IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Thirty-four years ago when I launched this column, I would never have said this: Restlessness is not something to be cultivated, no matter how romantic that might seem. Don’t get Jesus confused with Hamlet, peace with disquiet, depth with dissatisfaction, or genuine happiness with the existential anxiety of the artist. Restlessness inside us doesn’t need to be encouraged; it wreaks enough havoc all on its own.
But I’m a late convert to this view. From earliest childhood through mid-life, I courted a romance with restlessness, with stoicism, with being the lonely outsider, with being the one at the party who found it all too superficial to be real.  Maybe that contributed to my choosing seminary and priesthood; certainly it helps explain why I entitled this column, In Exile. For most of my life, I have equated restlessness with depth, as something to be cultivated,
This came naturally to me and all along the way I’ve found powerful mentors to help me carry my solitude in that way. During my high school years, I was intrigued with Shakespeare’s, Hamlet. I virtually memorized it. Hamlet represented depth, intensity, and romance; he wasn’t a beer-drinker.  For me, he was the lonely prophet, radiating depth beyond superficiality.
In my seminary years I graduated to Plato (“We are fired into life with a madness that comes from the gods and has us believe that we can achieve a great embrace, make ourselves immortal, and contemplate the divine”); to Augustine (“You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you”); to John of the Cross (We go through life fired by love’s urgent longings); to Karl Rahner (“In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable, we learn that here in this life there is no finished symphony”). Reading these thinkers helped me put my youthful romanticism under a high symbolic hedge.
Alongside these spiritual writers, I was much influenced by a number of novelists who helped instill in me the notion that life is meant to be lived with such an inner intensity and high romanticism so as to preclude any simple satisfaction in life’s normal, everyday pleasures and domestic joys.
For me, Nikos Kazantzakis’ characters radiated a passion that made them virtually godlike and irresistibly enviable, even as they struggled not to self-destruct; Iris Murdoch described loves that were so obsessive, and yet so attractive, as to make everything outside of them unreal; and Doris Lessing and Albert Camus seduced me with images of an inner disquiet that made ordinary life seem flat and not worthwhile. The idea grew in me that it was far nobler to die in unrequited longing than to live in anything else. Better dead in intensity that alive in domestic normalcy. Restlessness was to be encouraged.
And much in our culture, especially in the arts and the entertainment industry, foster that temptation, namely, to self-define as restless and to identify this disquiet with depth and with the angst of the artist. Once we define ourselves in this way, as complex, incurable romantics, we have an excuse for being difficult and we also have an excuse for betrayal and infidelity.
For now, in the words of a song by The Eagles, we are restless spirits on an endless flight. Understandably, then, we fly above the ordinary rules for life and happiness and our complexity is justification enough for whatever ways we act out.  As Amy Winehouse famously self-defines: “I told you I was troubled, and you know that I’m no good.” Why should anyone be mystified by our refusal of normal life and ordinary happiness?
There’s something inside us, particularly when we are young, that tempts us towards that kind of self-definition. And, for that time in our lives, when we’re young, I believe, it’s healthy. The young are supposed to overly-idealistic, incurably romantic, and distrustful of any lazy fall into settling for second-best.
As Doris Lessing puts it, there’s only one real sin in life and that’s calling second-best by anything other than what it is, second-best!  My wish is that all young people would read Plato, Augustine, John of the Cross, Karl Rahner, Nikos Kazantzakis, Iris Murdoch, Doris Lessing, Jane Austin, and Albert Camus.
But, except for authors such as Plato, Augustine, John of the Cross and Karl Rahner, who integrate that insatiable restlessness and existential angst into a bigger, meaningful narrative, we should be weary of defining ourselves as restless and cultivating that. High romanticism will only serve us well if we eventually set it within a self-understanding that doesn’t make restlessness an end in itself. Just feeling noble won’t bring much peace into our lives and, as we age and mature, peace does become the prize.
Romeo, Juliet, Hamlet, Zorba the Greek, Doctor Zhivago, and the other such mega-romantic figures on our screens and in our novels can enflame our romantic imaginations, but they aren’t in the end images for the type of intimacy that makes for a permanent meeting of hearts inside the body of Christ.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

Guest Commentary
Sister Constance Veit, l.s.p.
Each October we observe Respect Life Month in dioceses throughout the United States. Although ending abortion remains a priority of the utmost importance, threats to the disabled and those at the end of life deserve our attention as well. The legalization of medically assisted suicide in Canada in June should serve as a wake-up call compelling us to reach out in solidarity to our most vulnerable brothers and sisters.
Like abortion, the operative words in the campaign for physician assisted suicide are “personal choice,” “autonomy” and “control.” Compassion and Choices, the leading pro-assisted suicide organization in our country, cites a 2015 Gallup survey claiming that seven in 10 Americans believe that doctors should be able to help terminally ill individuals end their lives “on their own terms … by some painless means.” The organization’s website talks about ensuring that “you get what you want — and avoid enduring anything you don’t” in relation to end-of-life care.
These sentiments strike me as particularly sad. I believe that they are based on two troubling attitudes in our contemporary society: a loss of the sense of God — which leads to the mistaken idea that we are the masters of our own lives — and a corrupt idea of compassion. Our culture has taken this beautiful word and turned it upside down. Compassion literally means “to suffer with;” it does not mean to terminate another’s life. Compassion is the reaction that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve it. It is not pity; nor does it entail eliminating suffering by eliminating the person who suffers.
In a speech to Latin American Medical Associations this past summer Pope Francis dwelt on the profound meaning of this virtue. “True compassion is undertaking to bear the burden … This would mean the triumph over selfishness, of that ‘throw-away culture’ which rejects and scorns people who do not fulfill certain criteria of health, beauty and usefulness.… Compassion, this suffering-with, is the appropriate response to the immense value of the sick person, a response made out of respect, understanding and tenderness, because the sacred value of the life of the sick does not disappear nor is it ever darkened, but rather it shines brighter precisely in their suffering and vulnerability.”
He continued, “Fragility, pain and illness are a difficult trial for everyone, even for the medical staff, they are an appeal for patience, for suffering-with; therefore we cannot give in to the functionalist temptation to apply quick and drastic solutions, stirred by false compassion or by simple criteria of efficiency and economic saving. The dignity of human life is at stake; the dignity of the medical vocation is at stake.”
Pope Francis summed up his message to health professionals by quoting the counsel of St. Camillus de Lellis, the patron of nurses and the sick, to his followers: “Put more heart in those hands!” This is excellent advice for all of us. If we wish to see a society that appreciates the inviolable dignity of human life and knows how to practice true compassion, we could have no better prayer than to ask God to “put more heart in our hands.”
With more heart in our hands may we reach out to offer practical help to women in difficult pregnancies and young families in need. May we show mercy by feeding the hungry and helping the homeless to find dignified housing. With real compassion may we offer words of encouragement to the doubtful, speak the truth in a loving way to the ignorant and offer a shoulder to cry on to someone grieving the loss of a loved one.
With more heart in our hands may we bring a home-cooked meal to a shut-in, take a long walk with a grandfather suffering from Alzheimer’s, or offer an elderly neighbor a ride to church. Finally, with more heart in our hands may we have the compassion and courage to stand with a dying loved one to the very end, embracing them in a way that lets them know they are still worthy of our attention and care, and that they are awaited by a God who loves them even more than they can imagine.
This October may we realize that after all is said and done, the Culture of Life begins in our hearts and our hands!
(Sister Constance Veit is director of communications for the Little Sisters of the Poor. This reflection was posted to the blog at www.littlesistersofthepoor.org)

millennial reflections
By Father Jeremy Tobin, OPraem
The next time I appear here the election will be over. For many of us it couldn’t come sooner. This has been the meanest election cycle I can remember. However, this is Mississippi. When elections come and people talk about voting, another set of memories and values come to mind. The right to vote has never been universal, it was fought over. People died simply attempting to register to vote. Why is that?
Casting a ballot is exercising power. Votes either put people in office or get them out of office. The people choose. In our system of representative democracy we give power to those we elect to enact laws and policies we like or we vigorously oppose. They do that, we don’t. We can pressure them to do what we want, but others are pressuring them too. Our one direct most significant exercise in “people power” is to vote. If we don’t like them and we vote them out – that’s the people speaking.
This is why it is important to vote in the “down ticket races.” As we have seen, the president can be quite limited if Congress is controlled by the opposite party.
It is important to vote in every election, especially local ones. Those candidates can have direct impact on their constituents’ life styles.
The right to vote is one of our most basic rights. It guarantees that we have a say in government. The goal is always to expand the vote, make it easier to vote. The more voters the more honest and fair the election will be. Large voter turnouts prevents narrow interests from taking control.
When we look at our history, and reflect on all who have died to exercise the right to vote, there is no excuse to not to vote. Not voting is never a protest act, it is only is a vote for the winner.
It was demanding the right to vote that ended Jim Crow. When I see those old newsreels of young people sliding across the street under the pressure of firehoses for demanding the right to vote, I have to vote, even if I don’t like the choices. It was the struggle for equal access to the ballot box that galvanized the civil rights movement.
Reflecting on this precious right to vote, Fannie Lou Hamer comes to mind in her addresses at the Democratic Convention, her co-founding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The driving, insatiable thirst for people to have the right to vote and equal access to the whole process has ingrained the importance of voting in every election. To be registered to vote and to exercise that right is basic. Regardless how people can look at campaigns or feel the creepy paralysis of cynicism invading their thoughts, voting matters and voting decides.
Every election is important. This cannot be overstated. Our country has been divided for a generation. This division has been amplified by those who vote. Many people feel discouraged or think, “Does it really matter?” Yes it does. One trip to the precinct and casting your vote might not change the world. One election might not bring reconciliation to the nation. Change takes time. It takes persistence. The most important way to effect change is to vote. This is not to say, “Go vote and do nothing else.” No, people who are committed to causes must also speak out and do other things to educate motivate and organize people.
Jesus came proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is at hand. He also said “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” He also said “The worker is worthy of his pay.” The whole Catholic teaching on social justice can be found in the Bible. This teaching can inform us on how to vote.
The bishops speak of “Faithful Citizenship” and much of this issue will be devoted to that. My emphasis here is to get out and vote. Get to your precinct. Learn where it is. If you need help getting there, make plans.
I repeat, too many people have died so we all may have the right to vote. Not to vote is saying they died in vain. Did they? Of course not! So get out and VOTE!
(Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem, lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
When Pope Francis launched the Holy Year of Mercy, he promised that Christians could gain a special indulgence during this year. That left a lot of present-day Roman Catholics and even more Protestants and Evangelicals, scratching their heads and asking some hard questions: Is Roman Catholicism still dealing in indulgences? Didn’t we learn anything from Luther and the Reformation? Do we really believe that certain ritual practices, like passing through designated church doors, will ease our way into heaven?
These are valid questions that need to be asked. What, indeed, is an indulgence?
Pope Francis in his decree, The Face of Mercy, (Misericordiae Vultus), says this about indulgences: “A Jubilee also entails the granting of indulgences. This practice will acquire an even more important meaning in the Holy Year of Mercy.
God’s forgiveness knows no bounds. In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God makes even more evident his love and its power to destroy all human sin. Reconciliation with God is made possible through the paschal mystery and the mediation of the Church. Thus God is always ready to forgive and he never tires of forgiving in ways that are continually new and surprising.
Nevertheless, all of us know well the experience of sin. We know that we are called to perfection (Mt. 5, 48), yet we feel the heavy burden of sin. Though we feel the transforming powered of grace, we also feel the effects of sin typical of our fallen state. Despite being forgiven, the conflicting consequences of our sins remain.
In the sacrament of reconciliation, God forgives our sins, which he truly blots out; and yet sin leaves a negative effect on the way we think and act. But the mercy of God is stronger even than this. It becomes an indulgence on the part of the Father who, through the Bride of Christ, his church, reaches the pardoned sinner and frees him from every residue left by the consequence of sin, enabling him to act in charity, to grow in love rather than to fall back into sin.
The church lives within the communion of the saints. In the Eucharist, this communion, which is a gift from God, becomes a spiritual union binding us to the saints and the blessed ones whose number is beyond counting (Rev. 7, 14). Their holiness comes to the aid of our weaknesses in a way that enables the Church, with her maternal prayers and her way of life, to fortify the weakness of some with the strength of others.
Hence, to live the indulgence of the Holy Year means to approach the Father’s mercy with the certainty that his forgiveness extends to the entire life of the believer. To gain an indulgence is to experience the holiness of the church, who bestows upon all the fruits of Christ’s redemption, so that God’s love and forgiveness may extend everywhere. Let us live this Jubilee intensely, begging the Father to forgive our sins and to bathe us in his merciful ‘indulgence.’’’
What’s the pope saying here? Clearly, he’s not teaching what has been for so long the popular (and inaccurate notion) that an indulgence is a way of shortening one’s time in purgatory. Rather he is tying the idea of indulgences to two things: First, an indulgence is the acceptance and celebration of the wonderful gratuity of God’s mercy.
An indulgence is, in effect, the more-conscious acceptance of an indulgence, that is, the conscious acceptance of a love, a mercy and a forgiveness, that is completely undeserved. Love can be indulgent. Parents can be indulgent to their children. Thus whenever we do a prayer or religious practice with the intent of gaining an indulgence the idea is that this prayer or practice is meant to make us more consciously aware of and grateful for God’s indulgent mercy.
We live within an incredulous, ineffable mercy of which we are mostly unaware. During the Holy Year of Mercy, Pope Francis invites us to do some special prayers and practices that make us more consciously aware of that indulgent mercy.
Beyond this, Pope Francis links the notion of indulgences to another concept, namely, our union and solidarity with each other inside the Body Christ. As Christians, we believe that we are united with each other in a deep, invisible, spiritual and organic bond that is so real that it forms us into one body, with the same flow of life and the same flow of blood flowing through all of us. Thus inside the Body of Christ, as in all live organisms, there is one immune system so that what one person does, for good or for bad, affects the whole body. Hence, as the pope asserts, since there is a single immune system inside the Body of Christ, the strength of some can fortify the weakness of others who thereby receive an indulgence, an undeserved grace. To walk through a holy door is make ourselves more consciously aware of God’s indulgent mercy and of the wonderful community of life within we live.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
See the wise and wicked ones
Who feed upon life’s sacred fire
These are lines from Gordon Lightfoot’s song, Don Quixote and they highlight an important truth, both the wise and the wicked feed off the same energy. And it’s good energy, sacred energy, divine energy, irrespective of its use. The greedy and the violent feed off the same energy as do the wise and the saints. There’s one source of energy and, even though it can be irresponsibly, selfishly and horrifically misused, it remains always God’s energy.
Unfortunately, we don’t often think of things that way. Recently I was listening to a very discouraged man who, looking at the selfishness, greed and violence in our world, blamed it all on the devil. “It must be the anti-Christ,” he said, “How else do you explain all this, so many people breaking basically every commandment. “
He’s right in his assessment that the selfishness, greed and violence we see in our world today are anti-Christ (though perhaps not the Anti-Christ spoken of in scripture). However he’s wrong about where selfishness, greed and violence are drawing their energy from. The energy they are drawing upon comes from God, not from the devil.
What we see in all the negative things that make up so much of the evening news each day is not evil energy but rather the misuse of sacred energy. Evil deeds are not the result of evil energies but the result of the misuse of sacred energy. Whether you consider the devil a person or a metaphor, either way, he has no other origin than from God. God created the devil and created him good. His wickedness results from the misuse of that goodness.
All energy comes from God and all energy is good, but it can be wickedly misused. Moreover, it’s ironic that the ones who seem to drink most deeply from the wellsprings of divine energy are, invariably, the best and the worst, the wise and the wicked, saints and sinners. These mainline the fire. The rest of us, living in the gap between saints and sinners, tend to struggle more to actually catch fire, to truly drink deeply from the wellsprings of divine energy.
Our struggle isn’t so much in misusing divine energy, but rather in not succumbing to chronic numbness, depression, fatigue, flatness, bitterness, envy and the kind of discouragement which has us going through life lacking fire and forever protesting that we have a right to be uncreative and unhappy. Great saints and great sinners don’t live lives of “quiet desperation;” they drink deeply sacred energy, become inflamed by that fire and make that the source for either their extraordinary wisdom or their wild wickedness.
This insight, saints and sinners feed off the same source, isn’t just an interesting irony. It’s an important truth that can help us better understand our relationship to God, to the things of this world and to ourselves. We must be clear on what’s good and what’s bad, otherwise we end up both misunderstanding ourselves and misunderstanding the energies of our world.
A healthy spirituality needs to be predicated on a proper understanding of God, ourselves, the world and the energies that drive our world and these are the non-negotiable Christian principles within which we need to understand ourselves, the world and the use of our energies: First, God is good, God is the source of all energy everywhere and that energy is good. Second, we are made by God, we are good and our nature is not evil. Finally, everything in our world has been made by God and it too is good.
So where do sin and evil enter? They enter in when we misuse the good energy that God has given us and they enter in when we relate in bad ways to the good things of creation.
Simply put: We are good and creation around us is good, but we can relate to it in the wrong way, precisely through selfishness, greed, or violence. Likewise, our energies are good, including all those energies that underlie our propensity towards pride, greed, lust, envy, anger and sloth; but we can misuse those energies and draw upon life’s sacred fire in very self-serving, lustful, greedy and wicked ways.
Sin and evil, therefore, arise out of the misuse of our energies, not out of the energies themselves. So, too, sin and evil arise out of how we relate to certain things in the world, not out of some inherent evil inside of our own persons or inside of the things themselves.
The wicked aren’t evil persons drawing energy from the devil. They’re good people, irresponsibly and selfishly misusing sacred energy. The energy itself is still good, despite its misuse.
We don’t tap into evil energies when we give in to greed, lust, envy, sloth, or anger. No, rather we misuse the good and sacred energy within which we live and move and have our being. The wise and wicked both feed off the same sacred fire.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

(Editor’s note: Bishop Joseph Kopacz was unable to write a column this week due to travel. His column will return in the Oct. 14 issue of Mississippi Catholic.)
By Bishop Robert Barron
After perusing the latest Pew Study on why young people are leaving the active practice of Christianity, I confess that I just sighed in exasperation. I don’t doubt for a moment the sincerity of those who responded to the survey, but the reasons they offer for abandoning Christianity are just so uncompelling. That is to say, any theologian, apologist, or evangelist worth his salt should be able easily to answer them. And this led me (hence the sigh) to the conclusion that “we have met the enemy and it is us.”
For the past fifty years or so, Christian thinkers have largely abandoned the art of apologetics and have failed (here I offer a j’accuse to many in the Catholic universities) to resource the riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition in order to hold off critics of the faith. I don’t blame the avatars of secularism for actively attempting to debunk Christianity; that’s their job, after all.
But I do blame teachers, catechists, evangelists, and academics within the Christian churches for not doing enough to keep our young people engaged. These studies consistently demonstrate that unless we believers seriously pick up our game intellectually, we’re going to keep losing our kids.
Let me look just briefly at some of the chief reasons offered for walking away from Christianity. Many evidently felt that modern science somehow undermines the claims of the faith. One respondent said: “rational thought makes religion go out the window,” and another complained of the “lack of any sort of scientific evidence of a creator.” Well, I’m sure it would come as an enormous surprise to St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine, Blessed John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and Joseph Ratzinger — all among the most brilliant people Western culture has produced — that religion and reason are somehow incompatible.
And to focus more precisely on the issue of “scientific evidence,” the sciences, ordered by their nature and method to an analysis of empirically verifiable objects and states of affairs within the universe, cannot even in principle address questions regarding God, who is not a being in the world, but rather the reason why the finite realm exists at all. There simply cannot be “scientific” evidence or argument that tells one way or the other in regard to God.
Mind you, this is by no means to imply that there are no rational warrants for belief in God. Philosophers over the centuries, in fact, have articulated dozens of such demonstrations, which have, especially when considered together, enormous probative force.
I have found, in my own evangelical work, that the argument from contingency gets quite a bit of traction with those who are wrestling with the issue of God’s existence. What these arguments have lacked, sad to say, are convinced and articulate defenders within the academy and in the ranks of teachers, catechists, and apologists.
One of the young people responded to the survey using the formula made famous by Karl Marx: “religion just seems to be the opiate of the people.” Marx’s adage, of course, is an adaptation of Ludwig Feuerbach’s observation that religion amounts to a projection of our idealized self-image. Sigmund Freud, in the early twentieth century, further adapted Feuerbach, arguing that religion is like a waking dream, a wish-fulfilling fantasy.
This line of thinking has been massively adopted by the so-called “new atheists” of our time. I find it regularly on my internet forums. What all of this comes down to, ultimately, is a dismissive and patronizing psychologization of religious belief.
But it is altogether vulnerable to a tu quoque (you do the same thing) counter-attack. I think it is eminently credible to say that atheism amounts to a wish-fulfilling fantasy, precisely in the measure that it allows for complete freedom and self-determination: if there is no God, no ultimate moral criterion, I can do and be whatever I want.
In a word, the psychologizing cuts just as effectively in the opposite direction. Hence, the two charges more or less cancel one another out—and this should compel us to return to real argument at the objective level.
A third commonly-cited reason for abandoning the Christian churches is that, as one respondent put it, “Christians seem to behave so badly.” God knows that the clergy sex abuse scandals of the last 25 years have lent considerable support to this argument, already bolstered by the usual suspects of the Inquisition, the Crusades, the persecution of Galileo, witch-hunts, etc., etc.
We could, of course, enter into an examination of each of these cases, but for our purposes I am willing to concede the whole argument: yes indeed, over the centuries, lots and lots of Christians have behaved wickedly. But why, one wonders, should this tell against the integrity and rectitude of Christian belief?
Many, many Americans have done horrific things, often in the name of America. One thinks of slave owners, the enforcers of Jim Crow laws, the carpet bombers of Dresden and Tokyo, the perpetrators of the My-Lai Massacre, the guards at Abu Ghraib Prison, etc. Do these outrages ipso facto prove that American ideals are less than praiseworthy, or that the American system as such is corrupt? The question answers itself.
Relatedly, a number of young people said that they left the Christian churches because “religion is the greatest source of conflict in the world.” One hears this charge so often today — especially in the wake of September 11th — that we tend to take it as self-evident, when in point of fact, it is an invention of Enlightenment-era historiography. Voltaire, Diderot, Spinoza, and many others in the 17th and 18th centuries wanted to undermine religion, and they could find no better way to achieve this end than to score Christianity asthe source of violence.
Through numberless channels this view has seeped into the general consciousness, but it simply does not stand up to serious scrutiny. In their exhaustive survey of the wars of human history (The Encyclopedia of Wars), Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod demonstrate that less than 7% of wars could be credibly blamed on religion, and even the most casual reflection bears this out.
In point of fact, the bloodiest wars in history, those of the twentieth century, which produced over 100 million dead, had practically nothing to do with religion. Indeed, a very persuasive case could be made that ideological secularism and modern nationalism are the sources of greatest bloodshed. And yet the prejudice, first fostered by the philosophes of the Enlightenment, oddly endures.
An earlier Pew Study showed that for every one person who joins the Catholic Church today, six are leaving, and that many of those who leave are the young. This most recent survey indicates that intellectual objections figure prominently when these drifters are asked why they abandoned their faith. My cri de coeur is that teachers, catechists, theologians, apologists, and evangelists might wake up to this crisis and do something about it.
(Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.)

Kneading Faith
By Fran Lavelle
Deacon Art Miller spent a few days in the diocese earlier this month to inspire, encourage, and affirm the administration, faculty and staff at our Catholic schools.  Deacon Art is from the archdiocese of Hartford, Ct., and has served as a deacon there for the past 12 years. He self-confesses to having “retired” three times, but despite his best efforts, he shows no signs of slowing down.  He is a incredible speaker and a witness to truth as he “keeps it real, church.”
He pulls from his 71 years of living, 50 plus years of marriage, raising four children and his role as grandfather to his six grandchildren. His vast arsenal of experience in his work in the private sector, owning his own financial firm and in public ministry aptly equip him for finding common ground with everyone he encounters.    He is as comfortable ministering to people in crack houses and jails as he is entertaining folks in “high places.” In Art’s youth, his family moved from the South to Chicago in the days of Jim Crow.
The lynching of Emmett Till in Money, Miss., in 1955, the ensuing Civil Rights Movement and the tenants of Catholic social teaching inspire his work with the folks on the margin. His childhood experiences have proven to be leaven for Art as he has spent all of his adult life working to protect the dignity of all of God’s children.
I met Deacon Art in January when he was a keynote speaker.  I was privileged to introduce him at the Gulf Coast Faith Formation Conference in Kenner, La. I introduced myself at a reception on Thursday evening of the conference and let him know that I would be introducing him. His response, “Don’t go on and on, if you do I swear I’ll tackle you. People don’t care about that stuff and besides, it cuts into my time.” I reminded him of our initial meeting and we shared a good laugh. Apparently, I did not go “on and on” as I was not tackled but Art did skillfully use every minute of his time. He was and is a powerful speaker. He’s the kind of guy that after hearing his message you’ll find yourself unpacking what it means to you for days and even weeks later.
During his presentation to Catholic school personnel, there was so much he said that inspired or gave cause for one to pause and ponder. I found myself wanting to shout AMEN! on more than one occasion. One such touchtone for me came in the retelling of the story of the raising of Lazarus.  He reminded us of the beautiful relationship Jesus had with Martha and Mary.
He reminded us of the circumstances surrounding Lazarus’ death. Specifically, he reminded us that Jesus did not arrive to their home until after Lazarus was dead. Then there was Martha’s response. Her steadfast faith in knowing who Jesus was and what he could have done if he only had come earlier.
We were asked: Why did Jesus ask the crowd to roll back the stone? Why did Jesus ask Lazarus to “come out”?  Why hadn’t Jesus commanded the stone move and why didn’t Jesus go into the tomb to bring Lazarus out? He was, after all, bound for burial. Then came the “ah-ha” moment. Jesus asked the crowd to move the stone because as Jesus’ followers we are called to participate in his work and compassion. Lazarus was asked to come out because he too needed to participate in the healing work of Jesus. We do not experience Jesus in passive ways. We have to be active participants both in our own healing and in giving hope and healing to others.
I spent some time on the road later in the week. I was reflecting on what a gift my time with Deacon Art had been. I thought about the folks in my life who have rolled away the numerous stones that have had me entombed at different points in my life. I especially thought about my father who had a gift of knowing when to step in and when to let me fall (or fail as the case may have been).
I thought of the voices of those who called me out of my bondage, friends, professors, pastors, family. We often think of our sins as the things that bind us – pride, indifference, selfishness and the like. But we are bound by other things like fear, insecurity, and doubt.
I thought about how we are all called to move stones for others. I thought about how we are to help people who are bound by addiction, sin, hopelessness and despair.  Sometimes we do not respond to the first call.
Sometimes we do not recognize that the stone has been rolled away. Let us pray to be leaven so that others might rise from their circumstances. Let us pray that when we see opportunities to be of service to God’s people we are reminded of those who moved rocks and called us out of our sin and fear to embrace God’s light.      I think of God when I hear the words of Journey, “Someday love will find you, break those chains that bind you.”
Yes, God I am grateful that your love found me.  Help me as I continue to break the chains that bind me.  Thanks too to Deacon Art for being leaven in the world.  When one of us rises out of sin, addiction or despair, we all are better for it.  To God be the glory.
(Fran Lavelle is the Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Jackson.)

Complete the circle
By George Evans
I have recently returned from the four day national assembly of the St. Vincent de Paul Society of the United States held this year in Columbus, Ohio. It was a fantastic gathering and my wife and I are energized to continue our journey to bring Christ to the poor and impact poverty in our nation and in doing so perhaps save our souls with God’s help.
Many of you may know that members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society (SVDP) make home visits to people requesting assistance with bills such as utilities, rent, food, transportation etc.  Many of you are not aware that SVDP is primarily a spiritual program for its members to work and pray as a community and then to take the Christ met in prayer and sharing to the poor to help them meet their own needs, be they financial, spiritual, hopelessness or whatever as revealed in the home visit.
At times the presence of caring Vincentians (we always go in pairs) listening lovingly and without being judgmental is as meaningful to the needy person as the payment of any unpaid bill or other act of charity.
Born In France in the 16th century, St. Vincent de Paul, after some years of priesthood, found his ultimate fulfillment in service to the poor of Paris. He founded the congregation of the Mission, an order of priests (Vincentians); the Ladies of Charity to visit the sick in their homes and in collaboration with St. Louise de Marillac, the Daughters of Charity in 1633.  St. Vincent had been named the Universal Patron of Charity and was an obvious choice of Frederick Ozanam, a brilliant 20-year-old student at the Sorbonne in Paris, when in 1833 he formed, with other students, The Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
The national assembly through great daily Eucharistic liturgies, principal addresses by nationally acclaimed speakers and 12 or more workshops on particular topics such as Catholic Social Teaching, the spirituality of home visits, restorative justice 101, how to start a new conference and many other topics inspired all of us in improving our service as Vincentians.
One of many highlights was a session entitled “Spiritual Retreat: Pope Francis and the Vincentian Embrace of the Poor” by Bishop John M. Quinn, episcopal liaison to the National Council of St. Vincent de Paul Society. Bishop Quinn is currently Bishop of Winona, Minnesota. Previously he was an Auxiliary Bishop of Detroit.
Bishop Quinn called the audience to follow Pope Francis’s embraces of the poor and handicapped in his audiences at St. Peter’s Square. We should, he said, not to preach to them from above, but instead love and bring Christ to the poor and receive Christ from the poor using the home visit as the perfect vehicle. We should bring a listening heart and listening ears to the poor so we can truly hear their cry for humane and equal treatment.
He reminded the audience of Pope Francis’s address to Congress in which he brought to mind four great Americans, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, all of whom served the poor in their own special way in service and prayer and only two of whom were Catholic.  He called on all of us present to be inclusive and open hearted as is Pope Francis.
Finally, Bishop Quinn urged us, as does Pope Francis, to bring joy and hope to the poor in service and never be a sour puss of which there are too many. He urged us to be aware of and work for eternal life and be assured that the poor will welcome us into the kingdom –“they will plead our cause.” Bishop Quinn was terrific and my short recap could never do him justice. He was a great contributor to the national assembly.  I can’t wait to go to Tampa for the one next year.
(George Evans is retired, but still active at Jackson St. Richard Parish.)