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Wisconsin man’s Catholic faith revived after finding bishop’s crosier in scrapyard

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By Joe Ruff / The Catholic Spirit

ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) — A bishop’s golden crosier, or hooked staff symbolizing his office, found in a Minnesota scrapyard has drawn the man who discovered it into a journey back to the Catholic Church of his youth.

“If I’m the lost sheep, it literally took a shepherd’s staff put right in my path” to seriously pursue the faith, Jeff Helgeson, 62, of New Richmond, Wisconsin, told The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda accepted the crosier when Helgeson told him about it May 30 at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul. The archbishop carried the crosier at the closing Mass June 7 of the Archdiocesan Synod Assembly 2025 at the Cathedral of St. Paul, and he told the story of its being found as part of his homily.

Jeff Helgeson poses with Bernard Hebda, who is holding the crosier Helgeson found in a scrapyard, during their May 30, 2025, meeting at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul. Finding the crosier has drawn Helgeson into a journey back to the Catholic Church of his youth. (OSV News photo/courtesy Paul Lovino)

“We don’t know whose crosier it was,” the archbishop said in his homily. “But how magnificent that in the midst of that scrapyard — maybe like that field of dry bones (in the biblical story found in Ezekiel) that there was that sign of hope, that glimmer of hope, that we can celebrate this evening.”

“We hope, my brothers and sisters, that we might be like that gentleman who found this crosier in the scrapyard,” the archbishop said. “That we might be able to recognize the treasure that God has in our midst.”

Asked recently to tell his story, Helgeson — who routinely drives scrap metal to St. Paul from the electric motor manufacturer he works for in Woodville, Wisconsin — said he found the crosier while dropping a load off in March and following his usual routine of looking around the yard.

“There’s quite a menagerie of scrap metal,” he said. “You’d be surprised at what people throw out. So, I was walking around and that’s when I spotted the crosier sticking out.”

The bright gold staff with its hook holding an ornately fashioned cross protruded from the flatter color of brass items that surrounded it, Helgeson said.

It also appeared to be something that should go back to the church, he said, as it reminded him of the crosier he saw while serving at Masses as a Catholic school youth in Fargo, North Dakota, when the late Bishop Justin A. Driscoll (1920-1984) presided.

“As soon as I saw it, I said, ‘This doesn’t belong here,'” Helgeson said. “There’s no way this was scrap metal.”

Helgeson asked workers in the yard if he could purchase the crosier, and they promised to ask their manager. About a month later, the manager was in the scrapyard and gave him the crosier free of charge, Helgeson said.

“He said, ‘Do the right thing,'” Helgeson said. “He said, ‘We’re not taking a thing for it.’ Businesses don’t usually do that. And I would have paid whatever they asked.”

Intent on finding the rightful owner, Helgeson scoured the internet for similarly fashioned crosiers and finally found one in the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois. Officials in that diocese weren’t aware of similar crosiers and suggested that Helgeson call closer to home, where the crosier was found: the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

That’s when Helgeson spoke with Paul Iovino, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, who checked with law enforcement agencies and could find no reports of the crosier having been stolen. Helgeson said he asked Iovino if the archdiocese might take the crosier. Iovino said he was glad to receive the offer, and Archbishop Hebda was interested in talking about that.

Meanwhile, Helgeson said his interest in the church and a desire for a deeper spiritual life had been renewed as he read about Pope Francis, who died April 21, and Pope Leo XIV, who was elected May 8. Finding the crosier seemed like another invitation to go deeper in his faith, Helgeson said. Meeting with Archbishop Hebda on May 30 was still another invitation, he said.

“It couldn’t have been a better meeting,” Helgeson said. “I think I was slotted to have like, 15 or 20 minutes with him. But he made it feel like I could be there all day if I wanted to be.”

First, the archbishop asked about him, Helgeson said, “before we even got to the crosier. You can tell when someone really is listening. The archbishop listened.”

Jeff Helgeson found this crosier in a scrapyard and presented it to Archbishop Bernard Hebda during their May 30, 2025, meeting at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul. Finding the crosier has drawn Helgeson into a journey back to the Catholic Church of his youth. (OSV News photo/courtesy Jeff Helgeson)

Helgeson said he explained that he had been away from the church for 40 years — but he knew what the crosier was when he saw it, and that it had to be returned to the church.

“I handed it to him,” Helgeson said of the crosier. “I was very relieved to do that.”

At the end of the conversation, the archbishop told him, “You can always come back” to the church, Helgeson said. “That, like a lightning bolt, hit me right then.”

Helgeson said he had disengaged from the church after a case of clergy sexual abuse that involved a friend who later committed suicide. “Anger kept me away, and eventually my pride and shame kept me away,” he said.

Helgeson served in the Army from 1982 to 1993, then worked for a railroad company and now is a partially retired truck driver who does long and short hauls for the electric motor manufacturer. Married with two children, he never lost his desire to be close to God.

“I’ve always had a certain spirituality,” Helgeson said, and finding the crosier “has kind of opened up a way back.”

The journey has continued with reading aloud to himself from a Bible he purchased, Helgeson said, to better comprehend it. He reads in the evenings after a long drive for work “or just kind of whenever the mood hits me,” Helgeson said.

In August, he returned to weekly Mass, but did not then receive Communion because he had yet to go to confession, Helgeson said.

“Sometimes you don’t know how hungry you are until you’ve had a little something to eat,” Helgeson said. “I really miss the church.”

At the archdiocese’s Dec. 28 celebration marking the close of the Jubilee Year of Hope, Archbishop Hebda told Catholics gathered at the Cathedral of St. Paul that the promise of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope did not disappoint, as the church focused on mercy and conversion.

He pointed to the crosier Helgeson recovered, and which he held, newly refurbished, calling it “an icon for all of us … of what it is that we hope to experience in the Jubilee Year, in that we find we have this opportunity to experience the treasures of the Catholic Church, and we’re given that opportunity for renewal.”

He said, “The hope, brothers and sisters, is that throughout this year we’ve had the opportunity to really engage in conversion, to come before the Lord, to recognize our sinfulness, to recognize our neediness, and to seek the Lord’s extraordinary mercy.”

(Joe Ruff is editor in chief of The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper serving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. This story first ran in The Catholic Spirit and is distributed in partnership with OSV News with additional reporting from OSV News senior writer Maria Wiering.)

History layered on history

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From the Archives
By Mary Woodward
JACKSON – As of this writing, I am recovering from the Ole Miss Rebels losing to the Miami Hurricanes in the Fiesta Bowl last night in Arizona. Ole Miss had a historic run playing for a spot in the college football national championship game. I know everyone has their favorite school and team, but it is exciting that a team from our state reached such a high level on the national sports scene.

Several of my nieces and nephews went to Ole Miss, and we currently have one there and one playing in the band at Mississippi State, so our family is very diverse when it comes to college sports among other things. I went to Millsaps, so I like to see everyone do well.

WATER VALLEY – St. Patrick Parish in Water Valley is shown in January 1940, when it served as the central parish for Catholic mission communities across north Mississippi. (Photo from archives)

Back in the early part of the 1900s, Oxford was not the sports or Catholic epicenter it is today. The thriving town of Water Valley was the central parish of that region. From Water Valley came Grenada, Oxford, and Holly Springs. All these were missions of Water Valley.

In October of 1941, Bishop Richard Gerow made a visit to that region after picking up Bishop William O’Brien, president of the Catholic Church Extension Society in Chicago, at the “airfield” in Memphis. Bishop O’Brien was coming down for the dedication of St. Peter’s in Grenada. Extension had supported the building of the church there.

The plan was to stay the night before the dedication at the rectory in Water Valley with the pastor of St. Patrick Parish, Father Cletus Manon. If you haven’t been there, Water Valley is about halfway between Grenada and Oxford on Hwy 7. It’s the Coffeeville exit just north of Grenada off I-55. Make sure you stay close to the speed limit on that stretch.

Back to the story. After arriving at the rectory, the men devised who would sleep where in the quaint structure. Because he would be celebrating the Mass at the parish the next morning before going over to Grenada, Bishop Gerow decided to take the small bedroom closest to the church.

In his diary, he offers an interesting tale about the situation:

“As I was preparing to go to my room, the housekeeper very timidly approached me and with a look of anxiety in her eye said to me, ‘I hope you will be able to sleep in that room tonight’; and when I inquired as to the cause of her anxiety, she told me that the room was haunted.

“She told me that at night strange noises were heard in this room that had disturbed others who had attempted to sleep there. I assured her that I was not afraid of haunts, and that I was very glad that I had been assigned to this room rather than one of the other Bishops.

“When I entered the room to prepare for the night, I had the theory that there was probably some loose furniture or some loose article in the room that in the still of the night might be caused to vibrate when trucks would pass by the house.

“Accordingly, I examined the furniture and the articles in the room but found nothing there that might indicate a tendency to rattle on vibration. So, I went to bed and went to sleep. During the course of the night, I heard the knocks and creaking that she had spoken about, and it was not long before I readily discovered the cause of it.

“During the heat of the day preceding, the timbers of the room had expanded, and now in the chill of the night they were contracting, and this contraction of the timbers was the cause of the knocking and the creaking and the weird noises about which the housekeeper had spoken.

“So now having satisfied myself definitely as to the nature of the spooks, I went back to sleep. The following morning, I told her of my discovery, and, while she did not exactly want to doubt the word of a bishop, nevertheless I don’t think that I thoroughly convinced her.”

During his stay in Mississippi, Bishop O’Brien visited Oxford and celebrated Mass for the Catholic students at Ole Miss. It was then that he along with Bishop Gerow saw the need for a church building in Oxford.

After almost passing out when Father Manon told everyone the good Bishop from Extension had promised $50,000 toward building a church there, Bishop O’Brien ended up pledging $10,000 from Catholic Extension. A few years later, Bishop O’Brien was back from Chicago to celebrate the dedication of St. John Church in Oxford.

This is a great story that reminds us of our connection with Catholic Extension and how they have helped and continue to help our diocese grow and spread the Good News. I imagine at the dedication of the new St. John’s 80+ years ago, the students let out a boisterous “Hotty Toddy” for Bishop O’Brien to take back with him to Chicago.

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

Christians must resist allure of power, serve humanity, pope says at end of Holy Year

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By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The powerful and violent cannot control, suppress or commodify God’s grace, friendship and will to usher in a new dawn, Pope Leo XIV said.

“Around us, a distorted economy tries to profit from everything. We see how the marketplace can turn human yearnings of seeking, traveling and beginning again into a mere business,” he said, celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany, and officially closing the celebration of the Holy Year dedicated to hope.

“Let us ask ourselves: has the Jubilee taught us to flee from this type of efficiency that reduces everything to a product and human beings to consumers?” he asked. “After this year, will we be better able to recognize a pilgrim in the visitor, a seeker in the stranger, a neighbor in the foreigner and fellow travelers in those who are different?”

Before the Mass, the pope, cardinals and bishops present in Rome, gathered in the atrium of the basilica and gave thanks to God for the gifts received during the Holy Year. Dozens of the world’s cardinals were in Rome to attend the pope’s first extraordinary consistory Jan. 7-8, to pray, support and advise the pope on the life and mission of the church.

Pope Leo went to the threshold of the Holy Door and pulled each side shut. The door will be sealed until the next Holy Year, which is likely to be 2033, the 2000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Pope Leo XIV closes the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica Jan. 6, 2026, at the Vatican, marking the official end of the Jubilee Year. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

While the last of the Holy Doors in the city was closing, “the gate” of God’s mercy will never be shut, Pope Leo said before shutting the door. God “will always sustain the weary, raise up those who have fallen” and offer “good things” to those who place their trust in him.
In his homily, Pope Leo compared the millions of men and women who came to Rome on pilgrimage to modern-day Magi, “who left palace and temple behind” in search of a new “king,” which they found in the baby Jesus in a humble grotto in Bethlehem.

“Yes, the Magi still exist today. They are the people who sense the need to go out and search, accepting the risks associated with their journey, especially in a troubled world like ours that may be unpleasant and dangerous in many ways,” he said.

However, Pope Leo cautioned, today’s seekers must encounter in today’s churches and sacred places the same humble source of life, hope and joy that the Magi encountered in Bethlehem.

“How important it is that those who pass through the doors of the church perceive therein that the Messiah has just been born, that a community gathers in which hope springs forth and that a story of life is unfolding!” he said.

“Jesus encountered and allowed himself to be approached by all people,” he said, because “the Lord wants his presence to grow among us as God-with-us.”

“No one can sell this to us. The child whom the Magi adore is a priceless and immeasurable good,” the pope said, criticizing “a distorted economy,” which even tries to exploit and commodify the human desire for freedom and true fulfillment.

God revealing himself to humanity as man is “a gift,” Pope Leo said. “He reveals himself and lets himself be found.”

“His ways are not our ways, and the violent do not succeed in controlling them, nor can the powers of the world block them,” he said, recalling the great joy the Magi felt upon finding the Messiah and despite Herod’s efforts to destroy what had been promised.

The fear and violence unleashed by King Herod “make us think of the many conflicts by which people resist and even damage the new things that God has in store for everyone,” he said. “Loving and seeking peace means protecting what is holy and, consequently, that which is newly born like a small, vulnerable, fragile baby.”

“God challenges the existing order,” the pope said. “God is determined to rescue us from both old and new forms of slavery. He involves young and old, poor and rich, men and women, saints and sinners in his works of mercy and in the wonders of his justice.”

“Let us ask ourselves: is there life in our church? Is there space for something new to be born? Do we love and proclaim a God who sets us on a journey?” Pope Leo asked.

“Fear does indeed blind us. Conversely, the joy of the Gospel liberates us. It makes us prudent, yes, but also bold, attentive and creative; it beckons us along ways that are different from those already traveled,” he said.

“It is wonderful to become pilgrims of hope,” who journey together and are amazed by God’s faithfulness, he said.

“If we do not reduce our churches to monuments, if our communities are homes, if we stand united and resist the flattery and seduction of those in power, then we will be the generation of a new dawn,” he said. In Jesus, “we will contemplate and serve an extraordinary humanity, transformed not by the delusions of the all-powerful, but by God who became flesh out of love.”

Outside on a cold, rainy winter morning, St. Peter’s Square was filled with thousands of people watching the Mass on big screens and awaiting the pope to recite the Angelus at noon.

Hundreds of people dressed in traditional and festive costumes took part in an annual folkloric Epiphany procession along the main boulevard in front of the basilica. Marching bands and people in Renaissance costumes paraded up the street behind the Three Kings on horseback.

Before reciting the Angelus from the balcony of the basilica’s loggia, the pope prayed that God’s words “come to fulfillment in us, may strangers and enemies become brothers and sisters.”

“In the place of inequality, may there be fairness, and may the industry of war be replaced by the craft of peace,” he said. “As weavers of hope, let us journey together toward the future by another road.”

National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is back in 2026 with a patriotic twist

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By Maria Wiering
(OSV News) – The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is back for 2026 with a special route that will travel the East Coast from St. Augustine, Florida, to Portland, Maine, ending in Philadelphia, organizers announced Jan. 8.

The pilgrimage – the third of its kind – will begin in May on Memorial Day weekend and end July 5. This year’s pilgrimage celebrates America’s 250th anniversary with the theme “One Nation Under God,” and its route incorporates key sites in the history of the country and its Catholics.

Organizers described the pilgrimage as “a nationwide call to renewal, unity and mission rooted in the Eucharist.”

In a Jan. 8 media release announcing the route, organizers noted that 2026 marked the 75th anniversary of the lobbying campaign, led by the Knights of Columbus, to add the phrase “One nation under God” to the nation’s Pledge of Allegiance.

A graphic depicts the 2026 route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which begins in St. Augustine, Fla., and ends in Philadelphia. (OSV News graphic/National Eucharistic Congress)

“One Nation Under God is not a borrowed slogan; rather, it is an invitation to realign our lives, our communities, and our country under the sovereignty of Jesus Christ,” said Jason Shanks, president of the National Eucharistic Congress, in the media release.

“Our hope is that Catholics will come together on this significant anniversary to give thanks for our country and to pray for our future,” said Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, who serves as chairman of the National Eucharistic Congress, in the statement. “We want all Catholics to be inspired with missionary zeal to bring revival through the light and love of Jesus Christ.”

The pilgrimage has been placed under the patronage of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian-American immigrant and the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint. It will also take place in solidarity with the U.S. bishops’ call to consecrate the United States to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The pilgrimage will launch Memorial Day weekend with Mass at Our Lady of La Leche Shrine in St. Augustine, the site of the first Mass celebrated on American soil in 1565. It will also include commemorations of the Georgia Martyrs, five Franciscan missionaries who were killed for their faith in 1597, whose path for beatification Pope Francis cleared in January 2025; the celebration of the feast of Corpus Christi in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia; and stops in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the nation’s first Catholic diocese.

The pilgrimage will pass through most of the original 13 colonies, with stops in 18 dioceses and archdioceses.

Click here to learn more on the 2026 Pilgrimage

Youth

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Around the Diocese

NATCHEZ – A Cathedral School student pauses at the Nativity scene during a special school Mass at St. Mary Basilica on Jan. 7. (Photo by Brandi Boles)
CLINTON – Holy Savior Parish children portray the Nativity during a Christmas program presented at Mass. (Photo by Janeth Mazy)
COLUMBUS – Annunciation Catholic School second-grader Boone Morgan works on a watercolor project. Students later added biblical affirmations to their artwork as reminders of God’s love. (Photo by Jacque Hince)

New Orleans archbishop apologizes to abuse survivors assettlement takes effect

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By Gina Christian
(OSV News) – Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans has issued a formal apology to abuse survivors in that archdiocese, following last month’s court approval of a $230 million settlement in the five-year-long bankruptcy case.

“With this letter, I express on behalf of the clergy, religious, and laity of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, my predecessors, and myself, profound regret over the tragic and inexcusable harm you have suffered at the hands of your abusers,” said Archbishop Aymond in a widely distributed Dec. 26 letter addressed “to all child abuse claimants” in the archdiocese.

The seventh amended plan for the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 filing – dating to 2020, and prompted by some 500 abuse claims – was approved by Judge Meredith S. Grabill on Dec. 8.

The archdiocese advised the court on Dec. 29 that “all conditions” required for the plan’s taking effect had been satisfied as of Dec. 26.

Archbishop Aymond’s apology letter was posted to the archdiocesan website and that of the Clarion Herald, the archdiocesan newspaper, the print edition of which will also include the message. Bayou Catholic, the official paper of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, will include the text in its upcoming February edition.

In a Jan. 3 press release, the Archdiocese of New Orleans announced that Archbishop Aymond’s letter, posted to the archdiocesan website, would also be printed in full “throughout the upcoming days and weeks in the various media markets.”
The “extensive media outreach” – which includes some two dozen secular outlets in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas – is part of the archdiocese’s “commitment to the nonmonetary provisions laid out in its Chapter 11 settlement plan,” said the press release.
In his letter, Archbishop apologized to the victims “for the trauma caused to you and to those close to you as a survivor of sexual abuse perpetrated by a member of the clergy, a religious sister or brother, or a lay employee or volunteer working within the Catholic Church.

“Sexual abuse is an inexcusable evil, and I am ashamed that you or anyone should have been sexually abused by someone working within the Catholic Church,” he said. “Please know that you are not to blame for the abuse perpetrated on you. You were and are completely innocent and did nothing to deserve the pain you have suffered because of the hideous crime of sexual abuse of a minor.”

He said the archdiocese “takes responsibility for the abuse you have suffered and pledges to keep children and all vulnerable people safe in our ministry.” He added, “It is my fervent hope that as we bring these Chapter 11 proceedings to a close, you will achieve some sense of peace, justice, and healing.”
The closing hearings of the case in early December included testimony from 23 survivors, with Judge Grabill addressing them through tears ahead of her final ruling.

One survivor filed a handwritten letter to Judge Grabill, thanking her for her empathy and saying the court decision “will give children a voice … who have been silenced for so long.”

The survivor – noting a lifelong inability to “shake the stigma of the abuse” – said the decision to come forward “was very powerful for my own healing and to help move the Catholic Church to a safer environment.”

With the proceedings also involving 157 affiliated Catholic organizations – including parishes, schools, Catholic Charities organizations, and other ministries – the $230 million settlement will require parishes to contribute a total of some $60 million. A possible $75 million may be supplied by insurance funds.
According to Fox 8 New Orleans, Archbishop Aymond declined to specify how much each parish would be expected to pay toward the settlement.

OSV News previously confirmed with the archdiocese that its legal fees in the case totaled approximately $50 million as of November.

The arduous bankruptcy proceedings appeared to stall even in their final months, with one group of bond investors calling for further discussion of the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 reorganization plan, then in its fifth version, despite an overwhelming vote of approval of the plan by a committee of survivors and additional creditors.

Grabill appeared to lose patience with the case in April 2025, issuing an order on a potential dismissal of the “particularly contentious” suit, which had failed to reach a reorganization plan after five years of litigation.

Along with the wranglings over bankruptcy and survivor compensation, the archdiocese’s battle to resolve sex abuse claims has also included:

-The recusal of a previous judge in the Chapter 11 case.
-The guilty plea and life sentence of Msgr. Lawrence Hecker for rape and other crimes committed in 1975-1976.
-An investigation by the Louisiana State Police and the FBI – with a search warrant issued in May 2024 – to determine if archdiocesan officials covered up child sex trafficking by clergy over several decades, with some alleged victims reportedly taken out of state to be abused and marked for further exploitation among clergy.

OSV News has found that from 2004 to 2024, U.S. Catholic dioceses collectively paid a total of more than $5 billion to settle abuse claims.

In September, Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop James F. Checchio of Metuchen, N.J., as coadjutor archbishop of New Orleans. Archbishop Checcio will assist Archbishop Aymond until the latter’s canonically required resignation, submitted upon reaching the age of 75, is accepted by the pope.

(Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.)

NOTES: A link to the letter can be found here at the Clarion Herald: https://clarionherald.org/documents/2026/1/2025.12.26%20-%20public%20apology%20letter.pdf

Pope urges people to protect, cultivate even smallest signs of peace, hope

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Editor’s note: Bishop Joseph Kopacz serves on the International Justice and Peace committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He and others will be traveling to the Holy Land this month. Please pray for peace in our world and take a moment to read the full text of Pope Leo XIV’s message for World Day of Peace at https://bit.ly/49piqTt.

Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, smiles as he appears at the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican following his election as pope May 8, 2025. The new pope was born in Chicago. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

By Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The “confrontational” tone dominating both global and national politics is “deepening instability and unpredictability day by day,” Pope Leo XIV wrote in his message for World Peace Day.

“It is no coincidence that repeated calls to increase military spending, and the choices that follow, are presented by many government leaders as a justified response to external threats,” he wrote in the message for the Jan. 1 observance.

But peace must be protected and cultivated, Pope Leo said. “Even when it is endangered within us and around us, like a small flame threatened by a storm, we must protect it.”
Throughout the coming year, Pope Leo will give visiting heads of state signed copies of his message, which was released by the Vatican Dec. 18, and Vatican ambassadors will distribute it to government leaders in the countries where they serve.

(Read the entirety of Pope Leo XIV’s message for World Day of Peace at https://bit.ly/49piqTt)

Called by Name

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Each January the seminarians and Bishop gather for an Epiphany Party to celebrate the birth of the Savior. This has been a fun tradition that began when I ran out of time one year to get everyone together before Christmas. It ended up working out well because Epiphany falls after all the busyness of the days leading up to Christmas and New Year’s, and the seminarians are still on break. I am grateful to my assistant in the Vocations Office, Debra Padula, who has been the ‘party planner’ in the Vocations Office for many years now. Debbie has done a great job creating fun traditions that our guys look forward to each year. She really goes for it with the Epiphany theme, helping us proclaim that Jesus is King while keeping everything to a very strict budget. The best tradition, I think, are the crowns from Burger King that she has for all the guests. The crowns are specially decorated with the diocesan seal taped to the front. It’s a fun gag and it sets a great tone for the evening.

Father Nick Adam
Father Nick Adam

This is one of our core events that are held each year that help to foster fraternity among our men. I’m especially happy when I see them ‘coming early and staying late’ when we have events. This means that they enjoy each others’ company and are forming bonds that will last beyond their years in seminary. In a diocese that is so spread out, it is important that we provide our seminarians with opportunities to build fraternity and actively show them how to do it. Our men do this on their own as well. Each spring a group of guys will head up to Starkville to see a Mississippi State baseball game and spend the weekend at St. Joseph Parish. They also go to concerts together in the New Orleans area while they are in school, and they are very intentional about a weekly meal together as diocesan brothers.

Each summer we hold a convocation with all of our seminarians over a few days deep in the woods at a great deer camp that is donated to us by parishioners here in the diocese. These official events only work if our men understand the importance and the urgency of building bonds of friendship and trust with one another. I’m grateful to say that ‘they get it,’ and they are very intentional about this part of the their preparation for priesthood. I know it will serve them well when they enter into ministry, and they’ll be able to lean on one another for support and encouragement when the going gets tough!

(Father Nick Adam is Director of Vocations for the Diocese of Jackson. He can be contacted at nick.adam@jacksondiocese.org.)

New year marks time to usher in era of peace, friendship among all people, pope says

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By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The world is not saved by threatening violence or by judging, oppressing or getting rid of others, Pope Leo XIV said.

“Rather, it is saved by tirelessly striving to understand, forgive, liberate and welcome everyone, without calculation and without fear,” the pope said during Mass on Jan. 1 in St. Peter’s Basilica for the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and World Peace Day.

Therefore, at the beginning of a new year with “new and unique days that await us, let us ask the Lord to help us experience at every moment, around us and upon us, the warmth of his fatherly embrace and the light of his benevolent gaze,” he said in his homily.

The Mass marked the 59th World Day of Peace celebrated by the church. The pope’s message for the world day, published in December, was dedicated to the humble, “unarmed and disarming” peace of the risen Christ who loves unconditionally.

Thousands of people were present in the basilica for the celebration on New Year’s Day, including young people dressed as the three kings who visited Jesus. A figurine of the infant Jesus was before the altar, in keeping with the Christmas season of celebration, and an image of Our Lady of Hope was to the side of the main altar as a sign of the Jubilee of hope, which will end Jan. 6.

In his homily, Pope Leo reflected on the mystery of Mary’s divine motherhood, which “helped give a human face to the source of all mercy and benevolence: the face of Jesus.”

By being born of Mary in a grotto, he said, “God presents himself to us ‘unarmed and disarming,’ as naked and defenseless as a newborn in a cradle.”

Pope Leo XIV receives the offertory gifts from children dressed as the Magi during Mass for the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and World Peace Day in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Jan. 1, 2026. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

“He does this to teach us that the world is not saved by sharpening swords, nor by judging, oppressing or eliminating our brothers and sisters,” he said. Rather, the world is saved by seeking to understand, forgive, free and welcome everyone with love.

“Thus, at the dawn of the new year, the liturgy reminds us that for each of us, every day can be the beginning of a new life, thanks to God’s generous love, his mercy and the response of our freedom,” Pope Leo said. “It is beautiful to view the coming year in this way: as an open journey to be discovered.”

“Indeed, through grace, we can venture forth on this journey with confidence – free and bearers of freedom, forgiven and bringers of forgiveness, trusting in the closeness and goodness of the Lord who accompanies us always,” he said.

Overlooking St. Peter’s Square after Mass, Pope Leo urged Christians to help usher in “an era of peace and friendship among all peoples.”

“The Jubilee … has taught us how to cultivate hope for a new world. We do this by converting our hearts to God, so as to transform wrongs into forgiveness, pain into consolation, and resolutions of virtue into good works,” he said.

The Son of God also illuminates “the consciences of people of goodwill, so that we can build the future as a welcoming home for every man and woman who comes into the world,” he said.

“The heart of Jesus, therefore, beats for every man and woman; for those who are ready to welcome him, like the shepherds, and for those who do not want him, like Herod,” he said.

“His heart is not indifferent to those who have no heart for their neighbor: it beats for the righteous, so that they may persevere in their dedication, as well as for the unrighteous, so that they may change their lives and find peace,” Pope Leo said.

Praying for Israel and Jerusalem

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IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
I once lived in community for several years with an Oblate brother who was wonderfully generous and pious to a fault. But he struggled to pick up symbol and metaphor. He took things literally. For him, what the words said is what they meant!

This caused him considerable confusion and consternation when each day praying the psalms we would pray for Jerusalem and Israel and would occasionally pray for the demise of some other nation. Coming out of prayer, he would ask: “Why are we praying for Jerusalem? For Israel? What makes those places more special in God’s eyes than other cities and other countries? Why does God hate some countries and cities?”

We would try our best to have him understand that these names were not to be taken literally, as places on a map, but rather as symbols. Wisely or unwisely, I would sometimes say, “Brother, whenever you read the word ‘Jerusalem’ or ‘Israel’, just take that to mean the ‘church’, and whenever a nation or a city is named that God seems to hate, take that to mean that God hates sin.”

We might smile at his piety and literalism, but I’m not sure we don’t all still struggle with our own literalism in understanding what in fact the scriptures mean by words like Jerusalem, Israel, Chosen people, and God’s elect. Indeed, as Christians, what do we mean with the words Christian, Church, and Body of Christ?

For whom are we praying when we pray for Jerusalem and Israel?

What we see in scripture is a progressive de-literalizing of names and places. Initially, Israel meant an historical nation, Jerusalem meant an historical city, the Chosen People meant a genetic race, and God’s elect was literally that nation, that city, and that genetic race. But as revelation unfolds, these names and concepts become ever more symbolic.

Most parts of Judaism understand these words symbolically, though some still understand these words literally. For them, Jerusalem means the actual city of Jerusalem, and Israel means an actual strip of land in Palestine.

Christians mirror that. Mainstream Christian theology has from its very origins refused to identify those names and places in a way where (simplistically) Jerusalem means the Christian Church and Christians are the Chosen Race. However, as is the case with parts of Judaism, many Christians, while de-literalizing these words from their Jewish roots, now take them literally to refer to the historical Christian churches and to its explicitly confessing members. Indeed, my answer to my Oblate brother (“Jerusalem means the church, Israel means Christianity”) seems to suggest exactly that.

However, the words Church and Christianity themselves need to be de-literalized. The church is a reality which is much wider and more inclusive than its explicit, visible, baptized membership. Its visible, historical aspect is real, is important, and is never to be denigrated; but (from Jesus through the history of Christian dogma and theology) Christianity has always believed and taught clearly that the mystery of Christ is both visible and invisible. Partly, we can see it and partly we can’t. Partly it is visibly incarnated in history, and partly it is invisible. The mystery of Christ is incarnate in history, but not all of it can be seen. Some people are baptized visibly, and some people are baptized only in unseen ways.

Moreover, this is not new, liberal theology. Jesus himself taught that it is not necessarily those who say ‘Lord, Lord’ who are his true believers, but rather it’s those who actually live out his teaching (however unconsciously) who are his true followers. Christian theology has always taught that the full mystery of Christ is much larger than its historical manifestation in the Christian churches.

Kenneth Cragg, a Christian missionary, after living and ministering for years in the Muslim world, offered this comment: I believe it will take all the Christian churches to give full expression to the full Christ. To this, I would add, that it will not only take all the Christian churches to give full expression to the mystery of Christ, it will also take all people of sincere will, beyond all religious boundaries, and beyond all ethnicity, to give expression to the mystery of Christ.

When my pious Oblate brother who struggled to understand metaphor and symbol asked me why we were always praying for Jerusalem and Israel, and I replied that he might simply substitute the word Church and Christianity for those terms, my answer to him (taken literally) was itself over pious, simplistic, and a too-narrow understanding of the mystery of Christ. Those terms Church and Christianity, as we see in the progressive unfolding of revelation in scripture, must themselves be de-literalized.

For whom are we praying when we pray for Jerusalem or for Israel? We are praying for all sincere people, of all faiths, of all denominations, of all races, of all ages. They are the new Jerusalem and the new Israel.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a professor of spirituality at Oblate School of Theology and award-winning author.)