of Bishop Gerow. It was a very volatile time.

“While everything is going so beautifully here at the retreat, currently, it is not going so well in Jackson in reference to the race question. I got news over the radio that today Medgar Evers, who has been the Field Secretary for the NAACP, and who, according to Father Gasper, was a fine, honest and respectable gentleman, was murdered. This murderer shot him at a distance when he was going from his automobile to his home. So far, the identity of the murderer is not known. I know that this is going to cause much trouble.”
As a point of information, the Evers sent their children to Christ the King Catholic School because they felt they would be safer there.
Bishop Gerow writes on June 14, 1963: “Naturally, the city is very much upset over the assassination of Medgar Evers. Up to this time, I have refrained from making any public statements in the newspaper. However, now the time has arrived for some sort of statement, so with the help of Father Law and Bill Minor, one of our fine Catholic newspapermen in the city, we drafted a statement and sent it to the local newspapers…and gave it to the national press and radio. Then as an act of charity…we visited the wife of the murdered man.”
“The assassination of Medgar Evers is certainly a shocking and saddening occurrence in our community and is more meaningful than the death of one man. I personally extend my heartfelt sympathy to the wife and children of Mr. Evers and convey to them my blessing and assurance of my prayers.
“I am saddened when I review the events of recent days and weeks. As a loyal son of Mississippi and a man of God, I feel in conscience compelled to speak out in the face of the grave racial situation in which we now find ourselves.
“This problem is unmistakably a moral one. We need frankly to admit that the guilt for the murder of Mr. Evers and the other instances of violence in our community tragically must be shared by all of us. Responsible leadership in some instances has been singularly lacking.
“I entreat our leaders and men of good will of both races to find some common ground on which to build a civic order based on human dignity and a concept of justice under God’s law. Rights which have been given to all men by the Creator cannot be the subject of conferral or refusal by men.
“The Declaration of Independence of this great nation has given us the proper attitude in this regard, in the words, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’
“Our conscience should compel us all to acknowledge the deep moral implications of this problem, and to take some positive steps towards recognizing the legitimate grievances of the Negro population. In the name of our common faith in God the Father let us all join together in prayer that the clouds of hate and fear may be pierced by the light of justice and fraternal love.”
Bishop Gerow received hate mail and phone calls from people, including Catholics, around the state and country for his visit to Mrs. Evers and for his statement. To one of these who expressed dismay that Bishop Gerow had visited Mrs. Evers, he replied: “I did it; I wanted the world to know it, and I was proud of the fact that I had done it because the family had suffered a tremendous injustice and it was really a national disgrace.”
The words of Bishop Gerow’s statement if put in modern terms would be very fitting to today’s climate. It seems we really are still in a climate where we need the cloud of hate and fear to be pierced by the light of justice and love.
Next issue a visit to New Orleans…

(Mary Woodward is Chancellor and Archivist for the Diocese of Jackson)

Come Holy Spirit

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By Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz, D.D.
Pope Francis often has described the upheavals across the globe, socially and environmentally, as a change of an era, not merely an era of change. At the center of his Holy Spirit driven dream contained in his most recent books, Fratelli Tutti and Let Us Dream, the Path to a New Future, is the hope that the world would not only extol liberty and equality as the ultimate values but would evolve to form the perfect triangle with the inclusion of fraternity.
The pending feast of Pentecost beckons as the culminating moment of the Easter season next weekend, when we celebrate the transforming power of the Holy Spirit who can renew the face of the earth, and the landscape of our hearts and minds. This is the divine drama whose culmination will be at the second coming of the Lord Jesus. The early church experienced a change of an era moment very quickly, a second Pentecost event, in the home of Cornelius, last Sunday’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. (Acts 10:25-48)
Most Catholics can identify with the first Pentecost and the birth of the church when the Holy Spirit with a strong driving wind and tongues of fire launched the proclamation of the Gospel with the 120 disciples gathered in prayer, including the 12 apostles and the Blessed Mother. Peter, the first among equals of the apostles, stood up in the midst of the emerging community of believers to address the devout Jews gathered from every nation who were in Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish feast of Weeks, the first fruits of the harvest. After Peter’s historic preaching of the Kerygma in the context of the Hebrew scriptures of salvation history, 3000 were baptized that day, all of them Jews. (Acts 2:41) The great commission of the Lord Jesus (Matthew 28:16-20) to the 11 apostles before ascending into heaven, to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, was in their world view a message of salvation intended exclusively for the sons and daughters of Abraham scattered in the diaspora.

Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz

The second Pentecost moment that ushered in the change of an era did not occur at the religious, economic, and cultural center of the Jews in Jerusalem, but in the living room of a pagan. Peter, again at the center of the divine drama, was pushed and prodded by the Holy Spirit in a repetitive vision to kill and consume unclean food. (Acts 10:10-16) Peter found this repulsive and refused to indulge. Upon awakening three strangers arrived and directed him to the home of Cornelius, a centurion, where he and his family were eager to offer hospitality to the preeminent leader of the disciples of the crucified and risen Lord.
What was so dramatic about this encounter, is that Peter underwent radical conversion because mixing and mingling with Gentiles was the source of his revulsion, that which the food symbolized. He began his discourse unaware that the second downpour of Pentecost was imminent. In the middle of his preaching on the crucified and resurrected Lord of history, the Holy Spirit, more or less, went over the top of Peter and fell upon the Gentile’s with the fire of God’s love. This encounter, although off the beaten path, was at least as dramatic as the first. Peter and the pious Jews from Jerusalem were shocked that the Holy Spirit could have been poured out upon the Gentiles, the uncircumcised, the pagans, the impure. (10:46) This groundbreaking moment revealed to Peter and church leadership, all Jewish at the time, that the outpouring of blood and water on the Cross and of the Holy Spirit truly was a universal gift.
The joy overflowed for many of the believers, but this revelation caused considerable division in the early church. The Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) officially resolved the question of the extent of the Mosaic Law that would be incumbent upon Gentile converts, but the battle in the trenches of church life raged for generations over the necessity of circumcision for the Gentiles, the sign of the covenant that went back to Abraham.
The first and second Pentecost moments as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles manifestly displayed that the Holy Spirit, then and now, is poured out upon the entire church, especially when gathered in prayer. At times, God’s liberating actions can take everyone by surprise.
Pope Francis calls these events, an overflow of God’s grace, and the foundation for what Pope he sees as the need for active Synodality in the Church. These forums for prayer, dialogue and discernment, where the community of believers gather, ordained and laity, are as essential to the church in the third millennium as they were in the first. They give witness to the liberty we know in Jesus Christ, the equality of dignity that all people possess made in the image and likeness of God, and the fraternity that is inherent in the Great Commission to make disciples of all the nations. Indeed, come Holy Spirit in our time, and infuse the church with the breath of God, who is ever ancient and ever new.

Ven Espíritu Santo

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Por Obispo Joseph R. Kopacz, D.D.
A menudo, el Papa Francisco ha descrito los trastornos sociales y ambientales en todo el mundo como un cambio de era, no simplemente como una era de cambio. En el centro de su sueño impulsado por el Espíritu Santo contenido en sus libros más recientes, Fratelli Tutti (Carta encíclica sobre la Fraternidad y Amistad Social), el libro Let Us Dream the Path to a New Future, (Soñemos Juntos, El Camino a un Futuro Mejor), está la esperanza de que el mundo no solo ensalce la libertad y la igualdad como los valores últimos, sino que evolucione para formar el triángulo perfecto con la inclusión de la fraternidad.
La fiesta de Pentecostés, momento culminante de la temporada de Pascua y pendiente para el próximo fin de semana, es cuando celebramos el poder transformador del Espíritu Santo que puede renovar la faz de la tierra y el paisaje de nuestras mentes y nuestros corazones. Este es el drama divino que tendrá culminación con la segunda venida del Señor Jesús. La iglesia primitiva experimentó rápidamente un cambio de época, un segundo evento de Pentecostés, en la casa de Cornelio, según los Hechos de los Apóstoles, primera lectura del domingo pasado. (Hechos 10: 25-48)
La mayoría de los católicos pueden identificarse con el primer Pentecostés y el nacimiento de la iglesia cuando el Espíritu Santo, con un fuerte viento y lenguas de fuego, lanzó la proclamación del Evangelio con los 120 discípulos reunidos en oración, incluidos los 12 apóstoles y la Santísima Madre. Pedro, el primero entre iguales de los apóstoles, se puso de pie en medio de la emergente comunidad de creyentes para dirigirse a los judíos devotos reunidos de todas las naciones que estaban en Jerusalén para celebrar la fiesta judía de las Semanas, los primeros frutos de la cosecha. Después de la predicación histórica de Pedro del Kerygma en el contexto de las escrituras hebreas de la historia de la salvación, 3000 fueron bautizados ese día, todos ellos judíos. (Hechos 2:41) La gran comisión del Señor Jesús a los 11 apóstoles antes de ascender al cielo de hacer discípulos de todas las naciones, bautizándolos en el nombre del Padre, Hijo y el Espíritu Santo (Mateo 28:16-20), era su cosmovisión de un mensaje de salvación destinado exclusivamente a los hijos e hijas de Abraham esparcidos en la diáspora.

Obispo Joseph R. Kopacz

El segundo momento de Pentecostés que marcó el comienzo del cambio de era no ocurrió en el centro religioso, económico y cultural de los judíos en Jerusalén, sino en la sala de estar de un pagano. Pedro, nuevamente en el centro del drama divino, en una visión repetitiva fue empujado y aguijoneado por el Espíritu Santo a matar y consumir alimentos inmundos. (Hechos 10:10-16), pero Pedro encontró esto repulsivo y se negó a consentir. Al despertar, llegaron tres extraños y lo dirigieron a la casa de Cornelio, un centurión, donde él y su familia estaban ansiosos por ofrecer hospitalidad al líder preeminente de los discípulos del Señor crucificado y resucitado.
Lo dramático de este encuentro es que Pedro sufrió una conversión radical porque reunirse y mezclarse con los gentiles era la fuente de su repulsión, simbolizada por la comida. Comenzó su discurso sin darse cuenta de que el segundo aguacero de Pentecostés era inminente. En medio de su predicación sobre la historia del Señor crucificado y resucitado, el Espíritu Santo, pasó por encima de Pedro y cayó sobre los gentiles con el fuego del amor de Dios. Este encuentro, aunque fuera de lo común, fue al menos tan dramático como el primero. Pedro y los judíos piadosos de Jerusalén se sorprendieron de que el Espíritu Santo pudiera haber sido derramado sobre los gentiles, los incircuncisos, los paganos y los impuros. (Hechos 10:46) Este momento revolucionario le reveló a Pedro y al liderazgo de la iglesia, todos judíos en ese momento, que el derramamiento de sangre y agua sobre la Cruz y del Espíritu Santo era verdaderamente un don universal.
El gozo se desbordó para muchos de los creyentes, pero esta revelación causó una división considerable en la iglesia primitiva. El Concilio de Jerusalén (Hechos 15) resolvió oficialmente la cuestión del alcance de la Ley Mosaica que incumbiría a los gentiles convertidos, pero la batalla en las trincheras de la vida de la iglesia se prolongó durante generaciones por la necesidad de la circuncisión de los gentiles, la señal del pacto que se remontaba a Abraham.
El primer y segundo momento de Pentecostés, según se registra en los Hechos de los Apóstoles, muestra claramente que el Espíritu Santo, entonces y ahora, se derrama sobre toda la iglesia, especialmente cuando se reúne en oración. A veces, las acciones liberadoras de Dios pueden tomar a todos por sorpresa.
El Papa Francisco llama a estos eventos un desbordamiento de la gracia de Dios y el fundamento de lo que el Papa ve como la necesidad de una sinodalidad activa en la Iglesia. Estos foros de oración, diálogo y discernimiento, donde se reúne la comunidad de creyentes, ordenados y laicos, son tan imprescindibles para la Iglesia en el tercer milenio como en el primero. Dan testimonio de la libertad que conocemos en Jesucristo, la igualdad de dignidad que poseen todas las personas hechas a imagen y semejanza de Dios, y la fraternidad inherente a la Gran Comisión de hacer discípulos de todas las naciones. En efecto, !Ven Espíritu Santo, en nuestro tiempo, e infunde a la iglesia el aliento de Dios!, quien siempre es antiguo y siempre es nuevo.

Called by Name

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Our Prediscernment Prayer Nights wrapped up in late April and I want to thank all the parishioners who came to the various parishes to pray for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. I ended up visiting ten parishes in across the diocese. It was really incredible that our final stop on the tour brought our largest crowd as we had a packed house at St. Michael’s in Forest! A special thanks to all the pastors and parish leaders I worked with as we made these evenings of prayer available to so many.

As we continue to make changes to our COVID protocols I am excited to announce that I will be hosting a Men’s Discernment Retreat this summer at Our Lady of Hope in Chatawa. This retreat center was formally St. Mary of the Pines and has been sold to a Catholic group from the Diocese of Baton Rouge. The retreat will run from June 22-24 and is for young men ages 15-25. I’m hopeful that many of the young people who came to pray with us this winter and spring can build up bonds of friendship with one another at the retreat this summer. We will have keynote talks addressing important facts about discernment and the reality that the Lord is calling each of us to a vocation. But most of all this will be a time of fun and fellowship, helping young men from various backgrounds and at various stages in their lives get to know one another and find support.

It has been almost a year since I began as full-time vocation director, and I pray that this retreat will be a visible sign of the work that is being done in cultivating discerners from our diocese. It is so important that young people who think they might have a call to priesthood or religious life have other like-minded individuals to spend time with. Discerning a vocation can be isolating, but the more we can support one another the more young people will feel empowered to do God’s will.

I have been so impressed by the dedication of so many young people in our midst who are seriously considering God’s will in their life. Please continue to pray for these young men and women and pray that the young men who would benefit from attending this retreat will have the courage and the capability to sign up! If you are interested or you want to know how to refer a young man to sign up, please log onto www.jacksonpriests.com/comeandsee or simply email me at nick.adam@jacksondiocese.org or more information.

GREENWOOD – Bishop Kopacz leads an hour of prayer for vocations with Father Nick Adam at Immaculate Heart of Mary. (Photo courtesy of Father Nick Adam)

The eyes of love

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IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Imagine a young couple intoxicated with each other in the early stages of love. Imagine a religious neophyte in love with God, praying ecstatically. Imagine an idealistic young person working tirelessly with the poor, enflamed with a thirst for justice. Is this young couple really in love with each other? Is that religious neophyte really in love with God? Is this young social activist really in love with the poor? Not an easy question.
Whom are we really loving when we have feelings of love? The other? Ourselves? The archetype and energy the other is carrying? Our own fantasy of that person? The feelings this experience is triggering inside us? When we are in love, are we really in love with another person or are we mostly basking in a wonderful feeling which could be just as easily triggered by countless other persons?
There are different answers to that question. John of the Cross would say it is all of these things; we are in fact really loving that other person, loving a fantasy we have created of that person, and basking in the good feeling this has generated inside us. That is why, invariably, at a given point in a relationship the powerful feelings of being in love give way to disillusionment – disillusionment (by definition) implies the dispelling of an illusion, something was unreal. So for John of the Cross, when we are in love, partly the love is real and partly it is an illusion. Moreover, John would say the same thing about our initial feelings of fervor in prayer and in altruistic service. They are a mixture of both, authentic love and an illusion.
Some other analyses are less generous. In their view, all initial falling in love, whether it be with another person, with God in prayer, or with the poor in service, is mainly an illusion. Ultimately, you are in love with being in love, in love with what prayer is doing for you, or in love with how working for justice is making you feel. The other person, God, and the poor are secondary. That is why, so often, when first fervor dies, so too does our love for its original object. When the fantasy dies, so too does the sense of being in love. We fall in love without really knowing the other person and we fall out of love without really knowing the other person. The very phrase “falling in love” is revealing. “Falling” is not something we choose, it happens to us. Marriage Encounter spirituality has a clever slogan around this: marriage is a decision; falling in love is not.

Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Who is right? When we fall in love, how much is genuine love for another and how much is an illusion within which we are mostly loving ourselves? Steven Levine answers this from very different perspective and throws new light on the question. What is his perspective?
Love, he says, is not a “dualistic emotion.” For him, whenever we are feeling authentic love we are, at that moment, feeling our oneness with God and with all that is. He writes, “The experience of love arises when we surrender our separateness into the universal. It is a feeling of unity … It is not an emotion, it is a state of being … It is not so much that ‘two are as one’ so much as it is the ‘One manifested as two.’” In other words, when we love someone, in that moment, we are one with him or her, not separate, so that even though our fantasies and feelings may be partially wrapped up in self-serving affectivity, something deeper and more real than our feelings and fantasies is occurring. We are one with the other in our being – and, in love, we sense it.
In this view, authentic love is not so much something we feel; it is something we are. At its root, love is not an affective emotion or a moral virtue (though these are part of it). It is a metaphysical condition, not something that comes and goes like an emotional state, nor something that we can choose or refuse morally. A metaphysical condition is a given, something we stand within, that makes up part of what we are, constitutively, though we can be blissfully unaware. Thus, love, not least falling in love, can help make us more conscious of our non-separateness, our oneness in being with others.
When we feel love deeply or passionately, then perhaps (like Thomas Merton describing a mystical vision he had on a street corner) we can awake more from our dream of separateness and our illusion of difference and see the secret beauty and depth of other people’s hearts. Perhaps too it will enable us to see others at that place in them where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes.
And wouldn’t it be wonderful, Merton adds … “if we could see each other that way all the time.”

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)