IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
It’s funny where you can learn a lesson and catch a glimpse of the divine. Recently, in a grocery store, I witnessed this incident:
A young girl, probably around 16 years of age, along with two other girls her own age, came into the store. She picked up a grocery basket and began to walk down the aisle, not knowing that a second basket was stuck onto the one she was carrying. At a point the inevitable happened, the basket stuck to hers released and crashed to the floor with a loud bang, startling her and all of us around her. What was her reaction? She burst into laughter, exuding a joy-filled delight at being so startled. For her the surprise of the falling basket was not an irritation but a gift, an unexpected humor happily fracturing dram routine.
If that had happened to me, given how I’m habitually in a hurry and easily irritated by anything that disrupts my agenda, I would probably have responded with a silent expletive rather than with laughter. Which made me think: Here’s a young girl who probably isn’t going to church and probably isn’t much concerned about matters of faith, but who, in this moment, is wonderfully radiating the energy of God, while, me, a vowed religious, over-serious priest, church-minister and spiritual writer, in such a moment, too often radiate the antithesis of God’s energy, irritation.
But is this true? Does God really burst in laughter at falling grocery baskets? Doesn’t God ever get irritated? What’s God’s real nature?
God is the unconditional love and forgiveness that Jesus reveals, but God is also the energy that lies at the base of everything that is. And that energy, as is evident in both creation and scripture, is, at its root, creative, prodigal, robust, joy-filled, playful, and exuberant. If you want to know what God is like look at the natural exuberance of children, look at the exuberance of a young puppy, look at the robust, playful energy of young people, and look at the spontaneous laughter of a 16-year-old when she is startled by a falling basket. And to see God’s prodigal character, we might look at billions and billions of planets that surround us. The energy of God is prodigal and exuberant.
Then what about the cross? Doesn’t it, more than anything else, reveal God’s nature? Isn’t it what shows us God? Isn’t suffering the innate and necessary route to maturity and sanctity? So isn’t there a contradiction between what Jesus reveals about the nature of God in his crucifixion and what scripture and nature reveal about God’s exuberance?
While there’s clearly a paradox here, there’s no contradiction. First, the tension we see between the cross and exuberance is already seen in the person and teachings of Jesus. Jesus scandalized his contemporaries in opposite ways: He scandalized them in his capacity to willingly give up his life and the things of this world, even as he scandalized them equally with his capacity to enjoy life and drink in its God-given pleasures. His contemporaries weren’t able to walk with him while he carried the cross and they weren’t able to walk with him either as he ate and drank without guilt and felt only gift and gratitude when a woman anointed his feet with expensive perfume.
Moreover, the joy and exuberance that lie at the root of God’s nature are not to be confused with the bravado we crank up at parties, carnival, and Mardi Gras. What’s experienced there is not actual delight but, instead, a numbing of the brain and senses induced by frenzied excess. This doesn’t radiate the exuberance of God, nor indeed does it radiate the powerful exuberance that sits inside us, waiting to burst forth. Carnival is mostly an attempt to keep depression at bay. As Charles Taylor astutely points out, we invented carnival because our natural exuberance doesn’t find enough outlets within our daily lives, so we ritualize certain occasions and seasons where we can, for a time, imprison our rationality and release our exuberance, as one would free a caged animal. But that, while serving as a certain release-valve, is not the ideal way to release our natural exuberance.
When I was a child, my parents would often warn me about false exuberance, the exuberance of wild partying, false laughter and carnival. They had this little axiom: After the laughter, come the tears! They were right, but only as this applies to the kind of laugher that we tend to crank up at parties to keep depression at bay. The cross however reverses my parents’ axiom and says this: After the tears, comes the laughter! Only after the cross, is our joy genuine. Only after the cross, will our exuberance express the genuine delight we once felt when we were little, and only then will our exuberance truly radiate the energy of God.
Jesus promises us that if we take up his cross, God will reward us with an exuberance that no one can ever take from us.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

Millennial reflections
By Father Jeremy Tobin, OPraem
It is August in Mississippi. School is back in session. Everywhere you go, in the grocery stores, you see school supplies displayed prominently. You see printed lists of supplies and books for various schools and teachers. School busses are rolling. It is the annual rite of mid-summer, moving into fall.
I want to reflect on education as a tool for liberation. Children returning to school is encouraging to all of us, but there is a lot more. It begins with the human thirst “to know,” “to discover,” “to explore.” It begins right after infancy. Little children sitting on the floor in the kitchen, opening all the doors they can reach, and pulling everything out on the floor. They are exploring their world. Parents “baby proof their houses” but the instinct to know and to explore is built in all of us from infancy on.
When the desire to know and discover is frustrated or blocked can lead to all manner of psychological ills. When children light up after learning something new is hope for all of us. School is many things, but also a laboratory for growth and development. Teachers mold and shape this, and they prepare our future leaders. They can never be paid enough for what they do.
Back to liberation.  The ability to read and comprehend and analyze in order to improve living conditions for people can only come from education. Developing writing skills enables others to learn and educate themselves and see the possibility for change. Social justice organizations will have writing workshops or contests for young people to explore and express new ideas. Giving them a safe space and permission to say what they are thinking is education for liberation.
This goes on throughout life. The traditional steps through higher education or graduate school continues, only we call it training. Teaching people to think critically is crucial in forming an educated public. Critical thinking transcends ideology. It evaluates, changes, even eliminates ideas that are causing harm to people. In educating for liberation we must teach people not to be afraid of a new idea. We hear colleagues speak of spending time at a training for some new specialty, or a new approach to accomplish their goals.
There is a certain amount of humility in all of this. The attitude of going through life as a “perpetual student” having an open mind, and not being afraid of something new and different, is in itself, a liberating experience. It is a positive attitude that wards away boredom. The critical mind set accepts new things or rejects new things, but it has a reason to do so. Merely reacting negatively demonstrates a closed mind and an attitude of fear.
We can speak of education as a tool for liberation, but the first thing we have to do is liberate ourselves. The little child on the floor emptying out the cabinets in front of him has no fear. He does not know what fear is. It is all about exploring and discovery.
Of course as we grow we learn what is safe and unsafe. We develop a healthy fear that is akin to caution and discernment. All that is growing up. What we develop over the years is a healthy curiosity, a desire to learn and to know.
I began this piece thinking that education as a tool for liberation in a political frame, but more importantly it is about liberating oneself. In doing so we develop courage and confidence. This is so important in facing a world that is trying to scare the bejeebies out of us, and most of that is bogus.
Fear is the opposite of freedom or liberation. People who are afraid are not free. Knowledge and critical thinking eliminates fear.
Education is many things. It is what kids learn in school and lifelong human development open to everyone.
Self- liberation is basic to any social change. Look at the leaders who made the social changes in the past century. They were free persons. They owned their ideas and they had courage to move forward. They were able to think critically and express themselves. They could even face death in the face and not flinch.
Education is a life-long project. Whether young or old it is seeing opportunities to learn new things and do new thing. It keeps old folks young and young folks energized.
(Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem, lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)

Reflections on Life
By Father Jerome LeDoux, SVD
Have you noticed how often terms like 100-year or 500-year storms have been applied to overwhelming rain events in some areas of the United States? The water experts known as hydrologists dislike that terminology. Rather, one should say that the probability of water reaching a given height is once every 100 years.
Some floods really feel like the 500-1000-year variety. One arresting example is the North Sea storm/flood of Jan. 31, 1953, that killed 1,836 Dutchmen when it overpowered the Netherlands where 20 percent of the land is below sea level. The Dutch immediately formed The Delta Works Commission that laid plans to build a dike ring system around North and South Holland.
The Delta Works (Deltawerken) is a series of dams, sluices, locks, dikes, levees and storm surge barriers that shorten the Dutch coastline, thus reducing the number of dikes that had to be raised. The Zuiderzee Works and the Delta Works have been declared one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
After Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers built a homespun version of the Dutch marvel around New Orleans. Costing $1.1 billion, the West Closure Complex is one of the engineering marvels of the new system. During a flood event, a floodgate nearly as long as a football field slowly shuts and 11 humongous diesel engines of the world’s largest pump station kick on to pump water out of Jefferson Parish at such a rapid rate that it would fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in three seconds.
The West Closure Complex is part of the $14.5 billion the Corps has spent on fortifications to protect some 900,000 people living in the toe of Louisiana’s boot.
The largest flood control structure is nicknamed the Great Wall of St. Bernard Parish. It’s a 1.8-mile-long barrier designed to protect the city’s eastern flank from a rising Lake Borgne. Some of the steel support piles extend 200 feet into the ground.
Thus far, it has worked well. Now, awakened to the same problem on their own property, the rain-soaked, flooded folks of East Baton Rouge Parish and its environs have been muttering to themselves and aloud about the possibilities of building a similar protective levee system.
After the recent historical rain event swamped 20 civil Louisiana parishes, with more than 120 of his families affected, Father Rick Andrus, SVD, pastor of St. Paul the Apostle Church in Baton Rouge, wrote, “I have been knee-deep in water, assisting families evacuate, remove a small amount of belongings, assisted in organizing shelters, getting medical attention to patients suffering from diabetes, heart-disease, seizure disorders and kidney problems. I have also been working with the Red Cross and right now, I am preparing our parish hall as a distribution center for the Red Cross.
“A great team of parishioners, many retired, has been working nonstop since a week ago Saturday providing dry and clean clothes, food and cleaning supplies for those evacuees and the victims of the flood to begin the arduous, seemingly endless task of dragging out carpets, flooring, drywall, furniture, appliances, beds, toys and precious, priceless treasures that have been destroyed by the water. Along with this, I have also been working with a diverse and dynamic group of pastors, men and women of various faiths, to provide spiritual counseling and Sunday worship services in the three Red Cross Evacuation Centers.
“The destruction is unfathomable, the mountains of destroyed possessions and debris is endless along city streets, the stories of rescue and survival are heroic, heartwarming and heartbreaking.
“The Red Cross is doing all that it is able with the staff it has.  There has been a tremendous response by those not affected. What a powerful testament to the goodness, the faith and the compassion in the hearts of so many people across Baton Rouge and far beyond! Total strangers have crossed social, economic, geographic, religious and racial lines and just show up, pitch in to help remove the debris, while others drive through neighborhoods bringing food, ice and water.
“People came from out of state, some of whom have been through similar situations and others who have not, but all felt a ‘need to give back’ to people whose needs are so great.  Some of those who have volunteered are gifted and skilled craftsmen, while others are willing laborers with big hearts and a desire to help out wherever they are needed … and they have.
“However, the harsh reality is that right now, 60,000 homes have been affected. Nearly 3,000 people are still in shelters and thousands of residents are also seeking temporary housing with relatives and friends. It is estimated that it will take longer than a year for everyone to be either back in their homes or to find new housing. Any check donations may be made out to St. Paul the Apostle Flood Relief Fund, 3912 Gus Young Ave. Baton Rouge LA 70802, Attention: Fr. Rick Andrus, SVD. So, folks, considering the staggering total cost of this massive disaster and its raw humiliation and inconvenience to so many thousands of people, the price tag for a Louisiana version of the Netherlands Delta Works pales by comparison. The big plus is that such a one-time remedy can prevent any repeat of the dreaded flooding.
“God is love, and all who abide in love abide in God and God in them.”   (1 John 4:16)
(Father Jerome LeDoux has been writing Reflections on Life since 1968.)

Forming our future
By Catherine Cook
Welcome to the new school year! In January 2017, the Diocese of Jackson will mark 170 years of Catholic education in the state of Mississippi. It is worth noting that Bishop John Joseph Chanche initiated education immediately upon his appointment as the first bishop of the diocese in 1841, and established the first school six years later. He barely had any priests or even church buildings, but he knew offering Catholic education was critical to growing the church in his care.
Today the importance of Catholic education continues with schools and early learning centers operating within each of the six deaneries of our diocese.
Each year the Office of Catholic Education creates a unifying theme to focus our schools and centers on specific elements that connect us the mission of our church and to what Pope Francis has called us to consider. Recent themes have been based on the Joy of the Gospel and the Year of Mercy.
The 2016-2017 school year theme is FAMILY:
Faith
Academics
Mercy
Integrity
Love
You
The theme is both a continuation of the Year of Mercy and a response to the Pope’s recent Apostolic Exhortation on “Love in the Family,” Amoris Laetitia. In chapter 7, Pope Francis focuses on education of children. He writes about ethical formation, discipline, family life, faith formation of children and the importance of age appropriate sex education.
His exhortation addresses education within the family. The role of Catholic schools is to support family life by providing a strong academic program infused with the faith formation – a formation and education that promotes mercy, integrity and love.
This theme calls us in Catholic education to renew our commitment to be “partners” with parents in this important enterprise – the education and formation of children and youth. This theme highlights the undeniably important role that families play in the life of our Catholic church, and consequently Catholic education. We must work together to prepare our children and youth for the world in which they will live and lead.
As a school system, we continuously look at ways to improve and strengthen our presence in the diocese and the community as a whole. As this school term opens the schools and centers within our diocese are collectively reporting a slight increase in enrollment.
However, some of our schools are experiencing falling enrollments so we have to look at how we can strengthen those communities. There are multiple contributing factors to decreased enrollment, some are beyond our control while others offer us a challenge. Population shifts within our cities always plays a role in student numbers. This factor is obviously beyond the scope of what an individual Catholic community can change.
Economic challenges almost always contribute to enrollment drops, especially in communities still struggling to recover from the recession. This reality demands that we look for creative, efficient and stable sources of income beyond tuition. If Catholic education played a role in your formation, perhaps you would consider supporting a school in our diocese.
The remaining factors that impact enrollment relate to the choice that families make regarding the education of their children. This choice is based on how our Catholic schools and centers match up with the desires of the family for education versus the options available within each community – public schools, charter schools, private schools and homeschooling.
This brings me back to the theme for the year: FAMILY. It is in the context of family, parents and children, that the decision is made to select a Catholic school or other educational institution with which to partner. In the communities within our diocese where Catholic schools and centers are located, I ask all families not already enrolled to take a look at what a partnership with a Catholic School/Center can be for your family. Our doors are open. We encourage you to visit us, and consider us for your family. Regardless of your choice, we here in the Office of Catholic Education wish all families a successful school year.
(Catherine Cook is the Superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Jackson.)

Reflections on Life
By Father Jerome LeDoux, SVD
The human comedy never stops. We crave change. And we dread it. Haunted by this love-hate, attracting-repelling relationship, we tentatively forge our way through life, trudging on because of ourselves and in spite of ourselves. Habit is the word. Habit becomes so much a part of us that it becomes us. We are our habits, and don’t you even dare think of trying to change these individual bundles of habits.
Mahatma Gandhi warns us that our habits are part of a serious progression:
Your beliefs become your thoughts
Your thoughts become your words
Your words become your actions
Your actions become your habits
Your habits become your values
Your values become your destiny
Though inspiring, this saying/progression opens up a firestorm of chatter about which comes first, second, etc. It recalls to mind the thoughtful words of Saint Anselm, “I believe that I may understand,” that are based on a statement by Saint Augustine, “Believe in order that you may understand.” However, it would seem unlikely that one would believe anything before puzzling over ideas, all creation and the manifold things and people in life that might lead one to believe. This is true, unless one is taking “I believe” to be a synonym for “I think,” not for a matter of faith.
Values appears to be the next word out of sequence. Even though habitual behavior plus environment can gravely affect our sense of values, the core genesis of values lies at the roots of our beliefs. It is our belief system that enables us to discern between good and evil, between things of fleeting value and those of eternal value. So how are values and virtues related to the habits we acquire in our lifetime?
In Philippians 4:8, Paul describes virtues as “whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report.” Spiritual writers always add one ingredient: these good works are virtues once they become habits.
All of us visit the spiritual realm, usually for short bursts of time. The saints, however, simply dwell there most of the time and, eventually, practically all the time. Holiness becomes a habit to them, a chosen way of life at all times. Since we are our habits, the saints add, “We are the virtues/spiritual habits by which we live.”
The highest and most powerful of all habits/virtues result from being molded by Christ the Potter: “Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way; thou art the Potter, I am the clay,” is a powerful, deeply moving hymn that is apropos any time of the year. The great prophet nailed it in Isaiah 64:7, “You, oh Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the Potter; we are the work of your hand.”
Finally, Paul sums up the ultimate reach of virtue/habit in Galatians 2:19-20, “I have been crucified with Christ; yet, I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.”
Alas, back to earth again, ingrown human habits often cause even the best of advice – tips – to go not just unheeded but flat out ignored, as if the sentiment of the advisee is, “Who needs his/her advice anyway?” Such a reaction makes one loath to give advice, even when asked for it. Creatures of habit that they are, relatively few people really want serious advice, however much they claim to desire it or ask for it.
Of course, one of the worst things that can befall us is that someone meanly belittles our advice or even tramples upon and resents our very effort and ideas. In many cases, a good message or piece of advice is rejected because the messenger is disliked or mistrusted by minds that have been poisoned, prejudiced or spoiled.
Today, after I had been saying this in vain for three years, joyful feedback came about a simple time-saver, money-saver that is ridiculously easy to set up and painless to set in motion. It is simply to put a large, dry, clean towel in with your clothes to be dried. “It cut my drying time by half!” said Brenda “Bubbles” Curtis, the affable cook/housekeeper at Holy Ghost Church rectory in Opelousas, Louisiana.
Most are a lot more status quo than they are willing to admit, readily walking, running or driving in the time-worn ruts of our forebears and fellow travelers. Even so-called rebels seem to run out of habit-kicking steam as they approach middle age.
Ingrained habits are worth nothing of themselves, and neither is change good of itself. But habit and change collaborating with true values are a Godsend for us all.
“God is love, and all who abide in love abide in God and God in them.” (1 John 4:16)
(Father Jerome LeDoux, SVD, has written “Reflections on Life since 1969.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Unless you are already a full saint or a mystic, you will always live in some fear of death and the afterlife. That’s simply part of being human. But we can and must, move beyond our fear of God.
As a child, I lived with a lot of fear. I had a very active imagination and too-frequently imagined murderers under my bed, poisonous snakes slithering up my leg, deadly germs in my food, playground bullies looking for a victim, a hundred ways in which I could meet an accidental death and threats of every kind lurking in the dark. As a child, I was often afraid: afraid of the dark, afraid of death, afraid of the afterlife and afraid of God.
As I matured, so too did my imagination; it no longer pictured snakes hiding everywhere or murderers under my bed. I began to feel strong, in control, imagining the unknown, with its dark corners, more as opportunity for growth than as threat to life. But it was one thing to block out fear of snakes, murderers and the dark. Not so easily did I overcome my fear of death, fear of the afterlife and fear of God.
These fears are the last demons to be exorcised and that exorcism is never final, never completely done with. Jesus, himself, trembled in fear before death, before the unknown that faces us in death. But he didn’t tremble in fear before God, the opposite in fact. As he faced death and the unknown, he was able give himself over to God, in childlike trust, like a child clinging to a loving parent and that gave him the strength and courage to undergo an anonymous, lonely and misunderstood death with dignity, grace and forgiveness.
We need never be afraid of God. God can be trusted. But trust in God does include a healthy fear of God because one particular fear is part of the anatomy of love itself. Scripture says: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But that fear, healthy fear, must be understood as a reverence, a loving awe, a love that fears disappointing. Healthy fear is love’s fear, a fear of betraying, of not being faithful to what love asks of us in return for its gratuity.
We aren’t afraid of someone we trust, fearing that he or she will suddenly turn arbitrary, unfair, cruel, incomprehensible, vicious, unloving. Rather we are afraid about our own being worthy of the trust that’s given us, not least from God.
But we must trust that God understands our humanity: God doesn’t demand that we give him our conscious attention all of the time. God accepts the natural wanderings of our hearts. God accepts our tiredness and fatigue. God accepts our need for distraction and escape. God accepts that we usually find it easier to immerse ourselves in entertainment than to pray. And God even accepts our resistances to him and our need to assert, with pride, our own independence.
Like a loving mother embracing a child that’s kicking and screaming but needs to be picked up and held, God can handle our anger, self-pity and resistance. God understands our humanity, but we struggle to understand what it means to be human before God.
For many years, I feared that I was too immersed in the things of this world to consider myself a spiritual person, always fearing that God wanted more from me. I felt that I should be spending more time in prayer, but, too often, I’d end up too tired to pray, more interested in watching a sports event on television or more interested in sitting around with family, colleagues, or friends, talking about everything except spiritual things. For years, I feared that God wanted me to be more explicitly spiritual. He probably did! But, as I’ve aged, I’ve come to realize that being with God in prayer and being with God in heart is like being with a trusted friend. In an easeful friendship, friends don’t spend most of their time talking about their mutual friendship.
Rather they talk about everything: local gossip, the weather, their work, their children, their headaches, their heartaches, their tiredness, what they saw on television the night before, their favorite sports teams, what’s happening in politics and the jokes they’ve heard recently – though they occasionally lament that they should ideally be talking more about deeper things. Should they?
John of the Cross teaches that, in any longer-term friendship, eventually the important things begin to happen under the surface and surface conversation becomes secondary. Togetherness, ease with each other, comfort and the sense of being at home, is what we give each other then.
That’s also true for our relationship with God. God made us to be human and God wants us, with all of our wandering weaknesses, to be in his presence, with ease, with comfort and with the feeling that we are at home. Our fear of God can be reverence or timidity; the former is healthy, the latter is neurotic.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)