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Seamos un faro de justicia y paz

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Obispo Joseph R. Kopacz

Por Obispo Joseph Kopacz
La Palabra de Dios en Adviento se desborda con una visión de justicia y paz, esperanza y reconciliación, solidaridad y comunidad para que este tiempo sea un anticipo de la eternidad. Al comienzo de esta temporada de expectativa y preparación, el primer domingo de Adviento, proclamamos el sueño de Dios para nuestro mundo según el profeta Isaías.
El siguiente pasaje de las Sagradas Escrituras se escuchó en toda la Iglesia Católica poco después que el Papa Francisco habló, con gran emoción, en los memoriales de Nagasaki e Hiroshima, sitios de las pesadillas nucleares que marcaron la culminación de la devastación al final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial:
“Éstas son las profecías que Isaías, hijo de Amós, recibió por revelación acerca de Judá y Jerusalén: En los últimos tiempos quedará afirmado el monte donde se halla el templo del Señor. Será el monte más alto, más alto que cualquier otro monte. Todas las naciones vendrán a él; pueblos numerosos llegarán, diciendo: «Vengan, subamos al monte del Señor, al templo del Dios de Jacob, para que él nos enseñe sus caminos y podamos andar por sus senderos.» Porque de Sión saldrá la enseñanza del Señor, de Jerusalén vendrá su palabra. El Señor juzgará entre las naciones y decidirá los pleitos de pueblos numerosos. Ellos convertirán sus espadas en arados y sus lanzas en hoces. Ningún pueblo volverá a tomar las armas contra otro ni a recibir instrucción para la guerra. ¡Vamos, pueblo de Jacob, caminemos a la luz del Señor!”
En estos monumentos, donde antes se abrieron las puertas del infierno, el Papa Francisco se solidarizó, una vez más, con la larga lista de profetas del Antiguo Testamento y papas de la era moderna y posmoderna, para clamar por justicia y paz con el ser humano.
San Juan XXIII escribió Pacem en Terris en 1963, menos de dos décadas después del final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, abordando, en parte, el terrible desperdicio de recursos en la enloquecedora carrera armamentista, la bestia voraz del complejo militar-industrial, del cual el presidente Dwight D. Eisenhower advirtió en la década de 1950.
El 4 de octubre de 1965 el Papa Pablo VI, primer papa en comparecer ante las Naciones Unidas, habló de los horrores de la guerra y de la absoluta necesidad de la paz mundial. Él suplicó, con profunda emoción en su voz, “¡No más guerra! ¡Guerra, Nunca jamás!!
Dos años más tarde, escribió Populorum Progressio, el Desarrollo de los Pueblos, en el que abordó el terrible costo que el desarrollo, el despliegue y el uso de armas causaron en la familia humana, drenando los recursos necesarios para el desarrollo y matando el espíritu humano. Esta enseñanza apostólica exigía el pleno desarrollo de cada persona y de toda la persona. (n. 14)
El Papa Juan Pablo II y el Papa Benedicto vivieron directamente el infierno de la Segunda Guerra Mundial en Polonia y Alemania y a menudo hablaron con celo profético por la dignidad de la persona humana, la justicia y la paz. En el 50 aniversario de Populorum Progressio en 2017, el Papa Francisco estableció el Dicasterio para el Desarrollo Humano Integral, aplicando su pasión a la visión de Isaías, citada anteriormente. El Papa Francisco ama el concepto de integración y ve su necesidad urgente en todas las dimensiones de la vida. El desarrollo no puede restringirse al crecimiento material; significa integrar cuerpo y alma que encuentra su fuente en la Encarnación, el Dios-Hombre, Jesucristo. El desarrollo integral le da gloria a Dios y está en una relación con los demás. Desde lo personal a lo global, nuestro llamado es integrar a los pueblos de la tierra en armonía sostenible. La solidaridad y la subsidiariedad están en el corazón de la integración social de la economía, las finanzas, el trabajo, la cultura, la vida familiar y la religión al servicio de la red de la vida.
El Papa Francisco afirmó elocuentemente que “la vida humana es como una orquesta que suena bien si los diferentes instrumentos están acordes y siguen un puntaje compartido por todos: persona significa relación, no individualismo; afirma la inclusión, no la exclusión, la unicidad con una dignidad inviolable, en lugar de la explotación; libertad no coerción. El desarrollo humano integral es el camino del bien que la familia humana está llamada a recorrer.”
Más tarde, en noviembre de 2017, en Roma, en un simposio internacional llamado: “Perspectivas para un mundo libre de armas nucleares y para el desarrollo integral,” el Papa recordó a los participantes que el desarme integral solicitado por el Papa Juan XXIII en Pacem en Terris aún no se ha logrado. El pesimismo sombrío debe dar paso a un realismo saludable. El Papa Francisco declaró y citó la reciente declaración de las Naciones Unidas en 2015 que condena las armas nucleares como un medio ilegal de guerra, uniéndose a las filas de las armas biológicas y químicas prohibidas. Los catastróficos efectos humanitarios y ambientales serían impensables. El Santo Padre insistió en que la implacable carrera armamentista, nuclear y llamada convencional, “desvía recursos de la lucha contra la pobreza, la realización de proyectos educativos, ecológicos y de salud y el desarrollo de los derechos humanos. … No se pueden mantener las relaciones internacionales cautivas de la fuerza militar, la intimidación mutua y el desfile de arsenales. … El progreso que es efectivo e inclusivo puede lograr la utopía de un mundo libre de instrumentos mortales y de agresión, contrario a las críticas de aquellos que consideran idealista cualquier proceso de desmantelamiento.”
En el vuelo de regreso desde Japón, después de visitar Nagasaki e Hiroshima y al hablar sobre el uso de las armas nucleares, el Papa recordó a los periodistas “…Dije nuevamente que el uso de armas nucleares es inmoral; Esto debe ir al Catecismo de la Iglesia Católica. Y no solo el uso, sino también la posesión.”
Estados Unidos es la única superpotencia en este momento de la evolución de la humanidad y tenemos el potencial de ser un faro de mayor justicia y paz que puede guiar a las naciones del mundo en el camino del desarme integral. hacia el desarrollo humano integral, con el anhelo de Isaías, “¡Vamos, pueblo de Jacob, caminemos a la luz del Señor!”

Pope asks Catholics to set up, be enchanted by a Nativity scene

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By Carol Glatz
ROME (CNS) – A Nativity scene is a simple reminder of something astonishing: God became human to reveal the greatness of his love “by smiling and opening his arms to all,” Pope Francis said in a letter on the meaning and importance of setting up Christmas cribs.
“Wherever it is, and whatever form it takes, the Christmas creche speaks to us of the love of God, the God who became a child in order to make us know how close he is to every man, woman and child, regardless of their condition,” the pope wrote in his apostolic letter, “Admirabile Signum” (“Enchanting Image”).
Pope Francis signed the short letter Dec. 1, the first Sunday of Advent, during an afternoon visit to Greccio, Italy, where St. Francis of Assisi set up the first Nativity scene in 1223.
When St. Francis had a cave prepared with a hay-filled manger, an ox and a donkey, he “carried out a great work of evangelization,” Pope Francis said, and Catholics must continue that work today.
“With this letter,” he wrote, “I wish to encourage the beautiful family tradition of preparing the Nativity scene in the days before Christmas, but also the custom of setting it up in the workplace, in schools, hospitals, prisons and town squares.”
At the heart of even the simplest Nativity scene, he said, there is a reminder of “God’s tender love.”
Then, he said, there is the fact that this baby is “the source and sustenance of all life. In Jesus, the Father has given us a brother who comes to seek us out whenever we are confused or lost, a loyal friend ever at our side. He gave us his son who forgives us and frees us from our sins.”

Pope Francis prays during a visit to the Nativity scene of Greccio, Italy, Dec. 1, 2019. The first Nativity scene was assembled in Greccio by St. Francis of Assisi in 1223. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)


“To our astonishment, we see God acting exactly as we do: He sleeps, takes milk from his mother, cries and plays like every other child! As always, God baffles us. He is unpredictable, constantly doing what we least expect,” Pope Francis wrote. “The Nativity scene shows God as he came into our world, but it also makes us reflect on how our life is part of God’s own life.”
The simple shepherds, who were the first to go to the stable to see the newborn Jesus, are reminders that “the humble and the poor” are the first to welcome the good news, the pope said. “In a particular way, from the time of its Franciscan origins, the Nativity scene has invited us to ‘feel’ and ‘touch’ the poverty that God’s son took upon himself in the incarnation.”
That, in turn, calls Jesus’ disciples “to follow him along the path of humility, poverty and self-denial that leads from the manger of Bethlehem to the cross,” the pope wrote. “It asks us to meet him and serve him by showing mercy to those of our brothers and sisters in greatest need.”
Mary is a model of discipleship, faithfully accepting God’s will for her life and sharing him with others, inviting them to obey him. Joseph, too, accepts the role God assigned him, protecting the baby Jesus, teaching him and raising him.
And, of course, the pope wrote, “when, at Christmas, we place the statue of the Infant Jesus in the manger, the Nativity scene suddenly comes alive. God appears as a child, for us to take into our arms.”
The whole scene, he said, reminds adult Catholics of their childhood and of learning the faith from their parents and grandparents. Each year, it should be a reminder that the faith needs to be passed on to one’s children and grandchildren.

Called by name

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Father Nick Adam

There is no quick fix to any big issue. Good solutions require good planning and execution. This means we must put a good plan in place for priestly formation in this diocese and then execute the plan. I may have mentioned in this space that this past summer, Director of Seminarians Father Aaron Williams and I attended the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors. It was pretty overwhelming at first. We went to conference after conference where information was flying faster than a weekday homily. I was inspired and somewhat intimidated by what I learned. There are so many great ideas floating around out there, but which of the practices could be implemented in our diocese?

I left that conference with a goal. I want to dig a trench before trying to install a pipeline. A rise in priestly vocations does not happen overnight. But we have to start with the fundamentals. We have to build a strong foundation of accompaniment, collaboration and formation. I want to explore these three preparatory parts of the “pipeline” as 2020 nears.

Accompaniment is listed first because for a trench to form, we have to dig. We have to move raw material, change the lay of the land and make space for something greater. The raw material that I have the responsibility and joy to work with are young men who are seeking to follow God’s will and are open to the possibility that God may be calling them to serve as a priest. Young men first of all need priests and parish leaders to accompany them in their journey to the seminary. Pastors, parochial vicars and retirees alike must be willing to encourage, answer questions and show our priesthood to them. One of the ways to do this is by offering young men a place in the liturgy. I have trained several MCs who serve in liturgies at St. Richard. They may have never been an altar server, but MCs are seen as role models for the younger kids and they help to keep the liturgy running smoothly for the priest celebrant. Of course, not every parish in our diocese has a resident priest-pastor, and I encourage LEMs and other parish leaders to identify young men who seem to want to go deeper in their faith and walk with them. Ask them if they’ve ever considered being a priest, so often that’s all it takes to allow God to gain a foothold in a young man’s heart. And remember, seminary does not equal priesthood! The seminary is simply the place to best discern whether one is called to be a priest and entry into seminary does not mean that the candidate is now obligated to advance to ordination.

Accompaniment, however, stretches beyond the parish and into the family of a young man. Are parents willing to open a discussion with a child about the possibility of priesthood? Do they regularly make it clear that they would love to have a priest in the family? Families are the seedbed of vocations. If parents actively encourage their sons to consider priesthood, vocations can flourish. If, however, priesthood is never brought up, or indeed, if faith is rarely made manifest outside of Church on Sunday, then our efforts at accompaniment could fall short. Again, I can only share my experience. My time in the seminary was the best six years of my life. I learned more about myself and the world then I could have ever imagined. I am willing to accompany young men on the road to priesthood and I pray that priests, parish leaders and parents in our diocese are just as willing. There are no quick fixes, but accompaniment is the first step to building a pipeline that will provide priests in Mississippi for the next generation.

Vocations Events

Friday, Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2020 – Annual Notre Dame Pre-Discernment trip. Open to men of any age who are open to a call to priesthood, we will spend three days on the campus of Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans.

Contact the Office of Vocations if interested in attending any of these events.
vocations@jacksondiocese.org
www.jacksonpriests.com

Saints for a new situation

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Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Everywhere in church circles today you hear a lament: Our churches are emptying. We’ve lost our youth. This generation no longer knows or understands the classical theological language. We need to announce Jesus again, as if for the first time, but how? The church is becoming evermore marginalized.

That’s the situation pretty much everywhere within the secularized world today. Why is this happening? Faith as a spent project? Secularity’s adolescent grandiosity before the parent who gave it birth, Judeo-Christianity? The “buffered self” that Charles Taylor describes? Affluence? Or is the problem mainly with the churches themselves? Sexual abuse? Cover-up? Poor liturgies? Poor preaching? Churches too liberal? Churches too conservative?

I suspect it’s some combination of all of these, but I’ll single out one issue here to highlight, affluence. Jesus told us that it’s difficult (impossible, he says) for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. No doubt, that’s a huge part of our present struggle. We’re good at being Christians when we’re poor, less educated and on the margins of mainstream society. We’ve had centuries of practice at this. What we haven’t had any practice at, and aren’t any good at, is how to be Christians when we’re affluent, sophisticated and constitute the cultural mainstream.

So, I’m suggesting that what we need today is not so much a new pastoral approach as a new kind of saint, an individual man or woman who can model for us practically what it means to live out the Gospel in a context of affluence and secularity. Why this?

One of the lessons of history is that often genuine religious renewal, the type that actually reshapes the religious imagination, does not come from think-tanks, conferences and church synods, but from graced individuals – saints, wild men and women who, like Saint Augustine, Saint Francis, Saint Clare, Saint Dominic, Saint Ignatius or other such religious figures can reshape our religious imagination. They show us that the new lies elsewhere, that what needs fixing in the church will not be mended simply by patching the old. What’s needed is a new religious and ecclesial imagination. Charles Taylor, in his highly-respected study of secularity, suggests that what we’re undergoing today is not so much a crisis of faith as a crisis of imagination. No Christians before us have ever lived within this kind of world.
What will this new kind of saint, this new St. Francis, look like? I honestly don’t know. Neither, it seems, does anyone else. We have no answer yet, at least not one that’s been able to bear much fruit in the mainstream culture. That’s not surprising. The type of imagination that reshapes history isn’t easily found. In the meantime we’ve come about as far as we can along the road that used to take us there, but which for many of our children no longer does.

Here’s our quandary: We’re better at knowing what to do once we get people into a church than we are at knowing how to get them there. Why? Our weakness, I believe, lies not in our theological imagination where we have rich theological and biblical insights aplenty. What we lack are saints on the ground, men and women who, in a passion and fidelity that’s at once radically faithful to God and fiercely empathic to our secular world, can incarnate their faith into a way of living that can show us, practically, how we can be poor and humble disciples of Jesus even as we walk in an affluent and highly secularized world.

And such new persons will appear. We’ve been at this spot before in history and have always found our way forward. Every time the world believes it has buried Christ, the stone rolls back from the tomb; every time the cultural ethos declares that the churches are on an irrevocable downward slide, the Spirit intervenes and there’s soon an about face; every time we despair, thinking that our age can now longer produce saints and prophets, some Augustine or Francis comes along and shows that our age, like times of old, can too produce its saints; and every time our imaginations run dry, as they have now, we find that our scriptures are still full of fresh insight. We may lack imagination, but we don’t lack hope.

Christ promised we will not be orphaned, and that promise is sure. God is still with us and our age will produce its own prophets and saints. What’s asked of us in the moment is biblical patience, to wait on God. Christianity may look tired, tried and spent to a culture within which affluence and sophistication are its current gods, but hope is already beginning to show its face. As secularization, with its affluence and sophistication, marches unswervingly forward we’re already beginning to see a number of men and women who have found ways to become post-affluent and post-sophisticated. These will be the new religious leaders who will teach us and our children, how to live as Christians in this new situation.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas.)

“The Christmas Cradle”

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Tony Rossi

LIGHT ONE CANDLE
By Tony Rossi
Kids are used to getting presents for Christmas, and likely giving a few themselves. But Meadow Rue Merrill wants to expand their horizons by making it a fun family tradition to also give gifts to Jesus in a special way. That’s what inspired her children’s book The Christmas Cradle.
Merrill won a Christopher Award last year for her memoir Redeeming Ruth, about her adoption of a disabled orphan from Uganda. The mother of five joined me on “Christopher Closeup” recently to discuss The Christmas Cradle, which tells the story of a girl named Molly and her family who visit her Aunt Jenny to celebrate the holiday. Molly comes across a Christmas cradle in a box and asks her aunt its purpose. Aunt Jenny explains, “Growing up, we played a game to share God’s love with others. Each December, we sang carols, delivered meals, and visited people who were lonely. Then we wrote each act of love on a card and put it in the cradle as a gift for Jesus. On Christmas morning, we read the cards and prayed for each person we’d served.”
In writing the book, Merrill said she contemplated the questions, “How do we give a gift to Jesus, who has everything? I feel like we can do that best by giving gifts to other people in His name.”
Merrill doesn’t just approach that idea from the standpoint of a giver, but also a recipient of kindness. She recalls, “One of my favorite Christmas memories was when we truly had very little to give our kids, and a neighbor encouraged them to write letters to Santa. I was thinking, ‘Why? We don’t even have the ability to [afford anything].’ But on Christmas Eve, [this neighbor] invited our family over to her home, and there in the middle of her living room was a pile of Christmas gifts [for my family], including for the baby that I was pregnant with. As my husband and I brought those home that Christmas Eve, it really was the kind of magic that we all hope for – but somehow spending it on ourselves doesn’t make it happen. It’s when we find someone with a greater need than ourselves to give it away.”
Part of Merrill’s awareness of poverty stems from her experience adopting Ruth. She says, “Ruth won our hearts with her bright smile and the laughter in her eyes. It took a great amount of sacrifice to meet her physical needs, and yet the joy she brought us was so incredible.”
Unfortunately, Ruth passed away due to health complications, but her legacy lives on. Merrill says, “Getting to know Ruth and meeting her needs opened our eyes to the needs of children around the world, and in our own communities, who don’t have what they need. I realized how far our gifts, donations, and even time, can go when we invest those in the lives of someone else. Ruth changed our hearts forever in the way we look at things, and we want to reach out and share what we have with others.”
Merrill hopes that people don’t just read The Christmas Cradle, but act on it. She concludes, “When [families] have the opportunity to do a good deed for someone else, they can write it on a little piece of paper and put it in the cradle. Then on Christmas morning, we can remember those people who we served by taking out their names on the cards and praying for them.”

(Tony Rossi is the Communications Director for The Christophers, a Catholic media company. The mission of The Christophers is to encourage people of all ages, and from all walks of life, to use their God-given talents to make a positive difference in the world. Learn more at www.christophers.org.)

“Oh, Tidings of Con-on-flict and Joy, Conflict and Joy”

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Sister alies therese

From the hermitage
By sister alies
Advent prepares us and heightens our longing. Our longing finds its place alongside our ancestors and God’s expressions of longing in the Hebrew Bible. Consider what our Catechism says: “The coming of God’s Son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. God makes everything converge on Christ: all the rituals and sacrifices, figures and symbols of the ‘First Covenant.’ God announces Christ through the mouths of prophets who succeeded one another in Israel. Moreover, God awakens in the hearts of pagans a dim expectation of this coming.” (522) Further, “When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present the ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for Jesus’ second coming. By celebrating John the Baptist’s birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to his desire: ‘Jesus must increase, but I must decrease.’” (524)
Depending on how I live and celebrate Advent, I am at least either a pagan with a ‘dim expectation’ or part of the faithful with an ‘ardent desire’ to fully meet Jesus. I should like to be the latter, but alas I find within myself blocks and winding paths that seem to veer right away from an ardent desire. Lazy? Fearful? Hopeless? Whatever the blocks in me might be, or in you, they will eventually be removed by Jesus. I suspect that’s the point of Advent so that when we do come to reflect more deeply upon the story of Christmas our hearts might be ready to entertain some of its cost.
I was reflecting that Christmas is both joy and conflict when I came across a book I’d read some years ago, The First Christmas, What The Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Birth, by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. It made me continue to consider longing and conflict. Simply put, Jesus was a refugee Child forced from His country of birth, crossing the borders into a foreign land, Egypt. Other children were being killed and it would be some two years before the Christ Child returned home with Mary and Joseph to Nazareth.
This past year we have been plagued for many and various reasons with raids, separation of children from parents, immigrants and refugees being expelled, deported or jailed. In both cases we see the conflict and battle of speaking truth to power. There is nothing wrong with a just immigration policy. But for thousands of tiny children scared and made mute by the trauma we have to wonder how Jesus and His parents faired in Egypt.
Christmas, its story, facts and symbols, points to the conflict within and the conflict to come. Most of us have a pretty complete understanding of the Christmas story so our reflection upon it might be too swift. Let’s consider some of Matthew’s story you might have skipped over. Borg and Crossan share: “Mathew’s story sounds the theme of fulfillment but its emotional tone is ominous. Driven and dominated by Herod’s plot to kill Jesus, it is dark and foreboding. It speaks of the murderous resistance of the rulers of this world to the coming of the kingdom of God.”
I like the Catechism’s explanation of the ‘Christmas Mystery:’ “Jesus was born in a humble stable, into a poor family. Simple shepherds were the first witnesses to this event. In this poverty heaven’s glory was made manifest. The Church never tires of singing the glory of the night: The Virgin today brings into the world the Eternal and the earth offers a cave to the Inaccessible. The angels and shepherds praise Him and the magi advance with the star, for You are born for us, Little Child, God Eternal. To become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the kingdom. For this we humble ourselves and become little … Christmas is the mystery of marvelous exchange.”
Equally the text in the Catechism tells us of the conflict midst the beauty: “the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the innocents make manifest the opposition of darkness to the light: ‘He came to His own home, and His people received Him not. (John 1:11) Christ’s whole life was lived under the sign of persecution. His own share it with Him. Jesus’ departure from Egypt recalls the Exodus and presents Him as the definitive liberator of God’s people.”
Venture deeper into Advent and begin the Christmas season, alert to both the joy and conflict and see how it plays out in our world and in our own hearts.
Blessings.

(Sister alies therese is a vowed Catholic solitary who lives an eremitical life. Her days are formed around prayer, art and writing. She is author of six books of spiritual fiction and is a weekly columnist. She lives and writes in Mississippi.)

Annunciation school celebrates expansion

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By Katie Fenstermacher
COLUMBUS – Supporters of Annunciation school celebrated the institutions expansion on Thursday, Nov. 21 with a ribbon cutting ceremony and reception. Talks of expanding the campus have been ongoing for several years due to increasing enrollment every year. Annunciation Columbus enrollment has almost doubled in the last seven years and the school has seen a 97% increase in that time. After much discussion and research, school administration decided the best plan of action financially would be to build on the current location.


Annunciation began a capital campaign last spring to raise the $3 million needed to move forward with an expansion. The new expansion includes six new classrooms, a computer/STREAM lab, science lab, library and administrative offices. The front of the school also received a revamp. During the ceremony, representatives from each committee that worked on the expansion were present, as well as Bishop Joseph Kopacz and Catherine Cook, Superintendent, to cut the ribbon on this exciting new venture.
Principal, Joni House stated, “The construction of this new building is more than just walls and ceilings, it is the opportunity to continue our mission of higher learning in a Christ-centered environment. It gives us the opportunity to accept additional students each year and offer a more STREAM focused curriculum.”
“What an honor it is to work along so many others who have sacrificed personally and financially to provide an ever-expanding learning environment for our Annunciation Catholic School students and faculty. As we continue our school’s mission of building character, fostering community and creating lifelong learners, we can’t help but remember those sacrifices of so many in our school’s history. They formed the foundation that we have the privilege to be building on. The new opportunities that will be afforded our students and faculty is absolutely amazing, What a challenge and opportunity,“ said Father Jeffrey Waldrep, pastor of Annunciation school and church.
For more information, or to schedule a private school tour, please contact (662) 328-4479 or visit www.AnnunciationCatholicSchool.org.

Catholic Build 2019

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By Joe Lee
JACKSON – As Inora Glass looked up from the tree and limb removal all around her on a steamy Saturday morning in October, she was covered in dirt and leaves and felt hot, sticky and fatigued.

She also felt exceedingly grateful. The mother of a seven-year-old daughter, Glass was hard at work with a dozen Habitat for Humanity Mississippi Capital Area (HHMCA) volunteers, putting in the sweat equity required of any Habitat homeowner as the group worked to restore and rebuild the home at 534 Cedarhurst Drive of Jackson that she will take possession of in January.

“We were out there since October,” Glass said. “We tore down the front porch of the house and two sheds in the back. We pulled roots from the ground and took limbs from the trees in front and along the back fence. It looks so much better now.”


The Cedarhurst home was designated by HHMCA for the annual Catholic build. Many Jackson-area organizations and parishes joined in, including St. Richard Jackson, St. Paul Flowood and St. Dominic Hospital. All made funding donations and the parishes contributed bottled water, breakfast, and labor at various times toward the project.

“The Catholic Build is such an important build each year. We count on the continued support of the churches and the Diocese to make the build possible,” said Merrill McKewen, executive director of HHMCA. “This year the Catholic Build is rehabbing a home in the Broadmoor area which is very important to our promise of 100 houses in five years. We are so grateful for their hard work and generous funding.”

Glass worked side by side with volunteers on Saturdays for more than two months. She even joined them at the Habitat warehouse on Mitchell Avenue to paint when the weather turned inclement on a Saturday in November. She had a front-row seat for all aspects of the construction of the home, as well as the extensive training she received from the organization that will help her as a homeowner in the future.
“It feels great. The overall experience is wonderful,” Glass said of her interaction with Habitat and the friendships she has made. “We will close on the house in January and move in. The volunteers and everyone at Habitat have been so kind. I will always thank them for coming out and making my dream come true for me and my baby.”

“Inora Glass has an incredibly beautiful spirit and is truly grateful for Habitat,” said HHMCA volunteer coordinator Kimberly Crowder. “Her spirit also reminds me of why I love doing what I do.”
For more information, visit www.habitatmca.org.

Catholic campus ministry keeps faith alive in students

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By Joanna Puddister King
STARKVILLE – Catholic faith is alive and thriving in colleges in the Golden Triangle area through an outreach of St. Joseph church. The church’s Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM) at Mississippi State University also serves students at East Mississippi Community College and the Mississippi University for Women.
Students are the heart of this peer-led organization that believes college is a time for growth and formation for the whole person – body, mind and spirit.
College is truly a time for social growth and community, an avenue that CCM excels at with – free food, a language every college student understands. Tuesday Night Dinner (or TND as it is more affectionately known) hosted at St. Joseph is a great way to feed hungry students bellies and give them spiritual fuel to get them through the week by hosting interactive talks ranging from relationships, vocations, apologetics and more.


“When I first moved to Mississippi, I knew approximately three people here. I … learned about Tuesday Night Dinner (TND) and free food – every college student’s dream! As I started going to TND, I met lots of new people, learned about other CCM happenings and joined in on events and volunteering,” says Mississippi University for Women senior, Maggie Rodriguez.
“Over the past few years CCM has become my second family, a home away from home.”
In addition to free food, CCM has two important Catholic figures in their corner – Mother Teresa and Pope Francis – well, life-size cut-outs that is. The pair have been a main feature since the summer at campus events.
“At the New Maroon Camp, a freshman orientation type set of events, we were the first table people saw as they came into the auditorium filled with representatives from the clubs at MSU. With the cowbell in hand, Pope Francis received lots of smiles from Catholics and non-Catholics alike; likewise, Mother Teresa and her ‘Hail Mary, Hail State’ flag got plenty of positive feedback,” said director of campus ministry, Meg Kanatzar.
“They’re fabulous conversation starters! People come over just to take selfies with them.”
The “Hail Mary, Hail State” phrase ignited a powerful fundraiser that has Catholic Mississippi State fans near and far sporting the phrase on the groups signature t-shirt. Former student Joseph Kerstiens helped come up with the idea for the hugely popular shirt, with the silhouette of Saint Pope John Paul II with a cowbell and rosary in hand, with the slogan.
“We really wanted to have something that incorporated MSU and the Catholic faith, and it wasn’t long before we had the slogan ‘Hail Mary, Hail State,” said Kersteins.
Though there are a lot of fun and games, like Catholic intermural sports and monthly trivia night, the group finds time to allow students to grow deeper in their relationship with Christ with Eucharistic adoration and Bible study, in addition to service to others.
Mini-mission trips to Smith Park in Jackson with Deacon John McGinley is one way the group ministers to others. Often times, the group come on a Sunday so that they can invite the people they meet to Mass at the Cathedral of St. Peter. They also make plastic bags into beds and pillows and distribute to those that need them.
In addition to serving the homeless in Jackson, the group also ministers to their local community with volunteering at Habitat for Humanity, working in the St. Joseph food pantry and serving home-bound individuals with a food box delivery on a monthly basis.
“I want to give back to the community that has given me so much over the past four years,” says co-president of CCM, Jeremy Irwin.
“I had a tough time sophomore year and my CCM family still managed to make my time here at State enjoyable, while still growing in my faith. My hope is that I am able to help bring others the joy CCM has brought me, through Christ.”
That joy is the fuel that keeps director of the campus ministry, Meg Kanatzar going.
“Seeing someone come back on fire for their faith after attending a retreat or observing one student counsel a peer in a difficult time, or entering a chapel or church filled with students praying during Adoration. There are countless moments when I am privileged to witness students making God a priority in their lives,” said Kanatzar.

50 years since White House conference on food, hunger issues remain

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By Carol Zimmermann
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Fifty years ago, the White House sponsored a Dec. 2-4 conference on food, nutrition and health designed to set the groundwork for a national nutrition policy and to advise President Richard Nixon on the best ways to eliminate hunger in the U.S.
The conference succeeded in initiating policies to improve school lunch programs and nutrition education and to give more consumer protection – which led to the nutritional labeling food buyers are now accustomed to.
The conference also helped develop the Women, Infants and Children program, which offers supplemental food assistance to low-income pregnant women and mothers and children up to age 5, and it paved the way for the first major expansion of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps low-income individuals and families buy food.
Fast forward 50 years and food policy advocates still have a lot on their plates, in efforts to address food insecurities as well as growing food-related epidemics of diabetes and obesity. They also want to ensure policies that took shape 50 years ago do not face pending cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Several of the event panelists cited troubling statistics on hunger. Notably, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2019 Household Food Insecurity report said more than 37 million people in the U.S. struggle with hunger.

Two girls receive food at an outdoor soup kitchen in Washington. Fifty years after a White House conference on food, nutrition and health, policy advocates say the overall lack of access to healthy food and good nutrition remains a major issue today in the United States. (CNS photo/Jim West)


Other statistics they shared, compiled by Hunger Free America, include:
– 14.3 million households were food insecure with limited or uncertain access to enough food.
– More than 11 million children are food-insecure.
– Many households that experience food insecurity do not qualify for SNAP and rely on local food banks.
No one needs to tell these facts to those who work in public policy at Catholic Charities USA or its local agencies providing food to those in need.
Anthony Granado, vice president at Catholic Charities USA, said there are several food policies that have the support of Catholic Charities, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Health Association, Catholic Rural Life and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
Those groups submitted a joint comment objecting to the Trump administration’s proposal to tighten eligibility standards for SNAP that would cause about 3.1 million to lose food stamp benefits.
The comment, submitted Sept. 23, called SNAP the “first line of defense against hunger.”
They also said the proposed changes to SNAP would bring more people to charities for help when they are already feeding millions each year.
“Our organizations already struggle to meet the needs in our communities and are forced to turn away many for lack of resources. The proposed rule, if implemented, will only add to a demand that we cannot meet,” their comment letter said.
Lizanne Hagedorn, director of Nutritional Development Services for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, knows all about food needs and hasn’t seen them decrease by any means.
As the head of agency that administers local federally funded child nutrition programs and a community food program, Hagedorn said those who come for help are not always atypical; in recent years the agency has seen more senior citizens and college students. She also has seen a shrinking pool of volunteers to serve those in need at food pantries.
“It’s in our blood as Catholic Christians to be good stewards of food and money and to bring everybody along,” Hagedorn said. “Not in an overbearing way but understanding ‘there but for the grace of God go I.'”